Хлоя Нейл - Hexbound

“Seriously, I want to go see Derek right now just to show him this. I know it’s not a big deal, but it’s like having a secret handshake. Haven’t you always wanted to have a secret handshake?”

“Not that I can recall right at this minute,” I said, as we followed Detroit through displays of makeup and perfume. “But I’m excited you’re excited.”

The main lights were off, but it was clearly a department store—floors of merchandise around an atrium in the middle. Although the stuff in the store was modern, the rest of it was old-school fancy. I stared up at the atrium. Fancy gold balconies ringed the floors above us like architectural bracelets, and the entire thing was capped by a pillow of frosted glass. The floor looked like marble. This place must have been really interesting in its heyday.

We followed the marble path to the elevators. There were two of them; both had brass doors engraved with flowers.

“They really spared no expense back in the day, did they?” Scout asked.

“I was just thinking that.”

When the elevator arrived, we stepped inside. Detroit mashed the button for the basement. The one-floor trip was short but jarring. The elevators were definitely old-school, and the jumpy ride felt like it.

We emerged into an area with lower ceilings and signs for restrooms and customer service areas. A giant sign reading PEDWAY hung on a corridor in front of us.

“Does it ever feel like we spend at least thirty percent of our Adept time just traveling around?” I wondered aloud.

“Oh, my God, I was just thinking that, too! We are totally psychic today.”

“You two are definitely something today,” Detroit said. She flipped open her locket, then projected the map hologram against one of the walls of the corridor.

This chunk of the Pedway was actually much nicer than the last one I’d seen—the floors were fancy stone with glittering chips in it, and long wooden flower planters lined the sides. The ceiling above us was a single, long, glowing rectangle, like a superhuge fluorescent light.

The Pedway diagram looked like a subway map, with red marks in the shape of droplets—blood, I assumed—at certain points along the way.

Detroit scanned the route, then nodded. “Yeah, a couple more blocks, and we’re there.” She snapped the locket shut again, then turned on her heel and started walking, her giant pants making a shush-shush sound as she walked. The outfit wasn’t exactly covert, but then again, walking into a home of vampires probably wasn’t all that stealthy, either.

We walked in silence for a couple of blocks, occasionally going up or down a small ramp but generally staying in the basement level. After a few minutes, the scenery changed to “disco office chic.” The floors became orangish industrial carpet, the walls dark brick.

Detroit stopped in front of a glass door with a long handle across the front—the kind you might see in a strip mall office. She looked back at us. “This is it. You’ll probably want to be ready with the firespell and stuff.”

When we nodded, she pushed open the door. A set of old mini-blinds hanging on the inside of the glass clanked against it like an office wind chime. A haze of gray dust swirled through the air.

I glanced around. We’d walked into an abandoned office, the fabric-covered cubicle walls still standing. But instead of separating the room into little mini-offices,

they made a maze that led farther back into the building. Bass from music being played somewhere in the back echoed through the room, vibrating loose screws in the cubicle walls. I didn’t recognize the song, but “paranoia” kept repeating over and over and over again.

“Vampires nest in old offices?” Scout whispered.

“Vamps nest in whatever space they can find in the Pedway,” Detroit explained.

“It’s lined with parking garages, offices, stores that sell to the business folks who grab lunch, whatever. When an office clears out, it gives the covens an opportunity to split. That’s what Nicu did.”

After a glance to make sure we were ready, we began to wind our way through the maze. It ringed around in what felt like a spiral, finally dumping us into a giant circle surrounded by more cubicle walls . . . and filled with vampires.

Rugs and pillows in various shades of gray were scattered on the floor, and similar fabric was draped over the cubicle walls. The vamps, still in their dark ensembles, lounged on the pillows or stretched on the rugs, but the best seat—a clear plastic armchair in the middle of the room—was reserved for the head honcho.

Nicu.

He wore a long, military-style coat and pants in the same steel gray color, and one leg was crossed over the other. He held a cut-crystal goblet in his hand, and there was no mistaking the dark crimson liquid inside of it. As I looked around, I realized the only color in the room was that same dark red that filled glasses in the hands of other vampires. That explained the coppery smell in the air.

My stomach knotted, and I moved incrementally closer to Scout, squeezing my hands into fists so the vampires couldn’t see them shaking.

Nicu gestured at us with his glass. “What do we have here?” he said, that heavy accent in his voice. “Little rebels without a cause?” The vampires snickered, and he didn’t wait for our answer. “Tell me this,” he said. “If you reject the Dark Elite,

what does that make you?”

“The huddled masses?” one vampire suggested.

Nicu smiled drowsily. “Indeed. And there can be no mistake that you have walked of your own accord into our nest, yes?” He glanced from Scout to me, the question in his eyes.

Out of instinct, I nearly nodded, but Scout held up a hand. “Don’t answer that,” she warned. “If you say yes, you agree you came here willingly. That means you came here to give them blood. We’re here for information,” she told him. “Not trickery.”

Nicu barked out a laugh. “You enter our home, you have already caused me trouble, and yet you seek to ask a favor? Danger lurks where you tread.” As if to prove his point, he took a sip. The drink left a crimson stain around his lips, which he licked away.

The vampires began to rise and shift, some of them moving around us, encircling us—and cutting off our escape route again. I swallowed down fear, but opened the channels of my mind enough to let the energy begin to rush around. If I had to use it, I wanted to be ready.

One of the vampires—a woman in a high-necked dress—moved toward us in a spiral that became tighter and tighter.

“Backs together,” Detroit whispered, and we formed a triangle. I put my hands out, ready to strike, and assumed Scout and Detroit were doing the same with the magic at their disposal.

But it wasn’t until I heard the yelp that I looked back. Detroit was wielding the walking stick—the end tipped in silver—like a weapon. And from the look of the crimson line that was beginning to trace down the female vampire’s arm, she’d gotten too close.

The vampires pulled the wounded female back into the main cluster and tended to the wound on her arm. The rest began arguing with one another, their voices high-pitched. I couldn’t make out what they were saying. Some of it, I think, was in another language. But some of it was more animal than human, like the yelps of fighting cats. We huddled closer together, our shoulder blades touching.

“Silence!” Nicu finally yelled out, gesturing with his goblet, blood slipping down the sides from the movement. It took a moment, but the room finally quieted. It didn’t still, though—we’d agitated the vamps, and they slithered around as if waiting to be set loose on us again.

Nicu scowled, but nodded at us. “Get on with it.”