What? she said with urgency. Did something happen? Is it the baby?
What if they want our kids? I almost couldn't say those heinous words, even in mental speak, but it would be stupid not to consider it. We were pregnant to the Compasses. They were powerful and feared. Especially yours, Jess. You could be carrying the dragon babies to rule all supes or whatever.
My twin felt frozen at my side, but I could tell from her jumble of thoughts that this worry had already crossed her mind. She'd kept it from me so I wouldn't freak out.
All we can do now, Misch, is fight for our lives. We don't let them take us easily. We protect our babies and we hold out long enough for the boys to find us. Her voice got all fierce then. Whatever they do to you, hold on for the boys. They will come for us and every single asshole in this place will suffer.
I never got to answer her. The scraping distracted us again. It sounded so close now, and I was mentally preparing myself to fight, when lights blazed all around us. Unnatural illumination filled every crevice of the building, as bright as the middle of Times Square in New York City. My mom and I had ended up there one night, near Christmas actually, and I remembered the pure energy and excitement that had thrummed through the city. The way the night was almost as bright as day with the advertisements.
This was what the lighting here reminded me of. Fluorescent. Fake. Designed to showcase us in these cages using bright, unforgiving light.
For the first time we could see the enormous room we were in, long and narrow. From what I could see, there were similar cages to ours running up and down on either side of a walkway.
Jess and I both moved closer to the bars of our prison, straining to see what was right at the end of this path. It was really far away … but it sort of looked like there was a raised podium with a bunch of chairs scattered around it.
"Mischa … " Jess said, her voice low as she trailed off.
I jerked my head around to meet her gaze and saw she was looking at the cage across from us. Following her line of sight, I was shocked to see a large pair of red eyes staring back at me.
"What is that?" I blurted, louder than I intended. The creature didn't react to my rudeness, which was when I understood that these cages were soundproofed in some way, even with the open-bar designs – magically blocked so we couldn't hear the other prisoners. But we could still hear movement outside of the cages. Or whatever was making that whirring noise.
Jess tilted her head to the side, such a curious animal sort of gesture that it made her seem so foreign for that brief moment. "I've never seen anything like that in real life, but my guess is that's a hellhound."
I swallowed hard and tried to calm my heart rate as I examined the beast. It was relatively canine in shape, not to mention huge, sleek, and leathery in appearance, like a dog whose skin had been dehydrated. Its body and head were oddly shaped but definitely still recognizable, with an elongated face and a jaw filled with razor sharp teeth, more than one row packing its muzzle. Red eyes were locked in on Jessa and me, and its stare was unnerving. Pure focus. No humanity at all. It was like staring into the eyes of death and knowing there was no way to stop it coming for you.
"Okay, so I think we can speak normally," Jessa said. "The cages appear to have a sound deadening spell on them. It allows some noise in but nothing out."
I nodded. "Yep, that's what I think too."
"You have any ideas what we're stuck in the middle of here?"
I didn't answer immediately, choosing instead to give her my best "what the hell?" face. Why was she so calm? My sister, who couldn't even color in a picture without cursing and throwing it across the room, was suddenly yoga shifter on Zen juice. My crazy sister appeared to find violent-kidnapping-hellhound situations calming. Should have expected that.
Jessa was still waiting for my answer. "Well, by the looks of it, there are a lot of us being held in these cages. Presumably all of us walked through some sort of fairytale story and ended up here. Could it be a fight club situation? They put us in the ring and we have to fight to the death, and fey or other supes bet on it?"
I'd heard about this sort of thing in the human world, illegal betting rings, fight clubs. They'd done it with animals – dogs mostly – and also humans. If that was the case, and I had to fight the hellhound, I was dead. I had very minimal training, and that thing looked deadly. It still hadn't taken its freaky red eyes off us.
"You could be right," Jessa said, unfortunately agreeing with me. "I can see two ogres, a black-coat centaur – nasty bastards those ones. Not to mention harpies and what looks a lot like a cell filled with pixies. And that's just in the cages surrounding us."
I managed to draw my eyes from the hellhound – he'd totally had all my focus – and paid closer attention to the few other cages visible around us. Each held one or more inhabitant. Some were close to the bars like us, others didn't appear to have moved at all, remaining prone in their prisons. They looked like they'd been there for a long time, and hadn't reacted as we had to the artificial lighting.
Jessa drew my attention again. "A few years ago we had some issues with supes disappearing. I mean, it's not that unusual for different members of the races to take off, do their own thing, even assimilate into the human world for some time, but these cases were different. These were supes that people would miss. I don't think the councils ever got to the bottom of that one, and for a time we had no more trouble, but there are plenty of families out there missing loved ones who want them back." Troubled blue eyes locked on mine. "What do you think the odds are that this had something to do with that?"
"Just like the missing humans," I said, my voice hoarse. "It could all be connected. How long ago was the missing supe thing happening?"
"About five years."
Well, great. So we could be stuck here for years. No freaking way was I having a baby on this dirty concrete-looking floor. No way.
Jessa must have seen my expression, because she gave a dry laugh. "I wouldn't worry about being stuck here for that long, Misch. Something tells me the spaces here are very valuable, and the occupants are only around long enough until the next one arrives to take their place."
Uh, none of that sounded good. My mini panic attack was interrupted by the sounds of chattering, and then that same scraping noise we had heard earlier. Both of our heads swung in the direction of the podium, and as I focused there I let out a low curse.
Holy crazy cat lady.
The podium was filled with figures. We were too far away to tell if they were supe or human, but still … how in the space of only a few minutes had hundreds of people settled in around the raised platform? Upon the stage was a single male. He looked human from this distance, but something about him seemed a bit off.
"What's in his hand?" Jessa side-whispered to me. "Is that some sort of stick … a staff?"
I leaned forward, squinting best I could. The artificial lighting was playing havoc with my wolf vision, so I had to rely on the advanced non-supe side of me instead. The man stood right in the center, feet spread, gripping a long, white, almost glowing piece of wood. He shifted it across to his left side and the scraping sounded again.
"Whatever the stick is, it's what is making the scraping sound," I murmured.
Jessa groaned. "That's what I was worrying about."
Okay, she had two seconds to share or I was going to pretend I was the evil twin and start beating her to death.
Picking up on those emotions through our bond, she gave a chuckle. "There are a few mystical objects in the supernatural world, things which have power beyond our understanding, and most of which have been lost over time. We study them in our history classes, but I've never seen one of the ten power pieces before." She paused to clear her throat or something.
Hurry up!
"One was the staff of Gradiella. One of the fey gods created it. This staff was said to be able to call to a supe's soul, to control, to merge powers. No one really knows. These objects have not been seen for tens of thousands of years, but from all the pictures I've seen it looks a lot like what he's holding. The most telling description was this weird sound it made, like it was alive, a whirring as it wove magic."
Okay, we were screwed.
Jessa didn't look as worried as me, but she was uneasy. "I can't feel the power from here. These cages don't just block sound, but also magical resonance."
She slammed both of her hands against the bars. We'd both tried this a few times since ending up in here, even calling on our wolves, but so far there wasn't even the tiniest shift in the metal. It was reinforced to withstand trolls and ogres, no way could we break through. And yet we still had to try. The Compasses might be rubbing off on us.
"Times like these I really miss Josephina," she growled. "I took her strength for granted. No way would these cages hold a dragon. Nothing can hold a dragon."
The whirring and scraping started up again, and this time we were watching closely enough to see the male on stage waving the staff around. He lifted it above his head and the sound amplified tenfold.