The End of Magic (The Witches of Echo Park #3)(4)

"So we open the door to The Flood? Show them our vulnerabilities so they can expose us to humanity . . . ? They're rounding us up like criminals," Arrabelle murmured. 

Niamh sighed.

"Yes, all of it. Even the bad stuff. Because there can't be any more secrets. If we'd stayed hidden, we would've been doomed. We're real again and now we can fight back."

What Niamh said made a queer sort of sense, Lyse thought. It seemed counterintuitive, but maybe that was just the way the world worked.

"But what about what we've done here?" Lyse asked, indicating the entrance to the mine shaft and all the unsettling things that lay inside it. "Since we've destroyed their research labs, doesn't that put The Flood at a disadvantage? They've outed us, but we've cut them off at the knees."

"We don't really know what they accomplished here," Evan said, his hand unconsciously going to the wound on his side-or the scar that was there now that the wound had been miraculously healed by the power of magic. "They might not have gotten what they wanted from these women. I think, more than anything, they created the opposite of what they were expecting. They forced a psychic connection between all of those blood sisters they tortured. They built a monster down in that hellhole."

Lyse knew Evan was right. There was something terribly powerful loose in the research facility. It was like a psychic monster created by all the suffering and pain. The Flood's test subjects had unwittingly created the psychic beast and it had come to their aid when they'd needed it-but it would not be controlled. It did what it wanted and could not be relied upon to help anyone unless it felt moved to do so. Its unpredictability had made Lyse and the others decide to leave it to its own devices. Trying to corral it or force it to come with them didn't seem like a viable option.

"You'll have to let your friends know what's down there," Lyse said. "That it probably won't hurt them, but they should be aware that it's very powerful and intense."

"Of course," Evan agreed. "And they should be here soon. Jessika and her blood sisters were coming from Las Vegas. I doubt they know about the website posting, but maybe I'm underestimating them. I hope they're careful getting to us."

Lyse hoped so, too.

"So we wait for them and then what?" Arrabelle asked.

This was what Lyse had taken her walk to figure out. She'd had her epiphany about what the future held-danger and death-but the smaller details were still murky.

"Well, we need to get ahold of Daniela and Lizbeth. Touch base with Dev. Make sure she's been holding down the fort in Echo Park without too much trouble," Lyse said. "Let her know about the website. That maybe she and Freddy should take the girls and make themselves scarce for a little while just to be on the safe side."

"Agreed," Arrabelle said, nodding. "I'll call her now."

Now, Lyse thought, if I can only get ahold of Daniela and Lizbeth that easily.

But she needn't have worried about finding them. As soon as Arrabelle powered up her phone, it began to beep with voice mails and texts.

"Damn, I'm blowing up," she said, scrolling through the texts. Then her finger froze and her mouth dropped open. "There're like ten from Freddy. Jesus . . ."

She clicked on the screen, eyes flicking horizontally as she read.

"We have to get back to Echo Park. Dev's whole family . . . the girls . . . the house . . . it's all gone."



       
         
       
        

Lyse thought she'd misheard.

"That can't be right-"

"It is right, Lyse. There are dozens of messages here. He says Dev's destroyed, almost catatonic with grief. He says we need to come back now. The last text is dated two days ago . . . radio silence after that."

How long have we been down there? Lyse wondered. It couldn't have been that long, could it?

But if Arrabelle's phone was correct, then they'd lost at least forty-eight hours. Lyse, who'd been down there longer, had probably lost more time than that even. She suspected that time ran differently down in the underground lab. This seemed to prove it.

She wished she had her own phone, but The Flood had taken it-and everything else she owned-leaving her with only the clothes she had on her back when they'd captured her in Italy.

Italy . . . where Weir had died.

She didn't want to think about it, but the image of his cold body, stiff with rigor mortis, filled her mind and would not be banished. She felt her heart break again-like it would every time she relived that horrible moment in the Italian catacombs when she'd first realized he was gone.