Magic Side: Wolf Bound Complete Series: Books 1-4, page 92
I clasped his hand, and he hauled me out of the water. I stood, yanked off my mask, and pulled my hair into a dripping ponytail behind me. “Great. We’ll defeat Dragan, but we’ll die of hypothermia.”
Ethan was the last out of the water. He took off his mask, and then, using it as a flashlight, followed a pair of conduits to a metal box. He popped it open and flicked a breaker. “Welcome to Bentham Prison.”
Light illuminated the room.
It was wholly unimpressive—just a concrete tunnel with a pool at the end. After surviving a near devouring, I’d frankly hoped for a little more.
Ethan unzipped an agent’s bag as the rest of the group pulled off their masks. “Sorry, that was a little more harrowing than intended. But it makes a nice warmup for a prison riot.”
“What the hell was it?” Devi asked. “I couldn’t see anything.”
Still shivering from the cold, I shook my head. “I don’t know. It was like a giant eel or snake the diameter of a barrel. It had spiked ridges down its back and horns.”
Ethan let out a long breath. “Misiginebig.”
“Michigan what?” I asked.
“A horned serpent, one of the legendary beasts of the lake. Good thing we got out of the water when we did.” He pulled a map from the bag and looked straight at me. “Do you really talk to ghosts?”
I shrugged. “Yes, apparently. It’s new.”
“Well, it saved our life, so I’d keep at it.” He unrolled the map on a dry patch of ground, though it was immediately dampened by water dripping from his clothes. “This is a plan of Bentham. This corridor isn’t on the map, but we’ll pop out in a closed-off room, here.” He pointed to one of the many rings on the map.
With no time for pride, I said, “I have no idea what I’m looking at.”
He nodded. “Okay. They call Bentham the donut because it’s shaped like a ring. The prison cells are on the outside. There is the mirrored glass observation tower in the center. The guards in the tower can see into all the cells, but the prisoners don’t know whether they’re being watched.”
Right. I recalled seeing this in my vision when I used the onyx talisman.
Ethan looked up. “The design is called a panopticon. It dates from before CCTV and video camera were invented. It was manned by unsleeping demons who were always watching.”
Jaxson crossed his arms. “Considering recent events, it might be best to go back to demons.”
Ignoring Jax, Ethan traced his fingers over the map. “We have to get to the operations center in the control tower here. From there, we can end the lockdown and let the rest of the archmages and agents in. We’ll also be able to initiate riot suppression protocols.”
“Let me guess—Dragan has people guarding it,” I said.
Ethan nodded. “Someone would have had to overrun the guards in the tower to release the prisoners in the first place. You can bet the rioters have it secured.”
“So how do we get there?” Devi asked.
Ethan pointed to the control room. “Well, the problem is that the tower doesn’t actually reach the ground. It hangs on struts over the exercise courtyard so that watchers can monitor from above. We’ll have to cross a bridge on the eighth floor to get to it, but that means we need to go through one of the cell blocks to get there.”
“So fight our way there, and then fight our way in,” Jaxson grunted.
Ethan shrugged and rolled up the map, then passed us each a potion bomb. “With Savannah’s ability to shape darkness, we might be able to sneak in. I have a feeling that the place is going to be a madhouse.”
53
Jaxson
Ethan led us through the endless concrete corridors. We were on our way to face a madman in a madhouse.
Savannah was shivering in her wet jeans and T-shirt, and I could sense her exhaustion from using her magic. I pressed a little of my energy into her. I needed her strong for the battle ahead.
Finally, we reached the entrance, a hidden door Ethan revealed through more of his tedious, mind-numbing spellcasting. The prison above us was a ticking timebomb, and we were playing hocus-pocus.
Ethan shoved the secret door. “Shit. It’s jammed.”
I pushed the pretty boy out of the way and rammed my shoulder into it. A cacophony of crashing and falling objects sounded from inside, and the door opened.
The light from Ethan’s glowstone lit the interior of a storage closet. Buckets, brooms, and canisters of cleaning fluid had spilled everywhere, and I picked my way over the debris.
“You could have made a bit more noise,” he said.
“We’re in,” I grunted, and moved to the supply closet’s door. “You said this was supposed to be an empty room.”
“It was. In the fifties.”
There was no sound coming from outside, so I cracked the door open. No sign of movement.
I carefully slipped out and looked around, but the hall was deserted. As was the one on the next level, and the next, as we ascended the back stairwells to the eighth floor.
“This place should be crawling with inmates,” I muttered as we reached the access to level eight.
“Apparently, everybody’s busy,” Savannah whispered.
Not a good sign.
We moved out of the stairwell into the eighth-floor cellblock. The access to the central observation tower was through there. A short corridor led inward and terminated at a large red door marked H-Block. Ethan cast a quick spell, and it unlatched.
As soon as it cracked open, the sound of chanting greeted our ears. It was a thunderous and maddening cascade of arcane syllables, but it sounded far away.
“I think we know what everyone is up to.” Slowly, I pushed the door inward, revealing the prison within.
Even though I’d been to the maximum-security wing before, the full panopticon was terrible to behold. Ring after ring of prison cells were stacked one on top of the other, all facing inward. The hanging central observation tower was sheathed in black glass so there was no way to tell who was watching from within. This time, however, some of the iron bars at the front of the cells had been opened.
I gave Ethan a dark look. “What an inhumane way to treat people.”
He frowned. “It’s not that simple. Supernatural powers make everything complicated. With claws and horns and innate magic, it’s very easy for inmates to find ways to put guards and prisoners at risk.”
I grunted, emphasizing my contempt for the place. “Honestly, if I had to live here, I’d start a brawl just to be thrown in isolation.”
Our position at the door allowed us to peer down into the prison. The rings of cell blocks descended seven levels below us. At the bottom, there was an open courtyard filled with tiny figures moving about. I couldn’t tell what they were doing, but we could hear them. In the barbaric language of magic, they were summoning the Dark Wolf God.
Our access to the hanging tower was across a narrow bridge connected to the catwalk that ringed our level, like all the others above and below. The sides had high railings, which I supposed were to prevent inmates from shoving one another over the edge.
Or jumping to their death.
“There’s no way to obscure our approach. They’ll either see us or a big floating cloud of shadow,” I growled.
“So we better move fast and catch them before they have time to react,” Ethan said. “Ready, everybody?”
I darted out and ran quietly along the catwalk. The clanging of our footsteps reverberated around us, but they were drowned out by the amplified sound of chanting. The whole prison was like an echo chamber, magnifying every noise.
Madhouse is right. I would go insane living there.
Many inmates were still in their cells. Most were curled up with their hands over their ears to block out the sound of the twisted voices from below. It seemed that Dragan had released those who were compliant and left everyone else to rot. At least that explained why the place was deserted.
One of the inmates came to the bars of his cell. “Who are you? Can you help me? I don’t want to be a part of this! Just let me out!”
Ignoring the poor soul, I slipped across the narrow bridge and positioned myself beside the blast door that led into the observation tower, the only part of the structure not covered in glass.
If there was anyone in there, they knew we were here.
Ethan crept up behind me with the two agents at his back. “Ready?”
I nodded.
“I’ll knock them down. You clean them up.” Ethan keyed an entry code on the access panel. Nothing. With a low curse of frustration, he quietly traced a sigil on the door.
A single ringing knock reverberated through the prison, pulsed through the catwalk, and vibrated me to my core.
The door slid open.
Ethan swung out of the way as a bolt of fire lanced past his head, then dropped low and release a concussive blast of magic that warped the air around us.
“Go!” he shouted.
I charged into the room and leapt over an overturned desk. A white-eyed wolf charged me, his jaws wide and teeth dripping with spit. I ducked out of the way, caught him in midair, and hurled him, howling, into a man in an orange jumpsuit.
Werewolves with their claws out attacked from both sides. I snapped one’s arm as she reached for me and slammed the other’s head into the deck.
The bastard in the orange jumpsuit leapt to his feet and crossed his hands to cast a spell. I dove as a firebolt ripped through the air.
Devi charged through the room and hurled a potion bomb at the man’s chest. It exploded in a flash of light—a stunner.
Ethan blasted one of the werewolves as it charged, but the wolf I’d tossed whipped in from the right, sank his teeth into Devi’s arm, and dragged her to her knees. Her scream cut through the air.
I vaulted back over the desk and grabbed him by the jaws. Arms straining, I pried his mouth open, then snapped his neck and hurled him over the railing.
A roar erupted behind me, and I was flattened to the ground as the desk splintered over my back. With a growl, I rolled out of the wreckage and kicked my assailant in the knee. This did absolutely nothing because my assailant was an enormous bear.
Werebear. Fuck.
His claws sank into my leg, and he hurled me into the railing, which bent to match my form.
Ethan blasted the thing back, and Devi and the agents simultaneously hit him with three stunner bombs.
Slowly, the creature staggered forward, opened his mouth, and slammed down onto the ground.
A few burning sheets of paper fluttered through the air.
It was over.
I gingerly rose and took stock of my injuries: a few broken ribs, a shattered collarbone, and something horrible had happened to my shin.
“God, Jax, are you okay?” Savy asked as she slipped through the door.
“Fine.” I’d heal eventually.
Ethan chuckled. “When I said, ‘clean up,’ I didn’t plan for you to try to solo the whole room.”
“Devi helped,” I grunted. “What now?”
Ethan and the agents surveyed the wreckage. “Well, we pray we didn’t destroy the computers that control the mechanical security protocols, and we see if we can break the lockdown.”
54
Savannah
My breath caught as I looked around inside the tower. The walls were all glass, and I could see out into the prison cells perfectly. I’d known what to expect, but seeing it in person was unnerving.
The practical reality of zero privacy.
Every time I looked at the glass, it rippled with magic and magnified the world outside. Everywhere I looked, it was like having binoculars.
I could see some of the orange- and gray-clad inmates curled up in their cells, hiding from the echoes of the ritual below.
A helical ironwork stairway spiraled down around the inside of the observation tower. It was easy to imagine unsleeping demons walking up and down the stairs with their relentless eyes trained on the inmates.
I peered down over the railing, and my stomach lurched with vertigo. The bottom of the control tower was glass as well, allowing observers to continuously watch activity in the courtyard below.
Looking back at Ethan, I asked, “What do you need me to do?”
He and the agents were busy going over a pile of notes and fiddling with the computer systems. “We just need to override the system. Give us a minute. I’m an archmage, not tech support.”
I immediately descended the stairs.
Jaxson followed. “Where are you going?”
“This tower overhangs the courtyard with all the chanting freaks, and I’m betting that Dragan’s still down there. I want to see what he’s doing for myself, and in here, I can do it without him knowing I’m watching.”
I moved down the spiraling stairwell quickly, then paused and looked up at Jaxson behind me. “I’m practically stomping, but my boots aren’t making a sound. Why is that?”
“The stairwell is probably enchanted, so creatures with acute hearing—like werewolves—can’t tell when people are moving inside.”
“This place is so creepy,” I said as I continued down the stairs.
“It has a reputation,” Jaxson grumbled.
I wondered how many members of the pack had spent time in there. Or how many members of my family, for that matter.
If Casey had been here, he would have asked if the guards had to watch everybody do their business, or something equally inappropriate. Sorrow and loss twisted through my heart as I stepped out onto the all-glass floor.
I reached for Jaxson’s arm. “Whoa, this is freaky.”
You could see everything below. It was like flying. What I saw, however, disturbed me far more than the vertigo.
The base of the tower was on level with the third ring. Below us, the perimeter of the second ring and the courtyard were lined with prisoners, far more than I’d seen in my hazy vision. They were chanting, and their collective voices buffeted the building as magic sparked in the air.
The highly polished courtyard floor was covered with strange symbols and radiating lines that reminded me of my aunt’s workshop, but these had been crudely written in red with broad, sloppy strokes.
Blood.
The source was obvious. The dismembered corpses of two guards were crumpled off to the side. Dragan had apparently used their arms to write with.
Without hesitation, my stomach unloaded itself onto the glass floor.
Jaxson touched my shoulder lightly, but I shook him off and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “I’m going to destroy that fucker.”
He wasn’t hard to find.
A massive man stood in the center of it all, his arms raised and chanting. The Crusher, possessed by Dragan.
He must have been eight feet tall, and his shoulders were twice as broad as Jaxson’s. He wore no shirt, revealing muscles that were inhumanly swollen and distended with bright blue veins. The video cameras and my vision hadn’t done him justice. Seeing him in person, I had no doubt that he could crush my skull with a single hand.
As I looked on in horror at the monstrous man, his head wrenched back and shifted into that of a wolf. His left arm sprouted hair, and claws erupted from his hands. He howled, then reverted to human form.
Dragan couldn’t control his host.
The grotesque image made me think of something I’d heard about Dragan—that he’d had a split soul, each half vying for control.
My skin went cold. Wolfie and I had fought for control at the start. Could that have been our fate?
The sickening transformations didn’t stop Dragan from continuing his spell, however, and I shook my head to focus. How close were they?
Wild energy crackled through the room, and dark shadows spiraled along the walls. Even as we watched, I felt the intensity building.
The chant of Dragan’s possessed cultists reverberated through the walls of the prison—dark, grating words that felt like they were gnawing on my skin.
“Ethan? How close are you?” I shouted up at him.
“Working.”
I clenched my fists with worry.
Then the tower shuddered as a shockwave erupted from the courtyard below.
When I regained my footing, I could see that some of the chanting prisoners had collapsed, and the dark shadows swirling around the room had multiplied. My skin prickled. Were those faces in the shadows?
I ran to the bottom of the stairs and started ascending. “Ethan, we need to do something now! Shit is getting wild down there.”
Devi leaned over the railing above. “We’ve got it. We’re going to initiate riot suppression procedures to interrupt the ritual. Then Ethan will let the archmages in to deal with Dragan and the more powerful prisoners.”
The tower shook again. “We might not have that long!”
An alarm horn blared, and the sound of a woman’s soothing prerecorded voice echoed though the prison. “All inmates must return to their cells. Inmates who do not return to their cells will be incapacitated and subject to isolation procedures.”
“You think they’re going to comply?” Jaxson roared incredulously as he vaulted up the stairs behind me.
“Of course not!” Ethan shouted from above. “That’s just an automated recording. But this might get them to listen up.”
The tower reverberated with a drone that made my stomach churn and head spin. I reached for a railing to keep from falling, and I was glad I’d already emptied my stomach.
I could tell the effect was far worse down below. The prisoners looked around in wild confusion, and those still in their cells on our level threw up.
“What the hell was that?” I screamed.
“Vibrations to disorient. It won’t hurt their ears, but at least we’ve stopped them from chanting. Now we put them to sleep,” Devi shouted to us as we returned to the platform.
Plumes of pink-gray gas began pouring from vents along the edges of the tiers. Some of the haze lingered in the walkways, but most cascaded down like a waterfall to pool in low clouds in the open space below.
