Hex on the Beach by Kelley Armstrong

Chapter Eight

We walked out to the lobby, watching for lurking draugr, human staff, or witches. Honestly, I had no idea what all sorts of trouble we had to face, and the one certainty was that the air was toxic.

The groggy-but-upright Misty looked horrified to see us—and I was fairly sure it wasn’t just the fact that Allie was bloody. She stared at us like she was trying to speak and couldn’t. I didn’t know if she was drugged or enthralled to the draugr I’d seen or maybe just blackmailed. Either way, she stared at us and twisted her hands together.

“Windows,” Sera muttered. She was swaying like she’d been on a bourbon tasting marathon.

I stepped around the hand-wringing spa guide and started shattering windows. The staff gave me reach, and there was something satisfying about bashing them. Glass tinkled down around me like a localized ice storm.

“Wait!” Misty suddenly grabbed at me, trying to grab the staff that I was currently using as a baseball bat, and in the process hanging onto me like an angry koala. “The air is deadly!”

Allie stepped back as Christy detached the worried woman from my back and arms. Misty was struggling, though. She was convinced that the air outside was deadly, and in her attempts to rescue us, she kept trying to cover our mouths and noses as if to save us.

“Hit . . . her,” Sera suggested between clearing breaths of fresh air. “Seriously. . . some . . . one . . . just hit her.”

Christy was trying to hold the woman while avoiding getting clawed in the face, and Sera was struggling to speak. That left me or Allie.

Before I could figure out how to safely hit Misty, who was clearly drugged, Allie—still holding her gun--punched Misty in the temple.

Misty dropped like dead weight.

We dragged the now-unconscious Misty with us as we went outside. Her legs were being scratched all to hell by plants and rocks as she was half-dragged half-carried across the ground.

An alarm sounded and a series of sprinkler heads shot out of the ground. The misters that were strung through the trees and the sprinklers all started spewing a pinkish mist.

“Cover your mouth!” Sera gasped, putting her robe-covered arm over her mouth and nose.

“Bombs,” Allie gasped. “Blow it all up!”

Christy shoved the unconscious spa guide toward Allie, who more or less caught Misty. Within moments, Christy started lighting and launching bomb after bomb as we ran through the garden. Small fires started and flashed to life, burning away the scent of sugary toxic air.

But too soon, the misters were switched to full-on geysers. Pink water fountained upward, putting out fires and creating a tinted floral fog that seemed to linger over everything. Allie’s homemade IEDs were overkill on sprinkler heads, and someone was watching closely enough to turn mist into fountains.

I would have loved to take down whatever security system our unseen assailants had, but for now we had no targets other than mist, and that was impossible to counter without a few industrial fans.

We ran toward the casita, slower since Sera was dragging Misty along with us. Christy still tossed the occasional bomb, and I played whack-a-mole with sprinkler heads. Everyone tried to avoid the hot, steaming pink water that spurted up at odd intervals.

“Don’t stop running!” Sera ordered. “Almost there. Any corpse armies, Gen?”

“No!” I tried, but I wasn’t able to summon anything large. Plus, short of dead crustaceans, I wasn’t finding any corpses within range. I felt the edges of my magic flickering like the energy wanted to surface, but that wasn’t terribly useful without corpses. Right now, my best options were assorted crustaceans, a few fish, and some jellyfish. Typically, I could summon both human and animal corpses, create an undead fighting force to attack enemies or defend me. Being magically depleted meant that I had no juice to summon much of anything, but even I did . . . well, let’s just say that dead fish and invertebrates weren’t as helpful as wolves, coyotes, or even the occasional yappy dog.

I had no army to bring to our aid.

We were all stumbling, and when we reached the casita we found several angry spa employees waiting, I wanted to cry. Beyond them were our weapons, keys, and clothes.

Christy tossed two bombs in short order, and as the smoke and fire overpowered the mist, I surged forward with my staff, bashing and shoving them with all my remaining energy.

As they fell, we stumbled into the casita. I watched as my friends stepped over the fallen spa employees. Then I followed, slamming the door as if it would protect us.

“Sewer weasels. . . ” I leaned my whole body up against the door. There was no steam here, but the sugared scent was so strong that I wasn’t sure if it was in the casita or if it was all over us.

“We need to get out of here.” Christy watched the door. “If this place is really run by draugr . . . we have until nightfall.”

“Weapon check?” I pulled the magic away from our belongings.

“We can’t shoot our way through steam, boss.” Allie pulled her sopping wet hair into a messy bun. “I can make more Molotov cocktail bombs, but . . . it’s not enough.”

“So how do we get to the rental car?” Sera was tossing clothes at all of us.

She paused to grimace at our thrashed feet. We weren’t exactly used to barefoot living. As a child in the Outs, I had soles as tough as leather, but these days, I lived in the city.

“Beach?” I suggested.

The spa guide blinked up at us. “I was sea kayaking when they caught me.”

“What?” Sera asked.

“Tossed a net over me, drugged me, and . . .” Misty touched her temple, wincing. “Thank you for clearing my head.”

“So not by sea.” Sera paced as Christy watched the door.

“The walked right out of the ocean, set up camp, captured us and drained us.” Misty shuddered. “Then they set up here and victims just check in. No one ever leaves.”

“You need a juice, boss.” Allie looked over the woman we’d rescued, and I knew what she was saying.

I couldn’t, though. Not her. Not here in front of someone who’d been so victimized by draugr. The poor thing had been captured, brainwashed, and undoubtedly used as a walking juice box already.

“What we need,” Christy pronounced, “is a way out. I don’t think we can reach the lobby, get to the car, and not get drugged up. Maybe Gen can, but not all of us.”

I turned my back to Misty and whispered, “I can flow with one of you, then come back and—”

“Or you could rip a hole in the air and take us to Elphame,” Christy suggested. “Doorway, Gen. We need a door out of here.”

“There are a lot of rules,” I hedged. “Mortals brought there are required to stay unless they are cleared prior to arrival.”

I tried not to look at the stranger in the room. The reality was that if I took her over there, she was staying. No negotiation would change certain laws, not with the fae.

Sera and Christy were pre-cleared because they were in my wedding party. Allie wasn’t, not yet.

“Allie . . .” I met her gaze. “You don’t currently have clearance.”

My fiery assistant gave me a look that could undoubtedly quell small nations. “Darlin, I’m not a person. I’m a lunchbox. Call me the red platelet special, but that man—any man—isn’t going to keep me from my vow to you. He might be the fae king, but I go where you go, when you go, if you need. I’m like a part of you.”

Sera snorted, gathering our bags up and shoving one toward Alice. The thought of Allie facing off against the king of the fae made me wince, but I couldn’t image leaving her. Marcus would be reasonable. He had to be.

Misty flinched as something broke a skylight.

A cannister of pink smoke clattered from the ceiling.

“Prisoner here or prisoner there,” Misty muttered. “Which is worse?”

“Here.” I reached out into the air with one hand, pulling on the part of my energy that I thought of as an extension of Eli and seeking a grip. I didn’t want to open my mouth and inhale that toxic fruit and flower scent again, but I did yell, “Bags.”

Then I found what I was seeking My hands parted the air as if it had become a heavy curtain that I could grab. I wondered briefly if it was easier to tap this magic because my life had always been magical. Being a witch-draugr meant I’d always had magic. This particular bit was because all fae could open a doorway home, though. Now that I’d married Eli, I was included in that tradition.

The air took form and separated at my will.

“Go.” I held the intangible curtain aside as if it had actual form, and Christy stepped into the other world with her luggage. Sera followed with her bags. Ally carried my weapons bag, her handbag, and her gun—outstretched as if she might need to shoot her way through enemies. She didn’t bother with her suitcase. Priorities.

Misty paused. “Will it be better with the fae?”

I nodded, hoping I wasn’t wrong, and she followed my friends in Elphame.

Then I stepped through, leaving the pink smell behind.

We all paused, gasping the clean air, and I waited for the inevitable fae assembly to arrive. I wasn’t going to take one more step into Elphame until traditions were met.