seconds later, Dulcinea stuck her head around the side of the elevator, her dreads swinging past her bright smile. “All clear. Let’s take the hotel room!”
Harlow and Cy went after her, with Sydra and Rat behind them. Nekai stood poised at the hotel suite’s double doors. He glanced at Harlow, leaning his head toward the door.
She nodded, stripped off one glove and quietly pressed her fingers to the lock. A moment later, the green indicator lit up. Unlocked. They only had a few seconds before the light went red again.
Dulcinea and Cy each took one door, grabbing the lever handles and watching for Nekai’s signal. He lifted his hands and nodded. They shoved the doors open. His hands began to move, weaving the spell necessary to render the weapons useless.
The thug closest to the door whipped around, hoisting his rifle. Guz charged the man. He got off a single round. The bullet sank into Guz’s thick body as he attacked but didn’t stop him. The goblin took the thug down, flattening him on the carpet. Guz followed with a massive fist to the man’s jaw, and just like that, the odds started to shift.
Two more mercs came out from another room, guns raised, but nothing happened when they pulled the triggers. Sydra and Dulcinea attacked.
Harlow took off on her own, searching for Augustine. Halfway down the hall, she found an unguarded door. She opened it and almost retched. The room stank of blood and smoke and human body odor.
One of the hired soldiers stood over Augustine’s lifeless body, a bloody iron bar raised over his head like he was about to strike again. Augie was sprawled on a tarp, his face bruised and swollen to the point of almost being unrecognizable. Both horns were broken off and blood soaked his leathers.
The man began to bring the iron bar down on Augie again. On a hunch, Harlow yelled, “Sutter.”
He stopped mid-swing to look at her. “What the hell?”
She charged him, her anger coming out in a soul-deep cry. She knocked him down but he turned on her in an instant, elbowing her across the cheek.
Adrenaline took care of the pain. She planted her bare hand over his face and squeezed, pouring as much hurt and suffering into the man as she could manage while fighting the ugliness coming off him. He lashed at her, but within a few seconds began crying out, his struggle to be free forgotten. A few seconds more and he wept softly. Finally, he went limp, the emotional overload more than his human system could bear.
She released him and crawled over the bloody tarp to Augie. It hurt just to look at him. Her strong Augustine, so brutally beaten. If he didn’t survive, she would kill Sutter herself. She touched the side of Augie’s head that seemed the least bruised. “I’m here,” she whispered. He was breathing, but it was more like a shallow wheeze. His lids twitched, maybe in response to her voice, maybe because of the pain he was in. She prayed it was her voice, prayed that he knew she was there.
“I’m going to get that iron off you now.” Even if he wasn’t hearing her, she would keep talking to him, keep letting him know he wasn’t alone anymore. She moved to his hands and the shackles. She could feel the iron at this range, her fingers stinging with the metal’s irritating power. Beneath the cuffs, raw, oozing blisters covered Augie’s skin. Angry tears clouded her vision. “It’s okay, baby,” she said. “You’re going to heal up just fine.”
She wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand, pulled off her other glove and went to work, grabbing hold of the first shackle. The shock of iron on her bare skin dug knives into her flesh and made her gasp. She closed her eyes, gritted her teeth and forced the metal to bend to her will. It bit back, but slowly, the tumblers aligned. The shackle fell open.
“One down.” She yanked it off Augie’s wrist and took a long, shuddering breath in an attempt to alleviate her pain. It failed. Her hand looked like she’d dipped it in hot oil. The skin on her fingertips puffed with burns and the lingering pain sparked stars at the edge of her vision. She sucked in another breath and fought the urge to cry out. Augie didn’t need to know she was in pain. He had enough to deal with.
Beside her, the merc moaned, prompting