Supernova (Supernatural Superstar Book 1) Page 18

  Audrey glanced at the president’s door, worried they’d be overheard, but inside her office, the president was still talking on the phone. She seemed too preoccupied to notice anything else.

  “She needs our help,” Koko told Thorne. “She’s got no chance if she goes in there alone.”

  Thorne shook his head. “It doesn’t matter if there’s one of you or three. You’re going to get yourselves killed. Well, you can count me out. I’ll be much better off as a solo artist, anyway.”

  He stormed through the reception area and pushed the stairwell door open with so much force that the handle lodged in the wall, forcing the door to stay open.

  “He doesn’t mean that,” said Koko. “He’s just worried. He’d be terrible on his own, with nobody to boss around.”

  “I don’t want to put you in danger,” Audrey told them.

  “We don’t want to be in danger,” said Peg. “And hopefully, we won’t be. But we think if we combine our strengths, we can give you a bit of a power boost. You won’t be strong enough to fight that creepy alpha, but you might be able to sneak in and rescue Eli without being noticed.”

  He outlined the plan for her as they rode the lift downstairs. Saying it was a long shot was generous, but Koko was right: it was better than nothing. Peg thought there was a way to use his mystic powers as a conduit. That way, they could transfer Koko’s yokai powers into the empathy ring and Audrey could use them.

  “The idea is that you could create an energy field around yourself so they can’t sense you. It will hopefully give you some protection,” Peg said.

  “You might be able to zap anyone if they attack you,” said Koko. “But it would be weak. It would probably daze them for a minute or two more than actually hurt them, and it would weaken the protection field.”

  The plan had a lot of “hopefully” and “maybe” in it, but Audrey was totally on board.

  “Then I just need the ring?” she asked. “You two can stay here?”

  Koko shook her head. “My power will bounce back to me if I get too far away, and Peg will need to hold the connection as well.”

  Audrey shook her head. “No. You can’t come. They’ll kill you. Thorne was right.”

  “Thorne’s not right,” Koko said incredulously. “Don’t ever say that. Thorne’s an idiot.”

  “We can hide,” said Peg. “We’ll stay out of sight. It’s totally safe.”

  Audrey raised her eyebrows. He wasn’t reassuring her at all.

  “And the energy field will give us some protection, too,” said Koko.

  Audrey suspected that was a lie, but the elevator dinged to say it was at the ground floor, and the doors slid open.

  “So, we just need to do this quick spell and we’ll be good to go,” Peg said, pulling out his phone as he walked out into the lobby. “I found it in my grandma’s scrolls last time I stayed with her, the ones she keeps locked in the safe, so it should be powerful.”

  Audrey and Koko exchanged a look.

  “Uh, Peg?” said Koko. “Are you sure you’re okay to do it? You’re not exactly a pro with this stuff. You know Audrey’s life is on the line, here.”

  “Piece of cake,” he said. “Now, come over here and take Audrey’s hand, the one with the ring.”

  They did what he said. He took a little jar out of his pocket and sprinkled some sort of smelly dust over their hands.

  “I don’t feel anything,” Audrey said.

  “Be quiet and close your eyes,” Peg said.

  Audrey had seen people shift before, and she’d felt the president’s dragonfire, but she’d never watched anyone do actual magic, so she kind of wanted to keep her eyes open to see what happened, but she worried that the spell wouldn’t work properly if she didn’t do as she was told.

  Peg started chanting something in a foreign language. The feeling from the ring, the sense of Eli, slowly faded, replaced by a cool feeling like running water. It spread through her body, flowing from her to Peg to Koko. Then another sensation began to creep up her arm, one that was even colder, something like tiny electric sparks. It felt like pop rocks, only in her veins. Even if Peg hadn’t explained the spell, she’d have known that feeling was Koko. It seemed like a distilled essence of her.

  For a moment, the feeling rushed through her body, then it centered in her hand. Having it condensed into one spot was overwhelming, almost unbearable. Just as Audrey began to think she couldn’t stand it anymore and was about to pull away, it was absorbed into the ring. She could still sense it there, but it was no longer part of her, just as before she’d been able to sense Eli.

  Peg withdrew his hand. Audrey figured that meant the spell was complete.

  “Well, that was weird,” Koko said, staring at the ring. “I feel like part of me is in there.”

  “See if you can use it,” Peg said to Audrey. “Just focus on the energy in the ring and try to direct it.”

  Audrey raised her hand. She could feel the power gathering, but for a moment, nothing happened.

  “Koko beam!” she told her hand, picturing in her mind a sparkly beam shooting out like a lightning bolt. The reality wasn’t as visually impressive. She felt the power shoot out, then a tiny crackle of electricity rose up from her hand about three inches.

  “Woah,” said Peg.

  Koko raised an eyebrow at him. “You didn’t think it would work, did you?”

  He shrugged. “I thought it was fifty-fifty.”

  “Okay, let’s go,” Audrey said, getting to her feet. “On the phone, the president said ‘station’. It’s my station. I know it.”

  “Wait,” Koko said, hurrying after her as she headed for the door, Peg close behind her. “What are you going to do, just show up and be like ‘I’m here to rescue Eli Gale’? You won’t last two minutes. The key to this plan is stealth. It only works if they don’t see you coming.”

  Audrey stopped short of the revolving door. “I’ll figure it out in the cab,” she said.

  “They’ll have people keeping lookout,” said Peg. “The president’s army didn’t make it, but they’ll be expecting another rescue attempt. If it were me, I’d be waiting. I’d plan to lure you in, then knock you out until the ritual was prepared and it was too late for you to do anything.”

  “Wow, Peg,” Koko said, raising her eyebrows at him. “I never knew you were so dark.”

  What they were saying made sense. Audrey knew she was bad at this. Her instinct was to run from danger, not toward it. She was out of her depth.

  “What should I do?” she asked, watching the revolving doors suspiciously. Those doors always tried to attack her, but she had to outsmart them.

  “We need to approach in some way they can’t detect,” said Koko.

  Peg nodded.

  “Sewers,” said Audrey.

  Koko screwed up her face.

  “If they know you at all, they’ll know that’s what you’ll do. They’ll have set a watch on the sewers,” said Peg.

  That made sense, but Audrey suspected he was only saying it because he didn’t want to go into the sewers either.

  “My power will cloak you to most of their senses but it won’t make you invisible. We need to keep you out of sight until you can find Eli.”

  Audrey gave up on the revolving doors and pulled open the regular door to the side. She could feel the time ticking away. Now that Koko’s power was in the ring, she couldn’t feel Eli as strongly. She had to focus all her attention just to tell if he was alive. That worried her.

  “The bus!” she said as one rolled past. “The bus depot is right inside the station. Would that bus take us there?”

  For a moment, Koko and Peg stared at her as if the bus was an even worse option than the sewers, then Koko pulled out her phone to look up the bus route.

  “The 552 bus goes there,” she said, her voice hesitant. She looked at Peg as if willing him to come up with something to help them avoid catching the bus. “We’d get there in fifteen minutes.”

  “I don’
t have a bus pass,” said Peg.

  “The driver has tickets,” Audrey said, heading down the street. “I’ll buy them for you. Or you can stay here. I’m catching the bus.”

  She half-expected that they’d turn back, and part of her felt relieved at the idea. Even if that would make her chances of success nearly zero, at least they’d be well away from danger.

  “I’ve never caught the bus before,” said Peg, falling into step beside her. “I’m not entirely sure how.”

  “I have,” said Koko. “Once. It smelled like pee, and an old man tried to put his hand up my skirt.”

  Audrey nodded. “One time, a lady gave me a potato,” she told them, trying to be reassuring. That lady had been nice. She’d told Audrey that the potato was her friend. Its name was Bella. It was married to another potato called Edward, but the lady had gotten hungry and made Edward into fries.

  It was a few minutes after midnight, so the business district was all but deserted. The bus stop was at the end of the street. The bus that had just gone past was stopped there, so the three of them broke into a run to catch it, waving to get the driver’s attention.

  “Are you sure?” Audrey asked the others as the bus doors opened. “You can still turn back. It will be dangerous.”

  Koko rolled her eyes.

  “We’re not letting you do this alone,” said Peg.

  Not for the first time, Audrey realized how lucky she was to have been put in Supernova with these people.

  She just hoped she wasn’t going to get them killed.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The train station was busier than Audrey had expected at this time of night: groups of teenagers lining up for food, drunks yelling goodbye to each other, people running to catch the last train. Audrey had assumed it would be practically deserted. People complicated things.

  “It’s a big station,” Audrey said. “The president said ‘tunnel’.”

  She had explored the station thoroughly when she lived there. There were a lot of tunnels. A subway line ran through the station as well as the regular trains, so part of the station was underground. The cult would have Eli somewhere heavily guarded, and the alpha was never anywhere without his Followers close by, so anywhere in the main station was unlikely, especially given that nobody was running away screaming.

  Audrey thought two spots were likely. There was a tunnel in the train yard where they did repairs, and a closed platform beneath the subway line.

  As they walked through the station, Audrey wondered if the president had gotten it wrong. There was no sign of the Followers anywhere. Maybe the president had known Audrey was listening and had fed her some information to get her out of the way.

  “There are two options,” Audrey said.

  “You should be able to use my power to reach out and sense any malevolent presence,” said Koko. “It will give off a different sort of energy.”

  Audrey raised her eyebrows.

  “I know it sounds hokey, but if you focus on the ring, it should sort of show you.” Koko shrugged. “Sorry. I can’t explain it better than that.”

  Audrey did as Koko told her. At first, she felt nothing. It seemed stupid to be standing out in the open and trying to sense stuff when they were so vulnerable. After a moment, there seemed to be a tugging on her hand, but she wasn’t sure if she was imagining it, willing it herself, or if it was real. It seemed as if they were surrounded by malevolent presences. Those teenagers at the hot dog stand could be a threat. So could the drunk businessman who couldn’t figure out how to buy a train ticket. Anyone, at any time, could become dangerous. It was hard to separate her own sense of threat from whatever Koko’s power was trying to guide her toward.

  She had a vague awareness of Koko and Peg saying something to each other but was too focused on trying to sense something to listen. Then they each took one of her hands, and immediately the energy fixed on two distinct points. Both felt evil, dangerous and volatile. She recoiled, instinctively wanting to hide from notice, but she forced herself to explore them further.

  Why were there two? she wondered. Even those with more authority in the cult didn’t come close to the alpha in terms of malicious intent. They believed in what they were doing, but mostly because it made them part of something larger than themselves, gave them a purpose. She wasn’t sure they even really wanted to hurt people or end the world. They weren’t called Followers just for laughs. They did what the alpha told them to do because that was their place, what they were supposed to do. It wasn’t in their nature to question whether what they were doing was good or evil, and it wouldn’t occur to them to do something evil for its own sake. She couldn’t imagine any of the cult having that much power without being challenged by the alpha.

  That only left one other option.

  The dark power had already begun to rise.

  Audrey had thought it couldn’t rise without the ritual being completed, and the ritual wouldn’t be complete until she was dead, but maybe she was wrong. Maybe the dark power rose in stages, and each sacrifice had been one step. That would mean the process had already begun.

  One presence felt much older than the other, more wicked and cunning. More patient. That presence was at the closed platform. That was where they were keeping Eli, because they knew she’d go there to find him. She’d walk right into the middle of their ritual and make capturing her easy for them.

  “I think the alpha is at the train yard,” Audrey said. “And Eli is at a closed platform beneath the station. I think the ritual has begun.”

  Saying it aloud made it feel more true. She squeezed their hands even tighter.

  “They’re doing the ritual here?” Koko asked. “At the station?”

  “That’s what it feels like,” Audrey said.

  “Good enough for me,” said Peg. “So, basically, you should stay away from the platform, no matter what. You two stay here, and I’ll go get Eli.”

  “Um, no,” said Koko. “You’ll die. You’re a mystic, not a fighter. You see things and feel things. Only one of us here has actual ass-kicking powers, and it’s not you, so you can put your testosterone back in its box and take a step back, buddy.”

  “It’s me,” said Audrey. “Right now, it’s me with the powers.” She smiled at Koko. “It has to be me.” She sounded a lot braver than she felt, but she knew it was true.

  When they started to argue with her, she shook her head.

  “Well, we’re coming with you,” Koko said, squeezing her hand. “You can’t stop us.”

  “Okay,” said Audrey. “But don’t die.”

  “Right back at you,” Peg said.

  As they got deeper into the station, signs that the cult were there became more obvious. A man at a newsstand hiding his tusks behind a magazine. That creepy kid with the wings near a vending machine. Shifters rarely relied on their eyesight, which gave Audrey an advantage. They were trying to scent her, to hear her, but the protection of Koko’s magic kept the three of them shielded from notice. None of the humans seemed to notice them, either.

  The entrance to the closed platform was through a corridor and down the subway stairs on Platform 12, but even from the other end of the platform, they could see that the stairs were surrounded by Followers. Audrey pulled Koko and Peg behind a pole, fairly confident they hadn’t been spotted. There were a lot of Followers, and not from the lower ranks, either. Audrey couldn’t take Koko and Peg into that. They’d be fighting at least five to one, and even with the Koko beam, that wasn’t realistic.

  “Is there another way?” Peg asked, peeking around the pole toward the stairs.

  Koko pulled him back so he wouldn’t be seen.

  “There’s one other way,” Audrey said, her heart sinking as she thought of it. “But it’s through the train yard.” That was why the alpha had been in the train yard. It had nothing to do with the repair tunnel; it was because he knew she’d have to pass through there. That was where he intended to trap her.

  Audrey figured she had th
ree options. They could leave. Give up on Eli and hope the next batch of the president’s guards did better than the last one. That option wasn’t really an option. She could go on alone, trick Koko and Peg into leaving her there and try to rescue Eli without powers. Even with her poor planning skills, Audrey knew that was basically suicide, plus she didn’t fancy her chances of tricking those two into anything. That only left one option. It wasn’t much different to what she’d been doing since she joined Supernova. She had to just put her head down and push on through.

  “You guys are not going to like this,” she told Koko and Peg.

  With a quick glance at the Followers near the stairs to make sure they weren’t looking, she dragged Koko and Peg to the edge of the platform and jumped down onto the tracks.

  “Train!” said Koko, staring at the train heading toward them.

  Audrey quickly pulled the two of them through the gap in the platform foundation, though she was fairly sure the train was going to a different platform and they weren’t in any danger.

  “Are there… rats in here?” Peg asked quietly.

  “They won’t hurt you as long as you keep moving,” Audrey said, not bothering to add that there were probably worse things than rats down there. “Don’t let go of my hand, and you’ll be fine.”

  It seemed like a lifetime ago since Audrey had last been there, but the map in her head still seemed okay. It was too dark to see anything, which she figured was lucky for Koko and Peg, at least.

  The evil presence seemed to be getting stronger. It made Audrey move faster.

  There was a dull clang, and Peg stopped walking.

  “Ow!” he said.

  “Support beam,” said Audrey. “They’re low in some places.”

  “Yeah, I got that.”

  “Nearly there.”

  Koko didn’t say anything, and Audrey had the feeling that was because she was holding her breath so she wouldn’t take in any of the smell. Audrey had forgotten how overpowering it could be if you weren’t used to it.

  When they finally got to the end of the platform that came out near the train yard, Audrey took a good look around before the three of them climbed out.