Witch Heart

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

How badly did Adam wish he could fly?

He would've given anything for a pair of fast wings or the demonic ability to jump. It was all he could think about for the entire drive to Tennessee.

It hadn't taken Micah long to locate the abandoned hospital where the demons were keeping Claire. Typing the name of it into Google had brought up a wealth of ghost hunting websites. Apparently the building was famous for things that went bump in the night and the regional ghost-hunting societies frequently visited to document activity.

How tickled would those non-magickals be to know that real, live demons had decided it was a good place to torture a witch?

In his research, Micah had verified some places over the world where demon magick might work the best. The part of Tennessee where the hospital was located was in just such a place. Micah had mentioned that there were parts of the building itself where Tevan and Kai's magick would also have a greater impact, but he'd had no time to determine where these places might be, even though he worked nonstop in the back of the cargo van, hunched over his books and notes, flashlight in hand, and laptop beside him. If Micah couldn't figure it out by the time they arrived, they would have to search the immense hospital floor by floor.

Adam just itched to get there, itched for action. He wanted into that building so he could do something to find and rescue Claire. Anything. Otherwise he was surely going to go insane.

It would kill him to be too late this time.

Every moment of the trip Adam sat in brooding, silent rage and fear for Claire. Every moment he wished for the ability to fly. And though Adam had not slept even a few minutes since Claire had been taken, he couldn't close his eyes, even for a minute.

They'd brought an army of witches with them, all well fortified with copper weapons. They got there in record time, making a trip that should have taken seven hours in five and a half. It was still too long.

They arrived in Tennessee that afternoon.

When the sun had begun to paint the sky in the rosy hues of dusk, they went in. The Coven witches parked their vehicles at the bottom of the hill where the Our Sisters of Mercy Veterans Hospital was located and made their way through the woods that surrounded it.

By the time they'd reached the building, not a demon had stirred. Adam wasn't sure that was a good thing… or a bad thing.

Gods, please let them still be there.

On Thomas's command, they entered the building in well-coordinated groups, all of them groaning when they hit the dampening wards. Adam went on his own, unable to take orders from anyone at the moment, not even Thomas Monahan.

The lobby — or what had been the lobby — was empty save for a few pieces of abandoned and broken furniture, refuse collecting in the corners, and some graffiti on the walls. It looked like teenagers or homeless people had set up a place to hang out in one area. A big moldy green couch sat there and some dirty needles lay on the floor.

"Charming," muttered Jack to his left.

"You don't need to babysit me," Adam muttered, moving across the lobby to the stairs. His boot accidentally kicked an old can and sent it sliding across the floor, making a metallic sound. The sword sheathed to his back felt heavy.

"Who's babysitting? I'm just sweeping like everyone else. You just happen to be in my way."

Adam said nothing. He just moved to the door of the stairwell and opened it. He had to trust his intuition now, that psychic connection Mira thought he shared with Claire.

The landing of the stairwell reminded him of the first hospital he and Claire had been in together. That had been the beginning of the nightmare. Dare he hope this could be the end?

He gazed upward at all the floors. The electricity didn't work here, but light filtered in from somewhere… just enough to see by.

"Where do you think she is?" Jack said, stepping in after him.

"Gods, Jack. You fucking scared me." Their voices echoed.

"Sorry. So, where?"

"Up high. When I saw through Claire's eyes, she was probably on the top floor."

Jack whistled, looking upward. "That looks like a good cardio workout to me." He moved to the stairs. "Let's get up there."

Adam kicked open door and after door on the top floor, finding nothing. Only more graffiti, a small amount of broken furniture, and equipment too messed up for even the homeless people to steal.

Walking into the hospital, the witches had immediately come up against the demon wards. It had been like entering Gribben, the Coven's prison, where a series of strong wardings built into the very foundation of the building stripped all magickals of their power. This was not quite that bad. Here Adam could still feel his magick, but it was only a shadow of its former self.

He put boot to heavy door once again and found something new. Adam walked within yet another abandoned hospital room. Blankets covered a bed, the first bed he'd found in his search. He went to the rumpled bedding and pulled the pillow to his nose, inhaling. The distinctive scent of Claire's hair filled him. It rocked him back a step, made his knees go weak.

He remained like that until Jack showed up at the door, then Adam dropped the pillow back to the bed and glanced around. Food had been spilled violently on the floor. By Claire, or by her captors? The window at the far end of the room was shattered. That, he remembered.

"This is where they were keeping her," Adam said in a dull voice. "I can still smell her on the blankets."

"Come on, let's keep looking, Adam," said Jack, turning from the doorway. "At least we're in the right part of the hospital."

Adam followed Jack out. Throughout the rest of the huge building, the yells and stomping feet of the witches echoed. They thought Claire wasn't here anymore. Jack thought so, too. Adam could tell by the glances of pity he kept earning from his fellow fire witch.

If Jack wasn't careful, those looks were going to get him in trouble. Adam felt volatile. The prospect that they'd come all this way just to find a dead end was pushing him over the edge in the worst way.

Jack and the others could think what they wanted. Adam's intuition told him Claire was still here somewhere. He wasn't giving up until he found her.

Adam stopped in the middle of the corridor, wan light filtering in through the rooms where he'd kicked open the doors. Heat flared in his palms, a reaction to his heightened emotion, and he viciously tamped it down. Adam closed his eyes and took a deep breath of the musty, rust-tinged air.

Jack's boots bit into the grit of the floor as he approached. "Adam?"

Adam ignored him, instead focusing on Claire, the way Mira had taught him. Only blankness and blackness met his efforts. Nothing. It could have been for a million reasons. Most likely it was the wardings in the hospital, which dulled everyone's magick to a mere tired yawn of power.

It could have been his own lack of air magick that made him find only blankness. It could have been because he needed to achieve that certain rhythm of brain wave activity that could only be reached through deep meditation or near sleep. It could have been because Claire was unconscious.

Adam couldn't bring him himself to consider the other possibility.

Then he thought of something. He opened his eyes. "The maintenance areas. I bet no one's checked those yet."

"Let's go," answered Jack.

They descended, past the main floor and into the darkness of the basement. Mold and damp air filled their lungs as they opened the door to the boiler room. Here Adam and Jack were forced to turn on the flashlights they'd brought with them, hanging on the belt that girded the swords sheathed to their backs.

Once this area had been filled with the low, steady hum of the boiler, furnace, and other heavy machinery needed to make a hospital run. Now it was as dead and silent as a morgue.

The hair on the back of Adam's neck rose. Here he could believe the hospital was haunted.

The heavy metal door squeaked when they opened it and shut with a final-sounding click when it closed behind them. They were plunged into darkness, save for the core of light emitted by their flashlights. Something to their left scampered past on small animal feet.

At least, Adam assumed they were small animal feet.

Soundlessly, he moved into the large room, ducking under bare pipes and rounding cold machinery. Here no graffiti marked the walls and no drug paraphernalia littered the floor. He could understand why trespassers had avoided this area.

Carefully, he and Jack paid attention to the path they took, so they could find their way back. With the sputtering, feeble amount of fire magick Adam possessed, he sooted the floor with flashes of heat. Otherwise Adam was sure they'd never find their way out and Thomas would return years from now to find their time-whitened, rat-gnawed upon bones in a corner somewhere.

Jack could only produce flickers when he called his power, but Adam's magick was more motivated and pushed through the warding better.

Something bellowed.

The sound was so inhuman, so low and filled with rage that it literally stopped Adam's heart for a moment. Both he and Jack came to a perfect, motionless standstill. Both of them switched off their flashlights at the same moment, the velvet darkness around them now more friend than foe.

Unless the ghost-hunting societies had been correct about major spectral activity in this hospital, that had been a demon.

Where there were demons, there was Claire.

Slowly, Jack pulled his sword — a bare whisper of copper against the leather sheath and the blade was free. Adam didn't touch his, instead sensing his seat. His will to rescue Claire made it pulse with a strength it should not have had.

A glow of red light caught Adam's eye, cutting through the damp fist of blackness that held them so tight. Adam moved toward it, but Jack caught his upper arm. Adam clenched his fists to keep from rounding on him and punching him square in the face.

"You don't know what's over there," Jack muttered near his ear.

"A fucking demon, that's what's over there. Maybe Claire, too." He paused, drew a careful breath. "Go back, get Thomas and the others. Bring them down here. I'm going to check that out and there's nothing you can do to stop me. Jack."

After a moment, Jack released his arm. "Don't do anything stupid."

A remnant of Adam's former self surfaced, made buoyant by the possibility of finding Claire. He flashed Jack a grin in the reddish light. "Stupid is my middle name."

"Yeah, no kidding." Jack took a step into the shadows. "I'll be back as soon as I can. Hopefully, that will be before you get yourself killed." He retreated into the inkiness and disappeared.

Adam turned and proceeded cautiously toward the red light. The scuffling of feet and low, rumbling male voices met his ears as he drew closer. No feminine lilt joined them. Panic speared through him, making him move faster.

He rounded a furnace and peered beyond the hunk of metal. Claire lay on her side, back to him, wearing a short white hospital gown. She was in a fetal position on a table, not moving.

The demons circled her, teeth gnashing and fists clenching. That body language alone told Adam they were in an agitated state, but beyond that their eyes glowed red and their mouths gaped open, probably to make room for their extended fangs. Apparently, things weren't going according to their plan.

That was either a very good thing for Claire… or a very bad thing.

Tevan bellowed again and brought his massive hands down on either side of Claire, shaking the table. The entire building rumbled under the force of his frustration and anger, demon magick spilling out of him and pushing at the concrete walls and ceiling. Dust and debris fell from above Adam, catching in his hair.

On the table, Claire didn't stir. She didn't even twitch. Not even when Tevan turned her to her back and raised his hands above his head, seemingly to bring them straight down onto her unprotected sternum — her seat — did Claire move.

Before Tevan had a chance to strike Claire, Adam strode out from behind the furnace and raised power. Doing it through the wards was like pulling it through two inches of concrete, but rage burned inside him so intense and so strong that the concrete holding back his power simply crumbled.

Adam's magick exploded from his chest and burst down his arms in an almost uncontrollable flash of heat that warmed his skin.

The demons turned toward him, surprise clear on their faces. They had been so intent on whatever torture they were inflicting on Claire that Adam doubted they even knew there were others in the building. He took advantage of their shock and blasted the wall behind them, just like Claire had taught him. The bolt of power ricocheted off the wall and hit them from behind, side-wise.

They were so stunned they didn't even throw up shields. The white-hot fire enveloped them and Adam turned his efforts to holding back the flame from Claire, who lay so near them.

The demons roared, covering their heads with their hands. They shook off the fire magick easily enough, but Adam didn't let up, giving them little time to recover and launch an offensive. He sent blast after blast of it at them, over and over, driving them away from Claire.

Soon his vision blackened a little and his chest ached. He was quickly exhausting all his reserves. Fire rained down from the ceiling and roared up the walls and over the floor, forcing the demons to retreat backward into darkness.

Adam stumbled, trying to get to Claire while keeping up the assault on Tevan and Kai.

Behind him, he heard the approach of the other witches. Reinforcements. The villagers chasing Frankenstein's monster, but instead of pitchforks they carried copper. He didn't know if they could breach the wards like he had through his burst of emotion, but he hoped so. Adam's magickal stores were just about on empty.

Creating a safe pocket in the fire for himself and the Coven witches, he reached Claire just as the others ran past him, chasing the demons into the bowels of the basement. Adam lifted her into his arms and her head lolled to the side, eyes open and unseeing.

Oh, gods, no.