My blood chills as I consider Rich.
Could they have gotten to him?
“It’s that rich dude who was engaged to Fallon,” Echo says with a fangy smile. “The one who disappeared in Switzerland.”
“Blain,” I gasp in astonishment.
“Yeah,” she says with a nod. “Totally douchey name.”
There was a time I agreed with that sentiment, especially since his personality was douchey, too. I’m stunned to hear this news, but there’s a thrill of adrenaline that pumps through me that Blain is still alive. I had assumed Kymaris killed him when she took over Fallon’s body. It sucked that my sister’s memory was now fouled by the suspicion that she committed murder, but that was a cross I’d have to bear.
Hell, everyone knew Fallon, aka Kymaris, had something to do with it. The local police, the Swiss police, Blain’s parents.
Oh my God.
They were going to be thrilled.
I spin toward Zaid. “We have to go get him now.”
“You mean we have to call the police,” he counters. “You cannot go against Kymaris’ goons.”
I whip back to Echo. “How many are there?”
“Only one or two at any given time,” she says. “They have the dude tied up so he’s not hard to watch.”
Jesus. Blain’s been a hostage for—my mind whirls backward in time—for probably two months now.
“What kind of shape is he in?” I ask.
She shrugs. “I haven’t seen the dude, but I’ve heard some other daemons talking. Let’s put it this way… he’s alive.”
Damn it. He’s got to be in bad physical shape, not to mention mentally.
I look back to Zaid. “We have to go get him now.”
* * *
I paid Echo the two thousand and sent her on her way with a stern warning she better keep this information to herself or Carrick would be paying her a visit. As much as she dislikes me, she’s terrified of Carrick and she nodded effusively that she’d say nothing.
Next followed a very brief meeting where it was debated between Zora, Zaid, Boral, and me whether to call the police to rescue him or mount an offensive.
Zaid, ever the prudent one in our group, wanted to first wait for Carrick to return, but if I wouldn’t agree to that, then he felt should get the police involved. But that’s because he’s just trying to protect me. He’s my guardian in Carrick’s stead, and he takes it seriously.
Zora actually made a valid point. If the police went in there, there was a chance they’d be killed because they had no clue they were dealing with supernatural creatures. Those protecting a sacrifice would be willing to protect said sacrifice at any cost.
She also argued, and it was actually the point that swayed Zaid, that Blain couldn’t afford to be rescued and put back into the human world after he’d probably seen some horrible things. If Kymaris or any of the daemons and fae dropped their veils around him, and he started talking about it to police and medical personnel, he’d be thought a raving lunatic and probably locked up in a mental hospital.
No, we needed Blain under our protection so we could explain what was going on and come up with some sort of reasonable story before he was reintroduced back into society.
Next was a brief argument between Zaid and me, and that was whether we should call Carrick and Maddox back from their mission.
I adamantly shot that down. For all we knew, they could be in the middle of a battle. They could be on the verge of ending this once and for all. We had to let them maintain that focus.
Besides… Echo said there was only one or two daemons there. Surely between Zaid, Boral, and me, we could easily take them.
It was decided—mainly by me—that we were going for it. Zora insisted on coming, and I was okay with that only because she promised to stay in the car and I figured in the worst-case scenario, she could sprout wings and fly to safety if necessary. Mostly though, I needed someone who could take care of Blain once we pulled him out in case the rest of us were still battling.
But I was confident we had far more force and power than those protecting Blain, and this should be an easy mission.
While I had my whip as my main weapon coiled at my hip, I had throwing knives holstered around each thigh. Boral has superhuman strength as a Dark Fae, but no magical abilities. He’s evolved from his ancient days of maiming with weapons known for brutality such as axes and swords. He’s going in with a gun. When he handed one to Zaid, he accepted without comment.
Echo had provided us with some good information on the best way to take Blain’s jailers down. While the front of the gallery is boarded up, the back alley loading dock is where the action takes place. Echo spends some time there, and while I did not want the details, I figured enough to know she might be trading sex with the daemons for drugs. She said they often take their breaks outside on the covered dock, smoking cigarettes. She hangs, talks, smokes a little weed, and does who knows what else, but she was confident in her information. We pressed her time and again on how many are usually there, and she held true to her story—usually only one or two. Apparently, Blain is not a flight risk that they’re worried about.