Chapter Nine: The Eternal City

Michele McLaughlin

Based on the characters from the Darkest Powers series, owned and created by Kelley Armstrong. May contain explicit excerpts from her writing, and such pieces and ideas belong to the original author.

"Oh my God," Tori whispered, one hand to her mouth, the other dropping automatically to my left shoulder. Simon darted around her, towards the cage. She lunged to catch him, though, her hand still on me. "Don't touch it, at all, for any reason." She sounded so firm, but I was only barely aware of her words.

Because Chloe was here.

I could hear her heartbeat from across the room, too feint compared to what it used to be, the IV drip attached to her hand making my anxiety spike. She was laid out in a cage of silver and gemstones, her body stretched out at a strange backwards angle so that her forehead pressed against a metallic blue and green stone.

"It's labradorite, Derek." Tori spoke the words like they should've meant something to me, but all I could think of was Chloe. I watched as her chest rose and fell, her red hair tied up in braids, wearing sweats and a t-shirt, like it was a normal day. Relief nearly drowned me, and the fact that I had left her, that she had been here for two months washed away in the happiness I found in the simple fact that she was alive. Tori shook me, jarring me enough that I faced her, for just a second. "Derek, that's how she's been seeing us, through the labradorite. Witches use it for astral travel."

"You're right." We all turned to find Chloe, looking just the same as she did in her cage, standing behind us. "It was hard to figure out, but you're right." She walked up to us slowly, skirting around Simon and dad. She ran her hand through my hair, parting the locks with her warm fingers, but when I reached a hand to touch her hip, it went straight through her. My heart nearly stopped.

"This is too much," I managed, my throat thick with a dichotomy of emotions. Her grip in my hair tightened, but only for a moment.

"Why are you like this now then?" Tori asked, gesturing to Chloe's half-corporeal form.

"They're monitoring my vitals, there-" She tilted her head towards the machine the IV came from, caressing me still. My stomach jumped to my throat and back, and humiliating as it was, my breath shook, and tears rolled silently down my cheeks.

Chloe. Chloe was here, and touching me, and alive.

"I'm supposed to travel every night, usually around the grounds, but I've been using the opportunity to see you both."

"Is this real?" I opened my eyes, closed at the supreme pleasure of my once-dead love's hands on me again, and found Simon standing bereft in the middle of the bright room, his amber orbs wide and his hands shaking.

"It's real." She replied, dropping her hand from me, wandering around the group again towards some sort of panel. I listened as she explained the machine to them, explained to dad why she was taken, but it was all out of focus. Blood rushed past my ears, too fast to be healthy, as I stood and shambled my way to Chloe's body. I didn't touch the cage, but I knelt in front of her, watching her, feeling my heart break all over again at the sight of her. But it was less now, because she was alive.

But there were dark rings under her eyes like she hadn't rested in days, and she looked frailer than she had two months ago. As I watched her the other Chloe told the group what had happened. There was an individual team of scientists, a group of five from what she'd seen, that were trying to find other magical properties in super naturals.

"But they seemed much more organized than just scientists when we saw them," dad commented as Tori tried to hack into the computer on the panel. I heard her furious typing, and Simon's weight shifting from left to right, but the Chloe's body hardly moved, and I ached to take her into my arms and check on her.

"That was different; they hired some old St. Cloud mercenaries to bring me here. I watched as they paid them off and left before the scientists locked me in there."

"Why would they do this?" Simon asked, his voice hollow. I reached for the cage, on impulse, the deepest parts of my soul wondering the same question, and wanting to hold her as I listened to the answer, but I stopped myself from ripping it in half, just barely.

"Why do any of these people do anything? They want stronger and better super naturals. Same as the St. Clouds, same as the Nasts. But for this group, they believed that all of us had untapped abilities. Necromancers, for instance, they believed could turn themselves into ghosts; that it was just a reversal of what we did for other spirits and we just hadn't learned how yet."

"That's a… strange theory."

"And it was just a theory, for years, because they couldn't find one strong enough to test them."

"Which is why they took you." I filled in, my head swimming and my emotions spiraling.

"Which is why they took me," she repeated, "because they could put me through their tests, and if it worked with me, there would be a small chance in it working in other necromancers. And for them, any chance was worth the risk."

"How do you know all of this?" Dad asked, and I could hear the skepticism in his voice, just like before. I was about to turn on him again when Simon spoke up.

"Dad- that's out of line."

"No, it's fine Simon. I told you, I'm supposed to travel every night, but they don't watch me when I do. So I read. Locks don't keep me back, so I've broken into every office, every study, every bedroom to find out as much as I could. And then I went to Tori." The typing slowed, but I didn't turn around to face the scene, letting it play out without me, caressing Chloe's still body with my eyes.

"Why me?" Tori asked after a moment, her voice practically shaking with trepidation.

"Because you're a witch. I assumed you'd believe, more than anyone, that your dream was more, that it meant more." She didn't answer, instead typing more furiously on the panel.

"I think I've-" There was a loud creak before the cage shifted up. The jolt shook Chloe off of the labradorite, and I assumed her projection dissipated as her eyelids twitched. The walls of the cage lifted and her body tumbled out into my waiting arms.

Holding her again… it was indescribable. It was like everything stilled in the world, and for just that moment everything was okay. Chloe was with me, alive, in my arms, her heart beating against mine.

"Chloe," I whispered, my waterlogged voice muddling her name. She turned into me, just slightly, before her eyelashes fluttered and opened to her bright blue eyes looking up into mine.

"Derek," she sighed, putting a hand on my chest. I covered it with one of my own, holding her closer than before, pulling her body out of the cage completely and onto my lap. I took a deep breath in her hair and the world was brighter, even through my tear-blurred eyes.

"Oh, dear," a voice drawled behind me. I kept Chloe pressed against my chest as I turned my chin to look. "We were warned about you when we saw that ring on her pretty little finger." He was a short man, thin, with jet-black hair. Simon, Tori, and dad eased into a half-circle around us, facing the interloper head-on.

"So, we thought to bring in a bit of… reinforcement." My nose burned as another wolf came into the room. I didn't know a face to the scent, but I had definitely smelled this wolf before, here in the Rockies. I turned a bit more and watched as he lowered himself into the room on the stairs. He was huge, with tangled red hair and bulging muscles. He gave me a sneer, and eyed Chloe with the lewdest look I'd ever seen.

My muscles twitched beneath my skin. Chloe laid a gentle hand on my arm before scooting out of my grasp onto the floor. I let her, mostly because, seconds later, I Changed, blocking everyone's view of her in the corner the bottom of her cage made. The skinny man tutted at her, looking disappointed.

"Dear Chloe, why would you betray us this way?"

"I told you- doctor- he'd- find me." And I had taken way too damn long in my opinion, especially with the way she was breathing so hard, just from waking up.

"That you did." He snapped his fingers and the rabid wolf Changed, sprinting my way. I met him in the middle of the room, catching his throat in my teeth and pinning him to the floor.

It was utter chaos after that.

I worked twice as hard, making sure the wolf didn't get away while making sure he didn't get anywhere the fuck near Chloe. It surprised me when a bolt of lightening was shot into my back, but I think it surprised the good doctor even more that it didn't do a damn thing to me. I bit in to the russet wolf's throat again, clamping down harder, getting a good grip on his spine before jerking my head to the side, breaking it.

I felt resolved, knowing that I had done good for the other pack, for the alpha who had been so good to me.

I turned just in time to see Simon magically push the doctor in the wall, hard enough that his skull made an audible crack against the sheetrock, just before Tori hit him with the biggest ball of lightening I had ever seen.

His heart stopped before he hit the ground.