Chapter 44 Arsenal.

Chapter 44: 44 Arsenal.

"On it, bossman," the psychic purred, her eyes flaring with an unnatural magenta fire as she fixed her focus back on the murky glass. "Now be a good little puddle. Give up the hideout."

William’s liquefied profile rippled in distress, his features twisting against the curved surface. "N-no... I won’t... the Master will flay me alive..."

"Oh, but you’re dying to tell me," Psyren crooned. The melodic resonance in her voice thickened, carrying a hypnotic hum that rattled the loose tools on the workbench. "Do it for your girl. Do it for Psyren. You worship me, remember? I’m your whole world. Give it to me, sweetheart..."

Trapped in the jar, the viscous black sludge convulsed, caught between absolute terror of his master and the artificial devotion drilling into his nerve endings. "I... I shouldn’t... please..."

Psyren didn’t back off; she leaned right into the kill. Her neon hair seemed to lift on an invisible static draft, and the dim warehouse took on a nauseating, ultraviolet hue as she poured raw psionic pressure straight into the slimer’s consciousness.

Beside me, Patty lost her balance and grabbed the edge of a lathe, while Steve swayed on his heels like a sailor on rough seas.

A brutal spike of pain hammered through my own skull—she was venting enough telepathic fallout to scramble an entire city block.

"Spill it," she commanded, her tone dropping the sweet act and cutting in like a scalpel.

Her fingertips traced tight, glowing spirals along the glass. "You belong to me now. Every thought, every secret. Empty your head. Talk to your mistress."

William’s face tore apart inside the cider jug, the dark muck whipping into froth as if caught in a blender.

The only parts that held their shape were his wide, terrified eyes, completely consumed by the pulsing pink sigils of her trance.

"I... can’t... the—"

"Talk!" she hissed, ditching the velvet glove entirely and driving the mental spike home.

"The old mountain resort!" William finally shrieked, the sound bubbling through the glass like a dying radiator. "The Sunset Oakland! They’re at the Sunset Oakland!"

The Sunset Oakland. I filed the name away instantly.

The abandoned luxury hotel perched up in the winding foothill passes had shut down due to an unnatural change in climate—

I caught myself already, made sense.

I always kept tabs on high-profile real estate in the region; they usually meant a corrupt titan of industry was building a retreat, or a heavyweight supervillain was setting up shop.

In this case, it was both. A sprawling, isolated fortress wrapped in mountain fog was classic Captain Zero aesthetic.

"Attaboy," Psyren hummed, her voice instantly dropping back to a silky murmur as she stroked the container. "Now give me the gate codes and the floor plan."

The broken remain of William’s mind didn’t put up another ounce of fight. He leaked everything.

The defensive perimeter sounded like an absolute nightmare.

We were talking overlapping thermal cameras, autonomous heavy-caliber sentry turrets, a private militia instructed to shoot trespassers on sight, and a host of proprietary Order-grade security grids that William lacked the security clearance to fully explain.

He had only been summoned to the grounds a handful of times to receive orders before drawing the short straw to come ambush me.

"Where are they keeping Glacia inside the compound?" I asked.

"The Grand Ballroom," the slimer droned, his voice utterly flat. "With the Master. Finalizing the transport arrangements. They leave for the Palace of Ice at dawn."

The countdown just shrank to a sliver.

I had less than twenty-four hours to stage a one-man siege against a fortified compound run by a founding father of the Council of Nine before Glacia was dragged past the permafrost line.

Once she crossed into the Arctic, she was gone for good. The Palace of Ice wasn’t some comic-book hideout; it was a frozen graveyard surrounded by the preserved corpses of international strike teams who had tried and failed to breach its walls.

I knew my strengths, and I definitely knew my limits—storming that northern fortress was guaranteed suicide.

"Fabulous," I muttered through gritted teeth.

"Looks like we’re on the clock, boss," Psyren said, casually tapping the glass while William shivered in a post-hypnotic daze. "So what’s the game plan for the three of us?"

"Three of us?" I repeated, looking between them.

"Well, yeah!" Patty said, popping up at my elbow with an eager grin. "You really think I’d let my best client get vaporized by an ancient frost god without backing him up? No chance. You still owe me a mountain of money, Miles. Not to mention other perks." She punctuating the line with a suggestive nudge against my arm.

"Plus, our mentorship program is just getting spicy," Psyren added, flashing an impish smile. "I’m not letting you get yourself iced before I get my money’s worth."

A strange warmth hit my chest, swiftly followed by a wave of cold pragmatism.

Having two ridiculously dangerous women ready to throw down on my behalf was flattering as hell, but going up against Captain Zero wasn’t an ordinary turf scrap.

If this infiltration went south—and the odds of disaster were astronomical—I wasn’t going to have their blood on my hands.

"You two are helping me kit up and build a schematic," I said firmly. "The raid itself is a solo job. I’m not dragging either of you into a meat grinder."

Psyren’s smile melted into an exaggerated pout.

She closed the distance between us in a heartbeat, throwing her slender arms around my shoulders, her chest flush against mine as she tilted her head up. "Oh, don’t be a spoilsport, boss," she whined.

A flicker of electric magenta crackled across her knuckles as her expression snapped into something chillingly lethal. "Anyone trying to hurt my favorite man clearly has too many working brain cells. Why won’t you let me give them a freehand lobotomy?"

It was both deeply enticing and genuinely unsettling—which was essentially her entire personality in a nutshell, and the exact reason I couldn’t let her near the compound.

"I appreciate the enthusiasm," I said, catching her wrists. "Right now, the most useful thing you can do is squeeze every remaining scrap of information out of that slushie. This isn’t a training exercise. It’s a bloodbath waiting to happen, and I’m not letting you get caught in the crossfire."

She held her pout for a second longer. "Fine," she grumbled, stepping onto her tiptoes to press her body closer. "You’re going to owe me big for this, boss."

Before I could answer, she pulled my face down and kissed me hard.

The sudden surge of psychic static made my skin prickle, my hands reacting on pure instinct as they caught her waist and pulled her against me.

She let out a low, breathy hum, her tongue brushing against my lips, but the moment I tried to take control of the kiss, she danced backward out of my grip, laughing softly with a devilish sparkle in her eyes.

"That’s just a down payment so you don’t go dying on me," she said, throwing a wink over her shoulder as she skipped back toward the quivering container of sludge.

I blew out a ragged breath and turned around, only to catch Patty watching the entire exchange with a massive, shit-eating grin.

"What?" I asked defensively.

"Oh, nothing at all, boss," Patty drawled, leaning heavily on the title. "How’s that lone-wolf routine working out for ya?"

"Don’t start," I said, pointing a finger at her before dropping my hand with an exhausted sigh. "Just pull whatever thermal shielding and heavy hardware you’ve got in the back. I’m going to need everything."

Patty gave me a sharp, wicked wink. "Coming right up, Miles. Let’s go build an arsenal."