Laurence shook his head as though he could tumble everything into place just by doing so, but reality remained obstinately nonsensical.

“Freddy?” He squinted and sniffed.

It sure didn’t smell like Quentin.

“You are missing a great many facts,” Freddy said. “Fortunately we have quite a long flight ahead of us in which to bring you up to speed.”

Laurence stared at him. “This has to be a trick.”

“Correct.” Freddy’s lips twitched into a humorless smirk.

Laurence sprang from his chair and turned toward the cockpit. The plane still seemed like a small and hugely expensive private jet, so that hadn’t changed, but for what felt like the first time he noticed that their driver had garish red hair.

“Ah, yes.” Frederick remained seated. “I believe you and Michael are already acquainted.”

“Michael?” The word was little more than a shape of his lips as he exhaled it. His world was spinning and he couldn’t stop it.

The driver shucked his peaked cap and tossed it aside, then ran a hand through his curls to unflatten them while he stood. His sharp features were dotted with freckles, and green eyes regarded him evenly. “Bambi,” he said.

“Mikey?” The association between Mikey and heroin was so strong that Laurence’s skin began to itch, and he clutched at the back of his chair to stay himself.

He felt like a rabbit in the jaws of a trap.

There was no plant life in here. He was thousands of feet in the air. He didn’t know how to fly a jet even if he somehow got into the cockpit. Even if he killed Mikey and Freddy he was stuck until they landed, and then he’d get arrested.

He ran his tongue along his teeth and forced himself to turn his back on Mikey as he sat down.

“Where’s Quentin?” He growled it as a threat.

“One of two possibilities,” Freddy said. He gestured toward Mikey, who came forward to take a seat across the aisle from them. “Either hot on our tails, or dead. I would prefer not the latter, but the former is also frankly a bad situation.”

Laurence snarled and fully intended to launch himself at Freddy’s throat, but his body refused to cooperate. It wasn’t telekinesis. There was no hold around him, nothing pinning him down. It was more like he’d received one of Wilson’s orders.

“Rather,” Frederick agreed. “Wilson was a fool, though. And so limited.”

Fear stabbed Laurence in the heart.

He hadn’t said a damn thing out loud.

“Let’s take this somewhere private,” Freddy said.

The aircraft interior melted away. It was gone, replaced by the most breathtaking views over a mountainous valley. Laurence stumbled as his chair vanished, and he grasped at a wooden railing inches from his fingers to haul himself upright before he could fall.

The trees which carpeted the mountains were fall shades. Oranges and reds, some yellow, all combined to make the vista look almost like it was on fire. Peeking from the trees in the near distance was the tip of a red-walled pagoda.

His grip tightened on the cold, damp wood beneath his hands. He looked down.

They were on a wooden veranda which jutted out over the edge of a mountain. When he looked down he saw green and grey slate roofs, curved and lined with carvings. A small waterfall cascaded from rocks to his left and into a rectangular pool. The trees between the buildings would never grow in San Diego’s climate, but their leaf structure and branch formations readily identified them as a mixture of acer palmatum and prunus serrulata.

Japanese maple and cherry trees.

He turned with care and looked over his shoulder.

The entire structure at his back was wood. A roof over his head protected him from a light smattering of rain. The doors to the building’s interior were sliding, not hinged.

Freddy stepped forward and idly leaned against the railing while Mikey hung back and looked completely at ease.

“Kiyomizudera temple,” Freddy said idly. “Kyōto. Rather beautiful, don’t you think?”

Laurence swallowed and looked back to the view while he fought to keep his terror under wraps. He was well out of his depth here, and going off half-cocked wasn’t going to fix this. “You’re gifted,” he spat.

“I’m afraid so.”

He eyed the trees. With this much foliage to hand, Laurence was invincible.

Which meant that, by handing it to him, Freddy had either made a terrible mistake, or was convinced that he still held the upper hand.

“Telepathic?” He narrowed his eyes at Freddy.

“Correct.” Freddy inclined his head slightly. “Wilson’s telepathy was incredibly limited. He couldn’t even read minds, let alone invade them. It was quite adorable, really. If he hadn’t been hell-bent on revealing our existence to the world I could have had much more fun with him. Still, in the end, you did what was for the best. I hope Icky hasn’t given you too much grief over that.”

Laurence refused to be drawn into treating Freddy like a friend. “You betrayed us.”

“Against my will, I assure you. I took a calculated risk that it would force Father into tipping his hand.” Freddy winced a little. “Alas, it did. I’m afraid this is all as a result of my miscalculation, for which I can only apologize.”

“You’re inside my head.” Laurence bared his teeth and pushed himself away from the barrier. “This is all an illusion, isn’t it? Was the plane even real? Where are we?”

Freddy turned his back to the view and rested his ass against the hand rail. His arms folded across his broad chest, and he raised his chin. “We’re on a Gulfstream 650ER en route to London Heathrow. The flight time is approximately eleven hours, give or take the efficacy of the jet stream and whether or not we get added to a stack at Heathrow. I would recommend that you try to get some sleep on the flight, as there might not be much opportunity once we land.”

“Why?” Laurence scowled at Mikey as he paced past his former dealer, but Mikey didn’t even flinch. “Why are you doing this? Why’s Mikey here?”

“I’m doing this because I have no choice.” Frederick sighed faintly. “Father has grown tired of Icky’s obstinacy and has tasked me with bringing him home no matter what. He is no longer willing to tolerate my ‘failure’ in this task, and has expressed his intent to kill me should I fail. I’m afraid this has rather lit a fire under my arse, as I’m not altogether keen on being horribly murdered, not least by my own father.”

“And him?” He thumbed toward Mikey.

Frederick shrugged. “Leverage,” he said. “Also an essential second pair of hands, since I do so dislike dirtying my own.”

Laurence flexed his hands, but they curled into fists in the end, almost of their own accord. The urge to tear Freddy’s throat out was subdued, but still present. “If you want Quentin, why didn’t you take him?” He paused, then raised a hand. “Scratch that. If your dad’s threatened you and you can do this kind of shit-” he gestured to the view “-why don’t you just fry his brain out or whatever?”

“We d’Arcy’s appear to have an inbuilt resistance to mental compulsion.” Freddy sucked his teeth briefly and glanced toward Mikey, then back to Laurence. “I have never been able to read Father’s thoughts, nor influence them in any way. I cannot get between Icky or Nicky’s ears, either. And, it transpires, I too possess this facility, since Wilson couldn’t affect me in the slightest.”

Laurence rubbed his jaw. When he and Freddy had boarded the Theophrastus, they’d been caught by Wilson and given orders, and Freddy had been just as vulnerable to them as he had.

Unless.

He hissed. “You faked it?”

“Quite so.”

Laurence paced away from them both. It made no difference, of course, but he felt better for expending some energy. “What did you do to Quentin?”

“Triazolam.” Mikey finally spoke, but he sounded different. Like he’d picked up a British twist to his accent at some point.

Laurence halted and stared at him. “You’re insane! A sedative? How do you even begin to get the dosing right on that!”

“It’s difficult,” Mikey agreed. “But Lord Banbury’s metabolism is rather special, and no alcohol was introduced.”

“But still, ODing is really fucking easy!”

“And if Icky has died,” Freddy said with a somber set to his gaze, “Father loses. Whether he kills us for that or not, he has lost.”

The roar which erupted from him was a primal thing. Laurence launched himself at Freddy, howling as he closed the distance between them.

Freddy snapped a hand up and grabbed Laurence by the throat. He gazed impassively into Laurence’s eyes as Laurence threw one punch after another against his chest, his face, his gut, and despite the sensation that each and every one connected solidly, the grip around Laurence’s throat only tightened.

And then Freddy lifted him clean off the floor.

Laurence kicked and squirmed. His hands went to Freddy’s arm and tried to prize fingers from around his neck.

“Icky most likely has not died,” Freddy continued. “Michael knows his craft.”

Laurence spat at him.

Mikey doesn’t know shit! He nearly fucking killed me!

Freddy quirked an eyebrow. “No. You nearly killed yourself. Michael advised you that the heroin he had furnished you with was more potent than your regular muck, and you disregarded the warning.”

Laurence thrashed in Freddy’s hold and clawed at his fingers.

Freddy released him without warning, and Laurence fell hard, clattering onto the wooden floor and sprawling across it as he floundered for air.

“So. I cannot go against Father’s edicts. Icky will not raise a finger to defend himself. You lack the magical knowledge or physical prowess to defeat Father yourself. Which means we are left with only one option.”

Laurence fought to convince himself that he wasn’t in pain, that this was all in his head. He wasn’t desperate for oxygen, Freddy hadn’t almost choked him into unconsciousness. But while he knew all that to be true, nothing could shake the sense that he’d come close to blacking out. He rubbed his throat as he curled his legs under himself, and only stood once he trusted himself to.

His instincts were at war with his senses. One insisted he was fine, the other screamed that he was in danger. It was growing hard to tell which was which.

He stood slowly and forced himself to lower his hands. But he refused to straighten up and pretend to be civilized.

He was the Hunter.

“This option is that we all team up and work together, right?” He rasped it with sarcasm. If that had been Freddy’s plan he sure wouldn’t have come about it like this. No. They could’ve discussed it in San Diego like adults and come up with a plan, and they didn’t.

So Freddy already had other ideas.

“No,” Freddy murmured. “No, the option is that I do exactly what Father has ordered me to, and hope that it’s enough to tip Icky over the edge at last.”

He didn’t want to know. He knew he didn’t want to know. But he had to ask it anyway.

Laurence licked his lips with care and squared his shoulders. “Go on, then. Fill me in. What’re your orders?”

Freddy smoothed his shirt with one hand. “To ruin you, Laurence. To devastate you until you are little more than a shell, a hollow shadow of your former self. I’m afraid he has ordered me to destroy you.”

Laurence backed away until his shoulders hit wood, but what use was it?

He was already a prisoner, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.