Sorcha's Secret World, Part one.

Chapter 26, Highway to Hel.

It took a few days before we had a breakthrough. The Templars were in the dark, they had no idea who the woman was or where Loki could be. Cedric told me that it wasn't much different on his side from the Illuminati. He had feelers out in the seedier parts of The Secret World, but it was a long time ago since Cedric had been a part of that dark underbelly.

I barely slept or ate, but until I knew where he was, I had no way of helping Loki.

And then help came from an unexpected place.

"Howdy kid, I think I may have found out where your runaway godling is being held." Boone's gravely voice was like sweet music to my ears.

That was where the good news ended, however.

There was an underground auction being held in a mansion near Triesen, in Liechtenstein. Highly illegal and highly exclusive, the rich and the powerful of the Secret World were to gather and bid on valuable Secret World assets. The sale of magical creatures was prohibited, but in illegal auctions like this one could bid and own their very own fairy, centaur or wendigo.

The highlight of this auction was rumoured to be a real living god, the exact nature to be yet announced.

The auction was to be held that same night.

I should have called Richard for help. I was certain backup would be provided and we'd storm the place with a team of highly trained soldiers. But I did not want to rescue Loki to just hand him back to the Templars again.

I could call Cedric, but it would get him into trouble with his superiors.

I had to do this by myself. I wanted to do this by myself. This was my mess, if I hadn't told Loki to leave this would never have happened.

"You can't do this by yourself," John Wolf said. Wolf and Boone had met me at the Agartha entrance. We were now overlooking the mansion from a distance. Through John's binoculars, I could see that the place was surrounded by high walls and guards with dogs were crawling all over the place. Huge searchlights were lighting up the area. I'm not very good at sneaking into places, not without Loki telling me what to do and when and where to hide.

"So what do we do now?" I asked. " I can't see any possible way of getting in there unnoticed."

"Neither could we," Boone grinned. "That's why we'll be walking right in through the door."

Not that long after I was being jostled by two guards down narrow stairs to the basement, hands tied behind my back and a collar around my neck.

No, it wasn't a basement, it was more like a dungeon. Cages lined the walls. In the dim light, I saw fairies huddled in a ball as if to shelter themselves, and a yeti who threw himself at the bars the moment we walked past him.

I struggled against my bonds, but they held tight. My Bee wasn't going to whisk me away and save me, I wasn't in mortal danger after all.

"A god and a Bee," one of the guards grinned, "we'll be making a fortune tonight! There's a lot of rich folks who'd kill to get their hands on either one of these, quite a few scientists too!"

I struggled again, trying to pull myself loose from his grip, but he grabbed me tighter.

"Ouch, you're hurting me!" I yelled at him. The guard just grinned and then, with a mean look on his face, shoved me into one of the cages.

Loki's eyes widened the moment he saw me. We were in the same cell, at least that was going my way.

"Took you long enough!" he hissed the moment the guards were out of earshot. "I've been leaving you breadcrumbs for ages, where have you been?"