I focused on that tattoo, sending more power into it, and triggered it the way I triggered the others. As it triggered, she cried out.
“What was it?” John Adams asked.
“A tattoo.”
He reached through the barrier, grabbing the sleeve of her shirt, pulling it up. The tattoo was there, though it was now fading. “Interesting. It seems you have begun to learn new tricks.”
“You aren’t the only one who can teach us,” she snapped at him.
“I never thought I was the only one who could teach.”
“You made a mistake in returning here.”
“Did I? You were stationed here just to watch for me?”
“When we felt you moving, we came.”
John turned toward me, nodding. “Be ready,” he said.
I frowned, but then I realized why he was concerned. She had said “we.” I turned toward the door, but there was no reason they had to come through the solid oak doorway. There might transport. They could simply appear the same way that we had.
“Would there be a way to protect this room from them transporting here?”
“It’s possible, but it would take a considerable amount of power,” he said.
“Do you think you can do it?”
John Adams glanced back at me. “Not in my current condition.”
“What about you?” I asked, turning to Charles.
He frowned. “There might be something I could do.” He reached into his pocket, and I wondered if he was going to pull out a wand or something to give him access to magic, but rather than doing so, he pulled out a bottle of what looked like ink. He began tracing markings on the floor, starting in each corner, and then connecting them, winding them in a strange spiraling pattern. When he was done, he turned to me. “Now you will need to trigger it, Dr. Stone.”
“Why me?”
“As we’ve established, I don’t have the necessary strength in order to do what needs to be done.”
I sent a hint of power flowing from me, outward, and then toward the floor. When it struck the floor, there came a sense of resistance. I continued to push, sending more power into it, trying to fight through that resistance, wondering if I was going to be able to overpower it or not. I could feel the energy within the floor, and the way it pushed against me. There was more power growing. It was a strange sensation, a spell I had never experienced before. I looked over at Charles, locking eyes with him as I continued to push.
I wasn’t going to have enough power on my own, and I didn’t want to continue drawing power through the wand, but this was simply triggering a spell. In order to do so, I didn’t need to draw through the wand. I reached in my pouch, finding a trigger coin, and dropped it in the center of the room, pushing power through it.
The energy coalesced around us. It radiated outward, rolling along the spirals of patterns Charles had formed, and it stretched out to the corners, up into the walls, and then surged around us. It was considerable energy, but it was unique as well.
“What is it?” I asked after the spell went cold.
“Hopefully it allows us to prevent another from transporting here.”
“Just that?”
“There is an element of defensive spell within it.”
“How is it you know how to do that?”
“As I said, I trained with Odian.”
“When this is all over, you’re going to have to help me understand more about this Odian.”
He looked at me, smiling slightly. “Perhaps I will.”
John Adams turned his attention back to Rebecca. “Now we have that accomplished, I think it’s time for answers. We know you’re going after the Great Ones.”
She stared at him, locking eyes, saying nothing.
“Not a denial. I was a little concerned you might try to refute me.”
“Why would I do that? There’s no reason to deny what we’re doing.”
“You would deny you are trying to draw forbidden power?”
“Forbidden? You’re the one who sent us out searching for one person who could save your daughter.”
“I have moved past that,” he said.
“And I have a hard time believing you have,” Rebecca said.
“Where is this taking place?”
“You wouldn’t begin to be able to stop us.”
“You might be surprised what I’m able to do,” John Adams said.
“Why? Now you’ve got someone who can make runes and a barely trained hedge mage?”
John Adams stared at Rebecca, saying nothing. I could feel power building off of him, and it was squeezing around her, radiating upward from the ground, rolling inward. It was from a source of frustration. He was trying to torment her, trying to torture her into sharing information, but I wasn’t sure if he should even be doing so.
“John?”
“Don’t worry about it, Dr. Stone.”
“We need her, but we don’t need to kill her.”
“We need to get the information to help us understand what they’re doing,” he said.
“And you aren’t going to get that by killing her,” I said.
I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to get through to him, but I needed to find a way to convince him to refrain from continuing his attack. I didn’t want him to destroy her. I could feel the rage from him, and I wondered if it was feigned.
“Just tell him where this is going to take place,” I said, turning toward her.
“You are the one he’s told us about.”
“Matt?”
“You really are foolish if you think you can intervene.”
“I’m determined to do what I can to stop this.”
“Why would you care?”
“I don’t know, because you were willing to try to sacrifice an entire den of shifters for this?”
“In order to prevent a coming darkness, we need to do anything.”
I frowned, cocking my head at her. “A coming darkness? What are you trying to get at?”
She watched me, saying nothing.
Turning to John Adams, I shook my head. “We have to find out what they’re doing before they complete it,” I said. “Do you have any spells to coerce her into sharing what we need to know?”
John Adams watched me, and he shook his head. “There are no such spells.”
“There might be something I can do,” Charles said. “As I said, I –”
“Trained with Odian,” I finished for him.
Charles cocked his head to the side, smiling. He crept forward, and he leaned onto the ground, reaching through the barrier and placing a small pattern on the floor at Rebecca’s feet. “Try that, Dr. Stone. It shouldn’t take a lot of power from you.”
I frowned. I didn’t recognize the nature of the power, though there was something about it which seemed familiar. Triggering it was a strange sensation. It didn’t take any energy at all. It was almost as if it were easy, flowing outward, and exploding upward. The barrier seemed to confine the nature of the energy, and it slammed into Rebecca. She sucked in a breath, gasping softly, and she glanced from Charles to John Adams and finally over to me.
“Where is it?” John Adams asked.
“I’m not supposed to share,” she said.
“I know you’re not supposed to share, but you need to tell us where you’re meeting.”
“There is a place of power. It’s a place which straddles the Veil.” Rebecca clasped her hands over her mouth, trying to silence herself, but the nature of Charles’s spell seemed to compel her to talk.
I glanced over at him, frowning, and wondered just what kind of spell he had access to. How was he able to know such things? He looked straight ahead, watching Rebecca, saying nothing. I couldn’t help but think he knew more than he should. This was more than just knowing something from a powerful mage like Odian. Maybe he wasn’t even a vampire. And if he wasn’t, then what was he? Could he be a hedge mage the same as I was? That didn’t seem right to me. When I had worked
with Jean-Pierre before, I had known he traveled only with other vampires.
Up until me.
I was an exception, but that didn’t mean Charles couldn’t be an exception as well. And if he was, then there would be more reason for the vampires to keep somebody like this with them. Especially if Charles had access to power like this, and knowledge which would be beneficial.
“Tell us more about this place of power,” Charles said. There was a command in his voice, and as I listened, I couldn’t help but wonder if it was magically enhanced.
“There are places that straddle the Veil.” She held her hands over her mouth, making her words muted, and I leaned forward, trying to listen, trying to understand just what she was trying to hide from us.
“We have discovered such places,” I said. “The dens straddle the Veil.” That way of describing it made sense. It was more than just having the dens connected to the Veil. Her phrasing fitted with my experience of them, and I couldn’t help but wonder if there was something about that, but we had already decided it would be unlikely for Matt Gillespie and the others of the Shara to use one of the dens in order to try to free the Great Ones.
“There are more than the ones you know.”
I frowned, glancing from John Adams to Charles. “More than the twelve dens?”
“There is the forgotten,” she said.
“The what?”
“The forgotten den. The last. It sits closer to the other side of the Veil, straddling it more closely than any of the others.”
“Where is it?”
She flashed a smile, releasing her hands from her mouth. “I don’t know.”
With the spell rolling through her, and the fact it was essentially truth serum, forcing her to speak, I had to believe she didn’t. If she didn’t know how to find it, then how were we going to?
“Tell us anything else which might be beneficial,” John Adams said.
“You won’t succeed.”
“We will.”
She smiled, shaking her head. It seemed as if she were victorious in the way she was able to fight through the compulsion spell. “You won’t succeed.” For her to say that, either she truly believed it, or it was true. And if it was something she believed, then there was would have to be a reason for her confidence. What were they doing, and what preparations were they making?
“What plans do you have?” I asked, stepping forward.
“The plans are to use the proximity to the Veil, and we will free the Great Ones. Once that power is released, we will cross the Veil, and from there…” She clamped her hands over her mouth, muting it again.
But even though she did, there was no point in her continuing to share. She had said enough. They intended to cross the Veil, but more than that, they intended to use the power to free it, and once they had, they intended to unleash something more dangerous. But I had no idea if we would even be able to stop it. Looking over John Adams, I could see the uncertainty on his face as well.
“Tell us more,” John said.
“You won’t succeed,” she said.
“You’ve told us already,” he said.
She smiled broadly, watching them, and with the grin spreading across her face, I wanted to strike it clear. But then, that was what she wanted from us. She was hoping for frustration, for irritation, and she wanted to use it.
I had no idea whether we were going to be able to stop what was coming, but at least we understood where it was. The thirteenth den. The problem was that somehow we had to find Barden – and Ariel.
John Adams pushed a sense of power through the barrier, and it slammed into Rebecca. When it did, she collapsed to the ground, falling silent. He span around, turning toward us. “Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem as if we are going to get any answers from her.”
“We got plenty of answers from her,” I said.
“What answers do you think we got which will be beneficial?” he asked.
“She told us there was a thirteenth den.”
“And yet, without having access to shifters who can help us, we won’t be able to find a thirteenth den.”
Somehow, we were going to have to find that out, though I had no idea what it would take. I wondered if we could reach Barden, but even if we could, the travel would be difficult. And it was possible that trying to go to Barden, trying to find him and Ariel, would delay what we needed to do. What we need to do was to figure out where they were going, and then call Barden to us.
“You don’t have anything in your records to tell us if there are other dens you should have known about?” I asked John Adams.
“As I said, I didn’t keep track of such things.”
“You didn’t keep track of the Great Ones, but you would have kept track of anything to help you understand the shifters. And if you knew about the other dens, then you would know about a missing one.”
He closed his eyes, frowning. “There isn’t anything I came across.”
“It might be something I know about,” Charles said.
“You?”
“The vampires and the shifters have not gotten along well over the years.”
“And you would know where a missing den might be?”
“It’s not that it’s missing, but that it’s empty.”
“Where would it be, then?”
He looked around the room, his gaze settling on Rebecca before turning back to us. “Someplace dangerous.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s a place of considerable power.”
“Where is it?” John Adams asked.
“I believe most call it Crater Lake.”
16
Trees rose up around us, and I looked down at the glistening water. There was a strange sense here. It was almost as if I tingled, something like energy flowing, and it reminded me of the ley lines I had been aware of in Minneapolis. I didn’t have the necessary power in order to reach into the ley lines like others, though the longer I was in Minneapolis, and the more I was aware of that power, the easier it was for me to understand the nature of it and to wonder whether I might be able to reach it.
“I don’t see any sign of shifters,” I said.
“Nor do I,” John Adams said.
It was dark, the day having passed faster than it should have. “Why is it dark already?” I asked, looking up at the sky.
“We must have spent more time in the organization than it seemed,” John Adams said.
I thought about what we had gone through, the brief battle, the way I had triggered spells. It didn’t seem as if it had been so long. And yet, there was one place where there was a different flow of time.
“Your organization is on the other side of the Veil. That’s why time has passed differently.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know the answer to that,” John Adams said.
“But you do. There was a strange passing of time, more than there should have been. That’s what you were trying to keep from me. The organization is on the other side.” And if it were, then why? If they were forced to experience the strange passage of time, the way things changed, it didn’t make any sense to me why they would do that. Why would they want that, especially if they were trying to secure power on our side of the Veil?
“The organization isn’t on the other side of the Veil, Dr. Stone. If it were, you wouldn’t have been able to transport there.”
There was that. “Then why was there a strange passage of time?”
“Because of the protections placed around the organization,” he said.
“I don’t understand.”
“One of the protections placed on the organization is that if it is infiltrated by those without the necessary protections, they will have a different sense of time.”
“Why would anyone want to do that?”
“Because it offers a layer of protection we wouldn’t have otherwise. If someone attacks us, we then have time to make preparations.”
It was a strange and devious plan, but it did make sense
, though it worked against us now. It potentially delayed us far longer than we wanted. If we had delayed beyond what was necessary, it was possible we wouldn’t have succeeded. And perhaps that was why Rebecca had been so pleased with herself. Maybe she knew we were taking too long within the organization, long enough that it was delaying us so we wouldn’t be able to intervene with what the Shara were doing. And if that were the case, then anything we might try to do would be too late.
“There is one way to know how much time has passed,” Charles said.
“What’s that?” I asked him.
He had become a lot more talkative ever since separating from Jean-Pierre. It was almost as if Jean-Pierre silenced him, but now he was apart, now he was with us, he was freed from that restriction.
“There is a pattern which can help us find the full moon.”
“Another pattern?” John Adams asked.
“There are runes for a great many things,” Charles said. He leaned down, and he traced his finger in the dirt. When he stood up, he nodded to me.
As I had before, I sent a surge of power into it, triggering it. When I did, a beam of light blasted from the ground, heading straight toward the sky. It targeted the moon. It was a strange sensation. The way the light gleamed left me strangely drawn toward it, watching as it stretched higher and higher into the sky, the energy streaking toward it.
“What does that mean?”
“It wouldn’t have been effective if it is not a full moon.”
“So we are too late,” I said.
“Perhaps not too late, but this is our last opportunity to stop them,” Charles said.
Which meant that whatever was going to take place would happen soon. If it was a full moon, and if this was how they were going to free the Great Ones, we would need to act quickly.
I looked around, noticing the way the moonlight rolled across the surface of the lake. The reflection was beautiful, yet within the beauty was a sense of power, and a sense of helplessness.
End Stage Page 16