The skin around his eyes creased slightly as if he were weighing the very questions. I caught his lips move, and in the next moment energy surged around me. Before I could react, it slammed me into the wall opposite the bookshelves. I tried to talk, but I was being pinned by the strongest force invocation I’d ever felt.
With the flick of his fingers, another force jerked my cane from my hands. He was no longer holding his sword, though where he’d put it, I hadn’t the slightest. He caught my cane deftly. After studying its length, he gripped the wood in the middle and pulled the handle. My father’s blade slid free.
As Asmus looked over the sword and staff, I could only imagine what was going through his head. Marlow’s energy in the steel and silver. His own embedded in the ironwood. His gaze now jumped from rune to rune. My magic had only developed to the point where I could cast through the first two: banishment and elemental fire, and the second remained hard for me to control. I was ignorant as to what the other runes even did. But as I watched each symbol glow briefly, I understood that Asmus had the power to access all of them.
He switched his gaze to the staff, bringing the opal nearer his eye. At last he returned the sword into the cane. The locking enchantment that sealed the two would have been familiar to him as well. He had fashioned it.
“Where did you get these?” he asked.
His force released my mouth so I could speak. “The staff came from you, though it used to hold another blade. The sword was a gift from Marlow.”
“Marlow,” he repeated.
“Your ring also passed to me, the one that holds the power of the Brasov Pact. Your coin pendant too, though I’ve given that to someone for protection.” When I thought of Vega and our child, an upsurge of love hit me.
“How do you know Marlow?” he asked.
“He was my father. He married your … your daughter.”
A daughter who would one day fall to Lich, the man he was hiding from.
“I was born in the Refuge,” I said before he could ask about her. “Delivered by Arianna. I was given the Croft surname to protect Marlow.”
I was dropping some serious names in the Order-in-Exile community. It would either convince Asmus I was telling the truth or further stoke his suspicions. Still holding my cane, he began to pace a slow circle around the room, something I did when I needed to think. But he was doing more than thinking. I felt energy running along the wooden planks and floor boards, gathering into a low, thrumming note.
Okay, this can’t be good.
“I-I’m telling the truth,” I stammered. “Ask me anything, and I’ll answer it.”
“That is the problem, isn’t it?” he muttered, locking my jaw with another uttered word.
I struggled with what he meant, but the answer came quickly. Whisperer magic. Bending minds, shaping thoughts, making one see what isn’t there, believe what isn’t real. The magic Lich wields.
Dammit, I should have thought about that before coming out here. Asmus was questioning whether he’d fallen under the influence of Whisperer magic, which meant nothing I said would convince him of who I was. Not info about him or Marlow or the Refuge or that entire history. He would think Lich had infiltrated his thoughts and warped them into this walking, talking illusion standing before him.
The building note of energy inside the room began to rattle the window. Asmus stopped in the center of the room, his eyes locked on mine. He was pushing power into the room’s wards with the idea it would overwhelm that malevolent magic, purge it from his house, his head. And when it succeeded, I would disappear.
A book tumbled from the shelf behind him, and then an entire row of them. Outside the room, the mastiffs launched into a torrent of barking. The door shuddered as the dogs collided into it and began raking it with their paws.
Asmus never looked away from me. I made a determined point of holding his gaze. My magic was depleted in here, useless, but I needed him to see I was flesh and blood and soul, somehow. That I was real.
The note grew to a high, penetrating ringing in my ears, one that threatened to burst my casting prism, if not my head. His own body began to vibrate with the power, mouth drawing into a taut line, hair falling across his brow. Even someone as potent as Asmus had to be approaching his limits.
How much harder is he going to push?
The answer came a moment later when the note vanished, and the room fell still. The pain left my head. Outside the door, the mastiffs snuffed along the frame, then padded away. Asmus wiped his hair back into place.
The force pinning me to the wall dissipated, and I lurched forward. Asmus caught me with a strong hand and steadied me. I glimpsed a moment of deliberation in his gaze before he returned my cane to me.
“I believe you,” he said.
34
Ten minutes later, Gorgantha, Malachi, Seay, and I were sitting around a wooden table in Asmus’s kitchen, porcelain cups steaming with English tea. My grandfather finished pouring his own cup and took a seat at the head of the table.
“What do you need?” he asked.
“First, thanks for the refuge,” I said. “I know this is risky for you, but I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go.”
“And my friends are recovering,” Seay said, referring to the half-fae in the next room.
Malachi and Gorgantha murmured their own thanks. With his stern bearing and unflinching gaze, Asmus Croft was an intimidating presence. He gave a small nod in response. Never one for small talk, he was waiting for us to get to the point.
“So, I mentioned the Strangers,” I said. “There was one in the sugar house on Broadway, holding Seay’s friends. We believe there’s another one on the prison ship in Wallabout Bay. That’s the other spot where possessed soldiers were turned out in large numbers. We think the ship now holds possessed druids.” I tried not to think about Jordan, who was ten hours late at this point. “What can you tell us about it?”
Asmus rotated his cup on his saucer for a moment. “You’ve likely observed more in your short time here than I have. My focus has been elsewhere.” He gave me a knowing look. “But, yes, I have seen the soldiers without souls, and I believe it is as you say. If you intend to reach the ship, you will need boats.”
“And spell power,” I said.
“I can arrange for boats,” he said as if drawing a line.
Naturally, I was hoping to recruit him to our cause, but I understood his position. The test back in his study hadn’t been foolproof. If he’d been under the influence of Whisperer magic, he would have believed he was increasing the power of his wards when, in fact, he wouldn’t have been doing jack squat.
He had to know this too, but he was choosing to believe me anyway. Maybe because if he had been under the influence of Whisperer magic, the mind-bending power would have concocted a more plausible story, and mine was so damned implausible. His grandson visiting from two hundred fifty years in the future?
Still, he was taking a risk. And he wasn’t ready to up that risk by casting powerful magic outside his sanctum. Unless, of course, I could convince him he was inside a time catch. That wasn’t going to be an easy pitch, telling someone they weren’t really themselves. In any case, I sensed now wasn’t the time.
Malachi cleared his throat. “Something else we learned, Mr. Croft, is that there were three Strangers operating here. Your grandson—that is, Everson, banished the first. We believe the second is in the ship. That leaves one more, but we have no leads. Would you happen to know anything about that?”
I had to hand it to Malachi for coming around on the question of whether Asmus was who he claimed to be. Our encounter in the study had resolved my own lingering uncertainty. If anything, I was having trouble tamping down my emotions. The love I felt for this man and all he had done was immense. I watched him now for his response.
“I’ve sensed no demons,” he said simply.
“They passed through a rift to arrive here,” I said. “One that cloaked their infernal signatures, making the
m hard to sense. We tracked down the one at the sugar house by hunting her name. Deduction led us to the second.”
“Have you consulted your magic?” he asked.
“I did, and it led me to Vander Meer’s. To you.”
His eyes seemed to twinkle over the rim of his cup as he took another sip. I expected him to say more, but upon lowering the cup, he simply laced his long fingers together and looked around the table.
“What about the energy?” Gorgantha ventured.
When she glanced over at me, I took the speaking baton. “That’s right. The ley lines are different here than in our time—we have a denser city with a lot more people and structures. But Seay thinks they’re being shifted.”
My grandfather nodded. “Yes, I have seen this too.”
“Do you know who’s doing it?” I asked. “Or why?”
I was beginning to think the final Stranger had been tasked with reorganizing the lines as part of Demon X’s plan. A plan I hoped we were thwarting by taking down Strangers and recovering the possessed.
“The pattern is interesting,” Asmus remarked.
He stood and left the room without saying anything, only to return a minute later with an ink well, quill, and piece of parchment. Using bold lines, he began to draw out what I recognized as the southern end of Manhattan.
“You have four ley lines coming in here,” he said.
“And here is…?” I asked.
“St. Martin’s Church. Or where it sat before the fire.”
Where there just happens to be a giant, untapped fount of ley energy, I thought.
“Didn’t the rector say Mr. Thorne had been trying to purchase that property?” Malachi asked.
“Yeah, the vampire Arnaud tried for centuries to buy it,” I said. “Up until his demise. Fortunately, the faith instilled in the site prevented it.”
Asmus nodded. “Mr. Thorne’s money buys much in this city, but not everything.”
I knew from Arnaud that he and my grandfather, after being allies of convenience in Europe, had largely avoided one another in New York. Grandpa had allowed the vampire Arnaud to build his financial empire while he himself carefully cultivated a resistance of magic-users and hunted the weapon that would one day destroy Lich and repel the Whisperer. That was the greater menace in his mind. It probably also explained why he was paying so little attention to the shift in ley lines now.
He completed his drawing and pushed the piece of parchment toward me. Something about the cross-like pattern of lines looked familiar. Then it hit me. I turned the paper toward Malachi so he could see. As he tilted his head, I watched his face blanch.
“My vision,” he said.
“What are you guys seeing?” Seay asked.
Gorgantha looked between us in confusion.
“Malachi and I had a similar dream recently,” I said. “We were in a cross-like arrangement with four others and rotating. Somehow that motion was generating an immense, malevolent energy.”
“Demonic energy,” Malachi put in.
“This pattern,” I said, tapping the paper, “reminded us both of that dream.”
“What does it mean?” Seay asked, looking from us to my grandfather.
“It sounds as if someone intends to perform powerful spell work,” he said.
Gorgantha’s face furrowed. “Do we need to be worried?”
“Only if it comes to pass,” my grandfather replied. “But you are in the presence of one who heeds his magic.” Though he didn’t look at me, I understood why his eyes had twinkled earlier. He was proud.
A lump formed in my throat. Growing up, I had always thought Grandpa tolerated me more than anything. My grandmother was the affectionate one. I could only remember one instance where he’d demonstrated an interest in me, and that was the night he’d asked about my intent to study mythology in college. It was the first time I’d felt a real connection to him. It was also the night he’d given me his coin pendant, producing it through sleight of hand. I understood his distance in hindsight, of course. He’d been busy trying to save his family and the world. Still, to receive that yearned-for approval now…
“What about Jordan?” Malachi asked.
I sipped my tea, the leaf strong and bitter, and tried to swallow away the lump in my throat. “Yes,” I managed. “One of our teammates, a druid, left last night to join up with a druid circle in the woods about forty miles north of here. He was supposed to be back at noon today, but he hasn’t returned.”
“The Raven Circle,” Asmus said soberly.
“You know them?” Seay asked.
“They arrived in the city with the early settlers,” he said. “When a member was seen feeding her baby blood from a raven’s skull, a mob gathered. The group fled into the wilderness before they could be lynched. They carried a sacred tree with them and became a closed community. Very wary of outsiders.”
“That doesn’t sound good,” Gorgantha muttered.
No, it didn’t. And now we had a choice to make.
“It’s been twenty-four hours since Jordan left,” I said to the team. “Do we go in search of him? Or do we make a move on the prison ship?”
“Prison ship,” Seay said. “We reached my friends in time, but if the demons suspect we’re onto them, they could decide to move the druids. Or claim their souls permanently … like they did to the merfolk.” She said the last part haltingly and rested a consoling hand on the back of Gorgantha’s.
“I agree,” Gorgantha whispered.
Malachi nodded even as he frowned. “More than anything, Jordan wants his wife rescued. I vote ship too.”
“It’s ship for me as well,” I said.
“Then you will travel due east,” my grandfather said, “over pasture, stream, and salt meadow until you reach the East River. There, you will be opposite Wallabout Bay. I will ride ahead and arrange for boats.”
“Can your friends travel?” I asked Seay.
“They’ll have to. Our portal back to the present is on the Brooklyn side of the river.”
“Good point.” I turned to Asmus. “So we’ll be a party of twenty-four.”
“Five boats will be waiting.” He scooted back his chair and stood. “You may stay and plan, though I advise you to move this night. The air is damp. The river will provide a good mist for cover.” With that, he strode from the kitchen.
I took the quill and ink well and expanded his drawing until I had produced the Manhattan and Brooklyn shorelines, Wallabout Bay, and the approximate locations of the farmhouse and the prison ship. I estimated the distance to the shore to be a little over a half mile and that across the river another quarter.
“I know your friends are still recovering,” I said to Seay, “but will they—”
“Oh, they’ll want a piece of the action,” she cut in. “They are not happy about the whole getting demon-possessed.”
“Good,” I said. “Because I have a feeling we’re going to need all the firepower we can gather.”
I pushed the parchment over to her and Gorgantha’s side of the table and set the quill and ink beside it.
“The ship will have a deck and a large hull,” I said. “The druids should be below. Assume British soldiers, mercreatures, possessed druids, a powerful demon, and come up with an approach and attack plan.”
“Gee, that’s all?” Seay said.
“We’ll review it when I get back.”
“Where you off to?” Gorgantha asked.
“To try to convince my grandfather of something.”
I found him leading a horse from a stable by the reins, the large chestnut creature already saddled.
“Wait,” I called, running toward them through the tall grass.
My grandfather stopped, but rather than turn, he began adjusting the harness.
“I was, ah, hoping to talk to you,” I said.
“Are you referring to me or my horse?”
My panting breaths caught on a sudden laugh. I’d almost forgotten his droll sense of humor whic
h peeked out from time to time, always when least expected. He had a mischievous side, something I only recognized after his death. Though his tall back remained to me, I imagined his thin smile.
“Does she talk?” I asked, arriving behind him.
“This one? No.”
“I only ask because I have a cat that does. Unfortunately.”
“That must get interesting.”
“Oh, don’t get me started.”
He chuckled as he finished adjusting the harness, then his voice turned serious. “I know why you’ve come. It is about the time catch.”
“It sounds farfetched, I know, but if you’d just consider the possibility.”
He exhaled through his nose as he faced me. “Whether it is true or not, Everson, I cannot allow myself to doubt this.” He motioned around the farmland, then patted the horse’s solid flank. “I cannot begin to second-guess what I am doing. If you know Marlow, as you seem to, then you understand our situation.”
“Would it help if I told you—”
“No,” he cut in, his gaze suddenly fierce. “I want no information about what happens.”
I was only going to say that everything turned out okay. But I understood his reaction. If he accepted this was a time catch, then he would also have to accept that nothing he did here would make any difference. And if he accepted that, and this wasn’t a time catch, everything could be jeopardized.
Still, I wanted him on our team.
“Isn’t there a way to test this reality?” I asked.
He smiled, though whether at my earnestness or naïveté I couldn’t say. “Anything I cast would only reinforce the reality of here. This version of Asmus Croft and this version of reality are inseparable. The only true test would be for me to view this place from the outside. But if it is as you say, I cannot leave without being obliterated. Though a positive result in theory, it would be very negative for me.”
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