by Jamie Davis
Her stomach churning, Quinn yanked off the goggles and headset and rolled to the side of the desk in Taylor’s office. Taylor was ready for her and handed her a plastic trash can. Quinn grabbed it from her and proceeded to empty her stomach as waves of nausea struck her.
Taylor keyed her headset. “I’ve got her, Clark. Come on home.”
“What about the book?” Clark asked.
“That’s here too, and she didn’t throw up all over it, so we’re good.”
Taylor knelt so her head was level with the tabletop. “How ya doing, hon?”
Quinn handed Taylor the trash can and sat up, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “That was the worst one yet. I thought you said you’d worked out the kinks for the return trip?”
“I did if you were able to get close to the point of entry. I still don’t know how VirSync’s engineers and programmers got it to operate so smoothly. The transmission in their version of the system was usually silky-smooth.”
“For you, maybe. I always had major headaches after going into the system for them.”
Miranda floated over. “Maybe it means the issue is with you and not the programming. Your hunter blood could be resisting the magic and technology coupled together. I’ll have to think about that.”
Quinn looked around until she found the life tome. It sat at the edge of the desk behind her, where she’d dropped it as soon as she landed. She slid it over to sit beside it and tried to open it.
“No,” Miranda said. “Don’t open it. Magical seals likely protect it. Let Taylor and me examine it first.”
Taylor took the book from Quinn. “You can’t read Latin anyway. Go. Get cleaned up and get some rest. It’ll still be here in the morning.”
Quinn nodded. Taylor was right, of course. Nothing in the book would make sense to her. She slid off the desk and started up to her room. The trip had exhausted her, so maybe she’d wait to shower in the morning.
Chapter Sixteen
Two days later, Taylor checked on Clark to see how the translation was coming. He sighed and sat up, arching his back to stretch, then hunched over the book again and ran his finger down the text as he tried to read the Latin script. Taylor couldn’t help but chuckle at his exasperation. When he said his Latin was rusty, he wasn’t kidding.
She noted his phone sitting next to the book, open to a translation app. This was the third occasion Taylor caught him checking a word or phrase in his phone, so she called him on it. “Clark, if you’re just going to have the internet to do the translation for you, there’s a better way, and we won’t take weeks doing it.”
He looked up and blushed. “I really should have paid more attention when I was a kid, but I never saw any reason to learn it. I was not going to be a scholar or a mage, so what did I need it for?”
“And yet, here we are,” Taylor said. “Look, I might have another idea that will get this done a lot faster. Are you willing to let me have a go?”
“My God, yes. All I can think about is still working on this a month from now. There are a lot of more important things I have to do out there. We’ve got to track down Handon’s new location in addition to blocking the things they’ve done when we couldn’t track them.”
“Well, go do that. If I need to check back with you for help, I will.”
Clark pushed his chair back and stood, then slid the open book over to Taylor and left. She noted that in two days, he’d only made it to the fourth page of what looked like several hundred. She smiled, shaking her head.
Taylor took the book back to her office and cleared a spot on her desk alongside the triple monitors. She propped the book on the stand she usually used for her tablet, then turned to page one and pulled out her phone. Time to get to work.
Three hours later, Taylor flipped to the next page and held her phone steady, making sure the new page filled the frame. She tapped the button to take the picture and then moved to the other side to catch the opposite page. The laborious process took a long time, but it was exponentially better than trusting Clark’s painfully slow and unreliable translation skills. Taylor had made it about a third of the way through the enormous book in just three hours.
That was just the page scanning process, of course. After that was completed, she could rely on an online scanning and translation app a hacker friend of hers had appropriated from a government server. It would take all the scanned pages and create translations for each alongside a photographic representation of the real page. The whole process with the app would take about an hour, and most of that would be spent in setting up the correct parameters.
Taylor stretched and then checked the book to see how many more pages there were in the section she was working on. The whole first part of the book was lists of what looked like place names and people’s names followed by dates. The earliest time in the life tome was November 1st, 804 A.D. Beside it, someone had written two names. Taylor wondered if they were the original members of the clan in Europe.
There were only three more pages in the section, so Taylor decided to wrap them up and then take a break. She needed to get outside and feel the sunshine on her face and the cool autumn breeze in her hair. It drained her to be cooped up like this under ordinary circumstances, and it was worse ever since the werewolf had bitten her. She’d become even antsier to get outside and take in the richer sensory experience.
Taylor turned the page and took the picture, then moved on to take the next one and stopped. A name jumped off the page at her. Taylor leaned forward and scanned higher on the page so she could make out the full entry.
Clark had been able to interpret some of the symbols used with the names during his two days of studying the book. He’d shown them to Taylor and explained what little he knew. The first entry in the group that had caught her eye listed “Naomi Rodriguez.” She had the tiny arrow sigil next to it, designating her a member of the hunter clan that had settled in Baltimore. Most of the entries in the book were from the same clan, designated by the tiny arrow.
Next to Naomi was the name “Brian LoFasso.” It had no symbol next to it, which designated he was a normal human, or a mundane, as Clark put it. From what she’d seen so far, mundanes had married into the clan infrequently over the years. This was one such occasion. The date next to it Taylor took to be a wedding or betrothal date.
What had jumped off the page at Taylor and made her stop was the next part. Naomi and Brian were just the beginning of a family entry. The third entry in that grouping was what had caught her eye.
Below Naomi’s and Brian’s names, there was one more listing dated a little more than eighteen years ago.
Quintana Rodriguez-LoFasso
Quintana? Could that be Quinn? It could just be a coincidence. She would have been born right in the middle of the two years of the purges. Quinn was abandoned almost eighteen years ago as an infant. That put it in the right timeframe.
Taylor sat back and stared at the page, her eyes drifting back up to rest on the mother’s name.
Naomi Rodriguez
What were the odds there were two Naomis who used to be part of the hunter clan in the area? Taylor would have to check the other modern listings, but she was willing to bet this was the same one. Maybe there was another reason she didn’t attack Quinn on sight at the library.
This changed everything. She had to talk to someone about this, and it couldn’t be Clark or Quinn. Both of them had too much emotion tied up in it. That left one other person.
“Miranda?” Taylor called. “You floating around somewhere close?”
The ghost didn’t manifest unless she was there to help with something specific, but Taylor had discovered she wasn’t far away most of the time, at least in spirit-realm terms.
“What is it?” Miranda said from directly behind Taylor.
Taylor jumped and spun around in her swivel chair. “God, you scared me.”
“You called me. Weren’t you expecting me to show up?” Miranda smiled, enjoying the moment. “What d
id you want, anyway? You’re not still working on that book, are you?”
“I am, and you’re not going to believe what I found. Check this entry out.”
Taylor stabbed a finger at the book, pointing out the listing. She waited while Miranda leaned in and looked at it.
Miranda’s eyes widened as she hovered over the book, and she turned to Taylor, her mouth open. “You think—”
“I do.” Taylor nodded.
“Do you think Naomi knows who Quinn is?”
“She’d have to, wouldn’t she? Especially if she stayed here in the city the whole time. How many orphaned huntresses with superpowers named Quinn are there in Baltimore? Naomi would have been changed into a vampire pretty soon after her capture. It explains a lot, actually. She could’ve kept tabs on Quinn, watching over her daughter even if she couldn’t raise her.” Taylor held up a finger as an idea came into her head. “That’s why she allowed herself to be turned!” she exclaimed.
“You think she managed to keep tabs on her daughter after she was changed into a vampire? Why would Handon allow her out of his sight?” Miranda asked.
“I don’t know the answer to that, but possibly she did whatever she had to so she could gain his trust and loosen the leash a little bit. This explains something else Quinn told me when we first met. She always talked about her luck and how bad things happened to people who tried to hurt her. Some of that was because Quinn fought back, even as a little girl, but she tells stories from living on the streets about bad people who would just disappear. The street people told her the shadows watched over her. It could have been a vampire secretly guarding her while she slept.
Miranda glanced at the entry in the life tome. “We can’t tell anyone. Not until we verify it.”
Taylor nodded. “Don’t worry about it. Quinn has big-time parental issues. I wouldn’t know how to tell her about her mother even if we’d found out her mom was alive and working as a diner waitress. Telling her that her mom is a vampire who secretly followed her the whole time she was growing up? That’s something I don’t even want to think about.”
“Think about what?” Quinn asked from the doorway.
Taylor spluttered, fumbling for an answer, but Miranda rescued her.
“We’re looking at all the names of the hunter clan members at the beginning of the book. All of them are dead, except for Clark. It’s kind of horrible.”
Quinn nodded. “It’s one of the things I’m looking forward to taking out on Handon, that Naomi chick, Myles, and all the rest. They’ve caused enough pain in this world. As soon as my amulet is restored, we will take the fight to them.”
She walked in and sat down opposite Taylor at the desk. “Can I look at the book? I haven’t had a good look since I brought it back.”
Taylor picked it up from the stand where it was propped for scanning and slid it over to Quinn. She flipped a few pages as she did, making sure Quinn didn’t see the page with her name on it.
Quinn took it and flipped forward, staring at each page as willing the words to make sense to her. After a while, she stopped and closed the book. “Any luck finding the spell to repair my amulet?”
“Not yet,” Taylor replied. “I should finish scanning the pages tomorrow. Then I’ll start the process of translating them. A wild guess would be a few days? I don’t know for sure.”
Miranda moved around and sat by the end of the desk. “Quinn, Taylor might not find what we’re looking for. Even if she does, I can promise you it’s not going to be a simple fix since the magic that goes into things like your amulet is as complex as it is powerful.”
“I’m not a complete idiot, Miranda,” Quinn said. “None of this has been easy. You, of all of us, are the proof of that. The problem is, I can’t shake the feeling that the amulet, with its connection to my lost family and me, is important somehow.”
Quinn closed the book and stood. “I have to go meet Clark. He has a new training program planned for today,” she said. She pointed at the book. “Keep looking. That’s all I ask.”
She left the room, and Taylor pulled the book back to her side of the desk. Flipping it open and finding the page where she left off, Taylor began scanning the pages once more while Miranda watched.
Chapter Seventeen
The next day, Quinn and Clark sat in the kitchen at the table, working at the daily ritual of caring for their blessed blades. Clark had his short sword out on the table while he slowly used a cloth to rub a fine coating of oil on the knife to protect the steel and silver alloy from rust and tarnish.
Across from him, Quinn ran her Bowie knife across the sharpening stone with smooth, even strokes. She flipped the blade over and began working on the bevel on the opposite side. Once the metal had been honed to an optimal edge, she’d complete the work as Clark did with the oil. She took her time, finding the whole thing to be a sort of meditation where she could calm her thoughts and focus on something simpler to understand than her complicated life.
Clark smiled as he watched her work. “You’re getting really good at that, Quinn. I remember when I first taught you. I didn’t think you’d ever get the hang of adding a double angle to the edge to help maintain it in combat.”
“I guess I appreciate my blade a lot more now. It’s saved me enough times.”
Clark laughed. “That’s the whole point, right?”
Quinn groaned at his joke. He tried to work it into every conversation about their blades. She held up the Bowie and checked the edge with her thumb. It was ready, and she picked up the cloth to begin applying the oil.
Taylor came into the kitchen, a distinct bounce in her step and a broad grin on her face. Miranda floated along behind her.
“I found it,” Taylor announced, holding up her phone.
“The amulet spell?” Quinn asked.
“Well, it’s a series of spells and rituals, but yeah.”
Taylor came over and pulled a chair around to sit beside Quinn. She put her phone on the table and pointed to the image of one of the Tome’s pages on the screen. “This is the first of six pages which discuss the creation of the protection amulets.”
Quinn examined the screen. “It looks like a list or a recipe, but in Latin.”
“It kind of is,” Taylor replied. “This is a collection of three specific components needed. Below that there are the six separate enchantments used in the process. The magic is addressed in more detail throughout the following pages. They show the actual process and ritual involved. The components are something else and present a problem.”
“Why, is there a shortage of eye of newt?” Clark asked.
Miranda said, “No, but we don’t know where they are. We think at least some of them will have to be retrieved from those who took them when the clan was destroyed. I know where one is already, we’ll go back to that later. Another is some special scrying bowl I’ve never heard of. The third is a ceremonial dagger. I think that has to be the dagger stolen from Clark’s friend by the slayers. It’s needed to gather the one final thing which I think will be easiest to get. I mean, it’s probably not that much more difficult to get our hands on fae blood than it used to be a few hundred years ago.”
“Blood? From a fae?” Quinn asked. “What kind of rituals are involved in this?”
“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” Taylor said, laughing a little. “From what I can tell, we’re not talking about a lot of blood. It’s just a few drops, but it is required. You can’t substitute something else mystical like werewolf blood, for example. It has to be fae blood.”
“Not just any blood either,” Miranda added.
“I was getting to that,” Taylor said. “The instructions refer to what translates as ‘high-born’ fae blood. Miranda takes it to mean the blood of a noble. I think it could just refer to the fae in general.”
Clark shook his head. “Either way, getting fae blood without killing one is problematic. I don’t know how they did it when the clan was still around, but it’s not like we can sneak into a blo
od bank and get some. Maybe they waited until a fae went rogue, and then they collected the blood during the hunt. Now that it’s just us, I’m not sure what we can do.”
Quinn thought for a second and said, almost off-hand, “Maybe we just ask for some.”
Clark laughed. “What, walk up to a random fae on the street and ask him for a little bit of blood?”
Quinn shrugged. “I don’t hear a better idea,” she said. She turned and looked at Clark. “Okay, we know some fae, or you do, at least. Where do we find a fae willing to bleed a little for us, preferably a ‘high-born’ one?”
“You really want to do this?” Clark shook his head when Quinn nodded and ran his hands through his graying hair. “There are a few hangouts downtown we could check out. I don’t know how they’ll feel about us showing up asking for blood from their patrons, but it isn’t the craziest thing I’ve done since joining this clan.”
Quinn didn’t miss Clark’s reference to their little group as “a clan.” It broadened the smile that was already on her face. “Good, then let’s do this. When do we leave?”
Clark glanced at his watch. “The places I’m thinking of won’t open until after dark, so we have a few hours. Let’s get in a few rounds of training, and then we can shower and leave.”
“I’m definitely going along on this one,” Taylor said. “I’ve been cooped up here at home for too long.”
Clark started to say something, then shrugged and nodded. “Fine, you can come, too.”
“Yes,” Taylor said, pumping her fist. “Clubbing with the fae. It’s going to be so much fun.”
“How do you know?” Miranda asked with a huge grin on her face. “You’ve never been to a fae club before.”
“Honestly, I haven’t been to many clubs, but hey, it’s a fae club. It sounds like the definition of a magical night.”
Clark headed to the door. “Come on, Quinn. Maybe I can drum a little of that enthusiasm out of you in the training room.”