Given the lack of visibility in the air, I don’t need to go up as high to avoid people seeing us. Sophia’s more comfortable, even though a fall from 200 feet would still be deadly. This altitude makes me more nervous because if the harness slips off and she falls, I have less time to react and catch her than if we’d been at 1,500 feet. If she had jeans on, we could have secured the thigh straps. No chance of her slipping out then.
Grr.
Once we’re cruising and I’m horizontal so she can lay on top of me, she lets go of the harness over my chest, bracing her elbows against my back and conjuring the pointer. Even wearing a puffy winter coat, her little bony elbows are like daggers.
“Turn left… bit more. Bit more. Wait. Stop. Back to the right. Stop!”
I slow to a hover.
“No, I meant stop turning, not stop flying.” She points. “Go that way.”
“Are you going to be able to see him from up here?”
“Not past all this snow, but the compass is a ball. When it points down, I’ll know he’s close.” She points to the right. “Over there, now.”
I turn.
We fly a few minutes before Sophia yells. “Eight o’clock. He just went way off to the side. Maybe we passed over him.”
I swing a left turn.
“Straight,” says Sophia. “I’m pretty sure I can convince him to move on.”
“What if he doesn’t want to? He didn’t seem too talkative last time.”
“Umm. Theresa showed me how I can push him into the gateway. It’s much harder, but I can probably do it… only ’cause the jar thing. Like, any other ghost I probably couldn’t since I’m too new.”
I’d question why the ghost left her alone if she has so much power over him, but undead serial killers tortured for several centuries probably aren’t the most rational minds. But if Asher’s right, maybe he can’t do anything to her, at least not directly. Makes sense why he’d have left her alone then.
She points again. We turn.
For the better part of an hour, I feel like a giant drunken moth chasing a candle taped to another drunken moth. We zig-zag back and forth across London. My clothes are soaked from snow and my hair’s developing ice patches. Either her spell is seriously confused, or the ghost is teleporting around.
“Are you sure that compass works?” I yell over the wind.
“Yes. I think he’s moving. Most of the mystics left the safety of the wards at the same time. Mr. Maltby is like a big guy with no self-control at a buffet. Doesn’t know what to grab first and wants to eat everything at once.”
I chuckle.
“Nine o’clock!” yells Sophia.
I veer left, pulling out of the turn when she thrusts her arm past my head, pointing.
Not sure which direction we’re going. The snow makes it impossible for me to see much but a blurry glow from ground-level lights. Hope builds as we keep going straight for way longer than he stayed in one place before. I fly faster, trusting we’re getting somewhere at last. Also, I’m worried. If the ghost has stopped bouncing around, he must have chosen a victim.
A few minutes later, Sophia yells, “Stop!”
I metaphorically slam on the brakes.
Sophia lurches forward. Fortunately, I have the reflexes to duck before her helmet cracks me in the back of the skull.
“Ugh. We went past. Dot’s pointing down,” wheezes Sophia.
“Sorry. Stopped a bit hard.”
“Yeah…”
I swing around and ease into free fall. Sophia squeals in alarm, so I slow a bit, allowing her weight to settle against me.
“Keep going down. Bit to the right. More… okay, we’re on top of him!”
We dive through the snow; for a brief moment, we’re falling at the same speed as the flakes, which looks super bizarre. Imagine a pillow exploding into fluff in zero-G. All these little white things hanging in space around me, neither falling nor going up. The ground comes into view, so I slow, letting the suspended ice crystals pull ahead.
The ghost has gone after one of the mystics who lives outside the city. No damn idea where we are as far as a map goes, but it’s a modest house with a good amount of land around it. A few lights inside give away someone being home.
I land about fifteen feet from the front porch, up to my ankles in snow. It’s still coming down pretty hard. I do a slow turn, gazing around us at lots of white stuff, a fence, trees coated in ice, and a small SUV not as covered as everything else. Someone recently drove it. Sophia unclips the two carabiners joining our harnesses and drops to her feet. Klepto’s little grey head pokes out the neck of her winter coat, below her chin.
My sister lifts her helmet’s visor, looking around. “It’s really dark.”
As if on cue, three lights on the house turn on, illuminating the front yard.
The door opens.
Leslie Elliot steps out onto the porch, approaching the steps. “What’re you two doin’ ’ere?”
“Umm…” I say. “Following the—”
A phantasmal blur manifests in the doorway and rushes at Leslie from behind. I launch myself toward her, the world around me seeming to descend into slow motion as my reflexes speed up. The woman’s feet shoot out from under her, yanked by the passing ghost. His tortured face leers at me for an instant before he swerves away and streaks off to the right. Leslie hangs in midair, creeping downward, drifting forward. I picture it happening before it does. Her head is going to hit the second step from the bottom. Icy bricks. Broken neck or cracked open skull.
I dive into flight, accelerating as much as I can in such a short distance—and cruise into the porch with a meaty smack.
Good news: Leslie lands on top of me, not bashing open her head.
Bad news: I hit the bricks so hard, my neck broke.
No big deal. Nothing I can’t walk off.
Leslie slides off me into the snow, screaming from the fall.
No reason for me to move just yet.
“Cripes! Bugger’s ’ere isn’t he? Bastard came for me.” Leslie grabs my arm. “Good on ya for gettin’ ’ere in time.” She pulls me up, notices my head swaying around like a bowling ball in a plastic shopping bag, screams, then bursts into tears.
“Chill out. I’m fine.”
She screams again… and faints.
“Hey, wait!” yells Sophia. “I wanna talk!”
Rapid crunching of small feet in snow trails off into the distance.
Dammit. I grab a fistful of my hair in my left hand, holding my head upright. Seems I’ve suffered a pretty bad break. My neck is like jelly. Doing a kamikaze into a brick porch probably wasn’t the best way to go about saving this woman’s life, but it’s a bit late for regrets. Flying into her at full speed wouldn’t have ended well either. Maybe the ghost tried to trick me into doing it since he seems to like complicated deaths. Simply pushing the woman down icy stairs is awfully basic for him.
Sophia runs across the field toward the woods, shouting at the spirit to wait for her.
Leslie comes to and looks at me as if about to scream again.
“Seriously, relax. I’m fine,” I wheeze.
“You don’t look fine, luv. Are you… holding your head up in your hand?”
“Yeah. I’ll be okay in about twenty minutes.”
“Cripes. I can’t even look at ya.”
I extend my fangs. “Does this help?”
She glances over. “Gah! Why would you ask me if that helps? Cripes, no!”
“Oh. Sorry.” I retract them. “Thought it might make me seem a bit more paranormal than a teenage girl with a broken neck, not be so disturbing.”
“Cripes,” wheezes Leslie. “Yer gonna give me a coronary.”
“Please yell to Sophia not to run into the woods. I’m stuck rasping until my throat mends.”
Leslie stands. “Oy, lass. C’mon back ’ere. Don’t ya run off alone.”
A moment passes.
“Don’t see ’er.” Leslie pauses, then yells, “Sop
hia? C’mon back ta the ’ouse.”
I try to sigh, but produce a noise more like boiling jelly. Scott ran around after I tore his head completely off his body, and he wasn’t even a full vampire. An internal decapitation shouldn’t slow me down. I wobble to my feet.
“Where are you goin’? Yer head’s not on straight.”
“Can’t leave Sophia alone.”
“What are you gonna do if something’s out there? Yer head’ll be floppin inta yer chest. Sit tight. I’ll go.”
“The spirit’s after you. It’s a bad idea for you to run off into the woods at night in a snowstorm.”
“Sophia?” shouts Leslie. “Oy, luv, where are ya?”
Silence worries and relieves me. If something bad happened, she’d have screamed. But, Sophia should also be answering us. Grr. I start walking, still holding my head up by hand. Leslie follows. Dumb of me to get into a fight with a Jell-O neck. Dumb of her to do anything until the ghost is dealt with. Does two people doing a half-witted thing make for a full wit, or does the multiplicative property of dumbassery mean we’re only worth a quarter-wit?
The pair of us going off into the woods feels about as smart as a guy using a torch to investigate a natural gas leak at night. At least he’ll be damn sure if he finds it—for a thousandth of a second. Snow might be a pain in the ass, but it does make it super easy to follow my sister. Less so once we’re in the trees, but enough of a dusting reached the ground for a trail of footprints to continue.
A high-pitched scream comes from the forest up ahead.
“Oh, shit.” I break into a run.
27
Elder Magic
Running while supporting the weight of my head in my hand is a bizarre sensation.
All sorts of squishing goes on in places that shouldn’t be squishing. I don’t think about it much, too focused on getting to Sophia. Her screaming grows faint as though she rushed away at high speed.
“Where did ya go?” calls Leslie, well behind me.
“Here!”
Doubt she heard me rasping, but I keep racing along the small footprint trail—right up until Sophia’s tracks abruptly cease. The last footprints are smeared, like she swerved to face something leaping at her. Her silver motorcycle helmet lays on the ground a short distance to the right and a little farther ahead. My first thought is the ghost grabbed her, but I’m not sure the spirit is even capable of doing so. She obviously didn’t fly away on her own. I’ve heard of giant eagles ambushing small dogs or cats, even toddlers, and trying to carry them away… but Sophia’s a little big for an eagle to haul off.
Also, her screaming would’ve gone up into the air—which it didn’t do. And, if a bird, vampire, or for all I know, gargoyle, carried her into the sky, she’d still be shrieking. Yet, the forest is completely silent.
Color saturates the world around me, the browns and greens of the snowy forest becoming vibrant in a radiant area. Someone’s got a light source. I turn my entire body around, hoping the less I move my jelly neck, the faster it will heal. Leslie walks up to me, a tennis-ball sized light orb floating above her left hand.
“She’s gone,” I say, in a surprisingly calm voice. Dad gave me his skinny genes. Guess Mom gave me her crisis management. “Tracks stop short here. I think something jumped out at her, but I don’t see any other tracks.”
Leslie stoops to examine the ground. “Aye. She twisted away from somethin’”
“Someone kidnapped my sister again.” I growl.
The poor woman jumps. “Ya hear that?”
“What?”
“Sounded like a cougar. Ain’t s’posed ta be any o’ them ’round ’ere. Fink it’s a werewolf?”
“Just me. I’m angry.”
“Oh. ’Ang on a moment, luv.”
Leslie pulls a small pouch out from under her coat on a cord around her neck. From it, she pours a bunch of little runestones into her hand. After using her foot to clear an area of snow, she crouches, holding the stones in both hands over the dirt patch. Eyes closed, she whispers a few lines in—I think—Latin while shaking the stones around like she’s playing Yahtzee.
High-pitched squealing starts up inside my head. Oh, goody. My bones must be knitting. I grab my head in both hands, trying to keep it positioned in as natural an orientation as possible. A wicked itch starts inside my neck. It’s almost enough to make me want to tear my throat open so I can scratch the deep muscles. I don’t, though, and force myself to be content with snarling.
Leslie dumps the runestones on the ground and pores over them.
My neck tightens. Seconds later, a loud crack echoes in my head with a sensation like someone whacked me on the skull—no skin in the way—with a carpenter’s hammer.
“Oy, someone’s comin’,” whispers Leslie.
“Nah. You didn’t hear a twig snap.”
“Loud as anything.”
“My neck.”
She blinks at me. “You takin’ the Mick?”
“No idea what you just said.”
“I asked if yer messin’ wif me?”
“No.” I blink, gasp, and let go of my hair, allowing my neck to once again support the weight of my head. “See? Back to rights.”
“What on Earth happened?”
“The ghost tried to sweep you off your feet so you would fall down your porch and break your neck. I flew at like motorcycle speed into bricks. You landed on top of me instead of the stone, and didn’t die.”
“Fanks for that, luv.”
“Welcome.” I squeeze my fists tight. “Where’s Sophia?”
“Magic happened here.” She points at the runestones.
I gaze up. “Oh, look. Sky.”
“Come again?”
I give her a flat stare. “No kidding there’s magic in the area. You basically pointed out the sky exists.”
She shakes her head. “No… I mean something happened right at this spot and recently.”
“Are you sure you aren’t sensing Sophia’s presence or the magic she’s using to find the ghost?”
“Quite.” Leslie points at the stones as if they mean something. “The magic done here was strong. Ancient. Elder magic.”
“Theresa?”
“No, lass. Stop bein’ daft.” She swats at me. “Not ‘elder’ as in old person. Elder as in magic older than human kind. Fey. Demons maybe.”
“Sons of bitches.” I peel off my harness and hand it to her. “Hang on to this, okay? I think I know where she is. Only thing I don’t know is how they slipped my compulsion.”
“All right.” Leslie picks up the helmet. “I’ll mind this fer her, too.”
28
Darkness and Doubt
Snow hits me in the face like tiny daggers.
My theory about emotion affecting my flight speed is true. According to my phone, I’m doing 174 on the way to Jacob and Katy’s mansion. I don’t have any idea how the hell they managed to sidestep my command to leave her alone. Maybe they summoned a demon and commanded it to make sure the spirit gets to finish murdering the rest of the Aurora Aurea mystics. Anything they summon wouldn’t be subject to my mental programming.
But, if they knew for a certainty the creature they created would go after my sister, would my compulsion prevent them from summoning it in the first place? My emotion had been pretty high when I hammered the concept into their brains. Magic is involved, though, which means any rules of logic don’t necessarily apply, only esoteric arcane rules so complicated they make the average online sweepstakes terms and conditions seem like two plus two.
Wonder if they realized they’d been affected by a mental command and found a way to get rid of it?
Either way… no more Ms. Nice Girl.
I dive into a hard landing right on the porch and kick the door.
It’s flimsier than it looks—my foot goes through it. Standing there on one leg with one foot stuck in the door pisses me off even more. I pull my leg out and kick again, aiming for a spot above the doorknob rather than the
center of the door. Aha. Bingo. The door flies open with enough force to almost come off the hinges.
I storm across the foyer, hunting for either stairs or a dumbass mystic in need of a beating.
Voices from an archway on the left draw my attention. Just so happens, I discover all three at the same time—stairs, Katy, and Jacob.
“Where is she?” I ask, my voice more snarl than voice.
“Where is who?” Jacob steps toward me, one eyebrow up.
I grab him and throw him aside. He crashes into the wallpaper above the wainscoting, his body horizontal, his head breaking an oval hole in the drywall on impact. Mostly limp, he falls straight down, crushing a small table and two little vases.
Katy backpedals, starting to scream.
I lunge, grab two fistfuls of her expensive top, and slam her against the opposite wall, holding her up off her feet. So what if I have to look up at her? I’m not tall enough to be intimidating. Her being off the ground is more effective than me looking down on her.
“Where is my sister?”
She gurgles, unable to speak or breathe due to the force I’m exerting on her chest. The woman feebly grabs at my wrists, inflicting mild scratches I barely notice.
Snap.
An irritating, stinging pain jabs me in the back. I peer over my shoulder. Jacob, still on the floor, blood gushing from his nose, struggles to keep his arm—and his small pistol—pointing up at me.
“Oh, you found it. Shoot me again, and you’ll need a surgeon to remove the gun from your intestines. And I’m not going to make you swallow it.”
His eyes widen.
Katy starts to go limp. I ease off on the pressure. She sucks in a huge breath.
“Where. Is. Sophia?”
“We haven’t seen her,” yells Jacob.
“We didn’t touch the girl. We wouldn’t dare!” rasps Katy.
Vampire Innocent (Book 9): An Introduction To Paranormal Diplomacy Page 24