The problem was of course, would be explaining how she had the information, only Berny and Ed were aware she had elemental servants. Or at least, the only ones that were here.
It hadn’t come up with Josh at all, he’d only filled in for a month, and honestly it just hadn’t come up. Plus, she didn’t really know him that well, outside of what Kelly told her about him. He was very private, and more often than not he was short and impatient with the people around him.
Paul didn’t know because he’d been gone, she was pretty sure he was trustworthy. Of course, that was before she’d shot him down and started living with his partner, she still wasn’t sure exactly how that would shake out.
Not that many others knew. Her fae mother certainly, and Bria knew because she’d flat out caught her as Bria had fae blood as well. Other than that no one else really knew, and she didn’t want the knowledge out there. Still, how could she hold it back when it would only be putting her team in danger? She couldn’t, if anything happened to anyone because of her holding back… she wouldn’t be able to live with herself.
She sighed, “So… the house is on the outskirts of a suburban neighborhood, fairly close to Kissimmee state park. They do have privacy from the neighbors, the land is privacy fenced, and there are a lot of bushes and trees. There are two men outside, covering the front and back door. Eight more inside the house. One is in one of the secondary bedrooms with Carl, two others are in the basement with one shifted. The other five seem to either be resting, or relaxing in other rooms in the house.
“There are two wards. One is on the house itself and doesn’t affect us, I believe Karina set it so she’d know if they harmed Carl, or tried to move him out of the house. The second ward is on the property line, and will set off an alarm amulet if anyone not on the approved list enters the property. I can take care of the second ward before we enter the property. Does that help?”
She didn’t bother mentioning how she got the information.
Paul turned toward her, “How do you know all that.”
“Magic,” she smiled with faux innocence, “The important thing is we know enough to make a better plan, and we have a little less than two hours to do so.”
Paul raised an eyebrow.
She shrugged, “Witch stuff,” and left it at that.
She thought he’d understand, after all she had all those shifter secrets she held for the werewolves, weretigers, and werebears. She thought he might ask her about it later, but for now he was holding his peace. She knew her poor explanation would have been called out by another witch, but fortunately it was both witches in the group that already knew the secret of her fae ancestry.
Josh asked, “You can take down the ward without them knowing?”
She shook her head, “No, if it’s disconnected from the amulet, the alarm will go off. I’m going to disable the part that… calls the amulet if someone the ward doesn’t recognize enters. It will recognize us as intruders, and be connected to the amulet still, but I will disconnect those two parts from each other.”
To change the subject, she cast glamour on the roof of the minivan where everyone could see, a bird’s eye view of the property where everyone could see where the two guards were, the front and back door, and the available cover on the property.
Ed said, “This is great, let’s get to work.”
They used the rest of the trip to make a plan, and even had time to refine it a handful of times. They were about as ready as they could get…
Chapter 9
She had no doubt the five of them could take out the enemy, the trick was going to be doing that without getting either of the hostages killed. Worse, Karina may side with her captors against them, until they can prove they have the witch’s son. Right now the young witch was to be considered both a victim to be rescued, and as an enemy.
Her and Paul were shifted, Josh was staying in his human form since inside a house was very close quarters for an above average sized bear. Tigers were fairly large as well, but they were sleeker and nimbler. They’d approached a point on the property out of view of the front and back doors.
Silva waited patiently as she cast a pinpoint dispersal spell, directed at the right spot within the ward to disable it, but not completely collapse it. She had a certain advantage working from inside their mind as well, she could concentrate on magic while Silva handled any physical obstacles or fighting. The other advantage was her spells, she could intone the words from the back of their shared mind, and no one could hear her do it, or identify what she might be casting.
Silva growled low and jumped over the fence, and the rest of the team followed. Ed cast a glamour to disguise their presence, they had a clear run to the house out of sight from the front and back door, but there were windows. There were a lot of trees and bushes on the property, but not nearly enough to give them cover for the whole approach.
When they reached the side of the house, she crouched and looked up at the window. She could feel the young male witch inside that room, presumably Carl, along with a werewolf. She waited as Josh headed toward the front of the house, while Paul in tiger form headed toward the back. She watched, a little disturbed, as Ed and Berny held hands and then slipped straight down into the ground, as if they’d jumped into a pool of water.
They both had earth affinities.
It was time to execute the plan. Silva crouched as she channeled her air and fire magic, with a sharp mental command, the window shattered and flew outward over her body. She didn’t want to send it inside the room, just in case she hit the boy. Then Silva leapt with a snarl.
This wasn’t training, she had no reason to hold back, and took the guarding werewolf by complete surprise. As soon as she saw him out of Silva’s eyes, she hit him in the upper chest and neck with ball of condensed air, throwing him off balance in addition to hurting him. He had no chance to recover, Silva’s rear claws caught the ledge of the window and she lunged forward and swiped the guard’s throat with her long and sharp claws. Then Silva stood before the door, now guarding the boy. She considered turning around, but she could smell the boy’s fear, so did not.
She didn’t like it, she wanted to help out there, since there were five other guards on the ground floor level. She needed to stay though, take out anyone that came for the boy, she was hopeful they would, Paul and Josh were tough, but they were all shifter, and the odds were five on two. That was slightly offset by taking the enemy off guard, but she worried.
She heard what sounded like an explosion, and the whole house shook. She knew that must be Berny and Ed using their earth magic to break through the concrete wall of the cellar, and literally walking out of the earth and into the cellar. The two witches shouldn’t have any issues taking care of one man and one wolf. The only wildcard there was the mother.
She heard the fighting out in the house and Silva’s tail twitched, and she hunkered down to ambush anyone coming through the door. Everything seemed to be going their way, but there was that old adage, a plan doesn’t survive contact with the enemy. It hadn’t even come up as a possibility, they’d been worried about the mother messing up their plans. She heard a sound behind her and Silva whipped her head around, just in time to see the six-year-old boy jump out the window and run for it.
Crap!
Silva sent a thought, “And it was going so well, ” as she leapt out the window after the boy.
In retrospect it wasn’t a surprise that a young boy witch wouldn’t see a huge tiger shifter as a rescuer.
Silva hit the ground at a dead run, it didn’t take long to catch up, she was still considering what to do when they rounded the house, and she saw one of the werewolves holding the boy tightly in one hand, with the other holding a knife to his throat. A second later Josh and Paul came running out. Apparently this one had tried to run for it, and had simply run into the kid. Talk about wrong place, wrong time.
“Stop and don’t move,” the man growled, “or I’ll slit his throat.”
A m
illion ideas ran through her mind and she rejected each one. Fire, air, sleep, stun, and even a deadly split second attack might make him flinch or cut the kid’s throat in the werewolf’s death throes. Then she considered an idea, and finally figured out why someone would create such a heinous and cruel spell, one she swore she’d never have a reason to cast. Turns out her ancestors may have run into a similar situation.
She started casting the spell in the back of Silva’s mind, drawing the power. Silva hardly even took notice as she channeled a four on the scale. Her target started talking but she barely took notice, she only needed about fifteen seconds.
“Both of you shift, now, and back away.”
More people came out of the house, which caused the hostage taker to spin around. Ed, Berny, and she presumed Karina. At least that had worked to plan.
As she finished up the incantation her mind noted the woman was in threadbare torn clothing, and looked like she hadn’t eaten or showered in weeks. She had dark raven hair, haunted gray eyes, and sunken cheeks.
She finished the spell.
CRACK!
It sounded like someone popping a knuckle, except a million times more than that, and louder, more like fire crackers, thousands going off simultaneously.
The man holding Carl screamed in unimaginable pain, and his body collapsed to the ground. His arms and hands looked like bloody mush as the spell shatter destroyed his bones from fingertips to shoulder. Without bones, no muscle movements or contractions would matter, the kid didn’t have a scratch on him as the knife fell to his feet. The man’s screams mercifully cut off as Paul darted in and raked his throat with his claws.
Silva roared in victory, but she cringed in a bit inside, both Karina and Carl were going to need a lot of therapy. Both of them were obviously in shock. She stuck around long enough to see Karina cry out and rush to her son, the boy started crying as his mother held him tight for the first time in who knows how long.
Silva ran back toward the fence and jumped over, when they were by the mini-van, and out of sight, she changed back, reforming back into her human self. She pulled on her clothes quickly, and grabbed a couple of potions, bottles of water, and energy bars. They needed a full meal of course, but this would help, along with one of her potions to promote healing, and stave off shock.
She turned back, hopped the fence, and walked back over to the group. Paul was gone too, presumably to change. She had to coax both of them to drink her potion, afterwards they managed to drink and eat without any prompting.
She said, “You need to come back to Charlotte with us, we’ll give you some time, but we need to know about what spells and enchantments you’ve created for Jake.”
Karina didn’t respond, but they did follow directions as they washed up, and put on some of the spare clothes the team had brought. Right before they left, they put all the dead bodies into the house, and burned it to the ground.
Karina was a little twitchy on the ride toward the airport. She couldn’t even imagine the hell the woman had gone through, she’d obviously been abused mentally and physically. She didn’t think she’d be the right one to ask questions, it would require someone like Fran to draw them out.
Plus, she was part weretiger, she doubted Karina would trust her overly because of that, rescuer or not. The witch was definitely avoiding taking any glancing looks at her, Paul, or Josh during the car ride. It was pretty silent too, all in all the plan had worked well, and they’d rescued who they set out to, but there wasn’t a celebratory feeling, or talk, in the mini-van.
It just would have felt wrong, considering what a mess Karina was in. On an impulse, she sent her air elemental to keep an eye on Jake, she was curious to see what he would do or say when he found out he’d lost his access to magic.
The flight back was better, Silva was settled after getting to shift, and she got a workout of sorts. She wasn’t worried about questioning Karina, the councils would do it and hopefully offer Karina and Carl a place. She was sure she’d find out all about it later, as word got filtered down to the enforcers.
She was looking forward to getting home, taking a shower, and decompressing. It had been a long day, and the excitement of the hunt and the fight had worn off hours ago, buried under the drone of the aircraft’s engines. It came as a complete surprise when they were met getting off the plane by a number of airport security, along with FBI agents Dina Rodriguez and her partner Antonio Alvarez…
Chapter 10
They were directed over to the corner of the gate lounge and Celia decided running would be stupid, so went along with it. She noticed they only pulled the five of them aside, Karina looked nervous for a moment but apparently retained enough equilibrium to simply walk away. She wasn’t sure how the Feds missed the connection there, but she wasn’t about to point out their mistake.
“You need to come with us down to headquarters,” Agent Rodriguez said with an edge in her voice.
The agent looked tense. Her partner seemed relaxed, even bored. Like he wasn’t paying attention. She didn’t buy it for a second, his scent betrayed his true level of readiness.
Ed asked sounding baffled, “For what reason?”
Dina replied, “We have questions for you about your reason for your day trip to Florida, and what might have happened.”
She felt adrenaline fuel her body into wakefulness, Dina glanced at her a bit warily. They were fairly well surrounded by security types.
Ed frowned but nodded.
She wasn’t sure what was going on, but if they were tracking them by their cell phones… they had just burned a house to the ground, not that the agents could prove that. She mentally commanded her fire elemental, since the air one wasn’t available, to go tell Bria the crap they just stepped in, and where she could find and pick up Karina. It would be better to wait, rather than try to mind control their way out of it, they didn’t know the extent of the damage yet.
Could have saving Karina and her son been the wrong decision to make? Had that hastened exposure or made it more likely? She wasn’t sure, but she didn’t think she’d ever regret doing what they did either.
Dina took the lead and they were all escorted to an exit that wasn’t one a traveler would ever use. Through a hallway and out an employee exit they were taken to three government vehicles, with additional agents. So far they weren’t under arrest, but it was clear they were being treated as a serious threat. She tried to remember what was in her backpack, there was nothing too incriminating, a couple of more potions that would test out in a lab as an herbal mixture, nothing else odd.
She wound up in the backseat with Josh. Ed, Paul, and Berny were taken in a different vehicle. She wasn’t sure what to do, since they didn’t have time to talk about their stories in a situation like this. She considered giving an honest response of helping someone out a friend, while leaving out the death and mayhem parts. She was worried of course, that one of the others would give a different benign explanation all together which would be a problem. She had no doubts they would be separated once brought to the FBI field office in Charlotte.
Silva was lashing her tail in the back of her mind, not liking this at all. She wasn’t all that thrilled with the loss of control either, although she was heartened by the fact they hadn’t been arrested, if they had real proof they wouldn’t want to talk to her first. She considered the idea that they had tracked cellphones, so what did they really know? They went to Florida, the FBI tracked the phones to the area where a house burned down, and then tracked them heading back right away. It was circumstantial at best. Damned suspicious, but not proof.
Besides, once Bria got a handle on it and what would be needed to make it go away, they’d all probably just be let go. No, talking or giving any explanation was a bad idea, she decided she’d just not answer any questions. That would be safest, even if suspicious. Should she ask for a lawyer, or would that just make it worse? She decided on silence altogether, let the more experienced enforcers make that decision. Ed and Paul
have been doing this for years, she was still a newbie, no matter how good she was or how well she took to it. There was still a lot she had to learn.
Decided on a course, she spent the rest of the ride in a very light meditation trance. She needed to stay calm, and keep her mind out of a spiral. Exposure, war, her personal life, she needed to not focus on those things. She was a little worried about Berny too, although truth be told her younger friend was usually more composed than she was in these situations. Fighting, protecting, and magic all came without doubt, this situation was not so clear cut. Without the threat of exposure attached, she’d probably be handling it better as well.
Regardless, the light meditation was helping. She went over the spells in her mind again, all of them from the war magic book, and her other family volumes. It was magic she would never forget, she knew them all now, indelibly imprinted on her memory. It was still calming though, to review the spells, the shape of the magic, and the effects.
Right before she pulled into the parking lot, she saw a swirling bit of air out of the corner of her eyes. It wasn’t her elemental, and it said to her mind, “Just stay silent, I have contacted the coven in Washington, which has agents in the FBI looking into it. ”
Even more relieved with word back from Bria, she followed the agents into the building, where she was led to a small room with a single table and chairs where she was asked to sit. There was no one-way mirror in the room, like on those shows, but she was sure there were cameras. The room was boring, white walls, a door, and nothing else but the table she sat at. She almost smiled in amusement when they left her alone in the room to stew, maybe television shows weren’t completely wrong.
To pass the time she threw up a mental image of a tic-tac-toe game, and mentally added an X.
Silva growled out the equivalent of a feline laugh, before placing an O.
She might be nuts, but at least she’d never be alone…
Shifter's Moon: A Celia Winters Novel Book 3 Page 7