My eyes were wide. They were taking a lot of risks to save the man I cared about, and I couldn’t thank them enough. More tears filled my eyes. “You don’t have to convince me, Liv. This is all my fault. If we weren’t trying to find out about my parents, none of this would have happened.”
She shook her head. “Don’t be silly. We still need to track down Dana, and this has a lot to do with her. And don’t forget how many people that snake group has ripped off. This is bigger than your parents.” She sank back into her chair.
She was right though. What happened to my parents was probably the tip of the iceberg. The longer this went on, the more I figured my parents must have been onto them too, trying to find a way to stop them. Obviously, they’d failed, and we appeared to be heading that way too. But it wasn’t over yet.
I stood and went to the window. Twilight darkened the parklike grounds. Cold air radiated from the surface of the double-glazed windows. I shuddered, but it wasn’t from that. “What if they kill him first? This plan could backfire.”
Her chair creaked. She stood next to me, put her arm around my shoulders, and squeezed my upper arm. “Don’t think about that. We’ll get him back, and he’ll be okay.”
The sky faded to charcoal, turning the trees to nebulous shadows. He was out there, somewhere. The ache in my heart swelled, overflowing, sinking. I closed my eyes and placed my palms on the chilly glass. I pictured his tortured face from last night, his blue-grey eyes filled with pain. He probably wasn’t upset about having to kill a criminal, but he would’ve known how it would hurt our chances of finding out more about my parents’ disappearance and the snake group.
Wherever you are, Will, I love you. The words didn’t shock me—I’d been trying not to think them for a while now, but it was true. And this wasn’t the time I wanted to admit it to myself, but if not now, when? It might be too late anyway. I sent my love past the cold glass, outside into the descending night, hoping it would find its mark. If only he knew, maybe it would give him comfort. I didn’t want him to die without knowing.
I didn’t want him to die.
My stomach hummed with the comforting warmth of the river of magic. It filtered up to heat my glass-cooled fingertips. Then it was flowing outwards, and I let it. Even though it made me sleepy, the flow was reassuring, connecting me to the source, to life.
Lily, you have to get out of my mind. They stripped my mind-shield. Any of them could be listening.
My eyes sprang open. What the hell? I shut my eyes again. Will?
His presence, despite the skittish undercurrent of fear and pain, enveloped me reassuringly. My bones absorbed the solace as if it were life-saving water to a parched desert. Where are you?
Don’t come. It’s booby-trapped. I’ll figure it out.
Sharp pain flared in my chest, and the heat of his essence withdrew. The river flowing from my fingers stopped.
He was gone.
I opened my eyes again to Oliva’s face in front of mine, her pointer finger tapping the end of my nose. She jerked back. “Oh my God. What happened? Where did you go? I was talking to you, but you didn’t answer. You wouldn’t respond to me tapping your face either.” She put her hand on her chest. “I thought you’d taken a weird turn from when you almost died.”
“I’m fine… well, not fine, fine.” I checked that the bubble of total silence was still up. Yep. “I’m not quite sure I believe what just happened, but I contacted Will.” And he’s in pain. Panic flared, blocking my throat, preventing me from speaking.
Her brow wrinkled, and her eyes squinted. “But you don’t have your phone out.”
I couldn’t blame her for not getting it—even though I’d done it, I still didn’t understand what I’d really done. “I was missing him like hell, and I thought about him. My magic decided to go wandering, and it found him. His voice was in my mind, and he heard my thoughts too.”
“No way!” She peered into my eyes, then put her hand on my forehead.
I rolled my eyes and shook her hand off. “I don’t have a temperature. Seriously. I’m not sick or crazy.” I crossed my fingers behind my back. What if I was crazy, and I’d only thought he was talking to me because I wanted it so much. But feeling him there with me… it had been such a strong, intense sensation. It had to be real. “Oh, crap. We have to tell Ma’am.” I grabbed my phone out of my bag and dialled her. It went to voicemail. I hung up. I didn’t trust this to a message. She was probably still in that meeting with the chosen few.
“Ma’am’s going to think you’re as crazy as I do. Why is it so urgent?”
“He had a message, and like I said, I could feel his pain. They’ve booby-trapped the place he’s in.” It hit me what a funny expression that was. If we weren’t in such a dire situation, I’d laugh at the image of detached boobs flying around hitting people, knocking them out. Maybe I was crazy….
Her eyes widened. “If you’re right, she needs to know.”
I clamped my mouth shut against the “ya think” that almost came out. She couldn’t be blamed for not believing me. As far as I knew, no one had done that before, and why should I be so special as to have a skill no one else had? Yes, my witchy photography skills were unique, but that just meant there was even less of a chance that I should have another special talent. “She definitely needs to know.” We looked at each other and nodded. I smiled, and she glanced at the door. She was obviously thinking the same thing as me. We ran to the door and out to the hallway before sprinting to the conference room.
Gus was standing outside, presumably guarding the door to make sure someone didn’t just barge in. Damn. “Hey, Gus!” I smiled.
“Hello, Miss Lily, Miss Olivia. What can I do you for?”
I dropped my happy expression, replacing it with a grave one. This was urgent, and I didn’t have time to try and manipulate my way in. To be honest, with Gus, I probably didn’t need to. “We need to speak to Ma’am right now. It’s super urgent and has something to do with what’s going on in there.”
He drew his brows together. “I’m afraid that’s impossible.”
Gah, why did Gus have to go and get all difficult on me? Normally he was the epitome of helpful. “But you don’t understand. It’s life or death. We have to tell her something highly classified.”
He shook his head. “I’d help you if I could, but she’s not in there. She and her agents left a couple of minutes ago. There’s a different meeting in there now.”
My stomach free-fell. “Ah, thanks, Gus.”
“Are you okay, Miss Lily? You don’t look too well.”
Yep, that would be because there was no blood left in my face. What the hell were we going to do now? “I’ll be okay… maybe. Thanks anyway. We have to get going. Bye.”
“Good luck.” He shrugged, maybe in apology—who knew.
I grabbed Olivia’s hand and dragged her back to her office. Once inside, I called James. When it went to voicemail, I growled. My thoughts raced but got nowhere as I discarded one idea after another. We had no idea where they were headed, and I didn’t know how to track them. Surely there was some kind of backup system in case something bad happened. I turned to Olivia. “Do you know if Ma’am would’ve told anyone where they were going, you know, just in case it all went pear-shaped? I mean, they may not have gone running after Will yet, right?”
“If Agent Price contacted someone straight away, they would’ve gotten on it. I can’t see Ma’am wasting any time getting to Will. Can you?”
“No. If they had gone to find Will, would they even take Price with them? Wouldn’t that mean they would have to watch out for him too?”
She nodded. “Maybe call Millicent. If anyone would know, it’s her. Even though James keeps things confidential, I have a feeling he’d tell her—she’s his second in command, after all.”
Before I went to James’s house, I called Imani. “Hey, I need you.”
“Where and when?”
I smiled. I knew she’d have my back. “Meet me
at James’s now.”
“Done. Bye.”
I grabbed Liv’s hand. “Ready?”
She nodded. I made my doorway, and we stepped through. I actually had no idea if she’d be at home—I probably should’ve checked. As I knocked on the door, Imani appeared behind us. “Hi, ladies.”
We both said, “Hi.”
Millicent said, “Who’s there?”
I breathed out, unbelievably relieved. “It’s me, Lily. I’ve got Liv and Imani with me.”
The door opened. Millicent had one hand on her belly. She wasn’t smiling. “What’s wrong?”
I created a bubble of silence. “Where have Ma’am and James gone? I contacted Will. Wherever he’s being kept, there’re traps. They’re waiting for them.”
She blinked. “What do you mean, you’ve contacted Will?”
“Yes, Lily. How?” Imani added.
Gah, this was time wasting. “I don’t know exactly how, but I was thinking about him, and my magic kind of took over. We had a small chat, mind to mind, but he couldn’t say too much because they forced him to take down his mind-shield.”
Millicent’s mouth dropped open. Imani moved in front of me, grabbed both my shoulders, and stared into my eyes. “Do you realise how incredible that is? I shouldn’t be surprised because I already knew you were special, but this is….” She shook her head.
“Thanks, but we don’t have time for this right now. I’ll bask in the praise later.” At least they believed me. “What can we do? I think Ma’am and James have already left to get him.”
“They’re already expecting there will be problems, Lily. They let Agent Price contact his people, don’t forget. They had to, to find out where they were holding Will. As soon as they got that information, they chucked Agent Price in a PIB cell.” That was huge news. Up till now, most of the people who’d had contact with the snake group had been killed. We hadn’t been able to get information out of anyone. And phew that the extra threat of Agent Price was out of the way.
“Yes, I get they’d already be expecting trouble, but Will said the place he’s in has been booby-trapped, and I know how you guys operate. You’re careful, but these traps were in place before they knew the PIB was coming for Will today. Maybe this is part of a greater plan? If they take out James, Will, and, Ma’am, it won’t just destroy us personally—the PIB will be a disaster.” Ma’am shouldn’t have gone. She probably only went because it was Will. My headache returned, pounding against my temples with ferocious intent. “Imani and I need to go as backup. It’s the only way to keep it private, and we won’t let anyone know we’re there unless we need to step in. Maybe you can mobilise a team without telling them what they’ll be doing, and if we need them, we’ll call. If it gets to that point, we have nothing to lose anyway. Surely there’s protocol for this sort of thing?”
Millicent worried her bottom lip between her teeth. “Come in.” She stepped aside, and we walked through to the dining room, where we normally had our snake-group meetings. But I didn’t sit—I was too worked up. We needed to get moving.
“We don’t have time to chat. We have to go.”
“I’m not telling you where they went until we go through a plan. I’m not putting you and Imani in needless danger. We’re doing this my way or no way at all.” She raised a brow and put her hands on her hips. “Now sit for two minutes while we get this sorted.”
Wow, Millicent could be bossy when she wanted to be. I sat. Millicent sat next to me, while Imani and Olivia sat across from us. Imani looked at Mill. “Carter, Frank, Knight, and Smith. I trust them implicitly, and they’ve got a hell of a lot of experience.”
Mill nodded. “Yes, I’d agree with that assessment. Okay, so we have the agents. I’ll check they’re not assigned to something I can’t pull them out of on short notice.” An iPad thingy appeared on the table in front of her. It looked like the one PIB security had started using. She typed stuff in, waited for information to load, and searched. I pulled my phone out and checked the time. Tick, tick, tick. My leg bounced manically under the table. Soon, my transformation to a squirrel would be complete. If only. I’d bet there were no squirrels having to send out a search-and-save party for someone they loved. All they worried about were nuts. Why, then, were they always so nervous? Maybe they had a little world we knew nothing about. They were secretive little things. Hmm. They’d make a good army of spies. The PIB should really look into it. I could be queen of the super-secret-squirrel spy bureau. They could have little uniforms with SSSSB on the front.
“Lily? Lily!” Millicent waved a hand across my face, and I started.
Gah, I’d tuned out by accident. Imani frowned. I shrugged. “Sorry. I’m back. Do we have a plan?” And, yes, I realised I’d just wasted valuable time.
Millicent looked at the ceiling, likely asking the universe why me. “Those agents are all available. I’ve sent them a classified message to be on standby for the next sixty minutes. If we need them, we’ll know by then. And Beren’s on standby in case of injuries. Here.” She held out her hand, and something appeared in her palm. “I don’t trust you with a gun—you’ve had no training—but if for some reason you need a weapon and you don’t have your magic, this is a Taser. Just flick the safety off, point it at the person you want to zap, and push this button.”
I carefully took it from her, looked at it to make sure I knew where all the buttons were, then slipped it into my inside jacket pocket. “Thanks. And, yeah, I’m not ready for a gun.”
Imani cocked her head and regarded me. She nodded slowly, appearing to come to a conclusion—about what, I had no idea. “We’re to stay out of sight—we’re observers, Lily. Understand?”
Sheesh, now Imani was on my case too. “Yes, definitely. I have no intention of doing something stupid and putting anyone in danger. We’ll watch, and if we think Ma’am and James need it, we’ll call for support.”
Millicent rubbed her tummy again. “That’s good, Lily. That’s exactly what you’re going to do. And Imani is the professional in this situation, so you have to do whatever she tells you as soon as she tells you. No arguments. Understood?”
Gah, there she went, laying down the law. “You know you sound just like Ma’am.” I looked at her tummy. “When the baby decides to run away, he or she can come live with Auntie Lily where no one will boss anyone around and make them promise stuff that’s nearly impossible to comply with.”
She rolled her eyes. “Goddammit, Lily. Can you take this seriously?”
“I am taking it seriously. But how many times have I had to do something against orders, and it turned out it was the best thing for me to do? I can’t change who I am, Mill. If I have to break a rule to save someone I love, I’m going to do it every single time.” I was an idiot for being honest because I didn’t want to get banned from going, but it was the elephant in the room. Why did they keep expecting the impossible from me? They needed to give up on expecting me to blindly obey.
Millicent huffed, but she didn’t argue. “Just be careful.” She shook her head. “If anything happens to you on my watch, James will never speak to me again, and our baby will have divorced parents.”
Oh, I hadn’t thought of that—she felt responsible for me. “I’ll behave, okay? Besides, this isn’t your fault. You know something has to be done, and I want to do it. I promise to come back alive. Okay?”
“I’ll hold you to that.” She grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “Seriously, be careful.”
I nodded. “Promise.” I looked at Imani. “Ready?”
“Yep. I’ll make the doorway for both of us.”
Millicent spoke. “They’re at an empty factory an hour from here. We have a cubicle a five-minute walk from there. Here are the coordinates.” She must have only sent them to Imani because no golden numbers appeared in my mind. She released my hand and stood. “Good luck, ladies.”
Olivia stood, gave Imani a hug, and came around the table, giving me a hug when I stood. “Watch out for each other. Okay? And
come back safe.”
I squeezed her and let my hands fall. “I will.” I glanced at Imani. “We both will.” I quirked up one corner of my mouth in an abysmal attempt at a smile. “See you later tonight.”
I moved away from the table, and Imani joined me. She made her doorway and grabbed my hand. As we walked through, I whispered, “We’re coming, Will. Hold on.”
Chapter 17
The public toilet we’d been sent to stunk. It was grimy and ancient, and we pushed and shoved each other in our attempt to be the first out of there. It took the whole walk to the factory to banish the stench from my nostrils. Fifty metres from the site, mesh fencing came into view under streetlights. Barbed wire ringed the top of it, and the three-metre-high gate was closed. We stopped and crouched, taking a minute to check it out and think about what our next move should be. Surprise was on our side, and we didn’t want to do anything to jeopardise our only advantage.
Imani whispered, “Is your return-to-sender up?”
I made it, then answered, “It is now.” It was important to get that stuff sorted now so no one would sense our magic. We were far enough from the factory that our small use of magic would go undetected. “How are we going to get in? What if they’ve got video cameras around the place?”
“I have no doubt they do. We’ll just find where Ma’am went in. They would’ve dealt with the cameras already.”
“What about the traps. Is there a detection spell we can use?”
“Yes, but whoever’s there will feel that someone is using magic. It’ll give us away.”
“But they’re already expecting Ma’am and some agents. No one knows we’re here, so the snake group will think it’s Ma’am, and Ma’am will think it’s them. We can use that for cover.”
Witch Haunted in Westerham Page 17