“You see anything?” I asked.
I had barely finished my question when my father lurched forward and disappeared out of sight.
“Dad?” I said, holding my breath. “What’s happening?”
There was a struggle, grunting and gravel crunching, and then my father spoke. “It’s all right. I’m not going to hurt you.”
“No! Let me go!” The voice was young—it sounded like that of a boy.
“It’s all right,” my father repeated. “I don’t mean you any harm.”
I was about to begin climbing the wall myself to see what was going on when my father reappeared. He was holding the arm of a small boy who looked no older than six. The boy struggled against my father’s grip, but my father held on tight. The boy stopped suddenly when he saw me standing in the center of the chamber. His eyes widened. “You don’t smell like witches. What are you?”
“We are Novaks,” my father replied.
The boy wrinkled his nose. “Novaks?”
“We are here to help you,” I called up. “We promise. What’s your name?”
“Kyan.”
“Can you tell us what happened here, Kyan?” my father asked.
“A w-warlock came.” Kyan’s voice trembled as he spoke. “He took my mother and my brother, and he cast a spell on our whole pack.”
“A warlock?” my father asked, shocked.
“Yes. He’s locked himself in the chieftain’s quarters.”
“Can you take us there?” my father asked.
Kyan bit his lower lip. “I am afraid to go near.”
“Then tell us how to get there,” my father said. “We might be able to help your parents if you help us.”
“All right,” the boy said after a pause.
My father helped him onto his back before climbing back down to the floor to meet me. Kyan pointed to a tunnel to our right. “Go down that passageway,” he said. “It will lead you to another chamber surrounded by doors. The largest one is the entrance to the chieftain’s private quarters… I-I don’t know what the warlock wants with him.”
“Thank you.” My father looked at me grimly, then we left the boy and followed his directions.
Indeed, we did arrive in a chamber filled with rounded oak doors and we stopped outside the tallest one.
“Warlock,” I breathed. “Who could that be?”
My father pressed an ear against the door and raised a finger to his lips. I pressed my head against the wood too and joined him in listening.
My heart skipped a beat as I picked up on a familiar voice, deep and masculine.
Rhys.
Chapter 13: Sofia
I was both relieved and surprised when my daughter and husband came climbing down the mountain so soon after they had left. I’d expected them to be much longer.
“What happened?” I asked, running forward as they approached, still invisible.
“We’ve got a problem,” Derek said.
“What?” Kiev asked.
We all gathered around them.
“Rhys Volkin,” my daughter replied. “He’s within the mountain. He has taken the chieftain hostage.”
Mona gasped.
“Are you sure?” Micah asked.
“Yes,” Derek replied. “He has cast a spell on the entire pack, except, it seems, for the chieftain. The chambers are filled with sleeping werewolves.”
“What would Rhys be doing here?” Ashley asked.
I didn’t know if Ashley’s question was meant to be rhetorical or not, but we all concluded the same thing at once.
“He must be after Magnus too,” Mona said, her voice unsteady. “He must want him for the ritual.”
Her words were both panicking and comforting. If Rhys really had come here for Magnus in order to complete the ritual, then it meant they hadn’t carried it out yet. It had been so long since we’d left The Shade now, the thought of the black witches having already completed the ritual had been nagging at the back of my mind. If Rhys too was on the hunt for Magnus, then it meant that we might have time. But it also meant that we couldn’t afford to let him find Magnus first.
“We have to knock the bastard out of the race,” Kiev said.
“You forget that he is far more powerful now,” Mona replied. “I have no idea how we would be able to pose a threat to him. We don’t even have dragons.”
“He has no idea we are here,” Micah said. “Rose, Derek—is that right? He didn’t see you?”
“No,” Derek said. “We just listened in at the door. As far as I know, he is not aware of our presence here.”
“Well,” Micah said, “if he doesn’t know that we are here, at least we have some advantage.”
“Hardly,” Mona said.
“Let’s just get up to the mountain,” Rose urged. “We have no idea how long he’s going to spend with the chieftain. We can’t let him get away. If he finds Magnus…”
We all knew the consequences.
Ibrahim, Mona and Corrine wasted no more time and transported us halfway up the mountain. The sheer height at which we were standing took my breath away. Rose and Derek pointed toward a tunnel and we began racing into it after them. We traveled through several tunnels and chambers, passing sleeping werewolves along the way, until we finally arrived in a room surrounded by wooden doors.
“That one,” Derek whispered, pointing to the largest door a few feet away.
Derek and Rose vanished from sight—I was grateful that one of our witches had taken the initiative to do it.
“Let me to the front,” Mona said. “I need to listen… It sounds like they are still talking,” she whispered after a pause.
I didn’t need to press my ear against the door to hear what was going on. Yes, they were talking, but it didn’t sound like the conversation was going to last much longer.
“Because you know where he is,” Rhys was saying, anger and impatience surging through his voice.
“I told you already,” another male voice replied. “We have never come across a vampire named Magnus.”
“You know what I will do to you if I discover you have lied to me,” Rhys hissed.
We barely had time to formulate a plan before the door in front of us blasted open. I feared for a moment that Rhys had done it, but since he was nowhere in sight it must have been one of our witches. The sound of running filled my ears as we all dashed inside the chieftain’s chambers. I barely took in the interiors of the wolf’s quarters while we hurtled forward. We passed through a long passageway lined with doors and headed straight for the room at the end where the two men’s voices were emanating from.
Rhys whirled round as a burning ball of blue fire shot straight toward him. A curse from Mona, I assumed. Rhys’ face fell in shock, and then he vanished before the curse could hit him.
Oh, no.
A visible Rhys was terrifying enough, let alone an invisible one.
Where is Rose? Fear filled me as I realized I didn’t even know where she was. The warlock could have been standing right next to her for all I knew.
The minutes that followed were harrowing. It seemed that none of us knew what to do. Spells hurtled around the room, and I kept expecting someone to be hit by a curse from Rhys and cry out in pain. The chieftain—a tall man with broad shoulders and flaming red hair—had spread himself out on the floor to avoid being hit by a spell.
After what felt like ten minutes had passed, I wondered why nothing was happening.
Mona spoke up. “I think he’s gone.”
“But why?” Aiden asked.
Mona appeared and then everyone else’s invisibility spell lifted too, except Micah’s. Since he had requested to be kept hidden at all times, I guessed our witches were being respectful of this.
Mona’s face had paled and she sounded even more anxious than when she had first found out that Rhys had taken the chieftain hostage.
“Perhaps he has gotten what he needed,” she said. Her eyes shot to the werewolf, still crouching on th
e ground. She hurried over to him and gripped his shoulders. “What did you tell that warlock?”
The wolf stood up, anger in his eyes. “Who are you people?”
“Not your enemies,” she replied. “Just answer my question, or we will all be sorry.”
“He wanted to know about Magnus,” the chieftain growled, brushing Mona away from him. “I’ve never heard of such a vampire. And believe me, if I had, I would have revealed his location to that warlock. I despise vampires almost as much as I do black witches.” He scowled, casting dirty glances at me and the other vampires present.
“So you have absolutely no idea who and where Magnus is?” Mona asked.
“No,” he said.
Mona turned around slowly to face us, anxiety creasing her forehead. “Perhaps Rhys concluded that the trail is cold for Magnus here in this realm… Maybe we have hit another dead end.”
“Why would he vanish so suddenly?” I said. “He has enough reason to want to stay and finish us all off.”
Mona bit her lower lip. “Maybe he has gotten another idea… and his time is now too precious to waste on us.”
Chapter 14: Mona
“Will you help to wake up the rest of my pack?” the chieftain asked, still eyeing us with suspicion.
I stared at the werewolf, my brain ticking over. “Yes,” I replied. “But first you must agree to do something for us. Given the fact that we have just saved you, it should not be too much to ask.”
“What?” he asked.
“Call a meeting immediately with the other chieftains so that we can ask them whether they know about Magnus.”
The chieftain shook his head. “I truly doubt that any of us have come across a vampire named Magnus.”
“I did not ask for your speculation,” I said impatiently. “I asked you to arrange a meeting.”
“I’m not on good terms with many of the other chieftains,” he replied. “But all right. I will try.”
“How long will it take?” I asked.
“At least three days.”
I cursed beneath my breath. We didn’t have that sort of time. I turned to face the others again.
“Can’t you gather them any faster?” Derek asked.
The chieftain shook his head. “Impossible.”
Three days—it was out of the question. It had occurred to me that perhaps Rhys had left to seek out another chieftain.
“Why don’t you just magick the chieftain around this realm to make the traveling faster?” Rose asked me.
“Some packs aren’t even here in The Woodlands right now,” the wolf said. “At least two chieftains who cooperate with me are out on expeditions… As I said, I think you’re wasting your time. No wolf here would tolerate a vampire’s presence. You would be better off searching elsewhere.”
Reluctantly, I saw sense in the wolf’s words.
But where do we search next?
Where did Rhys go?
Although we couldn’t afford to hang around now, Corrine, Ibrahim and I agreed to help the chieftain awaken his pack. Even though he was doing us no favor in return, I figured that there was no harm in befriending these wolves. It was good for them to see that not all witches and vampires were bad.
Once we had finished, we returned to the rocky shore where we had first arrived.
“And now?” Ashley said, the tone of her voice bordering on desperate.
I didn’t answer, although I knew the question was directed at me. All eyes were on me now, waiting for my answer. I moved away from all of them and walked further up the rocks. I sat down on the edge, glad that nobody followed me. I didn’t even want Kiev next to me right now. I just needed to be alone.
I took a deep breath, inhaling the crisp sea air and closing my tired eyes.
Magnus.
Where are you?
The fact that Rhys had left us so quickly when he should have at least caused some injury to us after the beating we had given his people in The Shade was deeply disturbing. I knew Rhys. If he was after Magnus, he would not stop until he found him. I didn’t know whether the vampire was crucial to their ritual, but clearly he was important, otherwise Rhys would not be wasting Lilith’s precious time searching for him.
We just seemed to be looking in all the wrong places. At least in The Blood Keep, The Tavern and The Cove we had managed to get some clue as to where to search next, but here… it seemed like we had met a dead end. Nobody had even heard of Magnus.
“What are we going to do?” Ashley repeated her question, and this time I answered. There was no point in denying it to myself any longer:
“I don’t know.”
Chapter 15: Rhys
Mona and her companions’ appearance was certainly unexpected. And the thought that they were on to Magnus too was disturbing. But as much as it had been tempting to stay and finish them off, I had more pressing matters to attend to.
I did believe the chieftain when he told me that he did not know where Magnus was. Now I had to be sure that other chieftains hadn’t seen Magnus either. Even if Magnus had befriended the werewolves, there was no way that they would risk their lives for a vampire. It just wasn’t done by werewolves—at least not the wolves of The Woodlands. I traveled quickly from pack to pack, following much the same procedure as in the first chieftain’s mountain. I eliminated all who were in my way by putting them to sleep. After meeting with the sixth chieftain, I stopped. None of them so far had seen a vampire named Magnus.
I have to rethink what I’m doing.
A feeling in my gut told me that even if I took the time—time I did not have—to meet with every single chieftain in this realm, I still would not find Magnus.
But where could that vampire have gotten to?
How could he have made it out of the realm without attracting the attention of even one werewolf?
Besides, he would have been weak on waking. He wouldn’t have had any blood in years.
I had to think carefully about what my next step should be.
One option was just return to Lilith now, perform the ritual without Magnus, and hope for the best. But I hated the idea of yet another defeat. And we were much more likely to succeed if we had Magnus present. There was no doubt about it.
I have to find that damn vampire.
Having just left another pack, I entered the woods and paced up and down among the trees, breathing deeply and trying to clear my mind.
It was only after a few minutes that I realized that I had come full circle back to the mountain where I had put Magnus into slumber. I wasn’t sure why, but something made me vanish myself back up to it. I entered through the open wall. I looked around the dark quiet chamber. I moved toward the open container where the vampire’s body had lain.
I asked myself for what felt like the hundredth time: how had he escaped?
At the time, I had thought that I had secured him so expertly. Could I have been so delusional in my capabilities that even a mere vampire could escape my spells? I just could not believe it possible. As I looked around the room, I remembered how much effort I had put in to making sure there were no loopholes. Not even a skilled witch of the Sanctuary could have broken through the spells I’d put on this place. I was sure of it.
Now that I was taking more time to think—and I had recovered from the shock of seeing the container empty—I realized that I had acted too rashly before. Searching among the werewolves had been a waste of time. I felt like a fool. Of course they had not seen him.
Because Magnus had never escaped this chamber.
I should have realized what had really happened here right from the beginning…
Chapter 16: Mona
“You can’t just say that,” Ashley said. “We are relying on you.”
I stood up, looking over them all with a heavy heart. “I can’t lie to you. I have no idea where we go from here. We have hit a dead end.”
Magnus could be anywhere within this whole supernatural realm—heck, he could even b
e back in the human realm. It was worse than trying to find a needle in a haystack.
And now we didn’t even have any more leads. Not even a single straw to cling to that might lead us to his whereabouts.
“So what? We just… give up?” Rose asked.
“We can’t give up,” Derek said. “We have to end Lilith, or all that has happened until now will only be the beginning of our troubles.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say,” I snapped. The pressure was getting to me.
Because I had spent so much time with the black witches and I knew most about them, it felt like the responsibility fell on my shoulders for leading everyone in the right direction. I wished that someone else could take on this burden for a change.
“Where is the nearest realm to this one?” Kiev asked. “Perhaps Magnus made it there, and perhaps they might have some clue as to where he is.”
I was sick and tired of traveling from realm to realm, only to meet with more failure.
“But Kiev, for all we know that merman could have just been lying to us—hoping that the wolves of The Woodlands would finish us off. It’s possible that Magnus was never anywhere near here.”
I was about to slump down again on the rocks and bury my head in my hands to try to ease the headache that was now coming on full blast when a female voice spoke behind us.
“Excuse me.”
We all whirled around and found ourselves staring at a short woman with long wavy hair. She had a red scar across her cheek.
“Yes?” I said, stepping forward.
“I heard what you are here for,” she said. “You’re here because you are trying to end the black witches, isn’t that right?”
“Yes,” several of us said at once.
“Well, I just spied that same warlock—Rhys—hanging around one of the mountains. I was the werewolf he first caught—he took my child hostage and forced me to lead him to my pack. He is still hanging around this place. I’m not sure what he’s doing, but… I thought perhaps it might be useful to you since my chieftain cannot help you at all.”
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