by Bianca D’Arc
“The garden?” She didn’t understand.
“Surely, you’ve felt the magical nature of the garden around this cottage?” he asked, surprising her with the direct, if puzzling, answer.
“I…” She thought about it. “I knew it was special, but…” How did he know so much about magic? Only her family talked openly about such things and then, only amongst themselves. “Magic?” she asked, hoping he would elaborate.
Jack shook his head as he put on his jacket. “We can talk more about it tomorrow. Suffice to say, I believe in it, and I can sense it more than other people. That’s one of the reasons I was sent here.” He moved toward the backdoor as he spoke. “You know, there was another guy corporate sent before me, but he couldn’t get anywhere. He knew something was wrong here, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. That’s when they asked me to take on the challenge. So far, I’ve been up to it, but I have no illusions that this will be an easy problem to solve. We’re in the first stages of the investigation. I have to be cautious, and so do you. Promise me you’ll stay in tonight, okay? So I can do my job without worrying too much about you.”
“If it means that much to you, all right. Not that I have anywhere to go tonight, anyway. I hadn’t planned to go out.”
“Not even to dance in the fairy garden?” he joked, his smile inviting her to laugh.
“I promise I won’t dance in the garden,” she assured him. “Tonight, at any rate.”
Her grumbling reply made him laugh. He stooped down to smack her lips with his in a kiss of farewell, and then, he was out the door, closing it behind himself.
“Lock it, Kiki,” he said, through the door.
She threw the bolt and knew he could hear the metallic sound on the other side of the wooden door. “Satisfied?”
“No, but I’m glad you locked the door,” he quipped. A moment later, she heard his heavy boot tread as he walked down the porch steps and into the back garden. She rushed to the window over the sink and saw only a tall shadow melting into the wildness of the plants, and then, he was gone.
Chapter Ten
It was one of the hardest things Jack had ever done, leaving Kiki like that. Especially after she’d invited him to stay. He hadn’t expected that. Knowing she’d been raised strictly, in a community that frowned on premarital sex, he hadn’t thought she would be so willing to invite him in.
Reenacting the night before, he rode his bike out to the woods surrounding the plant. Hiding the bike under a large conifer, he disrobed and shifted, intending to nose a little closer to the building this time.
Everything started out the same as the night before, but as he drew closer to the buildings, his senses went on high alert. There was magic nearby. Not the good kind, either. Slowing his steps, Jack paused often to listen and observe. He paid special attention to his surroundings. He could feel it when he drew closer to the foul essence of whatever magic had been wrought here.
Suddenly, he stopped short. The sounds of the night were dulled. He looked all around but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Then, he looked down. Just visible in the gloom was a line of something dark and wet against the deep brown of the ground. They were just under the trees, not far from where the trees gave way to grass and the grounds of the plant site.
Someone had been through here, walking just a few feet into the surrounding forest, and they hadn’t just been taking a stroll in nature. No, they’d been spreading a foul potion along the floor of the forest that would take hold if not interfered with in the next few hours. Jack knew this hadn’t been here last night, so it was something new. Something that had been placed here within the past few hours.
It was a dark ward. A black magic thing that would sink into the earth and cause harm to the fabric of the forest, itself. Already, the leaves and plants on the ground where the potion had been laid were withering and dying. If allowed to take hold, this substance would poison the earth wherever it had been laid.
Jack set out to follow the trail and see what the parameters were. He was betting this was some kind of ring, but rather than protecting against evil, it was made of evil and put there for other purposes. To keep good out? Perhaps. Or to poison anyone who was foolish enough to cross the line. Such things could also alert the spellcaster to breaches in the dark ward. Once set, it would take a high-powered mage to undo, but the potion was still wet. It hadn’t sunk into the earth, yet. It could still be redirected and weakened to the point where it would be of little to no use to the mage who had cast it.
It took time, but Jack confirmed his suspicions. The dark line formed a wet sludge-like ring around the plant. Jagged in spots, it nonetheless formed a magical ward that was on the verge of setting into the earth itself. Jack thought hard about everything he knew, or had ever heard, regarding the breaking of potion-set wards and knew he needed help.
Not help from other people but from the earth and forest, itself.
Jack knew just what he had to do. Still in his mighty bear form, he hunted the herd of deer he’d scented nearby. Approaching them from downwind, he looped around to herd them in the direction he wanted them to go. Their innocence and purity of spirit would protect them from the evil line of magic. Creatures such as they were not susceptible to the dark magic that could warp malleable humans and the magical races.
The deer could cross that disgusting line and trample it beneath their elegant hooves. Jack just had to time it right and get them moving in the right direction. The moment they scented his bear form, they’d run. Thankfully, the winds were working with him.
He could see them up ahead, nosing around among the trees. He watched and waited, looking for the right opportunity. The right positioning of the herd and its leaders. Almost…
There. Jack charged, herding the deer like a collie. They were more than ready to go in any direction he pushed them, and as they crossed that seeping evil line, their hooves did just what he’d hoped, breaking the circle and dispelling the magic.
From inside the building, Jack heard a female scream of anger. Hiding behind a tree while the deer ran over the remnants of the line again, farther away from his position, for good measure, he saw the door fly open, and the potion witch storm out. If he’d been in human form, he might have laughed. As it was, his inner bear wanted to growl at the evil woman, but in either form, Jack felt a deep satisfaction at having destroyed her dark work.
She stalked toward the woods, and he realized he’d probably overstayed his welcome. Slinking into the shadows, Jack did his best to blend into the night as he backed away. Carol Burns stomped right up to where the evil barrier had been churned up and dispelled by the herd’s many hooves and let out a sound of pure frustration.
Jack suspected a whole lot of cooking and witchery had just gone up in smoke. He was glad she’d been set back in her twisted goals. It would give him more time to figure out what, exactly, was going on at the plant and why this woman had chosen it as her personal playground.
His inner bear was glad to be rid of the slimy feel of the black magic. Carole had spread that vile stuff all around the perimeter of the plant, but the herd had done a great job in breaking the ring and robbing it of its power. The spell had been broken, and Jack’s inner bear rejoiced. The bear had really hated the feel of Carol’s spell. Like, really hated it. Loathed it, even.
Which made Jack start thinking. It was most likely that the potion Carol had strewn all around the forest had been meant specifically to bar those folk not already under her spell from crossing the perimeter around the plant. Why did it rub his fur the wrong way so badly? He was a shifter. More than that, he was a bear shifter, which made him more magical than most. The spell shouldn’t have bothered him so much in his bear form…unless…
Jack moved silently through the trees, heading for the darker patch of forest near the other end of the warehouse. The deer hadn’t been through that area, and he wanted to make certain it was dissipating everywhere. He also wanted to see if his suspicions about the dark slime of the
potion were correct.
Skirting closer to the dissipating line of the dark ward now that Carol had gone back into the building, Jack observed all he could about the slowly disappearing potion. It was fading into the earth, its energy dispersing, but it left behind a telltale odor that his bear senses recognized once the rest of the disgusting brew was absorbed by the earth.
Blood.
Not only was Carol a mage of the unseen dark arts, but she dabbled in blood magic for her potion casting. This just got better and better. Or, actually, worse and worse.
Blood path mages were the worst sorts of degenerate creatures Jack had ever had the misfortune to encounter. They preyed on the innocent, powering their spells and themselves, at time, with the blood of others.
They weren’t vampires. No, bloodletters were an ancient race of Others who had their share of degenerates, Jack was sure, but the few vamps he’d come across in his work had been those working to eliminate the bad ones. They’d been warriors on the side of Light, just like Jack.
Okay, not just like Jack. For one thing, they really did need blood to survive and how they got it was somewhat of a gray area for Jack. They had powers of seduction unrivaled in any creature Jack had met, though he supposed if he’d stuck around in Grizzly Cove a little longer, he might have met a sea siren. They were rumored to be the ultimate seductresses, but vamps had their own charms that usually brought their prey to them willingly.
Jack had a bit of a problem with that whole concept, but that wasn’t the issue here. Carol wasn’t a vampire of any kind. She’d been out and about during the day. He’d seen her in the daylight, and she’d shown no signs of the usual vampire pallor. Plus, he’d seen her eating food in that kitchen. Vampires couldn’t do that. Not easily. The only thing they could truly ingest, besides blood, was wine.
Shaking his furry head, Jack tracked around the perimeter of the plant, watching to make certain the vile line Carol had cast was well and truly gone. Once he was satisfied the black magic was fully dissipated, he took one last look at the warehouse and found, much to his surprise, the janitor standing outside one of the large bay doors, looking almost directly at Jack.
Shit. Had the man seen him? Jack thought it was a pretty good bet, he probably had. Jack moved, watching the man’s eyes. Sure enough, the gleam of his eyes tracked Jack’s movements, and he looked a little too interested to suit Jack. Damn.
The janitor probably shouldn’t be in the warehouse at this late hour. No one should be. The fact that Carol had her run of the place was to be expected now that Jack knew what she was, but the janitor? He could be an accomplice, but Jack wasn’t sure. There was something about the way the man just watched that struck Jack as odd.
He didn’t seem to have any reasonable reaction to seeing a giant grizzly in the woods. Jack knew for a fact that there were no wild grizzlies in the area. He’d have scented them right off, if there were. So, seeing him in his fur should have evoked fear or wary interest, neither of which Jack scented coming off the man.
The wind was right, and he could smell interest, but absolutely no fear. He also didn’t smell evil. Of course, black magic practitioners were the best at hiding their true natures, so that wasn’t any sort of guarantee.
What the man did next was even more perplexing. He took out a small notebook and started taking notes. He’d look up every few seconds to keep an eye on where Jack was, but he kept scribbling in that little book, as well.
Something about the way the janitor just watched and made notes, made Jack very uneasy. He left the area, quickly melting back into the darkness under the trees, then made his way carefully back to his bike and then shifted and dressed.
Back in his hotel room, a short time later, he fired off an email to Grizzly Cove. He needed a deeper background check on that janitor, and he also wanted Ezra to know what Carol had been up to earlier tonight. The information on its way to the other side of the country, Jack finally was able to grab a few hours of sleep. He had work to do tomorrow, so a certain amount of sleep was imperative. Jack had learned, in these uncertain times, that he never quite knew which way the wind might blow tomorrow, so getting rest when he could was always a good idea.
The next morning, Jack woke around dawn. To his surprise, a response was waiting in his email inbox, even though it was still the middle of the night on the West Coast. Ezra must have been prowling around last night, or at least reading his email after work hours.
The reply piqued Jack’s interest. Apparently, the janitor’s background check had indicated he had a former employer who was known to be a highly placed agent of the Altor Custodis. Jack and his brothers had come across the AC before, a few times. They were an ancient order of watchers.
The AC didn’t take part in the action, but rather, just watched from the sidelines, taking notes—as the janitor had done last night—and making reports. They were dedicated to identifying and watching anyone with magic. Mages, of course, but also vamps, were, and every kind of Other being in existence. If the AC knew about them, it was for certain that there was a file on them and their kind somewhere in the legendary AC archives that went back centuries.
Jack didn’t like the Altor Custodis or their mission. What business was it of theirs if someone was a shifter or a bloodletter or danced naked under the full moon? To Jack, the Altor Custodis were just a bunch of pervy peeping Toms. Of course, of late, there had been evidence that some of them were much worse than that.
There had been warnings from the Lords in recent years that the Altor Custodis organization had been infiltrated by Venifucus agents at the highest levels. Just the idea of the Venifucus having access to all those Altor Custodis reports… Thousands of years’ worth of surveillance of Others—many of whom would likely oppose the goals of the Venifucus. Not only would the Venifucus agents know where to find people who might sympathize with their evil cause, but they’d also know the habits and possible vulnerabilities of those who would stand strongly against them. They could both recruit new members from the archives and target possible opponents.
Jack didn’t like the idea of that at all. Nobody who stood in opposition to the Venifucus did.
The ancient order of the Venifucus were interested in power. Grabbing power, in all its forms, by any means necessary. Ultimately, they wanted to bring back their Mater Priori, the mother of their order, Elspeth. She’d been a fey creature of immense power who had started the last great war of the magical races. That war had resulted in what mortals still called the Dark Ages. Those were the decades and centuries when Elspeth had been gaining ground, and darkness spread over various lands like a pestilence.
When she’d finally been defeated, she had been banished to the farthest realms, from which, it was hoped, she could never return. Nobody fighting her at the time had been able to harness enough power to actually kill her, so the decision had been made to try to trap her and banish her.
It had worked. Others of all races had stopped her in a concentrated push to combine forces and end her wickedness in the mortal realm. Centuries ago, shifters, bloodletters and even mages had all worked together to accomplish that great goal, but in the intervening centuries, with the rise of man to prominence in the mortal realm, they had all but forgotten those ancient alliances.
Shifters had gone back to their own Packs and Clans, no longer counting bloodletters among their friends or allies. Mages had retreated to their towers, isolating themselves in their schools of wizardry and scholarly pursuits. Hedge wizards had gone back to their homes, practicing their more subtle brand of magic among their villages and towns…and the world had evolved to what it was now.
A place of science and technology ruled by mortals, with Others relegated to either fairytales or nightmares. It was a good world. It was the world Jack had been born into, and he liked it, for the most part. The only problem was that the followers of Elspeth, Destroyer of Worlds, had not disbanded after her defeat as everyone had thought. No, they’d gone underground, waiting and watching,
infiltrating and learning even darker black magic to survive in this new world.
And now, they were rising.
Ezra had written that he knew a guy he would call in the morning. Apparently, Ezra had a contact within the AC, itself. He’d also sent a phone number and name. Ezra had strongly suggested that Jack get in touch with this contact before going back to the plant. It was too early to call anyone, even if they were on the East Coast, which he could tell from the area code, so Jack set about doing his own research based off the information Ezra had provided.
What he found only made him more concerned. Ezra had provided Jeff the janitor’s work history. Only the one name had sent up an obvious red flag for Ezra, but Jack thought a few of the other employers listed on Jeff’s paperwork sounded familiar, as well. Sure enough, when he dug a little deeper, he found that one of the corporations Jeff had worked for in the past was owned by a werewolf Pack in Manhattan. Another business Jeff had left more recently was a partnership between one of the oldest vampires in New York and a mortal restauranteur. Jeff had been a cleaner in that establishment until he was fired for unspecified reasons.
Jack knew that sometimes bloodletters partnered up with mortals to invest in businesses that helped them maintain the façade of mortality. Restaurants were a good fit because the vampires could show up, get a private room, order food, and nobody would be the wiser that they hadn’t eaten any of it.
If Jeff really was an Altor Custodis agent, he had placed himself well to spy on both the vampire who partially owned that restaurant and the werewolf Pack. Added to the prior job Ezra had flagged, the evidence was mounting against Jeff. One coincidence, fine. Two started to stretch credibility. But, three… Yeah, Jeff wasn’t the dopey innocent he appeared on the surface.
Jack sent Ezra the information he’d dug up and looked at the clock. Still early but not too bad. Jack could probably get away with calling the man Ezra had suggested in the next half hour. Before that, Jack made himself some coffee, using the hotel room’s mini coffee maker and supplies, and ate one of the protein bars he kept in his bags. That would keep him going for a while, and by the time he was finished, it was a more reasonable hour to make that contact.