Phoenix Blood (Old School Book 1)

by Jenny Schwartz

  The phoenix’s spirit form, which seemed much bigger and older than appropriate to a fledgling, was a mystery for later.

  With his senses stretched, he felt the moment the surveillance mage’s magic noticed him. At this distance, the helicopter would be audible to those inside the barn. He reached out with his own magic, spearing it through the ward Nelson had left, and used telekinesis to snap the silk thread that anchored the ward.

  Untethered, the magic Nelson had sunk into the ward flailed. The amount of magic exceeded Marcus’s calculations. Evidently the spell Nelson used to create the ward had been robust enough to channel significant magic. Now, that magic flared and crawled in all directions. Usefully, that would interfere with the surveillance magic.

  Maintaining his own ward around the helicopter once it landed was impossible. He didn’t have time to sketch one in the dirt. He slipped out of the helicopter, gun in hand. If needed, he’d abandon Lou’s helicopter and drive his parents to safety in the kidnapper’s white van.

  He needed a distraction and to move fast. He could approach from the barn’s blindside, from the rear which was without windows, but at this distance a surveillance mage would be able to track him even without visual confirmation.

  Marcus slammed his telekinesis at the barn. He ripped off the old roof and sent it flying. Without the roof to support the old structure, and given the violence of the action, the walls teetered.

  From inside the barn, someone fired an AK-47. The bullets ripped out through the back wall, tearing the old wood.

  As Marcus hit the dirt, the bullets deflected off his personal ward. Enchanted bullets might have pierced it, but ordinary bullets were ineffective. He leapt up and reached out with his telekinesis, pulling down the walls of the barn. With the roof gone, that didn’t require much more than a nudge. He barely noticed the noise of the walls’ fall or the dust that plumed up. His boots thudded on the wooden boards of the walls.

  A man stood inside the skeleton of the barn, legs apart, handling the AK-47 confidently. But as the walls came down, he was able to see that the bullets couldn’t touch Marcus. Without missing a beat, the man turned the gun in the direction of Paul and Winona who were bound and seated on the floor.

  Marcus’s telekinesis tore the gun from kidnapper’s hands, swung it around, and smacked the man in the head with it.

  The man collapsed.

  “Anyone else here?” Marcus demanded of his parents.

  “No.” Paul shook his head, then winced. The right side of his face was swollen.

  “Any other magicks?” Marcus stretched his senses, trying to detect any traps. It would be like Nelson to booby-trap the ropes that bound Paul and Winona. However, perhaps he hadn’t had time to get fancy. Sensing no additional magic, Marcus pulled his knife out of its ankle sheath. There was a time for magic and a time for ordinary human activity.

  The cut ropes dropped away from his parents, who whimpered.

  Marcus’s mouth compressed. They’d be in pain after hours tied up. “Stretch and rub your arms and legs, even if it hurts. We’re leaving in the helicopter as soon as you’re mobile.”

  The surveillance mage was out cold, a big man in his late thirties.

  Marcus didn’t recognize him. He searched the guy’s pockets, found a wallet and opened it. No Stag mercenary ID. Credit cards. Driver’s license. Marcus made a note of the name and address, and dropped the wallet on the man’s chest. He studied the inside of the barn. There was food and water, a novel. Nothing interesting. The man’s phone had a password Marcus didn’t have time to crack—and he wasn’t inclined to take the phone with him. Taking anything from a surveillance mage just invited the guy to find you—unless Marcus killed him, and he didn’t want to do that. He crushed the phone and strode out to the van, finding it messy from yesterday’s crash and all the junk food wrappers that littered it.

  Nelson hadn’t employed first class assistance. The surveillance mage had the feel of a freelancer, perhaps a bounty hunter; a career that would optimize the return on his surveillance talent. There were handcuffs and a Taser in the van’s glovebox. The guy should have stuck with chasing people who skipped bail. Chasing the bounty offered on Sadie’s amulet had given the man yesterday’s headache and the new one he’d have when he woke up.

  Marcus slammed shut the van door, considered a moment, and left the van drivable. Staring through the skeleton of the barn, he saw Paul helping Winona to stand. They both stumbled. Marcus ran in and put an arm around his mom before she brought Paul down with her. She didn’t smell like his childhood memories of her. Then, she’d existed in a cloud of expensive perfume. Now, she smelled of dirt and fear sweat.

  She sagged against him. “Thank you.”

  Marcus offered an arm to his dad, but Paul shook his head. Marcus put them in the back seats of the helicopter, ensured they were buckled in, and gave them headphones. Although it didn’t look like they had the energy to talk on the flight back to Lou’s ranch. They appeared exhausted and dazed.

  The kidnapping, both the fear and the pain of it, had to be so far outside of their ordinary experiences that their brains couldn’t fathom it.

  For him, despite the personal element, it was a job he’d done before. Get in, get out. This retrieval mission had gone smoother than most. He got the helicopter in the air and headed for home. For Sadie.

  Chapter 16

  Sadie ran to the helicopter as Marcus jumped out. There were no signs of blood on him and he moved freely. He was safe. In the dust storm under the thunder of the helicopter’s slowing blades was not the place to hug him, but she smiled at him and touched his back.

  He touched her face, a quick caress, but didn’t smile.

  She got her first glimpse of his parents and understood why.

  Paul and Winona looked terrible. Paul’s face was swollen and bruised with dried blood at the corner of his mouth. Both appeared exhausted to the point of apathy. They obeyed Marcus’s instructions and climbed out of the helicopter. Marcus supported his dad, while Sadie lent an arm to Winona.

  “Anyone follow you?” Lou shouted.

  “No.”

  They trudged toward her, and she led the way to the house.

  “Where’s Nelson?” Marcus asked.

  “Travelling east-south-east from Santa Fe toward Amarillo,” Sadie said. Winona was leaning more and more heavily.

  “Can you walk, Dad?” He barely waited for Paul’s assent before releasing him and rescuing Sadie from his mom’s weight.

  Winona began to cry. “Sorry, I’m so sorry.”

  Marcus got her into the kitchen and onto a chair.

  “Were you drugged?” Lou asked, looking at Paul.

  “No.” He lowered himself so cautiously into a chair that the slow movements had to mean he carried injuries, likely from a beating.

  “Then knock this back.” Lou put a glass of whiskey in front of both of them. Winona ignored hers, but Paul drunk his and grimaced. “Drink it.” Lou put the glass to Winona’s mouth and ignored her spluttering protest.

  Some of the whiskey dribbled down Winona’s chin and splashed onto the table. With her dark brown hair disarranged and her make-up smeared and dirt streaked, she seemed a very different person to the tidy, quietly prosperous woman who’d re-introduced herself into Marcus’s life in the Oklahoma City hotel suite.

  Sadie looked at Marcus to see how he was coping, but his face was expressionless as he studied Winona. Then again, he’d had the flight to work through his emotional response to Nelson’s attack on his parents, and perhaps he’d shared enough similar experiences to Lou’s to understand the reasons for her rough-and-ready first aid.

  There wasn’t time for Winona to have hysterics.

  “You need to eat,” Sadie said to him. “I made sandwiches.” Lou had kept Sadie busy in between her tracking of Nelson. Fortunately, having found him once, her magic was willing to find him again. It had his “scent”.

  Marcus took a sandwich, while Lou opened her first
aid kit. “Lou, I intend to hire Stag mercenaries to guard my parents and take them back to Boston.”

  “Not from here,” she said as she cleaned the cut by Paul’s mouth.

  Sadie understood her attitude. The ranch was Lou’s secret.

  It seemed Marcus understood, too. He’d found out about the ranch because he’d researched the nexus site where he’d intended to release Karma, but there was no value and some risk in making the location of Lou’s home an open secret. “Understood. Would you be willing to drive them into Taos? Nelson has other problems. He won’t be looking for them.” And to his dad. “You won’t have to wait long. Stag moves fast.”

  Paul frowned doubtfully as he considered Winona who sat with tears leaking down her face and silent sobs shaking her. “We…I…”

  “I’ll watch them till someone gets there,” Lou volunteered.

  A tension across Marcus’s shoulders relaxed. “Thank you. May I use your phone, please?”

  “Sadie.” Lou glanced at her. “Third drawer in the kitchen. Burn phone.”

  Sadie didn’t know what to think when Marcus took the phone and started dialing. He obviously knew the Stag headquarters’ number off by heart, and that was an indication of the life he’d led for the past nine years.

  The act of handing over the burn phone reminded her that she’d lost access to the phone Vanessa knew to contact her by. “Lou, can we buy the phone? I have a friend who needs to be able to contact me.”

  “Hundred bucks.” Lou had Paul standing while she pressed his ribs. “You need to see a doctor, but there’s nothing life-threatening. Bruising, possibly some fractured ribs. You’ll hurt, but you’ll survive.”

  Winona had almost gotten control of herself. As Marcus walked outside to talk in private, her gaze followed him. “Did I do this? By coming home.” She could have been asking everyone and no one.

  “No.” Sadie stretched out her hand. Winona’s hands were cold. She was in shock. “You didn’t cause this.”

  Lou was blunter. “Your son lives a dangerous life.”

  “He doesn’t have to. Not anymore,” Paul said quietly. “He can come home.”

  No one answered. Whether Marcus considered Boston home any longer was questionable.

  Sadie took a hundred dollars from her purse and put it on the counter, anchoring it with the plate of sandwiches.

  When Marcus walked in and reached for another sandwich, he saw the money and raised an eyebrow at Sadie.

  “The phone’s ours,” she said.

  He nodded fractionally, then addressed his parents. “I contacted Stag. They’re sending two of their top bodyguards. They’ll meet you in Taos at the main square in three hours. They also claim that Nelson has gone rogue. Your kidnapping was unauthorized.”

  Lou snorted. “They would tell you that.”

  He shrugged. “The important point is that you’re safe, now,” he told his parents. “You’re out of this.”

  “What is ‘this’?” Paul asked. “I told you about our kidnapping in the helicopter, but you haven’t explained why.”

  “Nelson hates me.” Marcus looked at Sadie. “Are you ready to go?”

  Winona wailed before Sadie could respond. “You’re leaving us?”

  Marcus’s posture locked rigid. “Nelson has to be neutralized before he can regroup.”

  The click of the first aid kit closing sounded loud. Lou flattened her palms on it, leaning forward into Winona’s face. “The way I see it, you left him first.”

  Wow. Sadie kept her face blank at the epic putdown.

  Lou wasn’t pulling her punches despite the ordeal Winona had just been through. It had Sadie wondering if Lou had helped Marcus not simply because he was going after their mutual enemy, Nelson, but because she liked and respected him.

  Winona leaned into Paul, who winced and patted her awkwardly as she cried.

  “I’ll contact you in Boston,” Marcus said emotionlessly and walked out.

  “Thank you,” Sadie said quietly to Lou before she nodded at Paul and Winona, and hurried to follow Marcus. “I thought we were abandoning the truck,” she said as she climbed into the passenger seat. It felt odd to be inside the cabin without Karma perched on the cup holder.

  “We will in Taos. I’ve hired us a private plane. We’ll fly to Amarillo, get ahead of Nelson, and buy or hire a car there.”

  “Do you think he’s going to the barn where he held your parents?”

  Marcus drove back along the narrow road and out onto the mountain road. “No. There was only one guy at the barn, the driver of the white van that followed you, yesterday. I left him out cold and with his phone broken. When he wakes, he’ll have to drive somewhere to contact Nelson, and I expect he’ll cut his losses, instead. There’s seldom loyalty among Nelson’s kind of person.”

  She put a hand on his knee. “Was it bad?”

  He frowned at her, puzzled. “Oh. The barn. It was different, knowing it was my parents inside. But it was actually the easiest hostage situation I’ve ever encountered.”

  It took her breath away to hear that. How many hostage situations had he dealt with? A question for another day. Maybe.

  He drove in silence till Taos became visible. “We have forty minutes still till the plane’s ready. If you need to buy anything…I want to pick up some maps.” For her to track Nelson.

  She nodded. “Divide and conquer. I’ll get the maps if you get coffee and chocolate.”

  He smiled at her then, briefly, but he was back from wherever he’d gone in his head. “Life’s essentials.”

  “As long as we’re clear on that.” She returned his smile. Coffee and chocolate were good. He was vital to her happiness.

  He didn’t let her go shopping alone. “There’s still a bounty for the amulet. Someone might realize that you have it rather than me.”

  She’d forgotten the amulet. Its weight between her breasts had become familiar, the silver warm. She put a finger under the silver chain. “Would it be better if you carried it?”

  “It’s yours—and you’re mine. I’m staying with you till the situation is sorted.”

  Till she was safe.

  He was tall, dark and intimidating as they waited for their coffees to be made. Also sexy. The teenage girl serving them looked at him with awe and at Sadie with envy.

  Within minutes they were back in the truck and headed for the airport. Sadie spread open the regional map and focused her talent. “Nelson is still heading east.” She glanced at Marcus who was drinking coffee and driving, concentrated but relaxed. “Where do you think Nelson is going?”

  His response made it clear he’d been considering the question. “Nelson will have guessed that something’s gone wrong with his plan. I didn’t pass him in Santa Fe on my way to Albuquerque, and he can’t contact his partner who was holding my parents. I expect that someone at Stag headquarters has also contacted him.”

  She stared at him. “You said they’d claimed Nelson’s kidnapping of your parents was unauthorized.”

  “Yes. I believe them. Messing with the Senator’s family just after his funeral won’t sit well with his old cronies.”

  “That’s what Lou said.”

  He slowed for the airport turn-off. “What did you two talk about? She seemed more…relaxed. Inclined to be helpful.”

  “It wasn’t me. She likes you.” Sadie smiled sadly at the surprised arch of his eyebrows. “Maybe you don’t see it, Marcus, but people respect you. The Stag mercenary in Oklahoma City went out of his way to warn you about the bounty on the amulet and Nelson’s likely interest.”

  “I told you. I saved Seth’s life.”

  “Karma likes you.”

  But then, you could argue that in refusing to cage and bleed Karma, he’d saved the phoenix’s life, too. At any rate, he didn’t answer Sadie. He parked the truck at the edge of the airport’s parking area, where it would be out of the way till someone could collect it.

  She slapped her hand against her forehead. “I forgot
about my van.”

  “Pardon?” His confusion was understandable.

  “I just remembered my van. I left it in the car park of that biker bar. If someone’s reported it as abandoned, my family will be worried.”

  He passed her the burn phone she’d bought from Lou. “Call them. But I doubt anyone at the bar has done more than strip the van of its sell-able parts.”

  She groaned. She also dialed Vanessa’s number. She got a recorded message, which was a relief since she didn’t have time for conversation. “It’s Sadie. I have a new phone, this one. Can you check that no one’s reported me missing, please? I hope we can still make tomorrow’s meet.” She glanced at Marcus, who nodded decisively. “We’ll be there. I’ll call you afterwards.”

  She passed the phone back to Marcus and finished her coffee as she followed him into the airport.

  Studying the small plane he’d chartered, Sadie was grateful that she wasn’t scared of flying. I’m not scared of flying, she repeated to herself. Although the plane seemed awfully small. It felt small inside, too. Marcus took her hand and held it. The gesture, the comfort of his touch, steadied her.

  “Ready?” their pilot asked. It was an empty courtesy. He was set for take-off.

  A few minutes later, their ascent leveled off and she could breathe. It wasn’t possible to speak privately in the small plane, but she could trace her finger along the map so that Marcus could see Nelson’s route.

  Marcus had been right to charter the plane. It seemed Nelson was headed for—or aimed to drive through—Amarillo. But Marcus hadn’t explained what he thought was Nelson’s destination. A hide-out? Allies? Was Nelson activating a Plan B? And it was distinctly possible that Nelson could leave the highway at any point and head away from Amarillo. Sadie watched the map, focused her talent, and worried.

  Below them, the stark land of the Panhandle stretched out with cattle grazing and isolated houses. Roads were empty for miles before a truck would appear only to be lost again in the vast space. Towns were an event, foreshadowed by an increase in the number of trucks on the road.