She thought of Gerald and the house he was in and ordered, “Watch this one until the sun rises tomorrow, then report back to me with all he says and does. Also, show me what magic protects the house.”
She didn’t think that would be too much information, a list of ward spells, and a man’s activities for a little over twelve hours. The human mind was fairly vast, and she figured it would take something like the knowledge in the library of congress to truly damage it, maybe more than that.
She sighed as the elemental disappeared, she really hoped she was doing the right thing. She considered getting one of fire as well, but certainly not tonight. The heat felt good on her sore stiff muscles and she wished she could go out for a run. But then, maybe there was a better way to work her energy off tonight. That thought took her by surprise, as it had only been six hours, but she found herself craving him again. It seemed her libido would bounce back as fast as everything else did now.
They were up on a high floor, Ed had requested it, and when she came out and got dressed Ed was casting a spell she wasn’t familiar with on the window. It looked a little reminiscent of a glamour’s illusion, but felt different as it took form. Suddenly she was looking at a large mansion that put the one in Charlotte to shame.
Ed turned and smiled when he caught her still getting dressed.
“It’s a real time illusion of the front of the coven house, we should lay low a day or two and watch them come and go, see if they have any guards out and when they change shifts, all that.”
She shook her head in amazement, “You’ve got to teach me that.”
He shrugged, “It’s line of sight only, it doesn’t work from too far away. Think of it like a magical high powered telescope, except normal humans won’t notice it at all. Regardless, it’s only working because we’re high enough to see the house from here.”
She considered flirting about the fact they’d be shacked up in here for a couple of days, but it wouldn’t help if they didn’t actually watch. There would be time for that later tonight, once the coven house was closed up for the night they could do the same. They talked about little things, both avoiding discussing anything about them being a couple, while they watched the coven house.
A pair of people left and a few more went inside the house in between five and seven. A few more trickled in after that, but it didn’t tell them very much. Possibly the most important information they got was there were two shifters who actually patrolled around the house, they could tell because the men were built like shifters, witches weren’t usually so big. Also, that Gerald wasn’t seen at all leaving or coming before they turned in for the night.
If Ed was surprised at her advances that night he got over it quickly. She felt content, safe, and warm in his arms when they finally got around to falling asleep.
Chapter 14
Celia jerked awake and felt like her head would explode as knowledge poured into it from the air elemental that now served her. It was so much more than she could have imagined, she’d made a mistake. Just the information on the wards alone, the elemental didn’t pour in a list of spells, its mindset didn’t work that way. Every breath, twist, and subtle curve of magic around the house was poured into her mind.
She squeaked in relief when the information finally stopped and took a deep breath. The good side effect was she had a much more comprehensive understanding of wards, she even thought she might be able to cast the ones she hadn’t already known, without words, simply by knowing the complex and interweaving shape of it. A witches spell was made up of words, gestures, and sometimes ingredients, the point of those things were to shape the magic. Now that she knew that shape intimately, she was pretty sure she didn’t need those three things for what she learned.
That was… incredible. She took another deep breath and tried to relax, she could see where even just knowledge could lead her to greater power through understanding. She also realized it was more temptation she’d need to resist, she needed to use the elemental wisely and not get greedy, or her head might actually overload one of these days.
Still… if she had the elemental examine the illusion spell of the house she could learn it in seconds, and cast it with her mind. Tempting, but she resisted.
The knowledge about Gerald had been even more intense than the wards however, as the elemental had followed her orders. Give a human those orders, and you’d hear about what he said and did in his interactions with other people and the environment. Apparently an elemental took it in its most literal form and included everything his body did. Everything. She not only knew what he’d said, who’d he talked to, what he ate, and where he slept, but much more than that.
She also knew every time his heart had beat over the last twelve hours, every time he bent an elbow, or flexed a muscle. Moved his little toe, or glared. The amount of body movements, including internal ones, was ridiculously high, and some of it was pretty disgusting. She knew more about how the muscles in a man’s body worked to use the bathroom than she ever wanted to know.
Next time she would be more specific and ask for simply what he could see or hear, she could tell what he did from that information. It would be more than enough. Still, she’d also gotten the information she was looking for as well, and felt well enough after a few minutes to start going through his conversations and anything else she thought might be important.
The most shocking thing was she had total recall of the transferred knowledge, it seemed somehow sharper and more real than her own life experiences. Some of it she could never forget even if she wanted to, and that… was the price for knowledge. She’d have to live with it. She thought eventually she’d be able to control what and when she recalled it, but the human mind was a funny thing, and right now her brain kept bringing up things she’d rather it not even as she went over the important stuff.
On the good side, that same recall meant she’d never forget those wards, or any other spell she may want to study in the future. It was really… tempting.
She came to a few conclusions from the good information she’d managed to pick up mixed in with all the garbage. Gerald was the true enemy, not his whole coven. She didn’t think they all deserved to die, not even close, if they took out Gerald the coven would most likely fall apart.
She’d counted eleven people he’d talked to that night, and for every single one of them he’d taken the time to firm up some type of control spell on them. They weren’t all puppets under his thrall, but even his enforcers who she got the impression weren’t good people, had more subtle spells on them so they wouldn’t question orders or get the idea to leave the coven.
Some though, seemed to be locked down hard, the way Elaine had claimed she was. The biggest problem of course was how did she convince Ed of that without telling him how she got the information? Their mission was to destroy the whole coven, he’d need a solid reason to change that plan to just the coven leader. She supposed she could just tell him about the elemental, but that won’t make sense if he doesn’t know she’s one eighth fae.
She knew Paul was scared of the idea of her sharing the secret only he knew about, but the idea of telling Ed part of her secrets made her feel guilty about holding back the rest of it. Should she tell him about Silva being separate as well? Or does that come too close to revealing shifter secrets, she’s supposed to be neutral and not share information between the races.
Ugh. She wasn’t sure, she just knew she wanted to, and at the same time didn’t.
She took a shower and got dressed, and ordered some room service while she let Ed sleep a little longer, while she kept an eye on the house. She considered sending the elemental back in with updated spy orders, but there wasn’t really a reason too. She knew already what she needed to know. His calendar was in a lot of the memories the elemental had transferred to her, and he had an appointment outside the house tomorrow at two.
That gave them plenty of time to work on an ambush. She decided she would just tell Ed about her fae ancestor, and
that she got the info they needed. She felt bad about it, but decided not to tell Ed about her crazy split personality and soul thing.
Not because she didn’t trust him to know that, simply because he was a witch, and to explain the issue she’d have to tell him how it was supposed to be, which wasn’t an option for her at all. She had to keep witch secrets from shifters, and shifter secrets from witches. That’s how it was, and she thought Ed would understand that.
She woke him when breakfast arrived, and told him all about the elementals, from when she thought they were simply figments of her imagination all the way to when she dreamed of her fae great great grandmother. He was quiet and looked thoughtful as she told it, and didn’t interrupt her once until she finished. She appreciated that he sensed it wasn’t easy for her to talk about.
He frowned, “You think he’s controlling the whole coven, how could they let that happen?”
She shrugged, “I’ve been thinking about that, at first the coven was normal when it combined, and from what Elaine said, Gerald was an okay guy that dated and eventually married her. I’m guessing he didn’t go all dark witch all at once, and when people started to object, he gradually built up to it. Maybe at first he simply settled a disagreement by changing or clouding someone’s mind.
“Then he probably worried about losing his coven and his power as the head of it, so a little loyalty spell here and there. I’m guess it took years before he started to control everyone and started into the darker stuff like summoning demons, assuming he’s done that before. Nine years is a lot of time and dark magic is a seductive, slippery slope...” she trailed off.
He nodded, “So just him, and he’s definitely leaving the mansion tomorrow after lunch?”
She said thoughtfully, “If his calendar is right, yes. But we also need to watch his enforcers, they seem the type that usually hide from enforcers, and at best will move on to abuse their power if we let them escape. He doesn’t seem to control them as much, just directs their brutal nature.”
He frowned, “Alright, we’ll do it your way, since it’s safer and slightly less crazy than attacking a whole coven anyway, even if still slightly insane, you say he has four enforcers?”
She nodded, “Yes, and I’m sure they’ll be with him. Maybe some of those shifters too, he probably has them mind controlled, it’s been bothering me that they were guarding the house.”
He blew out a breath, “Right. That does make sense, but it isn’t easy to mind control a shifter, their magic is all internally focused. I wonder how he got around that.”
She shrugged, “I’d believe he found a way to do so, before I’d believe he discovered shifters that would guard witches with their life, and were evil enough to align with him.”
He waved that away, “You’re probably right, and I’ll also keep what you told me to myself. I don’t know how unique that is, but the council doesn’t need to know your part fae.”
She smiled at that, her senses picking up the honesty of the statement, and they set up a plan for tomorrow afternoon while they watched the house. They didn’t learn all that much more, except only about eight of the coven members seemed to have a job outside of the house. The rest of them just… stayed there and did who knew what all day. It was disturbing to her. Especially her shifter nature which would hate to be locked up, that coven house was a prison of sorts.
By that evening the hotel room was getting a little claustrophobic, so they went down to the hotel restaurant for dinner. She felt a pleasant shiver down her spine at the way he looked at her, as if she was the only other person in the room. She wasn’t sure what they had between them, but it was growing. She also couldn’t help but notice he seemed a lot more relaxed, she hadn’t seen him really scowl since they started this trip.
After dinner, his attentions back up in the room got rather more intimate than merely caressing her with his eyes.
She even thought she might be falling for him at the end of the night, when he spooned into her and held her close. Whatever they had, it was exciting and new, she was looking forward to wherever it might lead…
Chapter 15
Her leg was bouncing up and down. She had her hair up and was wearing yoga pants and a tight shirt to minimize what could be pulled on in a fight. Ed seemed to appreciate her wardrobe for other reasons, but she wouldn’t complain. They were about a quarter mile from the coven house, and she was hiding beneath the van with the spike strip behind a subtle glamour.
Ed had the automatic assault rifle from their last would be assassins, and a few spells ready to go a little further up the block. She hoped their ambush went better than the one sprung on them a couple of days ago.
She had the elemental watching Gerald, it would come back when he left the house. She made sure to specify it wasn’t supposed to give her knowledge, merely its return meant their target was off his home ground. The plan was simple enough, but she was running out of patience. Finally she saw the air elemental appear, and sure enough a limo appeared down the road with their target.
A limo, figures. Pretentious evil ass.
At the last moment she rolled out the strip in front of the limo and then rolled out from under the van and stood up behind it as she heard the loud double bang of four tires being blown out. The car kept going, albeit at a reduced speed, and she started to run after it. She heard Ed squeeze off four rounds into the windshield, but the bullets were deflected from both the angle, and presumably the wards.
The damn limo was a tank.
The back door opened and two shifters jumped out. She growled as she didn’t have a choice but to go through them. She took a deep breath and tried to relax, as she fought two on one while at the same time trying to disperse the magic clouding and controlling their minds. She took note of the rattle of more gunfire as Ed tried to stop the car, but she guessed the wards held because the car took a right turn further up the street and left her view.
One of the shifters got a nice kick past her guard, and her knee snapped straight, but didn’t crack thanks to her wards, but they wouldn’t last forever. She released a number of stun spells, once the one was down, the second was much easier to stun. She wondered if she was that good, or if the shifters weren’t fighting at their peak because of the control spells.
She reluctantly admitted to herself it was most likely the latter.
She hit both of them with a stronger dispersal spell now that she could concentrate, and they seemed to snap out of it and looked at her with uncomprehending eyes, as if not sure what they were doing there. Ed dropped out of the tree and ran over and they both jumped in the van.
She yelled out at the confused shifters, “Gerald has been controlling you, I’d advise you make yourselves scarce right now,” as Ed threw the van into gear and started to chase the limo.
She was sure they’d be gone, but apparently with four broken tires that wasn’t so easy. They saw them about a half mile up the road. He gunned it, but the car turned again to the right.
Ed smacked the steering wheel, “They’re heading back to the coven house. We should have just built a damn bomb.”
She snorted, “That’s not in my skill set, you know how?”
He muttered, “Yes, the war…” he trailed off.
Of course he’d have learned that in the war. What a mess. She’d never considered they wouldn’t stop and would drive away with four flat tires. She’d been prepared for fighting Gerald and a few enforcers, not chasing after them. She should have known the man was a coward though, and he was going to get away because they hadn’t planned for it.
They were quickly cutting down on Gerald’s lead, but not quickly enough, they were only a quarter mile away from the house at the ambush, and even with the added blocks for him to get turned around, it added less than a mile for Gerald to go before he’d make it back home.
Apparently they’d called ahead, when the house came into view there were two of the enforcers she’d seen, and the other two were probably in the car pulling
in the driveway right now. It would be suicide to attack a coven inside their own walls with only one weapon and no surprise.
Ed turned when they hit the intersection and gunned it. What a failure, now they were running. They wouldn’t have a chance in the coven’s walls without the benefit of any surprise at all.
She snickered, “Well, we’d never make it as assassins, can’t say that’s a bad thing.”
He grunted and took another random turn, it probably didn’t matter, since Gerald would be able to track them with magic now if he got a good look at them, which she was sure he did. It was just a matter of time before the enforcers came after them, all four of them probably she thought sourly.
She asked, “What now?”
He shrugged, “Another ambush, we were going to have to face the enforcers anyway, let’s head out of town a bit further, give us room to make a plan.”
She took his right hand and squeezed it, “We’ll be fine.”
She ordered the elemental to watch the enforcers, and come show her where they were when they got within a mile away. She just hoped the elemental understood what a mile was. They decided to make for a forested area, she could hunt them as a cat and use spells while Ed baited them and set up some spell traps of his own. Whatever happened, it would be messy.
Assuming they succeeded, they’d still have Gerald to worry about it, and they were sure he’d be tracking them as long as they stayed in town. There was no doubt things had just gotten very complicated. They arrived at a state park nearby and she stripped and changed as soon as she was far enough back in the trees not to be seen by a passerby.
She scouted out a good ambush area, somewhere with lots of tree top cover and a somewhat limited point of ingress.
Ed managed to get a few trap spells up before the elemental returned and showed her the enforcers getting out of cars that were parked right behind their van. They didn’t have time for wards or anything like that.
Demon's Moon: A Celia Winters Novel Book 2 Page 8