Fire Fall (Old School Book 4)

by Jenny Schwartz

  “You will sleep, won’t you?” she asked.

  “Uh huh,” he said absently. “I’ve set a ward at the cave entrance. Even if Josh unpicks it, it’ll give me a warning. We’re safe.”

  She gave up worrying about him—he’d sleep when he wanted to—and let sleep claim her.

  When she woke in the morning, Seth had coffee ready and hot oatmeal with honey. They ate generously of Josh and Andrew’s supplies.

  “What’s the plan?” She wanted to get out of the cave.

  “We head back to your rental car.”

  She lowered her mug of coffee. “Aren’t we going after Josh and Andrew?”

  “No. I came here looking for information on what Svenson wanted from a barrier wizard. I have that. Josh was crafting a supersized shield spell. I’ve read his research notes, but I’m not an expert. I’d like to get them to someone who’ll understand more of what they mean.”

  “And Josh?”

  Seth continued packing books and other objects from the folding table into a bag. “He decided to go with Andrew. I looked around outside this morning. There are bolt cutters beside broken handcuffs. Josh freed Andrew. He chose to go with him.” He zipped the bag and slung it on his back. “Ready?”

  She glanced around the cave. Seth had obviously packed the more magical items, the ones no one wanted a mundane hiker to stumble over. The rest of Josh and Andrew’s supplies would remain here. “Do you think they’ll return?”

  “It depends on whether Josh wants his research notes.” And on a quieter note, almost to himself, he added. “Why didn’t he grab them?” He gestured for her to go before him out of the cave.

  She sniffed the air. “Smoke.” She couldn’t see a fire or a smoke cloud. The land stretched out to the open plateau and the forest beyond. Deer and elk grazed peacefully, but she observed them without a thrill of wonder. She was worried. Wildfire wasn’t a threat to take lightly.

  “The smoke’s behind us, over the mountains. We’ll make it back to the car without encountering a wildfire.” He set a pace that ensure they did. With her unencumbered, he double-timed it to where she’d stabbed Andrew to free Seth. The pack she’d left there was shredded.

  “A bear found it.” Her eyes went wide and she stared all around as she shrank closer to Seth. She’d had food in her abandoned pack, and the bear had smelled it.

  Seth picked up the biggest pieces of the shredded pack and contents, and stuffed them into his bag. It barely zipped shut.

  Vanessa was left holding a water bottle the bear had ignored.

  “Come on.” Seth urged her on with a hand at her back. “You met a yeti, yesterday. A bear should be nothing.”

  “It’s not the same,” she said fervently. “A bear is scary.”

  He laughed, but didn’t argue.

  They reached the camp where he’d left her late yesterday and found it undisturbed. She patted her cozy little tent, reassured by its familiarity. “I definitely prefer tents to caves.”

  “And cabins to tents?” he teased, but he studied the ground around the camp.

  Belatedly, she realized he was checking that Josh and Andrew hadn’t somehow tracked back to here and left them a nasty surprise. But it would have been hard to find the small camp within the pines at night, and Josh and Andrew ought to have been on the run.

  Where would they go?

  Within half an hour, she and Seth were hiking, again. She ignored the scenery to follow closely in his footsteps. He’d abandoned the trail to cut across country.

  “Why are you so worried?” she asked when they halted for lunch. “Is it the possibility of fire?”

  The smoke had thickened through the morning. The bite of it was acrid in her throat and she drank water faster than normal.

  “Josh didn’t grab his research notes.” Seth was eating with the same efficiency with which he attacked the hike. “It bothers me. He made the decision to run, and to find bolt cutters to free Andrew and take him with him, but Josh didn’t take the couple of extra seconds to grab his notes.”

  She thought about that as she chewed. She swallowed and washed down the energy bar with more water. “Josh doesn’t need the notes anymore.”

  “Yeah. I think he has a working model of the spell.” Seth stood. “A smarter or less arrogant guy would have taken the notes anyway, so that I couldn’t learn anything from them.”

  “Will it matter? A shield spell doesn’t actually sound dangerous.” Ow! she added silently as she also stood. Just a few minutes of rest and her muscles had stiffened. The route Seth had chosen was faster than their original trail back to the rental car, but the ground was far more uneven and at times required scrambling. Her thigh and calf muscles protested the challenge.

  “Any spell can be a weapon.” He frowned at her. “Are you okay?”

  “Sure.” She smiled when he didn’t look convinced. “I’m sore, tired and confused at what Josh intends. But I can make it back to the car.” She touched his arm. “Lead on, but keep talking. You’re not a worrier, but you’re worried. Why?”

  He headed toward the aspen grove. “I think I missed something in the notes. The yeti threw me off. I concentrated on Substance Y. Josh must have been holding it for a reason. I assumed he was harvesting something from it.”

  “Ew.”

  He glanced back at her. “Sorry.”

  “Not your fault. Just…I’ve had moments of feeling sorry for Josh, but if he was torturing the yeti as well as imprisoning it, he’s not a good guy.”

  “I think he’d tell you he is.” Seth held back a branch for her. “Did he remind you of a scientist, one of those that think the end justifies the means, and the end is always some objective that is their pet project?”

  She blinked at the vicious note in his voice. “You really don’t like Josh.”

  “No. There’s something in his notes…” He shook his head. “I need to work out what I’ve missed. Some wizards—and witches, even more so—use amplifiers in their spells. They add power or nuance to a spell by incorporating something from a fantastical creature: a phoenix feather, a shaving from a unicorn horn, fur from a yeti.”

  Involuntarily, she glanced up at the sky, and the moment’s distraction led to a stumble. She caught at an aspen branch. The sapling bent with her, but provided enough support for her to catch her balance.

  Seth turned back to help.

  She waved him off, and took a more careful, if fleeting, look at the sky. There was a reason she’d chosen to hike the southern Rockies. They were a magical hotspot and they held a secret, quite apart from the newly freed yeti that now roamed them. Did Josh know the secret she was keeping from Seth?

  Heck, did Seth know the secret?

  A phoenix feather…

  Mid-afternoon Vanessa collapsed against the hood of her rental car. “I could kiss you,” she told it. “An engine, air-conditioning.” She let Seth take her tent and the few other supplies she’d carried from the camp. She needed a new pack, given the bear’s destruction of her old one.

  Seth flung his pack, the bag with Josh’s magical books and supplies, and her belongings into the back of the car.

  Vanessa felt as if she crawled into the passenger seat. She was soooo tired. She said so.

  “We’ll be at the cabin soon. You can have a hot shower for your sore muscles.”

  “Ice cream.”

  A small smile flickered across his face. “Ice cream, too.”

  As he drove she redirected the air vents so cool air blew on both of them. She was so distracted by her physical relief to be sitting comfortably that they were on the track to the cabin before she realized that he hadn’t suggested stopping for a burger although he had to be as hungry as her. Nor had he said anything more. In fact, now that she thought about it, his silence had an ominous quality.

  All day he’d focused on getting them back to the cabin as fast as possible, but this was more than that.

  She touched his arm. “You look grim.”

  “Vim v
itae,” he said.

  “I don’t get it. Is that some kind of motto?”

  They bounced around a corner of the track and the cabin came into view.

  “It was in Josh’s notes. Vim vitae. ‘Life force’ in Latin.” He parked jerkily, then just sat there, strangling the steering wheel. “I thought it referred to Substance Y.”

  She frowned. She was tired and her brain was slow, and magic wasn’t her area of expertise.

  Seth released the steering wheel, unbuckled and jumped out of the car.

  She joined him at the back of the car, still wincing as her leg muscles protested the drop to the ground. The smell of smoke was less here.

  He unpacked with controlled fury. “No one’s broken the ward I left around the cabin. You’ll be safe here.”

  “Are you leaving?” She was lost. The thought of him vanishing on her shot a bolt of panic through her.

  “No.” He carried all the gear to the front porch with its stunning view across the valley.

  “Seth.”

  Finally, he looked at her. Anger seethed in his hazel eyes and thinned his lips. “I screwed up. I missed it. I was so hung up on Substance Y, that I linked it to Josh’s power source for the spell.” He shook his head, violently, like a dog shaking off water. Only in his case, he was trying to dislodge his annoyance. “Do you have the key to the cabin? Are you going to open the door?”

  Her jacket was tied around her waist. She unknotted its sleeves and felt for the inner zippered pocket, extracting the key. “Isn’t Josh the power source for his spell? A spell uses a wizard’s magic, that’s why they’re wizards.” Okay, so her sentence was a bit confused, but so was she. She got the door open.

  Seth dumped their gear just inside the door and crossed to the fridge. He grabbed a soda and tossed her a can.

  Unthinkingly, she tapped the bottom of it to ensure it didn’t fizz when she opened it.

  He drank, his throat rippling as he swallowed, before slamming the can down on the counter and glaring out the window. “Josh told us that this was a different kind of shield spell. It’s much larger and he said it had to be self-renewing. That means it needs a hell of a kick start to power it, and something to suck in magic to keep it running. Substance Y is to draw in the magic.”

  “Substance Y? The yeti?”

  He nodded. “It must accumulate magic. That’s what Josh was studying. That’s why he had it caged. Not just for fur or blood samples, but to watch how magic flowed to it. How he could incorporate that into his shield spell. My mistake—” He broke off.

  She watched him pace to the large living room window.

  It brought him closer to her, but he remained wrapped in his own thoughts, in anger and isolation.

  “What did you miss?” she whispered.

  He turned his head to look at her. “The shield spell gets its powerful kick start from vim vitae, life force, as well as magic.”

  “Do you mean it operates in the same way that a charm would drain my life energy as a mundane?” she asked, remembering his warning about using the charms he’d taken from Andrew.

  Seth shook his head once, sharply. “Nothing so kind. I thought Josh intended to sacrifice the yeti to power the shield spell. But I was wrong. The yeti’s fur is the talisman to ever-renew the spell. Josh intends to power the shield spell with a human sacrifice.”

  Chapter 6

  Vanessa showered but felt no temptation to linger in the hot water. Clean and dry, she hurried back downstairs so that Seth could have his turn in the bathroom.

  He wasn’t in the cabin, and it wasn’t as if it was so large he could hide anywhere.

  Before she could panic, she saw him outside. He held a phone—her satellite phone?—to his ear and was listening.

  Who had he checked in with? Was he requesting trained back-up? She’d been a handicap trekking back to the car. She’d be a worse handicap in a magical fight.

  She was proud that she’d saved him last night. Incredibly proud and relieved that she’d tried. The luck could have gone the other way, though, and Andrew have overpowered her.

  She drew back from the window, staying out of sight if Seth looked back at the cabin. The light, open design of it was a world away from the cave. It was a world away from her experience six months ago, and yet, the ordeal of her kidnapping was haunting her, now.

  Her kidnappers had held her in a farmhouse in upstate New York. Snow had blanketed the area. It had been down in a hollow, set well back from the road. Even then, away from neighbors and passersby, her kidnappers hadn’t taken chances. She’d been locked in a basement.

  Sometimes, when she was just waking from sleep, she would think she smelled the moldy dankness of that basement. She’d been so cold; had lived with a blanket huddled around her shoulders. She’d lived, too, with her imagination in overdrive.

  Andrew had flung the accusation of her frozen cowardice at her last night to distract and disable her. His purpose didn’t change the fact that he’d spoken the truth.

  Trapped in the basement, sometimes chained to a pipe, she’d known terror and despair, and had learned that her imagination could become an enemy. She had tortured herself with what she’d imagined. Scenarios had played over and over in her mind until they’d locked her muscles in a straightjacket of fear.

  She’d done that to herself. Her kidnappers had wanted that result—a compliant hostage—but she’d given it to them.

  Going after Seth last night had been different. Was it because she’d focused on his safety rather than hers, or simply that in the mountains, unlike in the farmhouse basement, she’d had the freedom to act.

  She’d noticed how carefully Seth had treated her at the cave. He’d been concerned that she’d feel a kinship with Josh, the barrier wizard who just might have been a hostage like she’d been.

  But Josh had a way of repelling empathy—even before she’d discovered the yeti imprisoned in the second cavern. Josh was a kidnapper (of the yeti), not the kidnap victim; no matter what he claimed. In fact, by Seth’s suspicions, Josh was something worse.

  What sort of monster devised a spell that required a human sacrifice?

  She’d never considered the reason why some ancient civilizations had practiced human sacrifice. Now, she had her suspicions. The ceremonial slaughter of enemies or innocents hadn’t been for religious purposes or as a method of social control. It had been, literally, about power. The power to fuel terrible spells.

  Seth ended the phone call and jogged back to the cabin.

  Where does he find the energy?

  His boots hit the porch and a moment later he was inside, closing the door on the sunny day. “No ice cream? Or were you waiting for me?” His attempt at a smile was good, but it couldn’t banish the grimness in his eyes.

  “I thought you’d want a shower first.”

  “I do.” He put the satellite phone down on the coffee table. “I borrowed it. I hope you don’t mind?”

  She shook her head. The phone didn’t matter.

  He hesitated. “A coffee with my ice cream sounds good.”

  They were talking about unimportant things, filling the silence, but not truly communicating.

  “I’ll make the coffee while you shower. Then you can tell me that you want me to leave.”

  His shoulders relaxed, and he closed the distance between them. “I wasn’t sure you’d understand,” he said, relieved. “It’s no reflection on you, but with human sacrifice as the proposed method of powering the shield spell, the mission is active rather than investigative. I’m going to retrieve Josh. Whether Stag or 13OPS deals with him, we need him contained.” 13OPS was the government agency that dealt with magical situations—and bad guys. “I’ll drive you to the airport and see you safely onto a plane.” He clasped her arms. “I’ll meet you in New York?” The faintest lilt of a question colored his voice.

  She slipped her arms around his waist. He smelled healthily of man and sweat. “I moved after the kidnapping. Dad wanted me in a safer bui
lding. I’ll write down my new condo’s address.”

  “I’m sorry you didn’t get to play in the mountains.” He wrapped her up in a hug.

  “I feel like I still found something of myself, here. And I met you, again.”

  “You saved me.”

  She smiled. “I was a badass, wasn’t I?”

  “Absolutely.” He rubbed his face against her hair. “I can’t risk you like that, again. When Andrew caught you in that chokehold…” He tilted her face up and kissed her.

  Words bled away. There was only the hot demand of his mouth.

  All of Vanessa’s emotions, the good and the bad, the confused and the passionate, hope and longing, battered through her and into her kiss. She held on tight to him as he lifted her and carried her the short distance to the kitchen counter. He sat her on the edge and stepped into the V of her legs. Neither of them broke the kiss. It was as if they fought for who needed the other the most.

  I hadn’t realized you’d been afraid, too, she thought.

  He was so controlled that he’d managed to hide his emotions from her. His fear had been for her, not himself, but the result was the same. They’d both contained their emotions at the cave, and now that those emotions had leaked out, they weren’t going to politely slink away.

  No, these emotions roared and clawed at them: relief, need, hunger. Desire.

  His hands were under her shirt and she couldn’t believe she’d been stupid enough to put on a bra after her shower. He undid the clasp and his strong hands cupped her breasts, repeating a massaging motion that had her moaning and arching her back. She struggled with the buttons on his shirt, struggled sufficiently that he leaned back and simply pulled it up and over his head.

  “Oh yeah.” She loved the heat of his skin and the hard, rippling muscles beneath.

  He flexed under her caress. If his skin was as sensitized as hers, every touch was a little combination of heaven and hell as desire flirted with frustration. They were close and needed to be closer.