Kissing Vanessa was addictive.
“Mmm.” She drew back dreamily. But when her eyes refocused, she hadn’t forgotten the original issue. “Now tell me why your uncle thinks you need me.”
Seth couldn’t resist caressing her. Her skin was so soft and her freshly washed hair was satin-smooth and smelled of sage and rose. Even better was the pliant way she rested against him, languorous with desire. But the answer to her question was a harsh one. “My coffee’s cold. Yours must be, too. I’ll make some more.”
She let him go, reluctance in her every movement. “You’re evading the question.”
“No. I just don’t want to answer it in the same place we cuddled. We deserve a good memory.”
She trailed him to the kitchen, staying on the far side of the counter. “What’s the bad memory?”
“I think Josh is out there preparing to test the prototype of his shield spell.” He watched the shock darken her eyes.
She gripped the edge of the counter. “But the spell requires human sacrifice!” A sickened expression twisted her mouth. “You think Josh is going to kill someone.”
“Svenson requires proof that the spell works and with me after him, Josh knows he doesn’t have much time.”
Her arms stretched straight as she swayed back from the counter. “If I hadn’t been with you last night, you wouldn’t have stayed at the cave. You would have caught up with Josh then.” Self-recrimination haunted her voice.
“No. Don’t think that.” He reached over the counter to tilt up her chin. “Last night, without you, Andrew would have tortured and probably killed me. Hell, I could have ended up the sacrifice. You saved me. With the magic-sucking manacles on, I couldn’t summon null-space to deactivate them.” He paused because he really didn’t want to answer her question of why he needed her. Clarifying why Uncle Callum suggested she should be with him would freak her out, and once she learned the answer, she really wouldn’t let him go alone after Josh.
Then he saw the way she chewed her bottom lip and the worry in her blue eyes. He swore under his breath. Even if he didn’t tell her, sooner rather than later, she’d work it out for herself. She had all the facts now and her own scarily quick intelligence.
He poured fresh coffee from the old-fashioned pot. “Ideally, I catch up with Josh in time to prevent him sacrificing anyone. He and Andrew need to find a safe base now that we know about the cave. Josh will need time for preliminary spellwork. But if he enacts the shield spell before I can get to him, my null-space will need to chew through a spell powered by human sacrifice to reach him. I’ll fall so deeply into the Void that Uncle Callum’s scared I’ll lose something of myself.” He paused to make sure his voice was steady. “This isn’t ordinary magic. There’ll be a soul price for the human sacrifice of the spell. The Void will claim me.”
She came around the counter and hugged him. “I won’t let that happen.”
“I know.” You’ll try. He held her like the precious treasure she was. But with magic, karmic debts always had to be paid. He’d be paying Josh’s debt incurred in the taking of an innocent life because they couldn’t risk the shield spell—if successful—reaching Gerald Svenson and being used for some untold purpose. No one developed a spell powered by death for a good reason.
Chapter 7
Vanessa wiped her eyes. If Seth saw her crying he’d doubt all over again that she could handle this. Even if I can’t, I’m not letting him go alone. Then she laughed and gave up wiping away the tears. “Honestly, your Void doesn’t stand a chance. I’m an emotional mess, an emotional bomb.” A woman falling in love. “Plan A, you grab Josh, we prevent the shield spell going up, and we destroy it. If we’re too late, we go to Plan B. You deactivate the spell so that we can destroy it, then we grab Josh and I kick him in the balls for being a terrible human being.”
Her suggestion of violence won a laugh from Seth and the dark gray of his hazel eyes shimmered a shade lighter. “I should have known you’d realize that the priority is destroying the spell. Anything powered by human sacrifice doesn’t deserve to exist. Can’t be allowed to exist.”
“I agree.” The rich aroma of the coffee wove around them. She reached for a mug while keeping one arm around him. “Why does Svenson want a big-ass shield spell anyway?”
“Good question. I don’t think Josh will have those answers.”
She offered him the mug. “What about Andrew?”
He swallowed some coffee. “Andrew can’t be trusted. He’s devious and self-centered, and that could be to our benefit. He’ll know more about Svenson’s plans than Svenson would be happy with. It’s in Andrew’s nature to be looking for an advantage he can exploit.” He gave her back the mug. “We need to eat before we go.”
“Do you know where they are?”
“I can find them fast enough. They know I’m—we’re—after them, so I don’t need to hide my magical signature.”
She gave him a squeeze for that we’re. “Okay.” She took a deep breath. She could handle the shift from intense emotional discussion and worry about the implications of a spell powered by human sacrifice to practical matters. Death magic would have to wait till she’d considered the food options. “Bacon and eggs?” They were an any time of day kind of meal.
“Mmm, bacon,” Seth teased, helping ease them both firmly onto everyday matters.
She kissed him a quick, smacking kiss on the lips before stepping back. “I’ll cook. You find Josh.”
Seth found Josh and Andrew’s current location a few miles south of the cave at a dude ranch. His most detailed map of the area indicated an entrance to the ranch some distance from Josh’s exact location. He showed Vanessa while they ate. “The main house is likely to be here, nearer the entrance. Andrew must have rented, or identified, an empty guest cabin.”
“Why not base themselves there in the first—the yeti!”
He nodded. “Now that it’s free, they have no need to stay in the cave or in the mountains.”
A cold, foreboding shiver snaked down her spine. “We have to hurry.”
The gate to the dude ranch was chained shut. A large sign attached to it stated the obvious. It was “Closed”.
Summer should have been a busy time for a dude ranch. Sure, people came to the Rockies in winter for skiing, but that wasn’t necessarily to base themselves at a ranch. For the dude ranch to be shut now suggested foreclosure, legal battles or someone’s death.
And I’m a gruesome, negative person, today. Vanessa rubbed her arms which had goose-pimpled. “We could have guessed that Andrew would choose a location away from people.” He’d not only selected a cabin distant from others on the ranch, but he’d found an entire ranch abandoned to desolation.
“Wait here.” Seth climbed out of the car and walked to the gate. He stopped three paces from it and concentrated.
She watched his back, the relaxed line of his shoulders and how his head turned to scan the fence line from north to south. Then he walked forward. His body hid the chain and the padlock that secured the gate. But Seth had magic, and he wasn’t hiding it from her, or from Josh and Andrew. A padlock would be no barrier to him entering. In a couple of second he was unthreading the chain from the gate and pushing the gate wide. Weeds had climbed through and tangled along the lower half. He had to push with both arms, muscling it through the fireweed and grass. At least the tangled growth meant that the gate wouldn’t swing back on them.
Instead, of returning to the car, Seth stared northward.
Vanessa followed his gaze and saw trees, and more trees. A smoke cloud rose above them, claiming the horizon. It was a baleful reminder of the danger that threatened the mountains every summer.
The mountains were waiting for what the locals called the “monsoon”. The time was right. Storm clouds ought to gather high in the atmosphere before crashing downward, dumping rain and drama on the forests, but extinguishing the wildfires. Only, the monsoon was late.
When she lowered her gaze back from the smoke c
loud, a man was stepping out of the shadows of the pine trees.
“Andrew,” she whispered.
Seth had already seen him—had seen him before she did. Perhaps he’d even sensed Andrew’s presence via magic.
As Andrew walked closer, he raised his arms and laced his hands behind his head. That had to hurt, given the knife wound she’d given him yesterday, but he showed no sign of it as he maintained the gesture of surrender.
She didn’t trust it for a minute.
Nor did Seth. She knew that because he moved to intercept Andrew, keeping him from where she waited in the car.
She rolled down the window so she could hear what they said.
Andrew wore a t-shirt and combat trousers. Last night, he’d worn jeans, which meant that when he’d taken off on the dirt bike with Josh, he hadn’t just bolted, he’d had a bolt hole prepared.
Devious, Seth had called him.
Andrew was a formidable adversary, so why was he affecting surrender? Was it a ploy or could it be trusted?
Vanessa listened to Andrew’s opening remarks, trying to sort truth from lies. She lacked magic, but she could read people. Often she intuited what they left unsaid, their motivations and needs. It was what suited her to her role as coordinator of the Old School network.
Andrew halted, staring at Seth. “I’ve been waiting for you. I knew you wouldn’t let it go. Not after Josh told me he left his notes behind for you to find.” His curse was crude. “Josh is an idiot. There was no way you’d let things go, not with human sacrifice involved.”
Seth regarded him levelly. “You’re here for a reason. Looks like human sacrifice is your line in the sand, too.”
Andrew cursed again, under his breath. “Unwilling sacrifice, yeah.” He lowered his hands from his head, slow and cautious. “We need to talk.”
“About?”
“About the homicidal maniac I’ve left in the cabin and what he intends to do.”
Vanessa curled her fingers into her thighs. This was too easy. Andrew sounded convincing, but it was an abrupt change of heart, and with Josh’s habit of leaving his notes out on the table in the cave, it wasn’t like human sacrifice being used to power the shield spell would be news to Andrew. He’d gone along with it before.
She frowned. Unwilling sacrifice, he’d said, with the emphasis ever so faintly on ‘unwilling’. Just what did that distinction hide? Who would sacrifice themselves for a spell? Certainly not Gerald Svenson who’d offered employment to Josh, then had the barrier wizard kidnapped. As she’d told Seth, she’d investigated Svenson after his name came up twice in perilous incidents involving Old School members. Svenson wouldn’t sacrifice himself for anyone.
Svenson’s origins were hazy. No one quite knew his background. Apparently, he’d had a peripatetic childhood, always on the move. He’d been the same as a young man, until in his twenties he’d started a climb up the advertising ladder, establishing his abilities in marketing before moving into public relations and finally, where he encountered his greatest success, into political lobbying.
Svenson was far from the wealthiest person in the world. His money, from the perspective of her father’s billions, was limited. However, Svenson knew a lot of wealthy and influential people, and if you took the time to investigate cautiously, a surprising number of those people followed his suggestions.
The lobbyist who’d built his empire of influence working for the world’s powerbrokers, now worked among them and, possibly, on them.
No, Svenson wouldn’t sacrifice himself for an ideal or anything else. But Vanessa could believe that he could convince someone else to do so.
“Why the change of heart?” Seth asked Andrew. “You knew the shield spell required vim vitae.” The life force.
Andrew’s hands clenched by his sides. He was a powerfully built man, and just now, he radiated menace. He was angry in the way a man raged when he’d been cheated of something vital. Something he’d been promised. “Josh wants to test the spell.”
“Proof of concept.” Seth’s tone of voice said he accepted the necessity. “New spells require testing.”
“On a small scale!” Andrew looked away, down at the ground. His broad shoulders heaved. He fought for control and he won. He looked back at Seth within seconds. “Josh said he had all the components for the spell on him, except for the subject to be sacrificed. The subject!” Andrew spat. “He ordered me to bring him a subject. I understand proof of concept. A spell has to be proven, a prototype tested if the spell is as large as this one. I said he’d have to wait till I trapped an animal.”
Andrew’s whole body shuddered. “He said an animal wouldn’t do. It had to be a person. That was never the deal. I was to be the sacrifice for the real spell. The prototype should have been tested with human pain rather than death or else with an animal. I told Josh I was willing to do that or bring him a rabbit or something.”
His face twisted into a grimace of disgust and fury. “The bastard said that if I was so concerned about killing someone, I should bring him an old person. That they had less to lose.”
Vanessa gasped, her revulsion and shock too great for words.
Andrew glanced at her in the car. He looked back at Seth. “I’m out. I want the shield spell, but not this way. Murder would taint it. It would destroy what I’m trying to protect.” His expression shut down. Whatever he wanted to protect, he didn’t want to discuss it.
“Are you leaving?” Seth asked. “Is this a warning as you depart?”
Andrew’s hands relaxed at his sides. “No. I want Josh stopped and I’ll work with you to stop him.”
Vanessa raised her voice. “You could have killed him at the cabin.”
“No, I couldn’t. The bastard has wrapped himself in a personal ward, a barrier spell that without my magic, I can’t break. I can’t touch him, but I can guide you in,” he said the latter part to Seth.
And with Josh restrained, would Andrew grab the shield spell? He mightn’t have magic, but he’d been a Stag agent long enough that he’d have contacts—wizards—one of whom he could hire to cast the spell for him. For all his obvious disgust with Josh’s reported nonchalance at using human sacrifice, Andrew maybe intended to use Seth to clear the way for him to walk off with the shield spell.
Which wasn’t to say that Andrew, himself, couldn’t be useful.
Seth seemed to reach the same conclusion, or else he felt it better to keep Andrew where he could see him. “I have some more questions, first. Get in.” Seth walked back to the car, his expression unreadable. His gaze connected with hers. “You drive. Not to the cabin. Follow the driveway up to the main ranch house. We’ll talk there.” He got into the back seat to watch Andrew.
Vanessa wriggled across to the driver’s seat and adjusted the driver’s seat—Seth was much taller, and hence, longer of leg—before driving in. They left the gate open behind them.
On both sides of the driveway the grass grew high and dry. The woods pressed in, thick with uncleared undergrowth. If a fire came through here, it would be devastating.
But it wasn’t the threat of wildfire that had her skin prickling with a warning of danger. It was Andrew sitting behind her. Only the knowledge that Seth was beside him, and she trusted Seth, let her concentrate on driving. She swerved to avoid a gaping pot hole.
The driveway curved around a clump of aspens to reveal the main house. It was a rustic lodge, large and sprawling and showing the same neglect as the land. A dead branch lay on the front porch, pushed up against the door by a storm.
Unclear what Seth intended or why he’d had her drive them to the main house, Vanessa parked by the steps and switched off the engine.
The men opened their doors instantly, getting out.
She thought she understood. The suspicion and coiled energy in the car had become suffocating. It would be easier to talk outside.
Except Seth didn’t wait by the car. He jogged up the steps, kicked aside the branch, and opened the lodge door. As with the gate, h
e’d have had to use magic to do so, since the door would have been locked.
Vanessa kept the car between her and Andrew. It was he who asked Seth what the hell he was doing. She’d have phrased it differently, but she was just as curious. Why did they need to be inside the abandoned lodge?
Seth ignored Andrew’s question. He held the door for her, giving her a slight nod of encouragement when she hesitated.
As dangerous as it felt, she gave Andrew her back, leaving him by the car and walking up the steps and past Seth to enter the dimness of the lodge. Perhaps the idea was to see if Andrew had second thoughts and left them? She had the car key gripped tight in her hand, but he could always run. She rather wished he would.
However, a few seconds later, she heard his footsteps entering behind her. She pocketed the car key and embarked on the challenge of bringing light to their situation. Heavy drapes covered the square-paned front windows. Wrinkling her nose at the dust on them and the feel of it against her hands, she pulled the curtains open. The incoming daylight revealed the extent of the lodge’s abandonment.
Furniture stood where it had been left uncovered. Solid sofas and armchairs faced a massive stone fireplace, and at the far end, round tables and chairs were clustered to suggest a dining space. Dust smothered everything. Cobwebs swayed in the wind that eddied in through the open door. Smoke came in on the wind, mixing with the dry scent of dust and the sweet rottenness of rodent droppings. The rustic furniture looked as if it might once have been comfortable, the lodge a welcoming retreat. Now, Vanessa preferred to stand.
“Andrew, why is the shield spell so important to you?” Seth stood to the side of the doorway.
“I need the barrier it provides.” Andrew crossed to the window to the left of the door, where he could see Seth and anything that approached the lodge from the front. “I hate the mountains,” he said absently.
“Why?” Vanessa loved them. They meant freedom.
He retreated from the window to the comparative dimness of the fireplace. “I’m a Pacific Islander. I might have been brought up in Cincinnati, but when I need to breathe it’s the ocean and the islands that I head for. This is claustrophobic.”
Fire Fall (Old School Book 4) Page 10