“Joshua killed for power,” the phoenix said. “And this was not the first time.”
“It was! I swear!” Josh curled up on the ground, barely raising his head to stare at the phoenix, before he had to blink away from its brightness and the implacability of its glory. He looked at Seth and Vanessa.
As if he thinks we’d help him! Seth intended to get Vanessa and himself to safety. Beyond that, he didn’t care what happened. Other wizards might be fascinated at the chance to observe and interact with a phoenix, but danger was an almost tangible taste on the wind—not smoke, but rage—and he wanted to know what favor he’d be trading.
First, though, the phoenix obviously meant to deal with Josh.
It reduced its incorporeal form from a ten foot high heron to a glowing six feet tall eagle. It mantled wings of incandescent white. “You killed fantastical creatures,” it accused Josh.
“But not humans! Andrew was the first person I killed.”
The man was an idiot to present that as mitigation to a phoenix.
Vanessa shook against Seth. “He was excited to kill Andrew. It was like lust. His eyes were feverish. Afterward, if the shield spell worked, he wanted me for—”
“I’ll kill him,” Seth said.
The yeti moved instantly.
Seth had almost forgotten its presence, so irresistible was the attraction of the phoenix. But now it put himself between Seth and Josh.
The phoenix lowered its eagle wings. “You are not a man of vengeance, Seth Bentham, and the wrongs this man has committed are greater against my kind than yours. You must trust me for justice.”
“Noooo. No, no, no.” Josh shuffled sideways on his hands and knees, trying to retreat from the phoenix, the yeti and Seth.
They all watched him in the glow of the phoenix.
“My magic is not limitless,” the phoenix said.
The statement reminded Seth of a question he had. Whether this was the right time for it or totally inappropriate, he needed an answer. His magic had never failed him before. “Just now, at the lodge, the yeti’s presence interfered with my ability to activate null-space to nullify Josh’s magic. However, at the cave where the yeti was imprisoned, I used null-space.”
“Thereby breaking the barrier spell that held my friend,” the phoenix inclined its eagle head, the beak appearing cruelly sharp. “It was well done, even if you didn’t know you were freeing him. I didn’t know he’d been trapped and caged or I would have intervened. The barrier spell enclosed all sense of him. Which is why the magical force that you call null-space worked. Having been defeated by the barrier spell, my friend was not actively using his magic. His active magic is what interfered with your null-space at the lodge.”
The phoenix looked at the yeti. “Something to remember.”
The creature nodded.
Seth frowned as he considered the yeti. “You broke the shield spell which, being powered by human sacrifice, was significantly stronger than the barrier spell that held you in the cave. Why couldn’t you break free in the cave?”
“I can guess.” Vanessa had stopped shaking. Her voice was hoarse from the smoke they breathed.
Seth sniffed. Actually, he couldn’t smell any smoke. The air here, near the phoenix, was clear of smoke, but faintly scented with spices: cinnamon and cardamom, cloves and nutmeg.
Vanessa gripped his arm as a toddler might latch onto a security blanket, with desperation, determination and utter trust. “Josh used the yeti’s—I’m sorry I don’t know your name—fur as part of the shield spell. That made the yeti part of it, which meant he could break it.” And as they all looked at her, she added. “I mightn’t have magic, but I went to a good school.”
In their moment of distraction, Josh reached a large rock near the edge of the plateau and tried to creep around it.
The phoenix stabbed the air with its beak, and Josh tumbled forward, rolling to the feet of the yeti.
The yeti raised one foot, and lowered it hard onto Josh’s back.
Josh collapsed with his face in the alpine grass and wildflowers.
“Joshua Brosky caged fantastical creatures to steal their magic and kill them for the purposes of his spells. For his own power and perverted satisfaction he killed one of his own.” The phoenix’s voice was solemn. It was stating the charges against Josh, and apparently the yeti was not the first fantastical creature he’d tormented.
The phoenix unhesitatingly pronounced judgement. “His fate will be that of the creatures he exploited. If his allies are capable of compassion, he will survive.”
“My allies?” Josh raised his head. His nose was bloody. His voice trembled. “Who do you consider my allies.”
“Not us,” Vanessa stated clearly.
The yeti reached backward and touched her arm fleetingly. His intent to reassure her was obvious in the gentleness of his actions.
“We would never offend you with even the suspicion of such,” the phoenix said. “Joshua knows his allies. He knows what mercy a trapped creature can expect from them.”
Josh ceased trying to staunch his nose bleed with the sleeve of his sweater. “Th-th-the hunters?”
Somehow, despites its resemblance to an eagle, the phoenix managed to give the impression that it smiled. Perhaps it was the cruel curve of its beak, because this smile was not a nice one. “The hunters, indeed. You have used them often, it seems. Until my friend brought their actions to my attention I’m afraid I ignored their sporadic hunts.” The phoenix shifted form again. It looked like a golden, glowing raven within an aura of sunrise as it dipped its head to the yeti. “I apologize. I know what it is to lose a loved one to wizards. My mate suffered for years.”
“Is your mate…?” Vanessa ventured the question that Seth wouldn’t have dared.
Then again, if the phoenix hadn’t wanted the question, it needn’t have mentioned its mate.
“She is safe,” the phoenix said. “My mate recently returned to me.”
Vanessa gasped faintly.
Seth felt his own jolt of surprise, or perhaps, of incredulous acceptance. The world of magic really was a small one. He knew Marcus, and Vanessa knew Sadie, the two people who had recently returned a rare phoenix to the San Juan Mountains just to the south of here. The story of their adventures had brought Vanessa to these mountains.
“Now we must free other mates and would-be mates,” the phoenix said. Its head tilted with a raven’s quirk of curiosity as it studied Seth. “You are hired for rescue missions. Here and now, I hire you to free my friend’s sister and others.”
“From what?” Seth didn’t like his chances of refusing the phoenix. This was why the yeti had brought them to the plateau. Anger flared in him as he understood the trap they’d fallen into. The phoenix wanted something from him, and with Vanessa here, the implicit threat to her would ensure his compliance. Whatever the mission, the price of his success or failure was Vanessa’s safety and freedom. He tamped down his fury. The more information he had, the higher his likelihood of success.
“There is a laboratory in Kansas,” the phoenix said. “It’s on private land, remote from anywhere. Woodland hides it. Joshua can tell you of it.”
“I’ve never been there,” he said in a muffled voice.
The yeti kicked him, not hard, but with force enough to tip him over from his stomach to his back.
Josh wrapped his arms around his middle and brought his knees up, ineffectually trying to protect himself. “I-I-I d-don’t know m-much. I swear! They call it the Hunters’ Lab. You can contact them on the darknet. They’re careful about who learns of them. They only do business after vetting a person’s suitability. It took me over a year, and even then, initially I could only acquire a jackalope. I’ve heard that they have a roc in one of their underground cells.” He sounded awed and envious.
Seth felt sick. “You want me to free the fantastical creatures caged in the lab?” he said to the phoenix.
“They hold one of each species, female by preference,” t
he phoenix said. “My friend told me of the lab. He heard of it from his extended tribe, who heard it from the Canadians, of all people, after his sister was stolen. He was about to go after her, when he was trapped himself, and traded to Josh.”
“Gerald Svenson paid for it.” Josh tried to shift the blame.
The phoenix ruffled its golden wings. “I will remember the name, but you did the deed.”
“I’m sorry.”
The yeti rumbled.
The phoenix nodded. “I sense the lie, too. A lie will not save you, Joshua.” It looked at Seth. “The Hunters Lab sells what it calls samples taken from the creatures it cages. It also uses them, their pheromones and magic, to create lures for other hunters to use to trap yet more of my friends.”
“We would have stopped it if we knew. We still can,” Vanessa said. “I have friends who care.”
“This is a task better suited to your mate,” the phoenix said.
Seth heard the emotionally loaded term, mate, but couldn’t let it distract him. “I’ll pull together a team. We’ll need to assess how many work at the lab, the nature of their magic and defenses, and how to safely release those trapped inside.”
“Very sensible,” the phoenix approved. Then it cawed! “However, I want action now, as does my friend, who will go with you.”
The yeti stooped and grabbed Josh’s left leg.
For Seth, the mountain plateau vanished.
Chapter 9
Vanessa stood alone, shocked to no longer feel Seth against her or his arm warm around her. The yeti was also gone, along with Josh. Only the phoenix remained.
It made a low whistling sound like a sigh. “Child, sometimes we who wait must endure the most emotional torture.”
Seth translocated into scrubby woodland without a hint of smoke in the air. Above him, the stars were bright and the moon shone serenely.
The yeti stood beside him, still holding Josh by the leg.
Josh lay on his back, wheezing and flopping. For Josh, translocation was evidently one shock too many.
“We’re at the lab?” Seth asked the yeti.
It nodded.
If the phoenix had magic sufficient to translocate the three of them from the Rocky Mountains to Kansas, why hadn’t it simply destroyed the lab and freed the prisoners?
Something had to be keeping the phoenix out.
Since Seth assumed that Vanessa was being kept as a hostage for his performance—something he hated—he couldn’t retreat, although this sort of mission would ordinarily require a team of agents. Tonight, he’d have to crack open the Hunters Lab and free those being tortured inside it all by himself.
The yeti rumbled.
Correction. He’d have assistance, but whether the yeti would be a help or hindrance was still to be determined. Quite apart from the mysterious nature of its magic, the yeti was compromised by its emotional involvement. Its sister was caged in the lab.
Seth would just have to plan with enough flexibility to cover unaccountable behavior on the yeti’s part. They were a two-part team, and unaccustomed to working with each other, or even with each other’s species.
He could feel the pressure of its magic. “Can you hold back your magic?” He would rely on its senses to detect any physical threat approaching them, but he needed his magic operating efficiently to detect magical defenses and threats.
The yeti nodded. The pressure of its magic cut off.
Seth swayed a moment, which was proof of how powerful the yeti was. He’d been unconsciously bracing himself to withstand the angry force of its magic. He steadied his own magic and sent it out on the subtlest of scans.
Immediately, he encountered a ward.
Josh wriggled. “Seth, you and I—”
The yeti’s fist knocked him out.
“Good idea.” Seth approved of eliminating a potential threat. Josh would give away their presence in a heartbeat if he thought it would save him. What the phoenix intended that would place Josh at the mercy of the humans who ran the Hunters Lab, Seth couldn’t guess, and didn’t really care. The yeti had taken charge of Josh as its prisoner. It could be responsible for him. “There’s a ward. Is that why the phoenix couldn’t get in?”
An abrupt, angry nod answered him.
“Okay, let me think about this.” The night was still around them. Seth kept an active scan out for approaching physical or magical threats, but mostly he thought about what he could do that the phoenix, for all its power, couldn’t. The answer had to be null-space. The phoenix had answered his questions on how his magic interfaced with the yeti’s for a reason.
Ever so delicately, he traced the nature of the ward that encircled the laboratory. He couldn’t see the laboratory from their hideout in the trees, but the strong ward was its own confirmation.
Wards and spells differed in vital ways. A spell used magic and sometimes words and other props to guide that magic to perform certain alterations on the world. A ward, on the other hand, sunk into the natural world and drew upon its strength. Land wards were the most common. Blood and water were rarer. This ward drew on the land, but had also tapped a leyline.
The leyline would be the reason why the phoenix hadn’t attacked the lab. A leyline provided magic enough to counter even a phoenix’s power.
Nor could his null-space negate the ward. The leyline could endlessly refill the Void that the null-space decanted magic into.
Unless I destabilize the ward. Seth concentrated on the flow of magic into and through the ward. He worked as lightly as possible, afraid of triggering an alert. If he was to storm an unknown compound of hunters with a yeti as his only ally, he needed the element of surprise. He needed to destroy the ward before anyone knew he and the yeti were there.
Every ward had anchors that tied it to its principle element. This land ward had four cardinal anchors, for the four points of the compass, and a fifth anchor that tapped the leyline. This was the anchor nearest to where the phoenix had translocated the yeti and him.
If he took out the anchor to the leyline, the ward would still be strong. The yeti had broken the shield spell, which had been even stronger than a land ward, but was Vanessa right and that ability was tied to the yeti’s fur being part of the shield spell?
Seth looked at the yeti.
It was scanning the environment, but seemed to sense his attention. Bright blue eyes focused on him.
“Do you understand English?” It—and he—had been acting as if it did, but Seth wanted confirmation before he outlined his plan. He needed to know that the yeti fully understood before it promised anything.
The yeti nodded its large head with its mixed humanoid and feline features.
“All right then.” He’d trust it. “The ward keeping us out has tapped a leyline. I think I can shape my null-space to take out the anchor that channels the energy of the leyline, which is what is making it so much more powerful than a regular land ward. However, I’m not sure how much strength that will take. We have to assume that it will deplete my magical reserves, and I won’t be able to break the underlying land ward.”
The yeti tapped its chest.
“You can break it? Are you sure? It has four other anchors at the compass points.”
The yeti brought its furred hands together, claws zinged out from its stubby fingers, and it mimed tearing something open.
“Okay. We’ll work together,” Seth said. “When I’ve taken out the anchor to the leyline, I’ll touch your shoulder, you break the ward, and we’ll run in. Hopefully, null-space is a unique case and your magic won’t disrupt my normal spells. Josh seemed able to work around your presence. If I can’t use magic, I have a knife and handgun with me, and I’ll try to acquire other mundane weapons from any guards. Before we break the ward, let’s get closer and see what we’re dealing with.”
The yeti stooped, picked up Josh, and slung the unconscious wizard over its shoulder. Clearly it—and the phoenix—had a use for Josh beyond revenge or the yeti would have left the unconscio
us man where he lay rather than attempt to storm the compound while encumbered by Josh’s weight.
Seth decided not to interfere with the yeti’s decision to handicap itself. He ghosted through the spindly trees and undergrowth till the compound came into view.
There was no fence, but the land had been cleared up to and beyond the ward. A smoothly tarmacked driveway skirted around an ordinary ranch house and widened to a large space containing five vehicles. He couldn’t assume that five vehicles meant five staff at the compound. It could be far more, though he doubted there’d be less. How many would be guards and how many would be lab technicians or in charge of feeding and cleaning the cages of the captured fantastical creatures?
Despite the powerful ward to keep people out—and perhaps to keep any escaping creatures in—Seth didn’t sense a look-away spell. So the compound had to be situated far enough from any neighbors that it was unlikely to attract attention.
Behind the ranch house was a large structure, that would resemble a barn from the air, but which had a solidity to the walls that suggested a cement block construction. Nestled up against it, and possibly connected, was an industrial-sized shed.
Seth frowned. The phoenix had said that the creatures were caged underground. Below ground, the complex could extend to the ward.
If the compound was remote enough to not need a look-away spell, it was likely that its staff lived onsite in the ranch house. That meant that whoever was on guard at the lab at night would have back-up.
If his magic still worked after he’d destabilized an anchor that tapped a leyline—a big if—then his first action after the yeti broke open the ward would be to slam his own lockdown spell around the ranch house. If he could trap in the house any back-up, or ability to send for back-up, that would be worth exhausting what remained of his magic in the attempt.
The yeti was focused on the barn and shed.
Seth cast a final look around the compound. How long had it been running? A while, he sensed by the feel of the place. The cleared ground was overgrown with summer weeds in a way that suggested a few seasons’ of growth and repeated cutting back. As terrible as the thought of the compound being long-established was for the fantastical creatures, for Seth it might make things easier.
Fire Fall (Old School Book 4) Page 13