“Aiya and Todd, they seemed to really hit it off this morning, and I kind of got a vision of them out on a date.”
Sierra shook her head, “Humans are hardest of course, they have to be brought in on the secret very carefully, and they can’t always handle it. I suppose that won’t be a problem for Aiya, she already knows about you, and that I’m not human even if she doesn’t know exactly what I am.”
I nodded slowly, “Most likely, of course all I saw was a date.”
Sierra shrugged, “The just one date part is much less important than you think, he wouldn’t ask her on even that one date, considering she’s a human police detective, unless his wolf wanted her. Of course, she might say no, but for him…”
We walked into the store a few minutes later, Carrie looked a little tired, but not nearly as worn out as Tara had looked yesterday evening, and Gerald looked crisp and alert. Of course, he hadn’t been carrying the wards, just physically guarding Carrie and the store. I could feel Tara working magic in the back.
“Morning,” I said while I slapped up a shield of air around the store, and took over for Carrie, “Do you two want to go back to the pack house?”
Gerald shook his head, “Might as well stay here in the city, or you’ll have to leave the store to get us back if you need us. Where is Todd?”
I nodded, that was a good point, “Feel free to crash in my spare bedroom then, and Todd should be along soon.”
Todd had stayed behind to help Aiya clear the dishes and clean up, while we had come to relieve them as soon as possible. Like I said, I’d felt a little guilty about it.
Gerald nodded, and Carrie gave me a warm welcoming smile before they left. I could tell she’d wanted to give me a hug, or her wolf had, but it would take time to get over what she’d gone through, I wasn’t in any rush.
Sierra asked, “So what happens if Diana is attacked while you’re on shift here?”
Well, that was a really good question.
“Tara should be able to hold the wards for a little bit if I have to leave. I was going to let her know as soon as we got here, but she’s in the middle of a complicated spell right now.”
She stepped closer and wrapped her arms around me, “If you get hurt, I’ll kill you.”
I laughed and kissed her hair, “I’ll keep that in mind. I assume you won’t be coming?”
Sierra sighed, “I don’t like the idea at all, but against a fourteen-hundred-year old vampire, and a powerful fire sorcerer? I’d be a liability and split your focus. Just be safe.”
I practiced my magic the next hour or so while chatting with Sierra about moving plans and the future, feeding any strong stray emotions to my shields, and trying to make my air and fire shield stronger. I also tried to stretch out my sphere of influence, by reaching out for both the air and fire outside of their respective sphere sizes, but so far nothing.
Tara came out from the back a little while later, looking a bit angry, she was also wearing an attractive flowing dress that clung just enough to incite the imagination. It was the subtlest thing I’d ever seen her wear, and I tried not to think about the curves that I knew were hidden beneath, but I failed completely.
“It’s not working. They must have added to the coven, enough power to block me even with personal items. That must be why they waited so long before attacking me,” Tara concluded.
Sierra asked, “Why didn’t you bind them a long time ago, or even kill them?”
Tara shook her head, “When I ran I was sixteen, scared, and I knew very little magic. The idea of killing anyone was repulsive, and still is. I didn’t want to be like them. Even now, the idea of killing doesn’t appeal, but I don’t think I have a choice since its come down to self-defense. Will you help me find them?”
“I can try. I also might have to leave in a hurry sometime today, for a short time,” I explained briefly about what else was going on and then added, “So be ready to fuel the wards at no notice. I’ll need to see one of the items, but you know the whole coven is probably shielded with earth magic.”
Tara nodded, “Come in the back,” and turned and swayed alluringly away from us. The slits in the flowing dress showed very brief but tantalizing amounts of her legs as she walked, which also made it a fight for me not to look down at her… well backside. The woman was an evil seductress, surely it couldn’t be me right?
I felt Sierra’s nails dig into my arm, damned werewolf noses, I also felt guilty. Not that I could do anything about it though, I could control my words and actions, but looking, or in this case wanting to look, was pure male instinct. Without that overwhelming seductive hunting aura she’d had when we first met, that’d made me want to run away, I ironically found it much harder not to feel attracted.
There were several items laid out on a white cloth on a table, the floor was covered with arcane designs, and I could feel the power coming off the circle, or at least the air, fire, and water parts of it.
I asked curiously, “If you were raised by a dark coven, how did you learn light spells?”
Tara looked full of pride as she said, “A lot of research and experimentation, I was also able to adapt many of the benign spells that called for sacrificial energy, using my own instead. Often the only difference between a light and dark spell is where the magic comes from. Obviously curses, sacrifices, and other dark ends aren’t included in that. Lastly, though I never joined another coven, I have dealt with light covens and some of them will share and trade tidbits of knowledge with visiting witches.”
I took a closer look at the objects, I didn’t have to touch them, they were within the influence of my sphere of air. I couldn’t find the coven, they were protected from that, but I was able to learn a few things about their past.
“There are nine of them now, they added four new people, so there were originally seven including you and your mother?”
Tara nodded.
I grunted, “They’re after the book you burned, they believe you still have it. They also want to eliminate you as a threat, they assume you practice dark magic and want revenge. Cyndy’s been obsessed with it for the last ten years. I’m getting all this from the past, Cyndy is still in charge, and she has the others… not controlled, but conditioned by spells against betraying her, like she did to your mother.”
While I was at it, I reached out for the fire sorcerer and Christopher again, they were closed off as well, but it was different. I couldn’t feel the earth magic blocking me from the coven, but I could feel the fire magic blocking my magic from the other issue. It was very subtle, but it was there.
“Can we find them through their attack on you? Trace the magic back somehow?”
The coven’s magic was still blasting against the shield I put over the store, it was a stalemate at the moment. I should have asked Carrie last night if it had let up at all, didn’t the coven need to sleep too?
“How are they maintaining this attack?”
Tara frowned, “Probably a sacrifice to fuel it, a slow bloodletting of a supernatural would do it, they’d only need one witch in the coven to maintain and direct the power of the spell once it was cast, so they could switch off to rest. But all their power is still tied up in it as well, so they will eventually tire. I could try a spell to trace the magic back. That will find the ritual space used though, not necessarily the coven. They don’t have to be present there anymore.”
Yes, because life isn’t complicated enough.
Sierra and I watched as she got out ingredients and ground them together with the mortar and pestle, and poured them into her own ritual space. Then she stepped inside and raised a circle. She turned back to look at us.
“Ben, you’ll have to lower your shield, I need the connection of their spell hitting my own wards to track it.”
I dropped the shield over the store, and tried to understand what she was doing. It occurred to me that I could probably back trace the spell with my air magic as well, if I understood how. I’d never done anything like that befo
re, but if I could pull knowledge, and information on people and objects, did that mean I could do it for magic as well?
I could still feel the attacks, inside the power of my air sphere, and I tried to pull information from the magic, the same way I’d do it from an object. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected, perhaps a location of where it originated, but much like an object or picture, what I got was information on the owner of the magic. If there was a way for me to do a trace, what I’d just tried wasn’t it.
I tried to reach the information on how to do it, and was blocked.
It hadn’t been a total loss though, and I was able to get the location in an alternate way.
Barry Dinmore. Two-hundred-year old vampire, and slowly being bled to help power the spell, an ongoing blood sacrifice. Barry was also in a house on the south side, in a basement. He was lured in by a witch named Amber, a part of the coven and twenty-three years old, and almost as beautiful as Tara. He was no doubt suckered in by the promise of a nice meal and hot sex.
So I suppose what I had done had worked, just not the way I expected. Either the coven hadn’t thought Tara could trace a random sacrifice, or blocking him with a ward would interfere with the spell.
Tara was already casting, so I kept my mouth shut. I felt a little sheepish that she didn’t really have to bother with her spell at this point.
Tara finished and said, “In a basement in south Chicago. I don’t have an address, but I can lead us there. Can you get Carrie back here to cover the wards? I don’t want my shop to burn down when we get out of range and I can’t directly support my wards.”
Sierra frowned, “I suppose, do we have a plan? Or are we just going to charge in?”
Tara shook her head, “I’ll break the wards first…”
She was interrupted by Todd walking in, “So, what did I miss. I kind of lost track of time.”
He looked a little sheepish, he was supposed to be shadowing and learning from Sierra right now.
Tara said, “We’re going after the ritual space the spell was cast from. Anyway, I can break the wards first, we don’t want to enter another coven’s ritual space without doing that first. Even a temporary one.”
Sierra asked, “Are you sure you can do that?”
Tara smiled, “Yes, because most of the coven’s power is tied up in the spell. If I go after the wards they will eventually go down, unless the coven cancels the spell themselves, in which case we’ll still do what we set out to do, and also have one of the coven members trapped within. Plus, I’m pretty sure Ben can smash the wards all by himself.”
I thought about that a moment, if the spell was within my sphere of influence, I could hit it with fire and air magic. I had the strength to do it, the question was if I could burn away the earth magic without seeing it. It should work, maybe some kind of rolling wave. I’d have to see.
Todd asked, “So what should I do?”
Sierra ordered, “You’ll come with us, when Carrie and Gerald get back.”
Sierra pulled out her phone, and made the call. They probably wouldn’t be happy having their rest interrupted, but Carrie should be fine to take the wards back long enough for us to find and kill the spell. That part should go pretty fast, I hoped so anyway.
Sierra hung up, “They’ll be here in a half hour.”
Tara grabbed a satchel and started to throw things in it, preparing for a fight no doubt.
Chapter 9
Friday, June 3rd, 2016, 10:43 PM
We were still waiting on Carrie and Gerald when I was hit with a wave of anger, fear, and worry. It made me wince, because Diana was still pissed at me, but all the fear and worry was also on my behalf which meant… my life was so damned complicated. Either way, the time was now. It could have been worse, at least we hadn’t attacked the coven’s spell site yet. Still, it could’ve been better.
I stepped away from Sierra and muttered, “Got to go,” as I wrapped the power of air around me and went to wherever Diana was, my magic knew because I was connected to her.
I took in the situation with a glance. We were west of the city in a large field. I wondered for a moment how that came to be, but for right now it wasn’t important. Ceara and Diana were dressed in the same kind of tight leather clothes, and they were trying to pin down Christopher who was doing the same avoidance type crap, depending on his fire sorcerer to make the actual kill.
The fire sorcerer was directing a shield of fire around Ceara, who must have sensed it because she moved faster than I could track before it could solidify and trap her. Obviously the fire sorcerer wasn’t messing around this time by throwing fire, and was trying a more direct attack. I would call him foolish for waiting before bringing his A game, but I did the same thing all the time. Throwing balls or blades of air, as opposed to just crushing an opponent with the air already around them, felt more natural for some reason.
He looked at me, and this time his attack on my emotions went awry, and he didn’t get through my shields. Wrapping the fire element with air seemed to have worked and removed the bridge he used to get passed my defenses. He could probably overpower it, but I didn’t give him time to add more power behind it. I ordered the air around me to starve his fire.
It was partially effective, but he was still much more powerful than I was, and my access to the fire element was greatly lessened, since his control over the area overlapped and overshadowed my own power. He gathered fire and focused on me, while I surrounded him with air.
Ceara was attacking Christopher with ferocity, but he seemed to be completely focused on defense and was able to dodge, duck, and weave around those attacks.
I jumped behind the fire sorcerer as I felt his fire start eating into my shields, having the air move me immediately out of danger. There was no way the air I’d focused around him could get through his shield, I was like a toddler fighting a grown man, although a toddler that was much faster.
But he made another mistake, by ignoring that air I’d focused around him, assuming he was invulnerable to my attack, he disregarded it, instead of using fire to consume it. The truth was, it was a good assumption, any attack I made with the power I’d surrounded him with would fail.
But I didn’t attack him, it wasn’t part of my plan. Instead, I bade the air magic to move him, shield and all… to California. He disappeared from the field in a flash, now moving incredibly fast toward the west. He was completely out of sight in less than a second.
I felt the magic I’d surrounded him with die however, as he burned the travel spell away with ease. I’d never believed I’d get him all the way to California. Yet, those two seconds of travel was enough to move him several miles west. As far as I knew, fire couldn’t travel nearly as fast, if at all. If there was a way to travel with fire I didn’t know how yet, of course, there was a lot I didn’t know so I took that with a grain of salt.
I looked down at Christopher who was still moving around like a damned jumping bean, and congealed the air around him as I lowered to the ground, which slowed him significantly.
Ceara growled and took his head quite easily at that point, so I released the magic around his body that was holding it up, and let his body fall to the ground.
“Good morning ladies,” I said brightly.
Ceara asked curiously, “You defeated Jaben?”
“Jaben?” I asked stupidly, the name had completely thrown me.
Ceara explained, “The fire sorcerer, the bastard introduced himself right before you got here.”
“Oh, no, sorry, I just tricked Jaben. I moved him about five miles west. I’m hoping now that his employer is dead he’ll just move on. He could have prevented it, by burning my magic away, but he was too confident in defeating an attack, so when I didn’t attack him and moved him instead, it took him a couple of seconds to escape. Even then, when he burned my magic away he was moving very fast, over two miles a second fast, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he got hurt when he landed.”
I looked around again, “How did y
ou wind up out here?” I asked curiously.
Diana replied, “Thanks for the help, we got a tip on their location, there’s a vampire coven near here. No doubt it was another trap for us all, but this time we were ready for it… we’ll deposit your money when we get back.”
I could feel her confusion, she wanted to be mad at me, but she also wanted to jump me, and I hated the invasion of privacy.
“Should I remove the link?” I asked, perhaps a bit too hopefully.
Ceara shook her head and answered, “Let’s wait and see what happens. Jaben might just leave, on the other hand he may want revenge on us for you damaging his pride, and getting the better of him.”
I sighed, “Very well. Just let me know when, and if Jaben comes back I’ll answer Diana’s call again. I’ll also keep you updated if I run into him, chances are if he wants revenge it will be against the one that tricked him.”
They both nodded at me, and then took off going east towards the city, fast. I guess the conversation was finished. I was worried about more than Jaben simply coming back, what if he spread word of a new air sorcerer in Chicago? Aitheria protected me from my enemies finding me through arcane means of knowledge, but that wouldn’t do anything against word of mouth. But then, sorcerers weren’t the sharing types, so maybe it would be fine.
Either way, I was done here and needed to get back to our other issue. The dark coven needed to be stopped.
I wrapped myself in the power of air, and moved myself to the back room of Tara’s store.
I realized immediately there was something very wrong. Sierra was in wolf form and growled at me until she saw who it was. Todd was growly as well, but still in human form. Tara wasn’t in range of my air magic and when I reached for her location with my power, I was predictably blocked. It didn’t take a genius to realize they must have been watching the shop, and made a move as soon as I left.
Sorcerer: Witch's Woes: Power of Air (Book 3) Page 6