“Very few. If they are all mundanes, there is nothing that they could have that would hold him. However, if they have a powerful magic user, they could trap him inside a circle. His own magic will be severely dampened inside someone else’s circle.”
“That’s what I thought. So if they don’t have a magic user, then he will get free as soon as he wakes up. If they do have one, we’ll have to plan on breaking him out of a circle. Can do you do that?”
“I’ve done it before. You have to neutralize the magic user.”
“Frak! How am I supposed to neutralize a magic user strong enough to hold Rafe?”
“We’ll help,” Maia offered.
“Thanks, I appreciate that. Beast, we’ll be back as soon as possible. Keep a close watch.”
“They won’t take him anywhere while I watch,” Beast growled.
“Maia, let’s go back to the cabin,” I ordered. Immediately, Maia broke out of her gentle circling of the hangar and accelerated toward Cheyenne Mountain.
Maia was amazingly fast when she put her mind to it. We crossed the south side of Colorado Springs and landed outside Joe’s cabin in less than five minutes. The cabin was easy to find, even in the dark, because of the well-lit Shrine of the Sun, The Shrine could be seen from almost anywhere in town. Joe’s lights were still on, and I was unsurprised to find him standing in the doorway of his log home.
I slid off Maia before she had a chance to kneel for me and threw the saddlebags over my shoulder as I ran toward the steps.
“Rafe’s been captured,” Joe said. It wasn’t a question.
“Yes, I need to get him free before they can move him.” I pounded up the steps and past Joe as he stepped inside to allow me entrance.
“Was he injured?”
“I don’t know, Joe. We were in a hangar at the airport when Rafe suddenly blasted me out of the hangar and into the open air. When I looked back, he was down, and guards were surrounding him. From the queasiness, I felt after, I think they used some form of gas.”
“My spirit totem sent me a warning about bad air after you left,” Joe said as he closed the door and moved to stand beside me.
“That would have been helpful earlier.” I dropped my saddlebags on the floor and set Rafe’s on Joe’s table. Opening first one side and then the other, I searched for what I knew Rafe had.
“What are you planning?”
“I’m going to rescue him.”
“And how do you expect to accomplish this?” Joe asked.
“Beast said that once Rafe wakes up, they could only hold him inside a circle.”
“And you’re looking for?”
I held up the small book I’d seen Rafe studying once. It wasn’t his large grimoire or even his pocket grimoire, but it had all the appearances of a grimoire. Unlike his other two, Rafe hadn’t shown me its contents. Whatever was in it, he didn’t think I was ready to see it.
The hell with that.
Joe took a step away from me. His body language was stiff and cautious.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“That’s a grimoire of night magic. I didn’t know Raphael had one,” Joe said, his concern obvious.
“Well, he does, and I’ve seen him use night magic on a couple of occasions. I need something that will breach a circle, and I’m betting I can find something in here,” I set the small grimoire on the table and bent over it.
“You aren’t ready for night magic. Woman, you are barely a novice at being a Wanderer, and you want to try night magic?”
I stared at Joe for a moment, my throat much tighter than I would have thought. For a few seconds, I couldn’t bring myself to speak. Then I swallowed hard and shook my head. “I’m ready for whatever it takes. Unless you have a better alternative…”
I waited, my vision blurring as Joe slowly shook his head.
“That’s what I thought. Rafe can break a circle with his meteor spell, but I don’t know that one and I don’t have a sling. I’m going to have to find something that I can cast.”
I turned back to the open grimoire, concentrated, and said, “Show me what I seek.”
The pages began to flip rapidly past, stopping about two-thirds of the way through the book. I leaned closer to read. I felt contact on my shoulder and realized Joe had moved to stand beside me, close enough for our shoulders to touch.
“A tremblor spell? What the hell is that?” I wondered.
“It’s an earthquake,” Joe answered.
I slammed my fist down on the table beside the grimoire. “An earthquake? How in God’s name is that going to help me break a circle?”
“It makes sense. A circle is a line of material or perhaps an etching in the form of a circle. Once it’s activated, only someone like Raphael can break it and then only from the outside. Inside, a magic user’s abilities are mostly nullified unless they cast the circle themselves.”
“I understand that, but…oh, if you break the material that forms the circle, the spell will collapse.”
Joe nodded. “From the outside, it’s very difficult. It takes an incredible amount of energy to break even a beginner’s circle. If the mage holding Raphael is powerful, then the energy to rupture the barrier is even greater.”
He turned away from me and walked to the fireplace where the last embers of the night’s fire glowed softly.
“What’s wrong, now?” I asked.
He stirred the embers and then set a couple split logs on the andirons. He waved his hand, and the logs burst into flame. Turning slowly, he studied me.
“Well? I don’t have all night, Joe,” I groused.
“That’s a powerful spell, but it will take time to cast. Time you won’t have.”
“Can’t I cast it from outside the building where he’s being held?” I asked.
“Possible, but the required energy goes up the farther you are from your target. If you aren’t beside the circle when you cast it, I fear you won’t survive the casting.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“As I said, that spell takes a lot of energy. I know you Wanderers store energy in your life force. If you hold that spell for very long, you may die of old age.”
I shook my head. “Wait, you know this for a fact or are you just trying to persuade me not to use it?”
“If I could persuade you, I would lie to you about it, but I can see the steel in your eyes. You will make the attempt no matter what I tell you.”
I nodded. “I owe Rafe. Whatever it costs, I’ll pay.”
“Then you will have to be beside the target circle when you cast it. How strong is your own shield?” Joe asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know; it stands up to anything I’ve encountered so far.”
“That’s not very encouraging,” Joe said.
“It’s the best I can do, Joe. I haven’t had to use it enough to compare it to Rafe’s.”
Joe nodded, looked thoughtful, and then said, “We’ll test it. Activate your shield.”
“What? How can–”
He raised his right hand. It glowed.
Frak! I triggered my shield as his energy blast threw me into the cabin’s exterior wall. I bounced off, landed on my feet, and came up snarling. “What the hell, Joe? Can’t you give–”
The next energy blast plastered me against the logs, and I blacked out.
I came to facing the floor from about six inches in the air. There was a small pool of red directly beneath me. I blinked and realized that the red was blood, which streamed from my nose. I wiped at my nose with the back of my hand. My healing tat had already triggered. Loki’s amulet glowed hot against my skin and the flow of blood stopped almost immediately.
I turned my head and saw Joe standing in front of the fireplace, his back to me.
I rose to my feet, pissed off and ready to punch the old man in the head.
“You better have a damn good explanation for that, Joe,” I said, my fist clenched tight against my sides.
He didn’t turn aro
und as he spoke, “Your shield is too weak to go against a strong mage. You won’t survive long enough to cast the tremblor spell.”
“You can’t be certain that this magic user is as strong as you,” I countered.
“Child, I didn’t hit you with half of my power. Anyone who can cast a circle that would hold Rafe could do at least that and probably more. Face the truth; you won’t have time to cast that spell.”
I mumbled, trying to gather my thoughts into a rebuttal, but within seconds, I knew Joe was telling the truth. In frustration, I kicked out, striking one of his chairs and sending it crashing across the room.
Joe turned, pointed a finger at the chair, said something that wasn’t English and the chair leapt back across the room to stand in front of me.
“Kick it again,” Joe said. “It won’t change the truth.”
I wanted to sit down and put my face in my hands and sob out my frustration. But that wouldn’t help Rafe.
“I can turn the spell into a tat,” I exclaimed with a flash of insight.
Joe studied me. “You know how to do that?”
“How to modify a spell into a tat was one of the first things Rafe taught me. I can do it and activate the spell instantly before anyone can breach my shield.”
Joe nodded, considering my words, and then he said, “That’s a complicated spell. From Rafe’s description, he doesn’t usually burn them in one sitting.”
“That’s right, he doesn’t. But he hasn’t been motivated properly. I can do it. I have to.”
Joe walked toward me, never taking his eyes off mine. When he was within reach, he raised his hands and placed them on my shoulders. “I believe you, Wanderer. How can I help?”
I choked back a sob. Damn it, you’d think it was that time. I forced a grin to my face. “Do you have a pen and paper?”
Joe nodded. “I’ll get them.”
While he fetched writing supplies, I shucked off my boots and peeled down my leather pants.
When Joe returned, I was sitting cross-legged on the floor before the fire. The grimoire was in my left hand, turned to the tremblor spell. With my right index finger, I traced the spell’s pattern in the air in front of my face.
Joe handed me the pen and paper and sat down in the chair beside me. He eyed my bare legs but didn’t comment.
I traced out the spell’s pattern on the first clear page of the notebook Joe had given me. When it was done, I added the runes that would allow a Wanderer to activate it as a tat. Done, I held up the two pages and compared them. I’d always been pretty good at drawing freehand, and I couldn’t tell the difference in the images, save for my additional runes.
I nodded to myself and handed Joe Rafe’s grimoire. Resting Joe’s notebook on my right knee, I studied the spot on my inner thigh where I was going to put it. My thigh there was smooth and unbroken. I traced the pattern once on my thigh with the tip of my index finger. My skin shivered and broke out in goose bumps. The flesh was very sensitive on my inner thigh, but the only other place that was large enough for the tat was my belly, and I didn’t want to have to sit staring at my navel for as long as I thought it would take.
I took a deep breath and let it out. Glancing at Joe, I said, “Well, this is going to hurt.”
Joe’s jaw twitched. “Wait, young one. Let me teach you the spell of remembrance first.”
“Rafe didn’t want me using that one,” I said, looking up at the old shaman.
“He also doesn’t want you playing around with the spells in that grimoire. I’ll think that if he’ll forgive you one transgression, he’ll forgive two.”
“Will it take long?”
Joe grinned. “You read it aloud once and then you’ll remember everything for the next minute. Read it a second time during that period and you will never forget it.”
“Cool, let’s have it.”
Joe went into his bedroom and returned shortly with an old leather bound book. He flipped it open to about the middle and held it out to me. I took the book from him and read the spell once to myself. It wasn’t too complicated. Then I read it aloud, twice.
When I finished, Joe took the book back and closed it.
Picking up the sheet of paper where I’d modified Rafe’s tremblor spell, I recited the remembrance spell, and then studied the tremblor spell for half a minute. Closing my eyes, I found that I could remember the spell in its entirety.
I set the sheet of paper aside and lowered my eyes to the bare skin of my thigh. Gathering my will power, I focused energy as Rafe had taught me and began.
The pain was nearly as bad as the explosion that had changed my life less than a month ago. I gritted my teeth and tightened my resolve. Gradually, the pinpoint that glowed beneath my skin moved in the pattern of the spell.
Chapter 25
Raphael
My head hurt. Something like a hangover, as I remember them. I haven’t had a hangover since I burned my healing tat. I triggered the tat and waited for the relief…which didn’t come. I tried to rub my forehead and found my wrists were bound at my back.
Uh-oh. That brought back memories. I opened my eyes. I was in a dark room. I knew I wasn’t outside because the temperature had been in the low forties when…oh, yeah.
I activated my senses tat, and a faint glow came from in front of me, near the floor. I stared at it and realized it must be the bottom of a door.
Damn few things could make my senses tat and my healing tat fail to work properly. The most obvious one was a circle. That wasn’t good. I had expected mundanes and had figured that if the gas hadn’t killed me, I would be free to wreak a little vengeance on the miscreants.
My headache was beginning to ease. That was something, anyway. My tats were inside my flesh and not affected by much, running water, and someone else’s circle being about the limit I could think of.
I ran my fingers across the material that bound my hands at my back. It was metal. Handcuffs? I tried to stand, but found that my cuffs had also been attached to the chair I sat in. Okay, I’d take the chair with me. I lifted. The chair didn’t move.
Well, that was a disappointment.
I turned my head from side to side, checking out my cage. I began to detect a slight glow in the air around me. Looking down, I saw it emanated from a circle in the floor. It was a small circle, not more than three or four feet across. With any luck, that meant that the magic user who created it had trouble with larger circles. Of course, it might also mean that the mage was conserving his energy and not wasting it on my prison.
Well, I figured it was high time I got busy escaping. Couldn’t just sit there waiting on my apprentice to bail me out.
I focused and pushed more energy into my senses tat. The room brightened noticeably. That tat didn’t usually require but a minimal amount of energy to function, but while the mage who had imprisoned me could build a good circle, he couldn’t totally block out my magic. Circles will hold most creatures that rely on magic, but the ones with inherent magic are more difficult to restrain that way. Wanderers aren’t really inherently magical, but since we can draw on our own life force to power spells, we are similarly hard to restrain.
I canceled my healing tat. The headache was tolerable, and I needed to conserve my power until I cracked open this circle.
What I needed was to first get my hands free, and then I’d see about breaching the circle. I could generate great strength when necessary, but not enough to break steel handcuffs. I didn’t want to try an energy blast on the steel, it might work, but it required a lot of energy. No, I needed something subtle. I briefly considered dislocating one of my thumbs to be able to slide off the cuffs. I could handle the pain well enough, and once out of the circle, my healing spell would make quick work of a minor injury.
I’d save that for later.
I remembered the tattoo I’d used yesterday to dissolve rock. That spell was easy on energy and only worked over short distances. The tattoo warmed beneath my skin. I pinched the steel of the handcuff betwee
n my thumb and right index finger. Nothing happened, but I hadn’t expected immediate results.
I pushed more power into the spell, and after a few seconds, my fingertips felt warmer. There, now to wait.
I heard footsteps, at least two sets, and a moment later the door opened, filling the room with light. I squinted into the sudden glare, and my eyes took a few seconds to focus on the silhouetted pair in the doorway.
Not too surprisingly, both figures were female. I knew the head of Swamp Posse was a woman, Jennifer Armstrong, so I guessed if someone went through all this to capture me then the CEO would be present to see the work done. The other woman was probably the mage who had set the circle.
The woman on my left moved her hand, there was a soft click, and overhead fluorescent lights flared to life.
I squinted again and stared. Neither woman looked at all familiar, but I don’t usually encounter that many mages except when they start dealing in night magic. Heh, look at me call the kettle black. I’d already starting using it myself.
“Good day, ladies. You could have just sent an invite if you wanted to meet. Or did my invite get lost in the mail?”
Neither had a sense of humor.
“He doesn’t look like much,” said the younger one, a dark-haired woman of maybe forty-five or fifty. Jenifer Armstrong was tall, at least five eleven, and muscular beneath a business suit that could have cost a small fortune. However, I wouldn’t recognize an expensive suit unless Paul Newman was wearing it. Wait, didn’t he die? I shook my head. Why was I thinking of dead celebrities?
The other woman, then, must be the mage. She looked to be in her fifties, but strong witches often look decades younger than their actual age. She wore a dress of gold and black, with the emphasis on the black. It was mid-calf in length, and she stood well in three-inch heels that were more ornate than I would thought appropriate for this time of day. Maybe they’d been barhopping before I spoiled their night.
“Don’t let his apparent youth fool you. Wanderers age very slowly. He’s probably older than either of us,” the mage said.
Wanderers 3: Garden of The Gods (The Wanderers) Page 26