An image appeared just as it had the first time we came to this spot. Mikael sat bound to a chair, his wand hand still charred black. He looked up, straight at us.
“No. No. Don’t hurt her. It won’t get you anything. She’s the smart one. She can help you find what you want. Take me instead.” His words dissolved into a scream, and Sadie’s lifeless body appeared on the ground in front of him, her vacant eyes staring through me.
“Don’t worry, Mikael.” Marguerite’s voice sounded off screen. “This is all Kat’s fault, and she’ll be suffering soon enough. I’ve located Nicole’s family. Since I don’t have rings in their area, I couldn’t get to them in time to transmit their deaths, but I think Sadie’s here has proven my point.”
“No!” Nicole yelled as her knees buckled. The transmission ended, and I wasted no time in porting us out of there.
Twenty-Five
In the hotel room, all the color drained from Nicole’s face. She sank onto the bed, her eyes staring blankly ahead as Sadie’s had. I shook away the mental picture of Sadie, blocked out Mikael’s screams, and focused on Nicole. Marguerite had threatened Nicole’s family. I couldn’t afford to let my emotions affect me. I had to be one hundred percent for Nicole’s sake. If I succumbed to my emotions, I’d be playing right into Marguerite’s hands.
“Nicole, listen to me.” I sat down next to her and took one of her hands in mine. “Nicole. I need you to look at me.” With my free hand I turned her face to me and forced eye contact. “I will not let her hurt your family. I will make this right.” I had no idea how. It was the revelation of my oath that caused Marguerite to turn on Sadie and then Nicole’s family. Knowledge is power, and I had foolishly given some away.
“Danny. We have to get him to safety.” Danny was Nicole’s little brother. She had raised him while her single mom worked two jobs.
“We will. Okay? We will.”
Nicole nodded, but my words didn’t seem to penetrate the shock. I stood and took Alex and Millhook aside. In my absence, Deacon sat next to Nicole and put a comforting hand on her back. Empathy shone from his eyes.
“Millhook, I want you to take Nicole to her family’s house and port them anywhere. I don’t want to know where. I don’t want them to know. Keep porting as often as you have to. I’ll message you through an orb when it’s safe.”
“Understood. I’ll keep us on the move, don’t you worry. But what exactly do I tell her family?”
“It doesn’t matter. When this is all over, I want you to wipe their memories. All of them.”
“Are you sure?” Alex asked. “She’s told us before that she doesn’t want her memories tampered with.”
“I know, but she couldn’t have envisioned this. Look at her.” I gestured to Nicole. She was so out of it she didn’t even notice. “This isn’t something she needs to remember. All of this—me, Elustria, magic, a world she can never go to—all it can do is cause her pain. That ends when this does. The only advantage she has by not having magic is that it’s possible for Millhook to wipe her memory. We’re going to do that for her.”
“All righty, if you’re sure,” Millhook said.
“I am.” Once it was done, she wouldn’t remember that I’d betrayed her.
I took Deacon’s seat beside Nicole. The movement of the bed seemed to jar her out of her trance.
“She killed her. She’s dead. I can’t stop hearing his scream.”
“I know. Millhook’s going to take you to get your family, and then you guys are going to run. Millhook is going to keep you on the move until we know it’s safe.”
Nicole nodded. The naked fear in her eyes left me feeling cold inside. I’d exposed her to this. If anything happened to her or her family, I’d never forgive myself. If I had to live without her friendship in the future, that was the price I’d pay.
Millhook took Nicole’s hand in his. “Come on, dearie. Show me on the map where we’re headed, and I’ll get us there in the blink of an eye.”
Nicole fumbled with her phone until she had her mom’s address up on the screen. Millhook looked at it and nodded. But before he could port them, Nicole pulled her hand free and enveloped me in a hug.
“I’m going to miss you. Find her, okay? She can’t get away with this.”
“She won’t. I promise.” It was a promise I knew I could keep. It was either succeed or die. Those were the only two options in my mind. Nicole’s grip tightened, but I pulled away. “You have to go now.”
Nicole nodded. I looked to Millhook. “I’ll message you as soon as it’s safe.”
“Right. Don’t worry about us.” Millhook took Nicole’s hand, and they were gone.
I couldn’t think about how long we might be apart or about the fact that as soon as this was done I’d be losing my best friend. If I entertained those thoughts for a second, I’d drown in them.
When I turned around, Alex and Deacon stood side-by-side as if awaiting my orders. I knew Alex was with me until the end, but Deacon was a different matter. “Are you coming with us or are you going back to Elustria?”
“After what I’ve just seen, I can’t in good conscience leave until I know that woman has been defeated.”
“Thank you. We welcome your help, I’m sure Nicole’s grateful as well.”
“I feel sorry for the girl, but my allegiance is to the sorcerers. I’m doing this to preserve them and for no other reason. If I can help ensure your friend’s safety, I’ll do it, but I felt my motivations need to be clear.”
“I appreciate your honesty.” I understood where he was coming from. This was an enormous battle, and while Nicole’s family meant everything to me, there were countless other lives at stake here. His honesty also made strategizing and planning easier. Better to have everything out in the open.
“You told Marguerite you got the clue,” Alex said. “I didn’t see you get anything. Were you bluffing, or did something happen?”
I eyed Deacon, deciding whether or not to reveal what had happened. He already knew the gist of the dilemma we were in. He knew what Marguerite was trying to accomplish, and he knew that I was a pidge. The rest would come out eventually, and if we weren’t successful, we would have to alert the sorcerers to the danger so they could be on guard and protect themselves. It didn’t seem like it would hurt anything to reveal the clue, especially since I didn’t know exactly what it meant.
“When I put my hand on the pillar, everything faded away. I couldn’t see what was going on around me. Instead, I saw a memory of my father. I saw Meglana take his magic, and then he died.” I didn’t feel comfortable revealing more than that, especially in Deacon’s presence. Perhaps later when I was alone with Alex I would tell him more.
“Do you think Marguerite will be able to get the memory too?” Alex asked.
Instinctively, I knew that the memory had transferred from the stone into my talisman. It was a transfer, not a copy or viewing of the memory. “No, at least not from the stone. However, the memory is now in my talisman. If she gets my talisman, she’ll be able to access it.”
“Talismans can hold memory?” Deacon asked. “I wasn’t aware of such things.”
“This is the only one that can, and only under certain circumstances.” I didn’t want him thinking it was common for mages to walk around with this kind of power, but I also didn’t want to reveal too much. “We have to find Marguerite before she can hurt anyone else. The only way this is going to stop is if she’s dead.”
“But if the only way she can get this clue is by getting your talisman, maybe going to her isn’t the best idea.” Worry for me clouded Alex’s eyes and his judgment.
“She’ll never stop. We both know that. The only way this ends is one of us is dead. Even if I somehow destroyed my talisman”—I shuddered at the very thought—“she’d still hunt me, try to torture the information out of me. No, the only way out of this is to get rid of her.”
“I agree,” Deacon said. “Do you have any idea where she might be?”
; “The images she transmitted were from the Armory. I feel sure of it. We know that’s where Mikael and Sadie have been living. Marguerite most likely kept Mikael there. It wouldn’t make much sense to move him from such a secure location. Plus, the background looked like one of the Armory’s rooms.”
“But you’ve already tried going to the Armory. You couldn’t even get inside last time. How do you plan to do it this time? If we go and she can see us but we can't see her, that puts us at a disadvantage," Alex said.
I didn’t have a good answer for him, but we were out of options. “This time we have Deacon. He’ll be able to tell us more about the magic that is cloaking the Armory. Once I know exactly what it is, I think I can find a way inside. That’s where the real trouble is going to start. The only thing we have going for us is the element of surprise. Given all the cloaking that they have on the building, I doubt they’ve ever been attacked outright, and they’re certainly not prepared for it. Marguerite’s cocky. She won’t believe us capable of getting inside, so when we do, we’ll have a bit of time before they scramble together a defense. I’m pretty familiar with the layout of the building. I would guess Marguerite is running all of this from the map room. We get in and storm our way there. From what you’ve said, dragons are pretty rare. No one is expecting one to come raging through the Armory.”
“Do you have any idea how many mages are there at a time?” Alex asked. “This isn’t a lot of intelligence to move on.”
It wasn’t. If this were a CCS op, they'd send someone in to perform reconnaissance first. We didn’t have that kind of time or ability. “There weren’t many mages there before, just Casper, the triplets, the trainees, and a few staff. Casper is gone. The only surviving triplet is Mikael, and he’s already restrained. I don’t know how many staff there will be, but some might’ve left when Casper died. As for trainees, I doubt Sadie and Mikael have been actively recruiting. It didn’t sound like it from our conversation with Sadie. Even if there are trainees, they’re all noobs who aren’t going to put up much of a fight. My guess is they’ll surrender or run as soon as we show up. If we can get inside, I like our chances. I don’t think we’ll have much of a fight until we meet Marguerite.”
“You’re probably right,” Alex grudgingly admitted. I knew he’d always try to talk me out of a dangerous path, but he could also see reason. “Once we get into the Armory, I think your best bet is for Deacon and me to be shifted. I’ll do what damage I can as a panther, but don’t hesitate to call on me to heal you if needed. We’ll take advantage of surprising them, but there’s no need to rush in. Before you meet Marguerite, we should stop and allow me and Deacon to do what healing we can.”
“I agree,” Deacon said.
“So that’s the plan. If things get really hairy I can always port us out, but I don’t want to resort to that. Once we get into the Armory, we have one shot at this. Once Marguerite knows we can breach her defenses there, she’ll relocate, and I have no idea where she’d go. I’m afraid we won’t see her again until she’s killed Nicole’s family. This is our best shot.”
“Agreed.” Alex nodded. “Thank you for being willing to port out. We need to keep you alive.”
He still saw me as reckless, and I couldn’t blame him after what just happened at the cave. He didn’t realize that my willingness to port out wasn’t a personal decision; it was my CCS training talking. I had to treat this like an op. It was the only way we could succeed. “Remember, she doesn’t want to kill me. She’ll only do it if she feels she has no other choice. So keep that in mind strategically. All right, any last questions before we go?”
Neither man spoke. We joined hands in a circle, and I ported us to the same clearing I’d gone to with Millhook only days ago.
Twenty-Six
The forest looked exactly the same. I dreaded having to figure out how to get into the Armory. It could take a while, and we would be exposed the entire time. “It’s up ahead, cloaked. Stay in your human forms for now. If there’s a guard watching, we don’t want to reveal our true strength to them until we have to.”
I led the way, creeping along without using my magic in case it would alert the denizens of the Armory to our presence. Millhook and I had figured that the enchantment placed on the Armory was intended to fool hikers, which meant they expected the occasional human.
Something felt different. The forest was eerily silent. I couldn’t hear a single bird or bug or any kind of animal. The only sound came from my footfalls. Both Deacon and Alex were too soft-footed to make a sound. I emerged from the trees and looked up to see an imposing fortress. The cloaking was gone.
“I thought you said it would be invisible,” Deacon said.
“It was the last time I was here. The Armory is supposed to be cloaked at all times. Either Marguerite has become arrogant or there’s something wrong.”
Deacon sniffed the air. “I don’t smell any magic.”
“You mean you don’t smell any defenses?”
“No, I meant what I said. There’s no magic here. There may be a couple of magical objects inside, but nothing very powerful, nothing I would fear.”
“Has it been abandoned?” Alex asked.
It couldn’t be. I hoped not. If it was, we might not find Marguerite before she killed someone. “There’s only one way to find out. Let’s get moving. At least we don’t have to worry about fighting our way in or even finding the door.”
With an odd sense of satisfaction, I noted a doorway exactly were Millhook and I had tried to get in. If the building hadn’t been enchanted, we would’ve gotten inside even with it cloaked.
I believed Deacon when he said he couldn’t smell any magic, but I didn’t trust that this wasn’t a form of trickery. For all I knew, as soon as I cast a spell, my magic would activate some alarm or defenses, so I kept it strictly human.
“Let me go first,” Alex said. “If there’s something that attacks, I can heal more easily, and we can’t risk you getting captured.” He walked ahead of me. Deacon and I flattened ourselves against the outer walls on each side of the entrance. Alex tested the door and, finding it unlocked, pushed it open. “It’s dark, but it doesn’t look like there’s anyone here.”
Deacon and I followed behind. The entryway was abnormally dark, and I was unfamiliar with the space. I’d never been to this part of the Armory. I had entered through the roof. Alex’s heightened senses as a shifter meant he could see more than I could, but I didn’t like relying on his sight.
“Yeah, there’s nothing here,” Deacon said. “I’m sensing a couple of wands. They’re too weak to be talismans. There’s no danger if you want to use your magic. It’s definitely not Marguerite.”
I didn’t want my impatience to cost us, but Deacon knew what he was talking about. I had to trust someone, and if it was just two mages without Marguerite here, then I felt confident the three of us could take them. I cast light from my hand and saw illuminator orbs scattered across the floor. They were dead, looking like nothing more than marbles on the ground. I tried to activate one, but nothing happened.
“I’ve never seen anything like this. We should head toward the magical objects you smell. Lead the way. I’ll keep the light going.” I gestured for Deacon to step ahead of me and Alex.
“At the first hint of danger, I’ll shift. The shock will buy us time, but like I said, we’re not going to need it. The magic here is weak.”
Deacon found the stairs, and we climbed up to the next floor. This area was more familiar. From the landing I could see the entrance to Casper’s private study. Deacon kept ascending the stairs, but I cast my light across the way to illuminate the study. The shelves were bare. The only hint of the life that had been here before was Casper’s ornate chair that sat behind his intricately carved desk. I withdrew the light and followed Alex and Deacon upstairs.
“Here, it’s on this floor,” Deacon said. “I think it’s two wands that aren’t activated.”
We were on the training floor. The space was fam
iliar to me. It was here that I learned to control my magic. It was also here that Casper revealed his true nature. This place held bitter memories for me, and I had hoped to never return. “There are a lot of little training rooms up here. The magic you’re sensing is most likely coming from one of them.”
Deacon walked along slowly, sniffing the air every few feet. He stopped in front of the fourth door on our left. “Here. The magic I’m smelling is coming from behind this door.” Deacon whispered, but I knew that these doors were soundproof.
Alex took the lead again and tested the door, it gave way easily.
“Mikael?”
At Alex’s astonished voice, I cast my light into the room and rushed inside. The scene appeared just as it had in Marguerite’s macabre transmission. Sadie lay sprawled on the ground, dead, her eyes still open. Mikael sat behind her.
“Kat?” Mikael’s voice was weak. He sounded like he didn’t believe his eyes.
I reached out to dispel the bindings holding Mikael only to realize that there weren’t any, or at least not any of a magical nature. That’s why Deacon hadn’t said anything about them. Instead, old-fashioned rope tied Mikael to his chair.
Deacon knelt next to Sadie and reverently closed her eyes. He stood. “Yes, this was the source of the magic. It’s their wands.”
Alex went behind Mikael’s chair and shifted just enough to expose his claws and slice through the rope. Mikael rushed to Sadie and knelt down to look at her, brushing her hair away from her face with his hand that was whole. The way he moved, it was as if he didn’t consider his charred wand hand to even be part of him anymore.
“I’m so sorry, Mikael,” I said. “I had no idea she would kill Sadie. It doesn’t make any sense. She’s gone mad.”
Mikael didn’t seem to hear us, or if he did, he showed no signs of it.
“Mikael,” Alex said. “Is there anyone else here with you?”
Magic Hunted (The Elustria Chronicles: Magic Born Book 4) Page 12