Secrets The Walkers Keep: A New Adult Urban Fantasy (Casters of Magic Series Book 1)

by J. Morgan Michaels

  A picture of Zoe entered my mind and she smiled at me. She had such a wonderful smile, the kind that instilled the confidence that she would grow up to be a simply amazing woman, like her mother and her grandmother. The Universe aligned on the heels of that picture with my urgent need to cast that spell, connecting me to its power through love. I leaned over the flames to call out the spell, and they crackled from deep inside the pot.

  “I stand firm on Mother Earth and ask her to take me to the place of peace. Take me, Mother, to a higher plane where all is seen with the mind, and all is understood with the heart. Take me, Mother, to that place at the crossroads of chaos and order, to that place of peace.” I closed the book and waited.

  It only took a few seconds before bright yellow vapors started to puff intermittently from the bowl. Like yellow clouds above a burning earth, they floated in waiting, growing every second. As the fire dwindled, the clouds combined and forcefully pushed themselves into my nose and mouth.

  That was easily the most rank smelling and tasting thing I had ever experienced. It was like dirty feet. Rotting, moldy, dirty feet. I started gagging uncontrollably, holding my stomach and trying to keep myself from throwing up. Unlike my other visions, there were no sweats, no lights or noises, just an immediate presence in the face of the past. It picked up where my last had left off.

  The man without a face was holding the Opalescence and talking to his unseen companion in the shadows of my sight. Wherever they were, they still had my captive niece with them.

  “A lot of good that charm of yours is doing to keep him out of our way,” he said to the hidden woman.

  “It’s stopping him from using those visions he gets to find out who we are, isn’t it?” the woman’s muffled voice shot back. “You can thank me for that later.”

  “It’s not going to be enough,” he said. “I know this family—they won’t just lay down and wait while I have her.”

  They kept talking, but the vision started to fade away and their voices became distant.

  No! Damn it.

  I refocused and tried to hold onto the vision to see where they were, but they were both gone. Instead of falling back into the present, like I had with every other vision, I jumped straight into a new one. Moving faster than ever, broken pieces of visions started to overlap, and it was like every corner of the Universe was throwing information at me.

  In one vision, Withers was hunched over his workbench at Oddities talking into an old rotary phone.

  “No, Simone,” he said loudly. “No. Listen to me. I have no intention of mixing myself up in the business of Walkers anymore. It’s not worth it.”

  A woman’s voice started talking back, but I couldn’t tell what she was saying. Withers pulled on the phone’s cord, stretching it to its limits so he could reach the door. He looked out the window nervously before changing the sign to “closed.”

  “Yes. He just left. Mia’s son. The one I was telling you about.”

  The woman’s voice on the other end got more urgent.

  “I don’t care about any of that. This isn’t for us—we need to get out of here. At least for now.”

  The woman’s response was brief.

  “No. I believe you, but it’s not our concern. If the man behind the mask is a Walker, that is for them to deal with and they’ll figure it out soon enough.

  In the second, I watched a plump woman I didn’t know walk to the front of a large room, filled with people.

  She opened a small book and put on reading glasses before saying, “In the beginning, there were five, and in the end there will be five.”

  Then another vision started before the second had finished.

  A woman with bobbed hair and a colorful, ankle-length dress with sleeves sat at a long wooden table. I remembered her from the vision Kevin had forced on me once. Holding the Opalescence in her hand, she smiled as a man approached her.

  “This ends now,” he said. He held out his hand and fire started to appear, just like I had seen with Justin once before.

  The woman started laughing as the colors of the Opalescence started moving freely. She and I were separated by time and space, but somehow I could feel the Opalescence grow cold in her hand. “Take his powers,” she said.

  That vision started to fade away, but another had already started. I was in the copy room at Cartwright, surrounded by boxes.

  “I’m not just being sympathetic, Hat,” Kevin said to me. “Once you’re connected to the Opalescence, you’re connected forever—and that connection doesn’t end with death. I can feel it always, just as I can feel you and every other person who has ever worn it. You will, too, with time.”

  That string of visions was like trying to see which channel the TV was on, while driving past it at seventy miles an hour. It was sickening, and when the fumes finally subsided, I stumbled over to the couch and fell into it.

  “You didn’t tell me it was going to do that,” I croaked, holding my stomach and still gagging.

  “Would it have stopped you from doing it?” she asked, shaking her head from side to side. “Did it show you where they are?”

  The sickness subsided enough that I could stand again. “Kevin!” I yelled into the air, startling Liv.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Kevin, goddammit,” I yelled again. “Get your ass down here and help us.”

  With the Opalescence’s power, I tapped into the connection I had with Kevin. I used it to call him—not just verbally, but emotionally too; to send the urgent sense of need I had for him. And even before he arrived, I could feel his dread, fear, and guilt inside me.

  “He’s blocking you from finding him with spells,” Kevin said, appearing from the next room.

  “Do you know what that is? Not helpful, that’s what that is,” I said.

  “You’re right. I’m sorry,” he said.

  “You told me once you can always feel the Opalescence. Can you feel it now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where is it?”

  Kevin hesitated for moment and then took a deep breath. Why I’ll never know, he was dead. “There’s a lumberyard in that industrial park . . . the one in front of the highway. That’s where he has it.”

  “Then that’s where I’m going.”

  “Let’s go,” Liv said.

  “No,” I said, holding onto her arm. “I need you to go back to my sister’s house and wait there. Do whatever you need to do, but make sure everyone stays there and just . . . just keep them all safe.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because I can’t be in two places at once, and I need someone to look after all of them while I go to that lumberyard. If what I saw is true . . . ,” I choked a little, “then we can’t trust anyone, not even my family.”

  Chapter 32

  The street in front of the industrial park was still dark and quiet when I arrived. I pulled off the road a few blocks away, shut off my lights, and closed my eyes. Taking a deep breath, I tried not to think too much about what I was about to do or question whether or not I could actually do it.

  Once inside the gate, I scanned around the few lit areas for movement. The large wooden sliding door to the lumberyard’s office was ajar, and I crept along the wall with a side-step toward it, watching for anyone who might come out of the darkness at me. Once I reached it, I darted through the door and took cover behind a nearby forklift.

  Large pallets of countless types of wood were scattered around the room, and they were stacked so high that you couldn’t see over them. Together, they created a catacomb draped in midnight’s darkness that easily hid everything.

  I moved quietly through the tunnels of wood, searching for the source of the one light I could see. As I got closer, I slowed down. I put the heel of my foot out first to lightly touch the ground before rolling my shoe to my toes, gliding int
o each step to hide any noise my feet might make. The light peeped out from the end of one of the aisles, and I stopped just before it, listening for the owner of the shadow that passed back and forth in front of the light.

  I calmed myself as I felt a cold sweat form, and quietly waited for a vision to unfold.

  The Guido with the pipe, one of the men who had attacked Max and me a few months before, sat lazily on a wobbly folding chair. Next to him, a half-drunk bottle of beer and a dirty can of mace.

  Illuminated by the room’s only light, he sat alone and puffed on a cigarette before throwing it against one of the large stacks of wood. It bounced off the wood, throwing tiny embers all over the cement floor before dissolving and rolling into the darkness. He spit and used the sleeve of his worn sweatshirt to wipe the dribble from his mouth.

  As I opened my eyes, a bent cigarette butt rolled across the dark floor in front of me. I picked up a piece of dowel rod that was leaning against a tier of pellet wood packets beside me. Taking one deep breath and holding it, I jumped out into the light and charged Pipe Guido, who was still perched on the chair wiping his mouth.

  “Shit,” he yelled before I hit him across the head with the piece of wood.

  He was still awake, but painfully awake, holding the lump that was forming on the side of his head with both hands. I took another step forward, but an arm wrapped around my neck from behind. A hand followed and grabbed my wrist to pull it behind my back.

  “Ugh,” I yelled into the arm.

  What the hell? I couldn’t have seen both of them in my vision?

  “Ha!” I growled as I bent my free elbow and thrust it behind me into my attacker’s stomach, causing him to drop his arm from my neck.

  “Gaaah,” I called out, lifting my elbow and striking him in the face with it. After my elbow made contact with his nose, I yanked on the hand still clenched to my wrist. I used all my weight to spin him around to face me, and then pushed him roughly into the wall behind him. He finally let go, and I gave him one swift hit to the stomach before moving away. Finally getting a good look at him, I saw another familiar face, Collar Guido.

  “Not bad, fag,” he groaned and pulled himself up from my last hit.

  I tightened my fists, tucking my thumbs underneath them. “Where’s my niece?”

  He guffawed at me. “Where’s your little boyfriend, huh? You can’t take both of us alone.”

  Before I could do or say anything, his leg was in the air, striking my knee with his foot. I fell hard on that knee, and his fist followed, hitting me in the face with a forceful right hook.

  My body contorted and my face landed against the cold and rough cement floor with a smack. He bounced on the balls of his feet a little, like a boxer in a ring, and moved to pick up Pipe Guido from the floor.

  “Come on . . . is that it?” he asked.

  You have no idea.

  The coldness of the Opalescence entered me as I focused on our connection. Without getting up, I slid my arm up from my side toward the canister of mace that lay just a few feet out of my reach. Curling my fingers, I commanded it to come to me, and it quickly rolled up into my open hand. I moved away from the two Guidos and held the mace up at them, letting the top fall back to the ground, and teasing the trigger with my finger.

  “You think you can hurt us with that from way over there?”

  “No, actually,” I said, tossing the canister at them.

  Pipe Guido held out his hands to catch it, but before it reached him, I slammed my palms together like I was killing a bug and focused on the canister. It exploded, and the mace sprayed into the air around them. They covered their eyes and screamed out in pain. They couldn’t move at first, except to writhe in pain, but when they finally did, a stinging red color had bled out from their eyes and swept across their faces.

  Still unable to open his eyes completely, Collar Guido grabbed the piece of wood I had hit his friend with at the start of our scuffle and swung it at his side.

  “Oh, hell no,” I said, throwing up my hand at him and knocking him away with the Opalescence’s power. He flew back about twenty feet and bounced off another stack of wood before flopping to the floor. He made no attempt to get up.

  “Where is she?” I approached Pipe Guido, who had fallen to his knees in pain and was still struggling to compose himself from the hit of mace.

  When he didn’t speak, I pulled my fist into the air and hit him across the face with the back of it. “Where is she?” I asked again.

  He still refused to talk. The adrenaline of the situation brought unprecedented control over the Opalescence’s powers and my connection to it. I stretched out my hand at him and like I was picking up a cup, I slowly pressed my thumb against my first two fingers and focused on his throat. Without touching him, the Opalescence’s powers would close his windpipe, just for a moment, before I released my hold and let him gasp for air.

  “I should tell you,” I said in between the third and fourth time I cut off his air supply, “every second you test my patience and don’t tell me where my niece is, is one more second you’re bartering with your own life.” I closed his throat a little longer that time for emphasis.

  When his face started to turn five shades of indigo, he put out his hand and pointed to the middle of five metal doors behind him. I released him from my magical hold, and then my leg shot up and kicked him in the face with the top of my foot. He twisted and landed on his back, conscious but unaware of me as I stepped over him and ran to the door.

  “Zoe?” I called out, yanking open the door. The door led to a long, narrow hallway with another metal door on the other end. Between me and that door, however, was Goatee Guido holding a baseball bat. He started running at me, pulling the bat over his shoulder in preparation to strike.

  Running to match his pace, I flicked my hand at him and the Opalescence’s power pounded him into one of the hallway’s walls. He bounced back quickly, and I followed through by waving my hand again, smacking him into the opposite wall. Stopping a few feet away from him, I concentrated on his mangy black boots and pulled my hands back toward my body in a scooping motion.

  Following the force of my hands, his boots pulled out in front of him and he fell backward, dropping the bat and hitting his head. When he didn’t try to move again, I pulled my left hand over my right shoulder and focused on his body. With one fluid motion of my arm, his body slid along the floor and through the door I had just come from.

  “Zoe, are you here?” I yelled as I made it through the last door. The room was large, dark, and full of grungy, tall machines that made seeing anything impossible.

  “Uncle?” a delirious and high-pitched shriek came from the other side of one of the machines. “I’m here!” Zoe yelled with tears in her voice. “Uncle, I’m over here.”

  I ran through the room with a speed unaided by magic but still as fast as sound itself. Behind the large machine, I found Zoe slouched down in an oversized metal dog cage. Thin metal mesh encased every inch, and a large padlock kept her securely inside.

  In less than a second I was on the floor beside her, pushing my fingers into the holes of the cage to meet hers. “I’m here. You’re okay,” I said confidently. The Opalescence, still in my setting, hung heavily from her neck and clanked against the cage as she lunged for me, all the while choking on her tears.

  “He made me wear it,” Zoe started to cry harder.

  “Who did?” I asked, pulling on the padlock.

  “I don’t know. He . . . he didn’t have a face.”

  “It’s okay, Zoe. It’s okay. Just give me a second and I’ll get you out of here.”

  How? I thought, looking around for anything that might help me pry it open.

  The Opalescence started to glow as I looked at it. It infused me with its power again, and as if it was telling me what to do next, I took a step back and focused on the corner of the cage�
��s door. With another swift arm movement, the Opalescence’s power ripped open the door and flung it to the side.

  Zoe pushed through the opening and into my arms, sobbing and digging her fingers into my back.

  “I’ve got you, baby. It’s okay,” I said, hugging her back tightly and stroking her hair. “But we need to get out of here now.”

  I felt a slight breeze behind me but before I could turn, a sharp pain tore through my side. I fell to my knees and watched as the faceless man held a blade in my side. I tried to lift my hand to cast the Opalescence’s power at him, but he responded by pushing the handle of his blade further into my side, pressing hard on the hilt until it met my shirt. Crying out, I sunk listlessly to the ground.

  He pulled the blade from my side and started talking to Zoe as if I wasn’t there, mostly because he knew that I soon wouldn’t be.

  “No,” Zoe screamed, pulling herself away from his grip.

  “I told you that if you show me how to use that necklace, I’ll let you go home,” he said gently, moving closer to her. His muffled voice throbbed from under the mask. “Just show me how and no one else has to get hurt.”

  “Get away from her,” I moaned. Blood, my blood, was pouring down my side and soaking into my pants. It drained me, both literally and figuratively. I barely had the strength to wave my hand at him and attempt to push him away with the Opalescence’s power.

  When nothing happened, he laughed and leaned over my body. “You don’t think I know what you can do? I wouldn’t have gone through all this only to be unprepared to handle you. You don’t take chances when this kind of power is at stake.”

  He grabbed Zoe’s arm and pushed her toward the cage. “No,” she yelled before sinking her teeth brutally into his arm. As he staggered backward, she spat a chunk of his own arm back at him. “Uncle! Uncle, are you okay?”

  I wasn’t okay. I needed to get back up and finish what I went there to do, for her and for myself. I gathered all the strength I had left in me to pull myself up, and then I did, effortlessly. A little too effortlessly.