by Sierra Cross
“…told you I’ve tried working with my brethren, but they make unreliable lieutenants.” The voice was rich and deep with the hint of a Spanish accent, but something about it sent a shiver up my spine. “Too skittish. Always ready to turn against their leader, for their own advantage.” The commanding tone, the arrogance of invincibility. Tenebris.
As he moved closer, Liv kicked out reflexively, pushing her prone body to the back of the cage.
“…the amulet…to create an army of Splinters…” I recognized Callie’s voice, though it was too soft to hear clearly at this distance.
“…and it may come in useful again. We’ll work that option too. But until then, we’ll just have to do it the old-fashioned way.” His shoes came into view, classic brown leather oxfords. Followed by Callie’s Charlotte Olympia heels.
“Oh dear, you’re awake.” Callie leaned down, face full of concern, white lab coat covering her classically professional outfit. She pressed her demon-cold fingers onto the pulse of Liv’s neck.
Blood pounded in Liv’s ears, and her heart raced. She pulled at her magic and found nothing. That more than anything else sent a river of terror flooding through her.
“You feel that?” A dark haired, square-jawed face leaned down next to Callie. Fashion-forward glasses on a perfect Roman nose and a white lab coat that matched Callie’s... Tenebris’s new skin suit was some kind of scientist? The faintest glow coming from the side of his conservative tie let me know the amulet had been reactivated. “Look how she struggles. She’s almost a match for the blanketing spell. Quite tenacious. Excellent magical bloodline.” He looked at Liv like he was inspecting livestock. “Oh yes, she’ll do nicely as my first incubator.”
His incubator? A chill ran through me.
“Making babies is so slow.” Callie’s voice was petulant. “It’s twenty-eight days of shots before she’ll be ready for implantation. If you would just use the amulet to make more Splinters—”
“Enough with Splinters! I will have true progeny.” Impatience reverberated in his voice as he issued his command. “Give her the injection.”
“Who’s to say what you’ll get with this?” Callie made a small sigh of exasperation. “Maybe there’s a reason demon-witch hybrids can’t happen without medical intervention.” Hybrids? My heart was pounding wildly. So a rogue branch of the Fidei had found a way to create Demon-magicborn hybrids? My mind jumped back to Tenebris’s construct. Standing on the beach. My swollen belly. “The genetics could go either way. What if these babies turn out to be more light than demon? We’ll have to wait for the gestation, only to have to turn them anyway.” She softened her voice, almost to a purr. “Besides, aren’t I proof that Splinters are superior lieutenants?”
His hand snaked out—so fast Liv’s eyes barely followed—and smacked Callie across the face. Green-tinged blood sprang from her split lip. “You’ve proved that Splinters don’t know when to stop talking.”
Callie sniffed and sucked in her bloodied lip. Then she pulled up the sleeve of Liv’s orange jumpsuit and injected the serum into her upper arm. An icy burn spread across Liv’s bicep as the serum moved into her system.
He tugged his suit jacket back into place, and his anger shifted to smugness. “The serum will ensure a new batch of lieutenants unlike the world has ever seen,” he said, all traces of rage gone from his voice, replaced by his old CEO positivity. “And if the Egypt crew comes through with that amulet spell, my progeny will be operational in less than a year.” What? Was he talking about accelerating the growth of these witch-Caedis children? “Then we’ll see if Splinters are even worth keeping around.”
Callie whimpered.
He looked into Liv’s eyes, furrowed his brow, and then stared a moment longer. “The young witch incubators are the only plan.” He ran his thumb along Liv’s jawline and across her lips. I shuddered in revulsion and my mind felt soupy. Was Liv tracking the nightmare they were preparing her for? The trail of the thick black smoke washed over Liv’s face and then nothing.
I was flat on my ass on the floor of Charice’s backroom, my head in her lap. The sensation of the drug or spell or whatever they’d hit Liv with was lingering in my brain.
“Alix? Alix?” Charice was calling my name like she’d been saying it repeatedly.
“I’m fine.” My voice sounded unsteady to my own ears. I tried to disentangle myself from her, but she insisted on helping me to a chair.
“What just happened?”
“Wha?” Wow, that was some spell they’d hit Liv with. My brain was slow to purge its effects.
Charice leaned forward and looked at my eyes, kind of like a doctor inspecting a patient. “Just take a breath.”
“I’m okay, really. It was our coven bond connection.” I needed to get out of here. To help Liv. She was locked up in some kind of magicborn prison, and I had no idea where. My head swam like there were narcotics running in my blood. I swallowed and stretched my clumsy tongue.
“You were just an observer to whatever happened in the vision. Not an actual participant.”
“That’s not how it feels.”
“Why do you let it take you over completely?”
I stared up at her blankly. “Uh, because I didn’t know I had a choice?”
“Of course.” Realization clicked in Charice’s eyes. “Asher’s never been a coven witch…before now that is. He wouldn’t have known to teach you how to compartmentalize it. You can view it without it taking you out of the present.”
“Seriously, that’s possible?”
“Not just possible, it’s something I can help you with right away.” She smiled. “It wouldn’t be much of a benefit if it took you out every time you got the alert, would it?”
For the next half hour, Charice explained the process of stabilizing my energy once the initial quakes of a coven bond connection began. That like a high-end television set, I should be able to set up my mind like picture in picture. View two screens at once. Compared to using the Dominion Gene, she assured me, this was relatively straightforward. Moving crap around the inside of my own head was a heck of a lot easier than trying to do it across the ethereal airwaves inside of another’s. It would still take practice not to run into walls, but at least I would no longer drop like a rock. That was no small thing.
I was itching to practice my new skill—but not at the expense of having one of my coven mates in a terrifying situation.
Matt and Asher watched my bare feet pace the oriental rug in Asher’s cozy corner. It had taken three cups of coffee to finally clear my head. Charice assured me it was all a mental reaction—the blanketing spell Tenebris put on Liv couldn’t possibly be affecting me—but it felt real enough.
I smacked Asher playfully on the arm. “Why didn’t you tell me I didn’t have to blackout every time I had a coven vision?” I told them what I’d learned from Charice about two-screening it.
When I was done Asher shrugged. “Apparently, there are some things even I don’t know.” He seemed genuinely surprised at the possibility of controlling the coven bond.
But that wasn’t even the most pressing news I had to share.
I summed up my tel-Liv-vision experience for the guys, and both were as creeped out as I was. There wasn’t a word in the English language horrible enough to describe Tenebris. Feelings of rage smashed up against feelings of impotence. How could we save Liv if we couldn’t even find her? From what Asher could get out of his Fidei contacts, none of the Council Suprema joint forces had found so much as a blip on the radar that pointed to any unregistered Caedis. And all the Wont search tactics were useless without a face to search for.
Morale had jumped into the toilet after we found out Tenebris had tossed his Leonard skinsuit. The knowledge that our arch enemy was a faceless ghost—undetectable by Fidei search networks—had been plaguing everyone. Try as I might, I couldn’t get Tenebris’s new features to solidify in my memory.
“Shit,” Asher said from behind his desk. “Dark hair, dark eyes.
And what was it? Really stylish glasses. That’ll break this case wide open.”
Matt shot a punishing look at Asher. He leaned toward me from his patch of floor in front of the lit fireplace. “Alexandra, maybe you could work with a Fidei sketch artist? Get the Fidei a face to use in their search.”
“Wow, watch dog,” Asher said. “That’s not a half-bad idea.”
“Except that I was on drugs. I remember a blur with dark hair,” I said. “But why would the Fidei even care? They just got a bunch of positive press for supposedly wrapping up this case.”
Matt shook his head. “They may not want the public to know he’s still on the loose, but they do want to take him down.”
“The Fidei do love their PR,” Asher said. “But, I’m with Rover, they’re serious about protecting the magicborn community.”
“Except Mals and Deviants, of course.” All the lies they’d spun out into the world made it hard to give them credit for anything, but the guys were right. Overall, the hard-working men and women of the Fidei gave their all to keep evil at bay. Still, I wished I could pull back the curtain and expose the wizard, but I guessed that would have to wait.
Asher’s attention seemed to drift off, as if he was thinking about something else. Then an idea clicked behind his eyes. “Hold on.” He snapped his fingers. “You said you can’t remember what he looked like, because you were on drugs. A memory spell might work. Put you back in the same vision...”
“I told you, even if I could go back, her brain was altered, like on a massive dose of Opioids. Everything was blurry and sideways.” My answer came out clipped and hard. The inability to protect Liv from what was coming weighed on me.
“She was on drugs...” Asher said.
“Like for the twelfth time, yes!”
“No. She was on drugs, you weren’t,” Asher said. “Thanks to Charice and your newfound ability to compartmentalize, you can step out of Liv’s experience and view it.”
“Will that work on instant replay?” Matt asked.
“Only one way to find out,” Asher said, cracking his knuckles.
Some fancy arm flourishes and over-the-top recitations of ancient words later, I was back at the beginning of the vision. My vision began to shake, but this time I was ready for it. I found a stray circle of string on the freshly stained hardwoods, my focal point, and hung on to it for dear life. The blackness flooded in, but I didn’t let it swamp me. One at a time, I acknowledged every sight, every scent, every sensation. Then separated myself from it. It was like I was standing in a rowboat in the middle of a lake. Small moves, measured pace, or I’d lose my balance and fall in. It was no piece of cake, but I was making it happen.
Every time I started to drift too far into the vision, I felt Matt’s hand rubbing my back.
At first the vision was cloudy, but my mind was not. The more I focused, the more I was able to make sense of shapes that had been just a blur. Beyond the metal bars I could clearly read the digits on the monitors ticking away. Charice and Asher were right, I could remove myself from the effects of whatever they were doing to Liv.
“What does the access panel by the door look like?” Asher asked.
“White plastic panel, small grey screen in the middle. No buttons. I can’t see any manufacturer name.”
Tenebris and Callie were talking. The word incubator sending a chill through me all over again. The grasp of the dual realities faltered.
“Stay with us, Alexandra.” Matt’s voice was an anchor tethering me to the present.
“What does he look like?” Asher asked.
“Tall, I’d say just over six feet. White lab coat. Black stitching above the breast pocket, it’s the Fidei coat of arms. Roman nose. Deep set brown eyes. Dark hair, almost black. Short on the sides, slicked back on top. Mole shaped like Illinois on his left cheek.”
“By George, I think she’s got it.” Asher laughed.
Liv’s panic was rising. Her fear was bleeding into my muscles. My whole body trembled.
“That’s great, Alexandra. We’ve got enough,” Matt reassured me. “We can wrap this up.”
He held me as my focus returned to the room. When the shaking had passed, I texted Agent Larch to set up a time to meet with one of their sketch artists.
Leaving the Council Suprema building, I was just happy all my blood remained inside my body. I had refused to let Asher or Matt come with me. No reason all of us had to have our eardrums burst by angry vampire-speak. The fact that Tenebris was at a Fidei lab somewhere was new information to Bonaventura. But he didn’t say thank you. He just said to stay out of his way. I’d run into Larch in the hallway and, defying the Director’s orders, told her the same thing I’d told him. But her take had been less than rosy. If it was an off-the-grid facility, even she couldn’t locate it for us. There was only one person on Earth that I could think of that would have that information…at least I was hoping she was still on this Earth.
What remained of my coven was waiting for me on the courthouse steps. Neither of them had the sense to come in out of the rain.
“Well that was a complete and utter waste of time,” I said. All the momentum I’d felt this morning had evaporated.
“Well, that leaves us back at scratch.” Matt didn’t bother to wipe away the rivulet of rain that ran down his face.
“Looks like I have to ask my aunt for another favor.”
“Witch, do you like playing fast and loose with your soul?” Asher asked. “You know she’s just doing these favors to try and turn you.”
“I hate to agree with him, but I do,” Matt said.
“What choice do we have?” Time was slipping through my fingers. And Liv didn’t have that much of it to spare. “If Masumi is alive, Aunt Jenn will know.”
For Liv, and for Callie’s soul, I would suck up to that dark witch who’d lied to me all my life.
I was staring at them, feeling a funk coming on, and Matt’s big strong arm shot out and swept me aside. Asher reduced his gloves to ash and flashed his magic to the surface. I spun to see a huge man lumbering straight at us. His face tucked in the collar of a long dark trench coat. Matt had his daggers ready to throw. The speed of the man’s odd gait increased as he approached us.
The man’s hulking body, his super short military haircut…
“Wait!” I yelled. This was bad. Really, really bad. It was Bethany’s father. “Ted?”
The four of us sat in a circle of silence at a table in Strong Brew. It took Ted Brooks three tries for him to slow his words down enough to be intelligible.
“We were planning to head out at first light. Bethany wanted one night in her own bed.” Ted’s voice shook, but he managed to keep his emotions in check. “She was so wrecked. I couldn’t say no.” He slapped the table. “Damn it. I knew better.”
“What happened?” I asked, knowing I didn’t want the answer.
“They hit in the middle of the night. Smoke demons.” His eyes had that faraway look that let me know he was reliving the story as he told it. Though we hadn’t seen any of them in the Spelldrift, I knew this type of demon from my mother’s tome. They could transform to smoke and then take solid shape again. They changed states so fast it was hard to land a blow on them. “They came in through every crevice. Amy and I pooled our magic. But there were just too many.” His slim grip on his emotions failed, and his shoulders started to shake. “They took Bethany.” After that, his words were lost to sobs, but I think he was repeating, “I knew better. I knew better.
After a bit, his personal storm passed, and he finished the story, voice devoid of any inflection, eyes glassy. He took a demon sear to the leg that slowed him down. He’d had it treated but didn’t wait for it to finish healing; I could see it oozing through his jeans. Meanwhile, Amy was in a coma fighting for her life in a Green Bay magicborn medical facility. And, according to their local Fidei, Bethany was gone without a trace.
Chapter Ten
Back to our regularly scheduled programming, I was just
ahead of evening rush hour traffic on my way to the Olympic Women’s Day Spa on the north side. When pressed, the Millennium Dynamics’ receptionist had told me that was where I’d find my aunt. She was taking a few days off to grieve the loss of her best friend. When I’d accidentally voiced my skepticism about emotional healing at a spa, the receptionist had told me, “Everyone grieves in their own way, Alix.”
Yeah, right. I was now fairly certain that Masumi was alive.
Since men weren’t allowed on the premises, I’d made the guys stay in Seattle.
I had to pay the thirty dollar entrance fee just to go and look for her. Once I stepped through the glass door, I felt the healing energy the place was famous for—my aunt must be tamped down because I didn’t feel her prickly magic. The Korean women who ran this place were pretty strict about patrons adhering to the rules. No clothes in the spa area. No getting out of the locker room without following the cleansing routine. The woman at the front desk handed me my robe and slippers and told me to leave my shoes by the front door. For goodness sake, I wasn’t here to lounge. Even though the woman smiled, I knew there was no arguing with her.
I stripped naked, sat on the low wooden stool and did the mandatory bath with the ladle from the giant tub of women’s herb. Wow. Between leaving my clothes behind and the hot liquid on my skin, I felt my agitation begin to slough off. If Wonts had magic, this would be it. I made a mental note to bring Liv here after…because there was going to be an after. There had to be.
My coven bond had flared to life a few times, brief snippets of Liv in an addled state. I’d been able to practice my “dual screen” technique and was getting better at it. They were keeping her unconscious mostly. Every day a tech injected her in the arm with a syringe full of some blue liquid. But she was alive, and that meant there was still hope.
Robed up and shuffling in the funky slippers, I checked one sauna room after another. I finally found Aunt Jenn in the sand room. Sounds of rolling waves and the occasional seagull cry played in the dim light. My footfalls shifted as I walked on the uneven floor—six inches of sand was covered by layers of thick, soft burlap. My aunt, eyes covered and hands folded on her stomach, was stretched out on a grass mat in the 110-degree heat, working up a nice glow.