I nodded and turned toward the highway. “So, care to explain why I’m dropping everything on my night off to pick you up to do this, instead of going there all together this weekend like we planned?”
As it turned out the vampire, Reave Mitchell, did indeed have some acreage in Utica. We all had the night off coming up soon and were sketching out a plan to go together. Instead, I got a somewhat cryptic call from Thomas, telling me to come pick him up at Erin’s and be prepared to hit Reave’s farm and drop in on Greyson Turner. Not only was I surprised that suddenly it was just the two of us heading to the farm, but I was under the impression Jon didn’t want us checking out Turner yet.
Thomas groaned. “Well, Jon’s currently in his office with Ashe Forger and Tim McHenry.”
“Whoa, what?” I asked in surprise. Not what I expected to hear. Forger was the head of MES Midwest and McHenry was head of the Mid-Atlantic.
“We’ve been getting the most disappearances in our region, but it seems they’ve been hit as well and they’ve also made the connection to the park. The two of them have been corresponding with Jon, since their regions border it too.” Thomas took a deep breath. “Someone went missing four days ago.”
“What?!” I yelped, nearly swerving off the road. “Why the hell didn’t I know?!”
“Jon didn’t even know, until Forger showed up an hour ago and told him. It was someone in her region.”
“Skata,” I muttered. “How is that even possible? I thought we trashed Fletcher’s little murder cave.”
“It’s completely collapsed,” he confirmed. “None of Jon’s wards have been broken; nobody has been there since us.”
“Granted I was a little unconscious, but I was under the impression Fletcher couldn’t have escaped… right?”
Tom nodded. “There was only one way out. We used it. I was back there with Jon within a couple of hours and it was untouched. Unless that storage room…” He trailed off and shot me a wary look.
“No,” I said quickly. “It was barely even a closet. There was no way out.”
He thought it over, then shrugged. “The stairs leading to it were destroyed while we were still in there. He couldn’t have made it anyway.”
I shook my head. “Then why the hell did someone else go missing? You can’t tell me there are two completely unrelated reasons that people are vanishing in that damn park.”
“Who knows.”
“What do Forger and McHenry want?” I asked.
Thomas groaned. “Seems word has gotten around that Jon was trying to set up a large-scale investigation. Forger wants it done. Tonight.”
“Impulsive freaking fire elementals,” I spat.
He nodded in agreement. “She and McHenry are buddies, so she tried to rope him into it, but it turns out he wants to play it safe. They showed up at our office with an entourage of branch managers, field agents, and special agents from their regions. None of them can agree on what to do; some want to rush in tonight, others don’t think it’s even a big deal, and everyone else is somewhere in the middle.” He took a deep breath. “Oh, and there are two members of the board of directors there, although Jon didn’t say which ones.”
“Holy hell. The board never does anything!”
“They are tonight. Everyone is expecting Jon to be some sort of tiebreaker or something. He needs to convince them all that what’s happening in the park is something that needs to be dealt with, but he needs to do it while holding Forger back until there’s a solid plan in place. Of course, with at least one blood wizard within MES, we can’t trust anyone, so Jon has to do all of that without revealing just how much we know in case someone at this meeting is in on it!”
One language didn’t seem sufficient, so I cursed in five. “Which leaves us…”
“We need to see if the farm connects to this somehow and then we need to hit Turner. With any luck we can dig up something to help Jon deal with this fiasco. Preferably before anyone else goes missing.”
“Great,” I groaned. “Thanks for asking if I had plans tonight.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
Thomas chuckled and took a few sips of his coffee. “What’s Charlie up to tonight?”
“Still working for another…” I glanced at the clock. “Hour. Then he’ll probably do something constructive enough to convince me he was occupied, then worry about me until I’m home.” I knew he worried about me enough when I was on official MES special agent jobs, forget a secret mission with no way to call for backup. “He may not know Turner’s is on the itinerary.”
“If you don’t get yourself killed on one of these missions, Charlie is going to kill you himself.”
“Probably,” I said. “Is Jen mad she isn’t coming?”
“She’s not thrilled,” Tom said. “But she agreed we don’t want to call attention to her leaving early. Everyone is keyed up enough about Fletcher.”
I nodded. In the week since the incident people at MES were going nuts about it. We were quietly doing our best to steer rumors away from the park, not wanting to draw suspicion. Luckily, the bastard did a good job of leaving a false trail when he went creeping in the forest, which made things easier for us.
“Of course, if I get hurt I’ll get an earful,” Tom added.
I grinned. Jen had come a long way from the curious, inexperienced witch she had been; no more knowledgeable than the average non-magic. She was a skilled young witch now and had become a good friend just as quickly. As hard as I sometimes found it to remember that Ember, and now Mariana, were both over thirty, it was just as easy to forget Jen wasn’t.
“I’m glad she’s finally up here,” I said. “You two are good together.”
He smiled. “Yeah.”
“About time you settled down,” I teased.
Tom punched me.
“Hey! I’m driving!”
“I’d probably survive.”
I laughed. “Keep that up and I’ll just drive off the next bridge. See who survives then.”
“Still me, sun’s almost down.”
“Please,” I snorted. “If I get you to the water you’re dead, sunset or not.”
We both laughed.
“You ever wonder who would actually win? If we did fight?” Tom asked.
“On dry land? Me,” I said quickly. I laughed again. “In broad daylight, if I catch you by surprise.”
“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “I wouldn’t want to be caught off guard by you at night either.”
I considered it for a moment. Most magics tended to play to their strengths when they fought. Vampires relied on their speed and strength rather than any technique. If you knew what you were doing, the odds evened. A little. But I still wouldn’t want to go head to head with a vampire at night if I could avoid it. No, thank you. Just for a second, I started to think of a very different night, with a very different vampire. As quickly as the thought began, I pushed it away and focused on the road.
“Sorry,” he said suddenly. “That was a stupid question.”
I shot him a confused look. His eyes flicked down briefly, drawing my attention to where my hand had crept of its own accord, scratching an invisible scar on my chest. I cleared my throat and forced my hand away, wrapping it around my coffee instead.
“It’s fine,” I said, cutting off a second apology. “The sun isn’t going to set before the next bridge anyway,” I added, following it up with an unnecessarily long sip of coffee.
Tom half-heartedly chuckled. We were quiet for a while as I drove. We came to and crossed the bridge, shortly before the GPS sent us onto another highway.
After a couple more minutes of silence, I got suspicious. After moments like that Tom was usually pretty good at coming up with shit to talk about to keep me out of my own head. Instead, he was looking out the window wordlessly.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit.”
Thomas sighed. He started to say somethin
g, then stopped.
“Tom?”
“Delilah almost died last night.”
I swerved a bit as I jerked my head around to look at him. “What?!”
“Organ failure or something. She’s stable again but… well, it’s the second time this week.”
“Fuck.”
Thomas nodded.
I heaved a sigh and repeated, “Fuck.” I glanced over at him. “Is TS okay?”
He shrugged a shoulder. “I mean… as okay as he can be. Just… I dunno. Waiting?”
“Yeah,” I said softly. I couldn’t say what was worse: sitting around waiting for someone you cared about to die, helpless to stop it or waiting for your own imminent death. “How are you?”
“The same, I guess.”
The silence was broken by the GPS needlessly letting me know to stay on the road for another hour.
Tom cleared his throat. “Danio… if uh… you know… I…”
“I know.” I forced a smile. “Don’t worry, Tom, I know.” It wasn’t my first if I die, here’s everything I wish I’d said to you talk. Shit, I had been on both sides of it more than once.
He sighed and nodded. I clenched the steering wheel and tried to focus on the road instead of the painful twist in my gut.
“Hey, so…” I swallowed hard and joked lamely, “if you were gay…”
“Shut up,” he said, half-heartedly swatting me. “I hate you.” Then, he heaved another sigh. “You’re going to be okay, right?”
“Yeah,” I said quickly. Tom shot me a glare. “I’m… I’m going to try to be,” I added, giving the most honest answer I could.
Because the truth was, I was not going to be okay. I had come a long, long way from where I started when I met Thomas, but I was still more than a little fucked up. Back then I got up and went through the motions of each day with a dozen different potions, half of which interacted with each other, then crashed out on sleeping potions at night, not really caring if I woke up again or not. Our friendship shook me out of it. Tom got me a job at MES, offered a place to live away from a family that tiptoed around me, afraid to set me off, and Tom was more than happy to give me shit if I didn’t take my potions on time. He even set me up with Char. In fact, without Tom I doubted I would have even been able to muster an interest in dating. Even though Charlie put up with a lot of my shit in the early years, he would never have stayed with me if I hadn’t already gotten a better grip on myself.
Losing TS was going to be rough. Losing Tom on top of that was going to fucking shatter me. At least this time I wouldn’t have chronic, debilitating pain adding to my misery. Maybe, since I did it once, I’d be able to snap out of it again.
“You need to be,” Tom said somberly. “They’re all going to need you to be okay. For a lot of reasons.”
“I know.”
I was glad I was driving, it gave me something to think about. I counted a few mile markers as they went by and read every single sign. My coffee was long gone, but I picked it up and sipped the dregs a couple of times for something else to do as the morbid silence stretched on.
“So, when are you getting those horses?” Thomas asked.
I laughed, maybe a little too hard. “Too soon, if you ask me. Although Ember wants to make hinges or something first.”
“For the horses?”
“For the stable,” I snorted. “She wants to make some specific style of hinges for the doors for the aesthetic or something like that. She got sidetracked with this vanishing people shit.”
“Didn’t we all,” he muttered. “You think this is connected to Fletcher and the others?”
“Who knows. It’s all insane. Oh yeah,” I added as it occurred to me. “I talked to Mariana about CVLR. She made a few calls.”
“Learn anything?”
“What do you think?” I asked.
Thomas sighed. “Another dead end?”
I nodded. “The company chooses how it gets listed on billing records and it seems that tracking down how they want to be listed is absurdly hard. Mariana got bounced around operators for hours trying to find out who has access to the full list.” I didn’t bother to hide my frustration. “Every time she was told she was being connected, they bounced her back to someone else she had already spoken to.”
“I don’t know if I’m hoping this actually leads us to a connection to the park or not.”
“It’s all we have,” I said grimly. “If it is connected, I just hope we don’t get hit by blood magic, again.”
“Same.” He shot me a glare. “I hope you realize I could tell your nose was still bleeding when you were saying it wasn’t.”
“I figured.”
“You are okay now, right?”
“Yeah. As it happens, I’m pretty good at sensing internal bleeding.” Just in case, I turned my attention to my head for a moment, searching for the sensation of any blood where it shouldn’t be. “Nope, I’m good.”
“Good.” Tom considered me for a moment. “While we’re on the subject of internal bleeding, how’s your stomach?”
“Not a drop,” I said, unable to hold back a grin. I pressed a hand firmly against it and smiled a bit more. There was a time even the pressure from my hand would have aggravated the countless badly healed scars scattered throughout my insides and probably torn a couple open. Even though it had finally healed a few years ago, I was still getting used to doing, well, anything without some level of discomfort or outright blinding pain.
“That’s great,” he said.
We drove for a while in a slightly more comfortable silence.
“Hey,” Tom said suddenly. “Isn’t that the exit for that mountain where we got caught in an avalanche?”
I glanced over. “Oh yeah, I think so. That was fun.”
“We almost died!”
“But we got to snuggle all night.”
He glared at me. “We were sharing body heat! Or at least I was since you don’t generate any.”
“If that’s what you want to call it.”
“Should’ve just let you freeze to death,” he muttered.
~~~***~~~
The GPS sent us off the main highway and onto a smaller one, surrounded by farmland. We stuck with the teasing and small talk, nothing serious, but no more long stretches of silence either. It was almost a normal drive.
“I think that’s it up there,” Thomas said suddenly. He pointed to a mailbox in the distance. I pulled over and stopped the car, so we wouldn't just be brazenly cruising up the driveway. We both got out quickly and surveyed our surroundings. Based on the property map we turned up it was a decent amount of acreage. Most of it was woodland with a clearing and a building that looked like a barn in the middle. According to the property records there didn't seem to be a house at all.
We crept along, just inside the trees, until the barn was in sight. There were no other buildings or vehicles as far as we could see. I reached back instinctively for my gun and groaned when I remembered I didn't have it. I was so busy with all of the other crap going on I hadn't gotten a chance to replace the one I lost in the cavern. Not that I could get it right away anyway; there were a few potions and spells I liked to have put on my guns and those always took a few days to get together. Silently cursing Fletcher, I pulled a knife out of my pocket instead and flipped it open.
It seemed vacant enough, so we headed cautiously into the field. The grasses were all overgrown and some of the woods even seemed to be creeping in.
“Whatever this Reave guy does here, it isn’t farming,” I whispered.
Tom nodded in agreement and kept pushing through the weeds. We were almost to the barn when I realized we were on a stone driveway. The grasses were growing differently here, but still high and thick. I whistled softly and guided Tom’s questioning look down. He kicked at the driveway with one foot, then looked around.
“It looks like nobody has been here for years,” he said softly.
“Smell anything?”
“No.”
&n
bsp; The barn might have been green once; the paint was all peeled and chipped. The handle was so rusty one of the screws holding it on broke when Thomas pulled on it. It didn’t matter, the door was slightly open anyway. The wheels that rolled it open were rusty too, but no match for a vampire. Thomas yanked it easily open, with a horrid screeching sound that made my ears ring. We both winced, then looked around to make sure nobody had been alerted to our presence. Nothing.
We shared a nod, then slipped into the barn.
Chapter Three
Danio
The floor of the barn was coated in dirt and dust; there were cobwebs and bird shit everywhere. Whatever the barn had been used for, it wasn’t animals. It was a wide-open space, with several worn and dusty couches and tables scattered around. I spun the handle of a foosball table as I walked by, then wiped the dust off on my hip.
“Nobody has been here in years,” Thomas said. I almost jumped at the normal volume of his voice.
“Yeah,” I agreed, loosening my grip on my knife. “What is all this?”
“No clue. Not what I expected, that’s for sure.”
Tom stopped by a bar, with some long-empty glasses on top. He sniffed, sneezed, and made a face. “I smell blood.” My hand tightened on my knife again before he added. “Old. Really old, but I think people were drinking it.” He knelt down behind the bar and I heard glass clinking. “Along with some other stuff. Got some alcohol and a bunch of potions… nothing illegal, just recreational… oh, I take that back. There are a few sketchy potions back here.”
I opened a cabinet and was showered in a cloud of dust. “Board games,” I announced, holding back a sneeze and swatting at the dust. “A ton of board games.” There didn’t seem to be anything else, so I shut it again.
“Video games here,” Tom called, closing a similar cabinet. “That wall over there looks like it had a TV on it.”
“Yeah. I’ll be honest, I was expecting something a lot creepier than a vampire frat house.”
Thomas chuckled, but cast another look around the barn that made it clear he didn’t disagree.
I wandered into one of the stalls along the back wall. “There’s a bed here,” I called. There was also an upside-down milk crate with a stack of magazines on it. I picked one up and wiped off the dust so I could see it. “Ew,” I said, holding it out to Thomas as he joined me.
Rise of the Arcanist Series: Books 1 - 6 Page 18