The Horned Mage: Books 1-5

by Hayden Harper

  “I didn’t know, I swear I didn’t know,” she said. “And...it’s…I was eighteen, Caleb. It was statutory rape. The video doesn’t have sound and it…you can’t tell he’s behind it all. If these recordings get out I could go to jail. I’d lose my college funding and military career at the very least.”

  I’d always wondered how on earth those nights had happened. I’d put them from my mind after the first year. Weird things happened in foster care and I really hadn’t expected to stay with the Marshals. Not until Caroline had passed away had I really felt a sense of permanency.

  “Okay,” I said. “That explains a lot.”

  She nodded. “I still fought with him. I promise I did. I went back to school anyway after the Winter Break. Only….”

  “Only now you had a little passenger.”

  She nodded. “He switched out my birth control pills with something else. I didn’t realize that I was pregnant until…and then I had to go back to him. He-he has all the power. Had it, I guess.” A feeble grin fought for purchase on her face but her eyes turned absolutely feral. “Not anymore. Caleb, you beat him.”

  “We beat him,” I corrected. And we, especially Sarah and Caroline, had the scars to show for it. If I had my way the fucker would never see the inside of a jail cell.

  We pulled into Woodhurst and navigated through the neighborhoods to Reagan’s house. We’d talked about bringing Caroline to Eleanor’s place but that really wasn’t something that we could do. I mean, we housesat for her and I could tap into the power in her land, but it wasn’t really ours. Even if Lexus, Victoria and I all lived there. We couldn’t keep Caroline in our little loft above the garage. But Lexus had moved in pretty much full time with Victoria and me so Reagan had a spare bedroom now. And after what she and I had been through a week ago, maybe she and Caroline could help each other.

  There were two police cruisers waiting in front of her house when we pulled up and when I parked a pair of uniforms approached the car. Lexus or Reagan must have called them. It wouldn’t have been Victoria. She really didn’t care for the police and I wasn’t sure I blamed her. I sighed. So long as they didn’t look too closely at Colin we should be alright. Oh please oh please oh please don’t look at the dead baby in the back seat.

  I got out of the car and was addressed before I could speak.

  “Caleb Marshal?” said the larger of the two.

  I nodded. “That’s me. The antlers kind of give it away.”

  “Please turn around and place your hands behind your back. You are under arrest for the kidnapping of Sarah Marshal.”

  Chapter Six

  The police station was cramped and smelled like sweat. Woodhurst really didn’t have much in the way of a police force so it made since that the station was small. I really didn’t get a chance to see much of it before I was brought to an interrogation room. Which was also cramped and smelled like sweat.

  It really didn’t bear more than a passing resemblance to anything from the movies. For one thing, there wasn’t a mirrored wall for the Woodhurst PD to stare at me through. Just off-white walls on all sides, one with peeling paint, and a dull brown door with a narrow, rectangular window over the knob. I’d been sitting at a small, empty table that looked like it had been purchased at a yard sale after being left out for way, way, way too long.

  They’d taken all my belongings when they’d arrested me, emptying out my pockets and taking my phone. I really couldn’t have said how long I’d been waiting but it was really beginning to get to me. I mean, come on! The sheer boredom had me getting up to try and pace the diminutive room. When that didn’t work I’d tried doing pushups. Someone had come at that point and told me to stop. They’d vanished back out the door, which locked behind them, before I could get a word in edgewise. This was fucking ridiculous.

  You’d think that having Sarah explain that she’d run away with me, not been kidnapped, would have counted for something. And that was before you even factored in Caroline. The cops had not been happy about Colin when they’d realized what she’d been carrying but I hadn’t been able to see much. I’d been hustled into a police cruiser and hauled off. No phone call.

  Wasn’t I supposed to have a lawyer? Or be provided with one since I sure as hell didn’t know any. I certainly couldn’t afford to pay for one.

  The door opened.

  Thank God.

  I stood up as a thickset cop in a tan uniform walked in. He gestured at the chair I’d just risen from, set a paper cup of water on the table, and slid it over to me.

  “What the hell?” I said, ignoring his offer. “How long have I been in here?”

  “A few hours,” the cop said. “My name is Officer Jenkins. You mind answering a few questions for me?”

  A few hours? Good grief, what couldn’t they have already figured out by now? I resisted the urge to cuss. “What do you want to know?”

  “Please, sit,” the man said. “Have a drink. You’ve got to be thirsty.”

  I sat and downed the water. I was parched and I wanted this over with. “Don’t I get a lawyer or something?”

  “Or something,” he said with a small grin. “Can you bring me up to speed? Why on earth did Mr. Marshal file a kidnapping report?”

  Because he’s a sadistic, rapist fuckwad. “Maybe you should ask him. Or Sarah. Or Caroline Marshal, who’s back from the dead. Isn’t that exciting?”

  Wow, isolation had made me a little punchy. I was ready to run laps around the building. Maybe singing the national anthem while I was at it. My eyes actually felt fuzzy with a weird mixture of fatigue and adrenaline.

  “You mean the woman with the,” he visibly resisted the urge to make a face, “stuffed baby who was in the back of your car?”

  “Yup. Her. She’s his wife, my adopted mother. And she supposedly died two years ago.”

  “The rumors of her death were greatly exaggerated?” Officer Jenkins said with a grimace.

  “Or fabricated entirely. That sick bastard had her locked up in a hole under his office-shed.”

  The officer shook his head. “Why would he do that?”

  “Fuck if I know!” Dammit, I hadn’t meant to cuss. “Sorry. It’s just…damn what a fucking day.”

  I buried my face in my hands and took a few deep, steadying breaths. They didn’t really help but I managed to get myself somewhat put back together. God, how were the girls?

  “Yeah, yeah how crazy is all of this, right?” Officer Jenkins said. “I can’t even imagine what you’re going through right now. Look, why don’t you start at the beginning and we’ll go from there, yeah?”

  What was the beginning? When I first found Caroline? When Sarah called me? When the Marshals first adopted me? I shook my head. How much of this did I even have a right to talk about? Could I bring charges against Albert for what he’d done to Sarah or was that something that she needed to do? Maybe she didn’t want anyone to know what had been done to her or that she was carrying her rapist father’s baby.

  Oh God. She said he’d last raped her during the winter break. So that was what, December or January? It was almost summer. If she wanted an abortion was it too late? Was that even something I could bring up to her? Dammit. I used to be able to talk to her about anything and now it was all crumbling. I didn’t know what I could touch without breaking it.

  “Look,” I said. “Officer Jenkins. Albert Marshal is a horrible human being and has been doing terrible things. Go talk to him.”

  Officer Jenkins nodded his head slowly. “Is that why you took Sarah with you when you left?”

  “I had to get the girls out of there,” I said.

  “By whatever means possible,” he said.

  “Yeah.” Wait? What?

  “Did they need any convincing?”

  “Nope,” I said. “They were pretty eager to get the hell away from him. Poor Caroline was a little scared of being outside but…No. No convincing. Once Sarah saw her mom we were pretty much ou
t of there.”

  Officer Jenkins scowled. I hadn’t given him the answer he’d expected. Oh that mother fucker! He wasn’t interested in Albert. He was trying to get me to confess to kidnapping.

  “No prodding at all? I find that hard to believe,” he said with a small laugh. “You know how women can be.”

  “Not really, Officer Jenkins,” I said, more coolly than I’d intended. “Why don’t you tell me how women can be?”

  Officer Jenkins put his hands up. “Whoa, I’m sensing some hostility here, Caleb. You often have trouble controlling your temper?”

  I clenched my fist under the table but forced myself to remain calm. It didn’t really work. My entire body was tight and taut. I felt brittle. “Do I seem out of control, sir?”

  “You seem right on the edge,” Jenkins said. “Right. On. The edge.”

  “Wonder why that could be.” I glared at him, crossing my arms over my chest.

  Whatever rapport he’d been building between us vanished.

  Jenkins leaned back in his chair and reached into his pocket and dropped a torn envelope on the table. “Honestly I’m surprised you were able to hold back this long. Normally someone like you’s got a rap sheet long as my arm before they’re out of their teens. Guess you’re a late bloomer, huh?”

  I looked at the envelope for a moment, judging his words before realizing what it was. They’d taken my DNA test results when they’d taken my phone and other things. This bastard now knew what I was. He’d stolen that information from me, read the results before I had.

  My hand shot forward and I snatched the envelope up. “This wasn’t open when I arrived.”

  He lifted an eyebrow. “It was open when I got it.”

  Liar. “Guess it’s just something else to talk about with my lawyer.”

  The door behind him swung open as I spoke revealing a narrow man with a surprisingly thick neck in a black suit and tie. “I’d rather you didn’t discuss what you should or shouldn’t be disclosing to your legal counsel while you’re being interrogated, Mr. Marshal.”

  Jenkins scowled at the newcomer. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Bob Avery, Mr. Marshal’s attorney. Has my client been charged with anything?”

  Client? I sure as hell hadn’t paid anyone. And I damn sure couldn’t pay this man what he was worth. I knew jack about clothes but even I could tell that that suit was some high class tailored job and the watch on his arm probably cost several months of my old rent, at least. Bob Avery looked like he belonged in New York City or Boston, not this grubby little police station here in tiny Woodhurst.

  “He’s been accused of kidnapping a young woman and had a dead baby in the back of his car,” Officer Jenkins said.

  “Odd, the young woman in question is right outside and claims that she went with him willingly. Eagerly, by all accounts. And the dead baby belonged to one Caroline Marshal, who the hospital just positively identified. How odd, since she supposedly died two years ago. Did you know it was her husband, who I’m sure she’ll be divorcing very soon, who filed the kidnapping report?”

  “The dead baby—”

  “Tragic,” Bob interrupted. “The hospital is fairly certain the baby belongs to Mrs. Marshal’s soon to be ex-husband. Again, the man who filed the report. A report that is clearly missing a few details, wouldn’t you agree, sir?”

  Officer Jenkins stood up. “This young man—”

  “Has clearly been through an ordeal and should be with his friends and family right now. It’s not every day you learn you’re related to a monster. Caleb Marshal didn’t kidnap Mrs. and Ms. Marshal, he liberated them and their account of events, as well as the evidence gathered by the forensics team now scouring the Marshal residence, will disprove any accusation against him.”

  Bob stepped back and pushed the door wider open. “Are you coming Mr. Marshal?”

  I started for the door but Jenkins once again started to talk. “I am not done questioning him!”

  “Yes you are,” Bob said. “Especially without my being present. If you have any further questions for Mr. Marshal you will contact my office, not him. Is that understood?”

  And we were out.

  I stayed with Mr. Avery as we moved through the police station as if at any moment the police officers might turn on us. “Um, not to look a gift horse in the mouth—

  Bob interrupted me. Apparently this was a habit of his not limited to flustered police officers.

  “So don’t, young man. And instead thank her,” he pushed open the doors to the police station, revealing the parking lot and a whole host of people standing there.

  Victoria and Lexus ran at me, taking me in a double embrace. I held them for a moment, ignoring Bob and whoever he was pointing at as I let their presence wash through me. Their touch loosened things inside my body and settled the agitation that had been building ever since I’d been locked in the interrogation room.

  I looked up with a sigh to find Sarah watching us with pensive expression on her face. Beside her stood Reagan. I hadn’t expected Lexus’s mother to show up let alone look so relieved, but she did. The smile on her face was strained but more genuine than anything I’d seen there in the past week.

  And beside them both stood Eleanor. It was her Bob Avery was pointing to.

  She strolled over, a woman of ageless beauty who could have been anywhere between twenty five and fifty five. Her blond hair was done up and she wore an elegant sundress over cowboy boots. She leaned on a cane in her left hand. I wasn’t sure if she actually needed it or not but I was almost completely sure it was magical, serving her like some kind of magic wand or wizard’s staff.

  “Bob,” she said as she glided up, the cane not hindering her grace in the slightest. “Thank you for coming.”

  “Of course, Dr. Hardin,” Bob said. “Avery, Franklin, and Ross is, as always, at your service.”

  “What’s that?” Sarah asked, gesturing at my hand. I glanced down at the envelope. I’d crinkled it up in my fist without meaning to.

  “My DNA results,” I said. Then added, “The cops took a look when they took my things.”

  Lexus scowled. “Did you open it in the car without us?”

  I shook my head. “No, they opened it.”

  “I’ll have charges brought against them before five o’clock,” Bob said with a self-satisfied grin. “Can’t have anyone pushing around our newest client.”

  “Uh…” yeah I was a real model of eloquence.

  My hand with the envelope shook and my mind went back to what Jenkins had said. Something about most like me having a rap sheet? He’d been so sure I’d kidnapped Sarah.

  It’s not every day you learn you’re related to a monster.

  I swallowed and suddenly wanted to be alone. I had absolutely no right to want that. Not after everyone had shown up to support me and not after spending hours locked inside the interrogation room. But being around so many people was all of a sudden overwhelming. I needed to know what was in the envelope and I wanted to find out by myself.

  “Thank you all so much,” I said. We piled into cars and headed for Eleanor’s. When we got there, I excused myself and went for a walk. A long walk. It was time to finally find out what I was.

  Chapter Seven

  Woodhurst was aptly named. There was a lot of forest around the town. I didn’t spend a lot of time in them but there were parks that weren’t too hard to reach on foot and the movement felt good after so long locked up in that tiny room. The air between the boughs was gold with the light that trickled through, thick and living. The trails smelled of pine and were cheerfully at odds with my own morose mood.

  I walked the trails deep into the park until I found a small clearing with a pair of picnic tables. One of them was dilapidated and caved in on itself but the other was still in decent condition. This place must have been meant as a destination spot in the trails and hadn’t worked out. Clearly nobody had been here in a long time.
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  A gentle breeze swept through the clearing, brushing over my sweat soaked shirt and skin. If I’d been in my right mind I would have said it was way too hot to be out here, which was probably why the trails had been deserted. The breeze felt good.

  I sat at the still functioning table and pulled out the envelope. I stared at it. The torn paper seemed to stare back at me. I should have been the one to open it. My hands shook. My mouth went dry. Whatever was in here had been enough to convince Officer Jenkins to believe I would kidnap my own sister. I tried to swallow and couldn’t. My mouth was too dry.

  Fuck it. I’d wanted to know this for so long. One asshole’s opinion wouldn’t change anything. I yanked out the report and read it. A big portion was given over to a table of allele sizes, whatever the fuck an allele was. The table correlated with a number of terms that were both scientific and arcane and meant next to jack to me. The real meat of it, the part that I could understand, was written in a section titled “Interpretation” at the bottom beneath the table.

  I don’t know how long I stared at it before I sensed Lexus and Victoria approaching.

  “We’ve gotten better at locating you,” Lexus said. “It was actually easier to find you here than when you were camping out in that shed.”

  The shed. It was hard to believe that just that morning I’d lived the dream most guys never got to fulfil with these two gorgeous women. I looked from them to the paper and then back. If what was on it was true, then there was no way that anything I’d done to them was in some way good. The memory of our lovemaking was tainted. I had poisoned their minds with my magic and bound them to me, stealing their free will. This was not a new debate for me, I’d argued with myself about it ever since I’d first bound Lexus. Now I knew the source of my magic and knew for a certainty where it fell on the morality spectrum.

  “I don’t want to be with anyone right now,” I said. Just their being there made me feel better. I didn’t want to feel better. I wanted to suffer for what I’d done to them. What I’d stolen. I had no right to take comfort from my victims.