by Alex Foster
Ducking back into the room, she tiptoed to the dresser where Callie had left her phone. It shouldn’t have taken Jensen long to track the telepath down and Dixon was probably on his way back. Dakota wasn’t sure if he knew that her phone was currently floating around the Delaware Bay.
Dakota checked Callie's phone and found it dark; Doe Eyes’ was the same. She crept outside again and turned it on. The idea of uninterrupted time together was sweet but first rule in Circle training was never be intentionally unreachable. Ridiculously loud greeting music played and finally showed eight new voicemail messages and several texts from an unknown number.
"You know it is considered rude to jump out on a bedmate even when there is a third person in the room," Reina said behind her.
Dakota looked back at the younger woman standing in the doorway, sheet wrapped around her frame. She blinked blearily and her hair stood out in wild ends. Lit by the almost morning glow, Dakota thought she looked beautiful.
"I just needed some fresh air," she said. "Though hanging around isn’t normally my thing."
Reina leaned against the doorjamb. "It could be."
"You are just eager to start a whole series of letters to Penthouse, aren’t you?"
She smiled a little. "You and Callie would be surprised — I’ve got a couple backlogged. Skip out and you’ll never hear the stories."
Dakota looked to the parking lot when a van pulled in and swung into a free space underneath their walk up.
"I mean it," Reina continued. "We have a spare room. Was going to be an office for Callie but we could fix it up as a bedroom. It wouldn’t be much but you’d be free to come and go as you wanted."
Dakota glanced back, she fought the urge to say something completely different than, "You trying to domesticate me, Moran?"
Those big brown eyes flashed with humor. "I wouldn’t dream of it, Clark. But you should have a home base a little better than a car. With a burned front end."
"Hey, I have a twenty five dollar a week motel room," Dakota said lightly. "I’ll think about it, but I don’t make promises this early in the day."
Reina accepted that and nodded. "No pressure. The offer is there for you."
From the first floor came the sound of shoes climbing stairs.
Dakota half expected Kane to say something in her head about Reina’s offer — it was almost second nature now to hear from him — but only silence answered. She frowned at that.
"What?"
"I haven’t heard from Kane in … a long time. Almost since we got here."
"That’s great! You see I knew if you could just—"
Dakota shushed her. Something wasn’t right. She looked down at Callie’s phone and clicked on one of the text messages.
Kane can’t be tracked. Men coming for Callie’s blood. Dixon en route. Run!
"Go wake Callie," she ordered. "Get dressed."
"What is it? That mage from before?"
Dakota peered over the railing again and saw the van’s sliding door standing open and the vehicle deserted. "Get inside. Right now!"
The former agent saw the first attacker before Reina did. Clearing the second level landing at a full run, he was a big man dressed in coveralls. In his hand was a wrench raised high like a weapon. He moved fast and by the time Reina saw him, he was halfway across the walk. Behind him were several more attackers rushing up the stairs.
Lightning left Dakota’s fingers without conscious thought on her part. He took the full force of the blast in the chest and it lifted him up and over the railing and sent him falling to the ground below. She got off another shot at a second man, but there were more still climbing the stairs.
Dakota shoved Reina roughly inside and slammed the door. "Wake up, Callie, we got ourselves a siege!"
Reina started grabbing clothes from the floor, pulling some on and throwing the rest on the bed for Callie. Dakota bolted the door and began looking around for a barricade. "Somebody help me with the dresser," she called.
She lifted one end of the bureau and dragged it toward the door. From the opposite side she could hear the men trying to break in. A set of hands took the other end of the dresser and helped set it against the door.
A naked and confused Callie stood across from her. "What the fuck is going on?!"
Even with the circumstances as they were, Dakota had to smile at her corrupting influence on the younger mage. "Kane is back and he decided to bring an army. Worst afterglow ever, huh?"
Reina handed Callie clothes. "We have to get out of here somehow."
The pounding on the door continued. "They are going to get in here," Callie said.
"Yeah and unless one of you learned how to mirror travel we’re not getting out."
"What are we going to do?" Reina looked back and forth between the two mages.
Dakota bit her lip and paced the small area. "I’m thinking."
"Well, think harder."
Callie turned to her. "Send me out. If they have my blood they’ll leave you alone."
"No!" Dakota and Reina said in near perfect unison. They exchanged glances and Dakota said, "No, you are not. That’s exactly what he wants and what I can’t let happen."
The pounding on the door increased and the door jam started to splinter.
"They won't kill me. The blood would be worthless then."
Power crackled over Dakota’s hands and she reached deep, drawing more than she’d held at one time since returning from the dead. Her entire body shook with it. "Maybe, but I can kill them. Reina, get her in the bathroom and both of you stay down."
"I’ll be safe out here," Callie insisted. "I’m staying with you."
Dakota glanced at Reina before returning to Callie. "Then go and keep her safe."
Realization and finally acceptance settled in her eyes. "Don’t do anything crazy." Before Reina could raise protest, Callie grabbed her arms and rushed with her into the small bathroom.
Now alone, Dakota squared her stance. Lightning jumped from her body randomly, tore small gouges in the walls and burned the carpet beneath her feet. Her lip curled as she pulled even more power onward.
Her nostrils flared and her breathing came in quick huffs. Dakota felt like she was standing in the center of a swirling storm. It hurt and felt rapturous. She ground her teeth together; her skin felt like it would split open from the force of power boiling underneath it. She was a force of fucking nature.
She held it all back though and watched as the attackers slowly broke through the door. Bloody fists holding bricks and stones punched through the wood, seemingly not caring about the damage they were doing to themselves.
They were victims, too, puppets of Nicholas Kane but the enraged Circle agent inside Dakota didn’t care. They were coming to take Callie’s blood and were a threat to both her and Reina. Because of that she was going to kill each and every one of them. Dakota stepped forward when they pushed the dresser out of the way. And she was going to enjoy every second of it. She knew this and didn’t shy away from it.
The first attacker made it three paces into the room before she unleashed her power.
The force of it hit him dead center and blew his chest apart in an explosion of red mist and fried gore. Almost completely disconnected from the ruined mess above his waist his legs staggered forward one more step before toppling over.
Men and women were rushing into the hotel room, undeterred by the fate of their late companion. Magic flowed over her skin like warm silk. Lightning left her fingertips and cut through the air with a sharp crack. One bolt impacted an attacker in the shoulder, spun him around, and two more stabbed through his back. They sliced him in two.
An invisible hand grabbed another by the head, lifted him into the air, and squeezed until his skull caved in. His still twitching body dropped to the floor.
A woman rushed past Dakota like she wasn't even there, aiming for the bathroom door. Red-white light slashed across her and all four limbs fell away from her torso. The woman lived for several
seconds trying to drag herself toward the bathroom by grabbing the carpet with her teeth.
It was wild and chaotic and Dakota stood in the center of it all. She was dimly aware of hearing her voice yelling with the emotion of it. Plaster rained down from the ceiling; her power punched through the walls and into the rooms on either side. Insulation smoldered and filled the air with greasy smoke. All around her, power arced and people screamed and died. The smell of burning meat was nauseating. Those that weren’t lucky enough to get cut down quickly lay in quivering heaps on the floor, their skin raw and blistered.
The dark presence inside their minds drove them onward despite the pain and they clawed at the scorched carpet, trying to pull themselves to the bathroom where Callie waited.
One attacker managed to break through Dakota’s line of destruction and rushed her, a brick held above his head ready to crush her skull. She raised her hands instinctively and drove two bolts of power into his face at close range. His head and arm above the elbow vanished and blood and bone fragments flew in every direction. Momentum carried his corpse into her and she went down in a tangle of limbs.
Dakota’s ability kept arcing in the room and she felt the current flowing through the body on top of her return through their touching skin. Her own power twisted through her chest and white hot pain threatened to swallow her whole.
Dakota grappled with her ability, trying to pull back what she had just given free rein to, and struggled with the dead weight pressing her down. The remaining attackers stomped past her, singled minded in their mission to get to Callie.
She yelled savagely and yanked her arm free when they broke down the bathroom door. The power answered her desperate call to defend Callie and Reina but she held back at the last second when she caught a glimpse of the dark haired woman huddled in the corner. Dakota couldn’t risk harming Reina too.
Pain jabbed in her side when Dakota rolled as best she could with the body on top of her. She dug her bare toes into what was left of the carpet and started pushing herself free.
From inside the bathroom were shouts and banging. She heard Callie surrendering, saying not to hurt anyone else.
No!
There were two men left and they rushed out of the bathroom just seconds after Callie relented. Dakota extended a hand and her ability. The bolt hit the man closest to the door and slammed him into what was left of the wall.
Now free, Dakota climbed to her feet and let a second blast join the first. Enraged, she kept the intensity low at first and savored the sight of his clothes and then flesh burning off. Pinned to the wall he screamed and writhed under her touch.
Distantly she heard someone calling her name. Sense broke through when she realized it was Reina. Dakota snapped a sudden surge of power into the suffering man and turned toward the bathroom. He crumpled like a marionette with its strings cut and she stepped over his body without really seeing him.
Compared to the rest of the motel room, the bathroom was relatively undamaged. The door hung by a single hinge and the jam was in splitters but inside was deceptively untouched. Callie leaned heavily against the sink, one hand against her forehead, while Reina fretted behind her. The taller of the two kept trying to examine Callie’s neck.
"I’m fine," she said before Dakota could begin.
"They got a syringe of blood," Reina supplied.
Dakota turned and hurried through the ruined room. Outside, from the balcony, she saw the van starting to pull out of the parking lot, side door still open. She sent a blast of magic after the van. It missed the rear tire but caught the fender and bumper. Sparks exploded where it made contact and the van swerved wide before correcting and racing from the lot.
"Shit," Dakota cursed.
There were bodies everywhere, she realized. Easily a dozen men and some women, several dismembered, all horribly burned and scattered over the front of the hotel room and doorway. A weird feeling settled like a heavy stone in the pit of her stomach as Dakota stared at them.
You see, Nicholas whispered, in the end I win and you are still the same. Second chance? You were and are nothing more than a filthy murderer.
"Shut up," she whispered. "Just shut up."
He did.
Callie appeared next to her and thrust a pair of shoes into her hands. "We have to go," she said.
Dakota looked away from the burnt remains and saw the steel eyed gaze of a Wood. Callie had Reina by one hand and took Dakota’s arm with her other. Over the non mage's shoulder were their bags and in them anything identifying the room as theirs.
"Police are coming," she said slowly, making sure the words got through. "We need to get out of here and then call my dad."
Dakota nodded and numbly fell in step with Reina. The presence of both her and Callie helped clear muddled thoughts. Circle training was trying to kick in and offer ideas to get away and stop Kane. He had Callie’s blood, there was no way to get it back without a car, so that meant he would soon be back to full strength.
Reina was safe, he didn't have a use for Callie any longer, but he would come after Dakota first and then Dixon for simply being a former agent. She wasn’t going to let him harm Callie’s father. Dakota was still going to kill him; she would find a way.
Callie led them quickly but without appearing to rush across the street. They left the dark waffle house behind just as sirens started to sound in the distance. It was still early and only a few cars drove by and no one seemed to take notice of the three women.
Reina leaned in close. "You okay?"
Dakota nodded. "Yeah. Wishing I hadn’t ditched the car though."
That got a humorless smile in return. "What are we going to do?"
"I don’t know yet. Talk to Dixon first." She was thinking about Callie’s blood and how her healing ability worked and what it would do to Kane. "Then I go from there."
"We," Callie corrected without looking back. "I told you, Dakota, you aren’t alone in this."
Reina was silent for a long moment. Finally she said, "That was very impressive back there. I’m sorry you had to do it, but thank you for trying."
"No problem, Doe Eyes. I’m a witch hunter — killing is what we do."
When she was assigned Callie as a trainee, unaware she was planning on exposing The Circle, Dakota had been given a crash course in how healers worked. They were useful but often not good hunters because their power was mostly passive. Just a drop of blood could heal wounds. There was a time frame, they taught her. One couldn't just keep a packet of blood in a backpocket for field dressing because the blood would die after so long.
That meant Kane had a time limit. She knew it so that meant he knew it too. He would have prepared for her to try and delay the blood delivery long enough for it to be useless. Not that she had a car to do it with.
She had joked once that if they tried to ice Callie's blood to get around that limit Callie would get a freezer burn in turn. She was the only one among them that could be in two places at once.
Dakota stopped walking and her eyes widened as an idea began to form. She thought hard about how the ability of telepathy worked. The Circle believed that all abilities could be turned back on their owners, one way or another. Hunters had to outthink their targets if they couldn't overpower them. Daddy taught her that.
"Fuck, I’m so stupid," she said. "It goes both damn ways. I’ve been talking to him without ever realizing I could use that."
Callie and Reina looked at each other. "What? What happened?"
"I know how to stop him." Dakota swallowed hard at the thought of what she was about to agree to. "Chestnut, you need to call Dixon but not around me. Callie, find a place I can use. Somewhere quiet where I can be alone for a long time."
Chapter Twelve
Deep breath in, hold, release.
Dakota repeated the yoga mantra crap several more times to try and get her heart rate under control. It wasn’t working. Spirit magic needed deep mental and emotional calm.
She really sucked at spi
rit magic.
Reina knelt and peered in the small space. "How are you doing in there?"
"Well." Dakota considered the situation for a moment. "Like I’m sitting in a clubhouse about to open my mind to an insane telepath. Otherwise, good."
She was sitting inside a wood playhouse in the middle of the children's area of a local park. Save for the light coming in from the open door the space was dark and cramped. There was a little hatch above her head leading to a second level of the house but Reina had already closed that. With the door shut, she’d be entirely in the dark.
"I’m sorry," Callie spoke up from behind Reina. "This was the best I could do on short notice. You said you needed to be inside somewhere, away from light, and by yourself. Our hotel room would have worked but it was blown up, remember?"
Someone had scribbled ‘Johnny has a stupid head’ in blue ink above the door. Given what she was about to do, Dakota thought it was the funniest thing in the world. "They had sucky service anyway," she said. Levity was good, she thought. It distracted from the gut wrenching terror.
"You don’t have to do this," Reina said, maybe seeing the doubt in her eyes. "We’ll find another way."
Dakota shook her head. "Mental health has never been a strong point with me, but I have to do this. I started it with him and I’ll finish it. Was Dixon clear on his part?"
"Yeah," Callie said pointedly. "He’s about an hour away and Ezekiel is doing what he can to speed him along."
A whole hour. Perfect. "Great," she said instead. "I can do that. Easy. Well, sanity waits for no woman. Close me in."
Callie looked in over Reina’s shoulder. "What do we do if you are still inside his head when dad arrives?"
"Nothing you can do. In fact I plan on being in there when Dixon finally shows. Don’t wake me for anything."
"What if we get attacked again?"
Dakota shook her head. "That won’t happen if I do my job right. And if I don’t … well, then there won’t be anything left of me to wake up so you guys can run away without feeling bad."
They shared a look. "We’ll be here when you come out of it," Reina said.
