by D. G. Swank
“Wait. What do you mean?” The dread of this creep heading straight to our farm after casting the netherworld net didn’t keep me from registering that comment.
“Said it was haunted. Strange stuff happens out here all the time. I’ve been on patrols in this area for almost a decade and haven’t seen anything, and I hate gossip more than anything, but now…”
“Our farm is not haunted. That’s ridiculous.” Except I didn’t sound very convincing, even to my own ears. Luckily, Logan couldn’t see the panic on my face since he was concentrating too hard on the twists and turns of these backcountry roads in the dark. The responsibility of keeping the happenings on our farm hidden from the outside world fell squarely on my shoulders. I was the one handy with glamour spells. If this guy, Pete, had seen things out on our farm, that meant I was failing at even the simplest of magic. Maybe I should be declared null.
“Doesn’t matter,” Logan said. “You can tell me what’s really going on there later. For now, the man harassing you at a bar headed straight to a cemetery, shot off some kind of firework, then headed directly to your house. The first and the last thing would concern me enough without any freaky ghost shit in the middle.”
Well, that was a small relief. Sort of.
I hoped like hell that Logan couldn’t see the small trails of blue light dancing around the mage’s motorcycle in the distance. The net was doing its job. It was leading him to the body, and ultimately, to where it was buried at the Whelan farm he’d been looking for. But it was all I could do not to gasp when he pulled into our driveway and headed down the lane through the trees toward the cemetery and not toward the house. Even if all he wanted was the book, it seemed he was determined to find Lester first.
Logan turned off his headlights and drove slowly, lingering in the deep shadows at the entrance. We watched the taillights head away from us.
“So he’s not robbing the house…” Logan said, clearly confused. “And likely not looking for you.”
“No,” I said, shaking as the full realization of what Logan was about to witness dawned on me. He’d already seen me walking away from the dead mage’s abandoned car. No question about it—he’d put two and two together.
“Good. I’m gonna take you to the station. You’ll be safer there.”
I rolled my eyes, grateful that the dark of the car masked my reaction to his unintentionally ridiculous statement. If anything, I’d be the one protecting him tonight.
“No. I’ll be fine. The car is safe, right?”
Logan shot me a look. “You know what he’s looking for.”
“On second thought, we should go to the station,” I blurted. “Get more backup.” I didn’t actually want more police at the house, especially if Lester’s body was about to be disinterred, but I suspected both the intruder mage and the body would be long gone by the time Logan returned with reinforcements.
“For one guy on a motorcycle?” he asked, sounding like I’d insulted his competence.
“Logan, please. I think he’s dangerous.”
Logan’s mouth pinched with determination as he slowly rolled his car forward until we caught a good glimpse of the mage’s bike parked next to the entrance to the cemetery. I gestured to a rarely used poorly graveled lane, though I shuddered to think what it might do to his pretty car.
“If you want to hide, pull down here and park behind that small grove of trees.” I pointed in the darkness. “We’ll have a good view of what he’s doing.” But as soon as the words left my mouth, I asked myself what I was doing. Why didn’t I just glamour the mage and make Logan think he’d left? I wanted to see what the mage was doing, sure, but I couldn’t deny that part of me also wanted Logan here.
The stupid part.
To my surprise, he did as I suggested without a second thought. When we reached the grove, he positioned the car so that we were in the shadows but had an excellent view of what was happening fifty feet away—the mage entering the cemetery with a shovel in hand.
Logan looked to me, concern etched into his forehead. “This is your family graveyard, right? Do you have any valuables buried over there?”
We’d never hidden the Book of Sindal near the bodies of our relatives—too obvious. We’d retrieved other family artifacts long ago for Phoebe’s use. But a little white lie wouldn’t hurt.
“Yes,” I said breathlessly. “And it’s not a secret. We’ve had people try to raid those graves before.”
“Never heard that. Wonder if that’s some of what Pete saw…”
“Probably,” I said. “We have some security measures installed, but people have gotten…creative with their break-in attempts.”
He looked at me for a couple seconds that seemed to last an eternity. It wasn’t a bad lie, probably because it wasn’t entirely untrue.
“Holy shit,” Logan said as another blue dome flashed up around the mage, sending a bolt of blue energy directly at the mage’s glamoured resting place.
Holy shit was right.
“That’s it, I’m gonna nab him for trespassing,” Logan muttered. “We’ll haul him in for that and question him about everything else later.”
Everything else? So much for my grave-robbing explanation. Maybe I wasn’t as good at lying as I thought—or that pulsing blue light was just a little too weird to be from a natural source.
Before I could stop Logan, he stepped quietly out of the car, slowly closing the door behind him so that it wouldn’t make any noise and, I supposed, to offer me a small measure of protection. He’d made it less than a dozen steps before the sound of tires rolling on gravel burst through the dark night.
I watched him crouch down and surveyed the scene in horror as two large black SUVs sped onto my property and headed toward the cemetery. They were the same make and model as the cars that had half-wrecked my baby two weeks ago, I’d bet twenty bucks they were with the Dark Set, even though Lester had suggested he was unaffiliated.
If they were with the Dark Set, they wouldn’t hesitate to crush us. I’d learned that the hard way. Luckily, I’d already survived one car chase with these assholes, and the trick that had helped save Phoebe and me then would also work right here, right now.
As quickly as I could, I got out of the car and made it to where Logan was crouched low behind a bush.
“Get back in the car,” I whisper-shouted.
He shot me a look that suggested he was checking me into a mental facility as soon as this was all said and done. “No, I’m calling for backup.”
“Trust me, Logan, you do not want to tangle with these guys.”
He turned his head to me, glaring. “You do know what they want.”
“I . . .” I thought I knew, but now I wasn’t so sure. All these Dark Set men, and they were here to dig up Lester? If they were here for the book, what would they care about that fool?
Except…he had insisted, all proud, that this was a solo mission. And he’d been wielding a blue ball of power-stealing light with the finesse of a toddler.
The truth struck me hard enough to gag me.
“I have a good idea,” I said, swallowing. “And we do not want to be here when they retrieve it.”
I suspected Lester had stolen that blue ball of magic from the Dark Set and they were here to get it back. It definitely was not the best-case scenario, but the more I thought about it, the more sense it made.
“I’ll explain it all later,” I lied, “but for now, we have to get back in the car. Trust me on this.”
A war waged in his eyes, and I was sure he was going to tell me to get back in the car while he single-handedly arrested everyone involved, but he surprised me. “We’ll stay here and watch for now.”
It wasn’t exactly what I’d wanted, but it would do for now. “Thank you.”
The SUVs jolted to a stop, several doors opened at once, and men spilled out of them and headed into the cemetery. A half dozen of them.
“Good thing you showed up, Rogers,” the mage from the bar called out. “I d
idn’t feel like digging this body up the hard way, know what I mean?”
I forced myself not to take a sidelong glance at Logan, but I felt him flinch. No one answered, but the mage from the bar took several steps back as dirt began to fly off the ground and collect into a pile at the foot of the grave.
“You’re certain he’s here?” a man asked. “You have the correct grave?” The tone of his voice suggested two things. One, he was the guy in charge of this recovery mission, and two, things wouldn’t have gone well for the mage from the bar if he’d been wrong.
“The netherworld net pointed to him right away.”
“I told you to use the Whelan sister to find him,” the man in charge said. “I was certain she’d glamour the body.”
“She did. If I hadn’t used the net, I never would have found it. And I confronted the older sister, just like you said, but Donall…she doesn’t have any magic.”
Donall himself was on our land. Holy hells.
I finally let myself take a quick glance at Logan, who, to his credit, was observing this scene unfolding like he was at the Cineplex watching a movie.
“What do you mean she doesn’t have any magic?”
“I found her at the bar, and when I scanned her…well, I couldn’t read any magic at all.”
“Do you think that fool took her power with the sphere?” another man asked.
The group was silent for a couple of seconds before Donall said, “No. You said she glamoured the grave and did an excellent job. Which means she still has her magic.”
“Or did,” the other man said. “What if they captured the sphere and didn’t know how to handle it? You said she was weak, right? Could she have lost her magic to it?”
“I suppose it’s possible,” Donall said, not sounding entirely convinced, “except for the fact that Turner here says he’s tracked the sphere to the grave. Which means it’s buried with the fool just as we suspected.” He paused. “She must have glamoured her own magic, which means you were as subtle as a bull in a china shop, you stupid fool,” Donall ground out. “Let us hope she didn’t lose her magic because I need her and now she’s likely in hiding.”
That finally got Logan moving. He grabbed my upper arm and started to tug me backward. When I resisted, he leaned into my ear and whispered, “They want you, Rowan. I’m not taking any chances with your safety. Let’s get farther away.”
I had to give him props for taking all the magic talk in stride and focusing on the important issues. I could only imagine how he’d use that super power in bed.
Holy hells, Rowan, I thought to myself. Focus. Now is not the time to be thinking dirty thoughts.
Logan was right—we should probably back up, but I was desperate to know what Donall had planned. If the guy possessed a magical sphere that stole people’s powers…gods, the havoc he could wreak, on humans and the magical community alike—especially witches, who he despised. He could leech power from the most powerful among us and make himself into some sort of uber mage-villain…oh gods, he could start the next Salem witch trials but on steroids.
Suddenly, I was sure he was behind the Small Council’s decision to take the book and split up my coven. I felt it in my bones.
I had no idea what I’d do with that information, but I knew I couldn’t run from this. I had to find out what he was up to. And for Phoebe’s sake, I had to keep track of what happened to Lester. If I let them take his body, her full power would never be restored.
Something else Donall had said stuck with me too. He needed me for something, and for some reason, I suspected it was more than just my blood. For my magic? The thought was completely unfathomable.
Dirt continued to fly out of the grave while they talked, and suddenly Rogers, the telekinetic mage, called out, “There. I think we’ve found him.”
“They didn’t bury him very deep,” another voice said.
“Why would they?” someone else asked. “It’s on their own land. They never thought anyone would come snooping around.”
I snuck another glance at Logan. These mages had all but confirmed we’d killed a man and buried him in a family plot, something he must have suspected at this point anyway, but Logan’s gaze remained firmly locked on the drama directly in front of us.
A minute later, the dirt stopped flying and Rogers moved closer to the hole. The other mages stood back as the dirty sheet-wrapped body levitated out of the hole and fluttered onto the ground.
“Does he still have it?” Rogers asked.
“I told you he did,” the bar mage protested.
“Silence,” Donall said in a deadly calm tone that everyone instantly obeyed. “The fool’s body still has it, but it’s trapped inside him. I have no idea how to retrieve it.”
“We need the Whelan girl,” one of the mages said. “The one with ancestor magic.”
My heart skipped a beat at the mention of Phoebe.
“My brother has her in his custody,” Donall said. “We’ll convince him to let us borrow her for the task.”
I had to stop this. I couldn’t let Donall get his hands on her again. While I didn’t think Brandon would willingly participate in anything that would harm Phoebe, I wasn’t willing to leave it to chance. For all I knew, Donall had convinced him to cooperate with the Dark Set. The guy had clearly infiltrated the council somehow.
I turned to Logan and grabbed his arm, my fingers digging into his sleeve. “I need you to stay here.”
His eyes flew wide. “What are you talking about, Rowan?”
“You have to trust me on this,” I said, trying not to sound so breathless. I was scared to death, but I knew what I had to do. I just didn’t want Logan to be hurt in the cross fire. He’d never agree to my plan, but I had no idea how to restrain him.
Restrain him. Oh!
I took his hand in mine, feeling a strange twisting sensation in my gut as his fingers easily wrapped around mine. I liked this man… a lot. And something deep in my soul told me that he was the one, my soul mate, just like they talked about in those cheesy movies I teased Phoebe for watching.
Too bad I’d have to make sure his mind was erased of everything related to magic—and me—when this was all said and done. Humans who weren’t connected to the world of magic through family bonds couldn’t be told of its existence.
“Logan,” I said with tears in my eyes. “Don’t be freaked out by what’s about to happen. I promise you’ll be free in fifteen minutes, but once you’re free, you need to forget this happened, okay? I’ll be fine, I promise. I have a plan. Don’t try to come after me.”
His hand tightened around mine. “What the hell are you talking about, Rowan?”
Something cool ran down my cheek, and I was shocked when I swiped at it and realized it was a tear.
I lifted my hand to his face, daring to let my fingertips reach up to his hair, surprised at how soft it felt. “You’re a good man, Logan Gillespie. A great man. I will forever wonder what life with you could have been like, but I’ll have to settle for this.”
I leaned over and kissed him. I’d meant for it to be a sweet goodbye kiss, but Logan’s arm wrapped around my back and he deepened our connection. He knew what I was doing, and he had no intention of letting me go.
I leaned back, removing my hand from his. “I’m sorry.”
“Rowan?” Shock and fear filled his eyes as I glamoured a piece of duct tape onto his mouth. He started to reach for it, but I grabbed both his hands with mine and brought them together, glamouring duct tape to bind his wrists and then his ankles.
My particular type of magic worked because the mind believed what the eyes saw and what the hands felt. If Logan believed I’d bound him with duct tape, it would keep him immobilized. Which meant it would keep him safe.
“This will dissipate in fifteen minutes,” I assured him. “Don’t fight it. It will only make it worse.” That last part was a lie, but I suspected Logan Gillespie wasn’t the kind of man who took things lying down. He fought for them tooth and na
il. And I knew in my heart he’d fight for me.
It was a fight he’d lose with his life.
I only hoped this next part would be over before his bindings wore off.
I added another layer of glamour over him before I walked away. It was a hasty job, but they wouldn’t see him unless they were looking for him. I slipped into the woods behind our hiding spot, skirting the trees and being careful not to make any noise to give myself away as I circled around the cemetery. When I’d nearly made it to the entrance, I added one last glamour layer to hide my magic, then stepped out of the trees and decided to play dumb.
“What in the seven hells is going on out here?”
Donall turned, disbelief filling his eyes, but his face twisted into an ecstatic smile at the sight of me. I could feel pinpricks of energy stabbing my skin.
What kind of magic did he have? It was nothing I recognized, but I knew I was completely out of my league.
I’d just walked into a death trap.
Chapter Eight
“Rowan Whelan,” Donall said with his hands spread wide. “What a pleasure to find you here.” Standing this close to him, I would have recognized him anywhere. His little brother had practically been one of my roommates these last two weeks. Donall shared Brandon’s coloring and his good looks, although there was something pinched and twisted about him. His nose and lips were a touch too thin, his complexion too pale.
“Considering it’s my land, who else would you expect?” Then, deciding I had nothing to lose, I added, “And you wouldn’t expect to see Phoebe or Celeste considering that you had us split up.”
“You figured that out, huh?” A grin spread across his face. “He said you were smart.”
“He?” I asked, tilting my head slightly. “He who?”
“Our leader, but you’ll find out who he is in good time.” He took a step back and gestured to the sheet-wrapped body lying on the ground. “Care to explain what happened here?”
“What happened here,” I spit out, “is that you and your buddies have desecrated my family cemetery.”
