by Jamie Davis
“No, that’s just a vessel for power and certain spells that control that power. You, the hunter…”
“Huntress.”
“Yeah, Huntress. Anyway, you can regain strength and even a limited regenerative ability through connecting with natural elements all around you. It’s how you and I heal faster than others do—you draw on that energy without even realizing it. What I want to do is to help you try to boost that feed when you need it, like now.”
Quinn didn’t go in for all that crystals and pyramid energy stuff, but she’d seen enough strange things since this whole new world had opened for her that she decided to go along for now and see what happened.
“Start by closing your eyes and trying to see sources of energy nearby. There’s a pretty strong ley line not far from this house. It was one of the reasons I selected this place. Try to sense it, and when you think you have it located, point in its direction.”
Quinn did as she was told, unsure of what she was looking for. She reached out with her mind, trying to feel anything around her that might indicate a power source. She had no idea what she was supposed to see or look for. When nothing immediately popped up after a few seconds, Quinn tried something different. She concentrated and brought up the HUD map of the area around the farmhouse.
While it was restricted to the immediate area, the ley line was there. It sort of ghosted in and out across one corner of the map near where the farm’s old windmill pump for the well was located. It appeared as a faintly glowing gold line passing through the property.
Curious, Quinn reached out with her mind and tried to pull power from it, since that was what they were here for. Clark had said she could draw on it for energy when needed. When nothing happened, Quinn’s hand drifted up to touch her amulet, pressing it against her chest beneath the t-shirt.
This time, something happened. A thin offshoot of the gold line bent away from the rest of the ley line and curved toward the farmhouse at the center of the map. Quinn smiled and pulled harder, focusing her mind on drawing in the energy.
Suddenly, power surged into her, energizing every muscle in her body. She felt immense power and agonizing pain as all her muscles fired and contracted at once, warring within her body to flex or extend her limbs. Since nothing could move with opposing muscle groups preventing it, she just trembled while the power coursed through her.
The whole thing only lasted a few seconds. It freaked Quinn out so much that as soon as she could, she let go of the power, allowing the curved line of energy snap back into place with the rest of the ley line.
“Quinn, what are you doing?” Clark asked. Concern clouded his face when she opened her eyes.
Before Quinn could answer, feet pounded across the kitchen floor overhead. Miranda and Taylor dashed down the steps and skidded to a halt at the bottom, staring at her.
“What’s wrong?” Quinn asked. “Why are you all staring at me?”
Clark asked, “How do you feel right now?”
That was a strange question since she felt great. Clark had been right; that ley line power thing could recharge the batteries when needed.
“Honestly, I feel wonderful, better than I have in weeks. It worked just like you said it would.”
Quinn twisted around to look at Taylor and Miranda. Taylor had her phone out like she was shooting a recording or something.
“Are you videoing me?”
Miranda reached out and tapped Taylor on the arm so she lowered her phone. Then she stepped forward. “You’re sure you’re all right?”
“What are you staring at me for? You’re starting to freak me out.”
Taylor reached up and tapped her phone a few times. “I sent you something. Check your phone.”
Quinn reached for the phone on the mat next to her and saw it.
A golden nimbus glowed along the outline of her arm.
She snatched her phone and opened the message from Taylor. It was a screen capture of her seated on the mat. Her whole body was outlined with the same glow.
The hand holding her phone dropped to her lap. “What’s that all over me? Why am I glowing?”
Clark said. “You didn’t do what I told you to, did you? I asked you to point to the ley line. You did something else, right?”
“Yeah, so? I saw where you were going with the whole recharge thing, and I felt like crap, so I just kept going. I reached out to it and siphoned off some of the power.”
“You reached out for it? That shouldn’t be possible.”
Miranda shook her head as she and Taylor came around to stand beside Clark. “I’ve never seen a person hold so much raw power before. It should have fried every cell in her body, but she looks fine.”
“Tell us exactly what you did, Quinn,” Clark ordered.
“I found the ley line like you asked, and then I sort of peeled a thin strip of it away and bent it toward me for a few seconds. I let go as soon as I felt the energy overload. Am I going to glow like this forever?”
Miranda said, “I don’t know. It shouldn’t be possible to manipulate raw power that way. The most I can do is siphon off a little from the periphery. Even then, I have to be a lot closer than this. To actually manipulate a line the way you did is impossible, or it should be.”
“Apparently not,” Taylor said. “She did it. Don’t worry, Quinn. It’s faded a lot since we came down a few seconds ago. Seriously, you were lit up like a light bulb. I got it on video.”
“Uh, thanks, I guess.” Quinn looked at Miranda and then Clark. “I didn’t mean to break anything, honest.”
Miranda was the first to laugh, and after glancing at her, Clark joined in. Taylor joined in as well. Quinn crossed her glowing arms and glared at them. She didn’t think this was funny.
Her glare only fueled their laughter.
“What is so amusing? I’m, like, radioactive or something over here, and you all are treating me like I just slipped and fell or ran into a wall.”
Clark gathered himself and sighed. “I’m sorry, Quinn. It was a combination of the look of horror on your face, combined with the relief we all felt that you were okay after what happened.”
Completely missing the fact that Clark actually apologized to her, Quinn latched onto the last thing he said. “After WHAT happened?”
Miranda wiped at her eyes and answered. “Quinn, you touched a primal source of magic. Physically touched it. That’s the equivalent of grabbing onto a high voltage electric line with your bare hands.
“Apparently, it’s not as bad as all that,” Quinn said. “Other than this glow, I’m fine.”
Clark shook his head. “It’s every bit as bad as that, Quinn. I’m not sure how you survived it. No human should be able to. That kind of power would have burned any of us to ash. Instead, you held onto it and then just let it go.”
Quinn held her hands out in front of her, staring at them. The glow had definitely faded in the last minute or so. It was barely visible now. “I didn’t know. Did I break something?”
“No, things feel normal again outside,” Miranda said after a brief pause where she closed her eyes. “You, on the other hand, are full of more magical energy than I’ve ever seen anyone hold before. I’m not sure how even though I’m staring right at you.”
“It’s fading, though,” Quinn said. She lifted her arm. “I guess it’s going away.”
“Not really,” Miranda said. “It’s more like it’s getting absorbed into your cells. I can still feel it when I focus on you, but now it’s more internalized. Based on what I can sense, the glowing thing will go away completely in an hour or so, I’d guess.”
“What’s this mean?” Quinn asked. “If you both say no human being can do this, what does that make me?”
Clark shot a look at Miranda. Quinn didn’t miss the minute shake of his head. The witch didn’t respond other than purse her lips for a moment. She looked as if she was about to say something.
“Come on, guys. What kind of freak am I?”
“You’re no kind of freak,” Cl
ark said finally. “You’re a hunter apprentice who needs to follow instructions next time so this doesn’t happen again. Got it?”
Quinn didn’t even bother to correct his use of hunter instead of huntress. Something about what happened had Clark and Miranda concerned, and it appeared they knew more about it than they let on. It was also clear she wasn’t going to get answers from them right now.
“Fine, I’ll listen better next time. Now can I go upstairs, because I’m suddenly starving? I think I could eat everything in the fridge right now.”
“That’s a good idea. While you’re eating, Miranda and I will go out and do some shopping. Eat as much as you want. We’ll get more.”
Quinn didn’t care that they were being so obvious about getting away so they could talk about her. All she wanted right now was food. She’d get answers from them later.
Chapter Eighteen
The glow along her skin faded soon after she went upstairs and ate something. Quinn double-checked to be sure by going into the closet near the front door and closing the door. In the total darkness there, she checked every inch of exposed skin in the dark to make sure she didn’t glow anymore.
Relieved that it looked clear, she came out and returned to the rest of her lunch. As she made a third sandwich from the remainder of the deli meat they had in the fridge, Taylor watched with an amused grin on her face.
“What?”
“I’ve never seen anyone put away that much food in one sitting before. We should sign you up for one of those contests. I’ll bet we could win every one. We’d just have to find one of those power lines and jack you into it first.”
Quinn took a big bite of her sandwich and said through a mouthful of food, “How would we explain my glowing skin to the other contestants?”
“Well, we’d have to come up with a timetable to make sure you didn’t freak anyone out. Still, you could become famous, like that hot-dog-eating guy.”
“I don’t want that kind of fame, thank you. I don’t plan on doing that ever again. It wasn’t a pleasant experience.”
“You look like you feel better than when you went down there. Maybe you could recharge like that after every trip into the VR now?”
“No, thank you. Who knows what that did to me? It could’ve scrambled my genes or something. I have a better idea. Why don’t you and Miranda go fix whatever’s wrong with how you sent me through the last time, so I don’t come back feeling and looking like a famine victim?”
Taylor flinched at Quinn’s tone, and the huntress regretted saying it as soon as came out.
“Hey, Taylor, sorry about that. I know you’re doing the best you can. You’d never send me in there if you weren’t doing the best you could to make sure I was taken care of. I’m just a little freaked out by everything that’s happened since last night.”
Taylor smiled. “I have some ideas to smooth the transition in and out a little bit. I’ll get with Miranda when she gets back and show her my improvements so she can adjust her spells accordingly. I think that will work.”
“Any little bit will help.”
Quinn finished the last sandwich and then sat in the kitchen and checked out some videos on her phone while Taylor got back to work on her computer and the VR system.
Clark and Miranda were gone until well into the afternoon. They finally arrived back with a full load of groceries that should hold them over for the next week or so. Clark liked to limit their trips to the small shopping center a few miles away just in case they were accidentally spotted by someone they knew. Any mention of them, even on social media, could pinpoint their location for the VirSync slayer teams.
Quinn helped put things away, and with her assistance, Clark made an early dinner as it got dark outside. He started a homemade marinara sauce with chopped onions, crushed tomatoes, a variety of seasonings, and some ground beef he’d first browned in a pan.
When he offered a taste to Quinn, her eyes rolled back in her head, and she said, “Mmmm, that is amazing. I never knew it was so simple to make.”
Cooking food, to her, consisted of heating prepared meals in a microwave, not making things from scratch. Growing up, she’d never had anyone take any time with her to show her how to cook.
While Clark finished up, she set the small round table in the kitchen. A few minutes later, the four of them sat down to eat the spaghetti dinner Clark had prepared. They’d been eating for about fifteen minutes when a chime sounded from Taylor’s computer in the dining room.
“That’s the alert that they’ve fired up their VR system again.” Taylor hopped up and went to check her message.
Clark shook his head as he slid his chair back and stood. “It can’t be good news if they’ve acquired another target this soon after last night’s failed mission.”
Miranda turned to Quinn. “Are you up to going back in again so soon?”
“I’m good. Hell, I’m better than good since I juiced up this afternoon.”
“Quinn,” Miranda said, “you can never do that again. Do you understand?”
“I mean, I don’t plan on it, but I survived, so what’s the big deal?”
“That sort of thing causes issues with the flow of magic over a whole region. It could draw unwanted attention if the wrong people notice.”
“You don’t think…”
“It only lasted a few seconds. I don’t think there was time enough to localize it, but I definitely felt it here. Even Taylor sensed something, and she’s no spell caster. If it were to happen again, I think those sensitive to such things would try to find the source of the disturbance.”
Quinn ran upstairs and quickly changed into her huntress gear. She was glad she hadn’t caused anyone else any problems when she jacked into the power of the ley line.
By the time she was back downstairs a few minutes later, Taylor and Miranda had everything ready to go.
“Where are you sending me this time? Back to the city?”
Taylor shook her head without looking up from the triple screens. “I’m not sure. Everything is scrambled. I think they might suspect how we found them, and now they’re trying to cover their tracks.”
Clark grumbled from behind Taylor’s chair, “They’re going after Filippa again. That’s got to be it. I warned her to remain here, but she had to do things her own way, as usual. This time, I’ll make sure she listens.”
Quinn climbed onto the table and settled the VR headset over her head. She spotted new runes scribed on the metal and leather of the headband. Miranda and Taylor must’ve upgraded the gear with healing runes like they’d said they would.
“Ready?” Miranda asked her.
“Yeah, let’s do this. The sooner I get out there, the sooner I can track down where they are and call Clark.” Quinn reached up and tapped the side of her face to make sure the earpiece was secure.
“On my mark,” Taylor said. “Three, two, one…mark!”
Quinn once again had a sudden spinning sensation and nausea, although it wasn’t as strong as before. While it was better, even a little nausea was uncomfortable. The headache came back with a vengeance, too. She squinted as she stared into the VR goggles, then the spinning increased, and she fell into blackness.
The trip was shorter this time. Quinn opened her eyes in the middle of a cluster of trees somewhere. She retched and bent over, once again emptying her stomach contents on the ground.
Quinn stood up and looked around to get her bearings. There were no landmarks to zero in on here in the woods like this. She spotted a full moon through the tree branches. Bringing up the HUD map, Quinn tried to figure out where she was, and after expanding the map outward, she saw streets and roads bordering a broad blank space that must be the wooded area in which she stood.
She shook her head. That was still no help. Quinn expanded the map a little more and checked for the red dots of slayers nearby. She finally found them, and judging from the amount of zooming out she had to do, they were a good distance away.
There were no
road or place names on the map, so she had no idea where she was. Better wait to call Clark until she had some idea of where they were. She took off through the woods in the direction of the six red dots moving slowly across the map.
She dialed up her stamina bar and drew on it to increase her speed. She was surprised by how little her stamina status changed this time. Her recharge earlier had given her a lot of power to draw upon. Quinn picked up speed until she raced through the trees, weaving in and out of them in a dark blur of motion. There was no way to tell how close the slayers were to their final target, whoever it was.
Quinn opened her enhanced senses and tried to draw in all the scents as she ran along. The familiarity of what she sensed surprised her. The smell of the forest, the faint tang of the brackish water of the Chesapeake Bay nearby, and other things she couldn’t quite identify, all seemed like things she should know.
She kept working at it in her mind as she sped through the trees, closing the gap on the slayer hit team ahead of her. She’d almost reached them when everything snapped into focus.
Recognition of the various smells and sensory input gelled when her eyes fell on something familiar in the HUD map.
Quinn froze behind a tree, knowing the slayers were probably close enough to hear her. It didn’t matter. She had no time to do anything sneaky. It was an emergency.
She tapped at the earpiece and waited while she searched for signs of the slayers amidst the trees ahead.
Please let her be in time.
“Quinn, you’re on speaker,” Taylor said.
Quinn probably didn’t need the phone. She was so close already that it didn’t matter anymore. She shouted, “Guys, get out! Run!”
“Quinn, you’re not making any sense. We’re safe here at the farmhouse. Talk to Clark.”
Quinn glanced at the HUD map. “There’s no time. The target IS the farmhouse. Watch out. They’re all around you!”
Chapter Nineteen
Clark paced across the room and back again for the twentieth time, returning to stand beside Miranda. He stared down at the empty dining room table.
