I glanced down to scan my own body. I had on a plaid pleated skirt and a white bell sleeve top, both of which accentuated my figure.
“Are you checking out my butt?” I asked Chaos. “Haven’t you seen enough of them over the centuries?”
“Have you seen enough sunsets? Listened to enough Mozart? Eaten enough crème brûlée?”
Point taken.
He got suddenly serious. “But no, I wasn’t checking out your gluteus maximus muscles. I would never be so tactless.”
“Why? Something wrong with them?”
For the first time he pondered his answer. “It is against code.”
“You have a code? Now I know you’re full of shit.”
“You’re a mist rider,” he said, solemnly.
I had to admit, he almost had me convinced.
“Then why were you staring?”
He looked down, thinking. “The way you ambulate is reminiscent of someone I once knew. It’s uncanny.”
I rolled my eyes. “Ambulate? You actually expect me to believe that.”
“Yes,” he said, absentmindedly. “You have the same walk. You even pivot the same, your arms swing the same.”
Seeing Chaos contemplate with those savage eyes was as disorientating as if watching a bull sit down for a cup of tea.
“Enough nonsense,” I said. “Where’s the proof you promised?”
“Right,” he said and headed for the kitchen
The mad Immortal rummaged through shattered glass and discarded piles of plates, bowls and mugs, the whole time humming a tune that sounded like the Russian national anthem.
I had given up trying to understand what went through that lunatic’s head, but this was a whole other level of unstable.
“You think the proof lies there among my broken china?”
He stood up, holding a large oval platter with handles. “This will do,” he said, placing it on the coffee table.
Chaos walked to the window, whistling, and bent over the ledge to find a cord hanging down from the window. Once gathered, he found a brown plastic bag at the end of the cord.
He shook the bag over the coffee table. A head rolled out and onto the platter with a thud. It was in grotesque condition—bald, skin the color of ash, small eyes like buttonholes peering at me, a nose so flat it looked like someone had glued two nostrils in middle of a face and a long blue tongue sticking out of its mouth. Yet, this head appeared to have once belonged to a human.
I took a step back. “What the hell is that? Are you completely fucking mental? Forget it. Just tell me, who did you kill?”
He dismissed my questioning with a wave of his hand. “The creature’s past is of no importance. Pay attention to what it has to say now.”
“What do you mean what it has to say? It’s an inanimate skull. Wait, do you think it talks to you? Oh shit, I have to get out of here.”
I clamped my mouth shut when steam started pouring out of the head’s fucking eyes, ears and nostrils as if its brain was boiling inside.
Chaos held his hand above the head, palm down. The head jerked forward on the platter. Chaos closed his fist. The eyes fluttered; a viscous liquid poured out of the mouth.
“That’s necromancy,” I said, taken aback.
He smirked. “What can I say? Being a shadow comes with certain perks.”
“I want nothing to do with this,” I insisted.
He clutched my hand and held it tight. Magic boiled inside my veins, willing me to strike down this psycho about to chat with a severed head in my home. The offense was so staggering I couldn’t fathom it. Necromancy was strictly forbidden in all supernatural and paranormal circles. If it was detected coming out of my home, I would be banished and shamed, never allowed to practice magic or communicate with my peers or even my family.
“You worry too much, chipmunk,” Chaos said, reading my mind. “What happens in Sophie’s apartment stays in Sophie’s apartment. It’s our secret. Your paltry witchery orbs and your anemic telepathic factions cannot pierce through my utter domination of etheric fields.”
I reeled in the elemental energy and took a deep breath. I knew he had the power to contain whatever magic he performed tonight and prevent the orbs from registering the slightest reverberation. I still felt queasy even witnessing such dark and sadistic arts.
Chaos clapped his hands. The head levitated above the platter, quaking and grinding its teeth. If it weren't him holding my hand, I would have fled.
The dried-out eyes grew wet, the bony nose widened, and its tongue turned purply red. The face took on a blush as it formed a shocked expression.
“Show me how you died, you fiend,” Chaos ordered the head, his voice commanding and deep like a subterranean rumble.
The head’s eyes darkened, the white in them vanishing, and a mist cone projected out of them to form a hologram. In it, I saw what I knew to be one of the Seventh Council’s underground courts. A man came forward—completely hairless, severe-looking, with sparkling bronze skin, a folded papyrus in his right hand. Magistrate Argos.
A shorter man entered the space inside the hologram and bowed. He was bald with bluish skin and a long scarlet cape. In his small, buttonhole eyes I recognized the dead head.
Argos handed the man the papyrus and a thin, silver ice snake. My skin prickled. Ice snakes, or Shaervas as they were called in the elder scrolls, were instruments for clandestine witchcraft that could adulterate magic sources, infusing them with dark energy. When combined with wicked spells, they could infiltrate the Deep Down itself.
The short man, whose head now projected homemade movies in my living room, made a curtsy and left.
The scene changed. My stomach lunged into my mouth. The man was standing outside a Deep Down portal, papyrus unfolded in his right hand, Shaerva at his feet, his lips working at a spell.
Chaos showed up behind him like an angel of death, hood covering his head, his enormous Damascus blade raised. He beheaded the man the second he turned to face him, then chopped Shaerva into quarters.
The hologram faded, the head fell to the platter and Chaos released my hand. There was visible fatigue on his features. So, his power was not inexhaustible. Necromancy must have taken a toll on anyone. I filed that observation away, then finally exhaled heavily after what I had witnessed.
Chaos reached inside his coat and pulled out the papyrus. My worst fears were realized. An ancient spell was written inside, a malicious curse meant to bypass the wards of the Deep Down and install corrosive magic.
“The creature was shielded with Immortal essence that made it invisible to your kind’s magic and to the Deep Down tech,” he said. “But not to papa Chaos,” he added in a proud, sing-song voice.
“Are you expecting me to be grateful? You thwarted Argos. Great, but you cannot possibly expect me to believe you don’t have your own agenda here.”
He grinned, completely satisfied, and without a word walked to the window and swung his leg out, saddling the windowsill like a horse.
“That’s it?” I said. “Just a skull movie and no more explanation?”
“I gave you your proof, but I wouldn’t share any of this to the good magistrate, buttercup,” he said, looking me over. “If he opts to come after me, I will kill him this time. My generosity has limits.”
Against my better judgment, I went for defiance. “I didn’t need your proof. I already knew about Düsternis and his plans.”
He could not have been more thrilled. His head fell back, his eyes shut, and he chuckled silently. “You are precious! You went to Magistrate Winter with my information? Oh, how I would have delighted in seeing his face.”
Before I could respond, blue smoke came for Chaos and he was gone.
With every answer he had provided, another three, four, five new questions arose. And what about that creepy, weird dance?
What the hell was that, Chaos? You total freak.
CHAPTER 14
____________________________________
Fresh
snow packed the majestic slope. Scattered trees were all dressed up in the fluffy white fashion of the Yukon. I rubbed my gloved hands together and marveled at snowflakes dancing their way onto a landscape of complete stillness. My breath came to life in vaporized puffs that lingered in the air before I blew them away.
I looked back to see Whitehorse in the distance. The quaint town lay down in a quiet basin, with specks of white roofs amongst Lodgepole pines, spruce and fir trees.
“How much longer?” I asked Winter who walked ahead.
He turned back. “If you are cold,” he said, “I can warm you.”
“I’m good, thanks. I just want to get to Emmet and set him free.”
Winter considered the path before us. “We’re less than a mile out.” He furrowed his brow. “I thought we’d be able to see the facility by now.”
“Are we lost?”
He plodded on, refusing to dignify my question. I trudged after him.
The Yukon river glistened about a hundred yards to the west, frozen across its banks. The mere sight of it made my bones shiver.
Behind a thick line of fir trees, a dome of ice emerged ahead like a gigantic igloo.
“There,” Winter said, picking up speed. “The holding facility lies beneath the dome.”
My heart raced as fear and anticipation mixed into an adrenaline cocktail. It was well and good to remain positive and assume our info was correct and we’d soon be rescuing Emmet, but it was just as likely we’d be ambushed, or that Emmet would be seriously injured—or worse.
When we reached the dome, Winter circled around, looking for a way in.
“Where’s the door?” I asked. Apparently, I was Miss Obvious today.
He shot me a dismissive look. “I’m trying to find it,” he said.
I studied the dome up close. It was about fifteen feet tall and maybe twenty feet wide. There were no cracks, no lines, no scratches, no markings of any sort that I could see. Just uniform, bluish-white frost.
Winter took off his leather gloves to feel the icy surface. He slid his hand around the dome, his fingers searching for signs of partitions.
He walked back next to me and rubbed his hands. Winter’s eyes never left the igloo. A low, rumbling sound came from below ground. Chunks of ice cracked and slipped from the dome like falling dominoes. It was as if a giant hand was flaying the frost with an ice pick.
What was left, was a new layer of solid ice. There was no indication that this layer was any more penetrable than the layer that had just fallen away.
Winter clenched his teeth. A tangle of blue energy fields glowed bright in his right hand. He shook his arm and the hissing blazes leapt forward, dividing into separate lines that struck the dome from different angles.
Wow! Now that was some next level magic. I’d need a full moon to even attempt anything like that.
The ice sizzled as it took the blasts, the shafts of energy slashing and digging deep into the frost.
Chilling doubts settled into my bones. I shivered. There would be nothing here except a dome of pure ice and more ice.
“Are you going to help or what?” Winter said. His aura had turned a dark purple, the color of anger.
“What would be the point? I can’t match your power, not out here in the middle of this polar landscape. Freezing temperatures weaken elemental energy even when it’s made from water. You’ll be done before I could muster up much energy at all. I mean, your name’s freaking Winter.”
It was true. In theory, I could melt the ice to use the water’s elemental energy, but there was only so much you could extract from frozen elements.
His piercing blue eyes stared at me. “When will you get it into your head that you don’t need the elements to draw out your power? You’re a lunar witch only by training, Luna. It’s time to accept that you’re a mist rider. All the magic sources in all the realms are at your disposal.”
I frowned. “Fine, but I sense no sources right now.”
“There is a ley line intersection to the east, merely a mile from here. Use that, tap into it, and start acting like the prodigy of magic that you are.”
“Come on, Jonas, only electrokinetics or a few master sorcerers can tap into ley lines and control that kind of power.”
“You are every kind of magic if you only will it, Luna Mae,” he said, exasperated. “At very least, you could give the old college try.”
It sounded nice but… a ley line was the most volatile and abundant source of magic outside the Deep Down. They were hyper-charmed currents overflowing with accessible energy. Unlike the Deep Down, where magic was natural and an impossible to resist instinct for all supernatural creatures, ley line energy had to be extracted delicately and handled expertly.
Or else… kaboom!
I closed my eyes and measured my breathing. Locating the ley line intersection could only be accomplished if I retook control of my vitals which were now completely under assault from the frigid environment.
It took me a few minutes to slow my pulse and lock onto its location. Once engaged, it felt like riding a tidal wave, pulling in moisture until it built up to an astounding magnitude. I had never felt anything like it—it was overriding my control.
My body strained as I tried to blend it into my usual current of elemental magic, but my failure was about to combust and become a problem on a nuclear scale if not for Winter.
His energy had augmented exponentially, having tapped into the ley line while I was struggling to get a grip of it. I sensed his power gnaw into my etheric field as it exploded, splitting the ice dome in half.
The last vestiges of hope died with a thud as the two halves collapsed onto a solid ice base. My insides frosted, every bit of my core ached.
“What if Emmet had been inside?” I yelled.
But he wasn’t. We had come out here for nothing. I’d bought thermals and snow pants and a puffy white jacket that made me look like the Michelin Man for nothing. We’d been fed fake intel again. Great. We had been supernaturally trolled. Or worse, we were out here doing dirty work for an evil entity.
Winter growled, then instantly recomposed himself. He started back to Whitehorse, saying nothing. I opened my mouth to scream but never did. By the time we got back to the hotel, the sky had turned a dark mauve.
He bolted up the stairs, climbing three steps at a time, and exploded through our room’s door. Winter tossed aside his jacket and kicked off his boots. The room was large and rustic. The floor and the paneled walls were all knotted wood planks. He knelt in front of the fireplace to get a fire going.
I hung up my puffy jacket, then plugged in the tiny Christmas tree on the mantel top. I dropped into one of the two armchairs facing the fireplace to remove my boots and snow pants.
Winter stacked logs onto the tinder and then struck a wooden match. It took a few seconds to get a spark that would grow into a fire.
Rising to his feet, he stood directly over me. He was devoid of all emotions, even confidence. The weary Immortal had never looked so human. There was a sense he could feel all those many thousands of years now like an unwanted weight he wanted to flee.
The fire light danced and sparkled in his gaze.
“I’ll run another check in the database,” he said. “I am unlikely to find anything, but I need to be stay busy.”
I knew what he meant. He had to keep his from-another-time rage under control which must be difficult after millennia in a warrior clan.
He flipped the laptop open on the bed and logged on to the hotel’s wi-fi.
My cringy flip phone buzzed. Lucia had texted.
As I read her words, I started to feel like I was suffocating.
I placed my hand on Winter’s shoulder. “You have to see this.”
He took the phone and read the screen.
The wolf was moved. Now at the Sacred Vault of the Brooks Range.
Dark shadows loomed inside Winter eyes. “How does your friend’s mom possess such knowledge? How does she even know about the mis
sing wolf?”
My goose is cooked.
“Don’t look at me. I didn’t tell her anything.”
Winter arched an eyebrow. “That narrows it down to one.”
Chaos. Which meant he was either the one pulling the strings the whole time, or he had already figured everything out. He told me he would.
“He has given us a clue on how to find him,” Winter went on. “Which can mean only one thing. He wants to be found.”
“Well...”
Winter glared at me. “Luna, no! Please, tell me I’m wrong.”
“I might have tipped him off.”
His savage glare made it damn near impossible to hold his stare.
“He came to the apartment,” I explained.
“You never learn. When?”
I tried to gulp non-existent saliva. “Last night. He brought me what he called evidence of Düsternis’ plot to wreak havoc on the Deep Down. I told him I knew everything already.”
“What proof did he give you?”
Right. That part.
“A head… a talking head, well, no, a little projector head, like a real decomposing head that was also a projector.” I had to stop to regather my focus. “So, this thing created a hologram and inside that I saw Argos. He was dispatching a corrosive spell along with a silver Shaerva to the head, the man who once had the head, you know, on his shoulders. The spell was meant to infiltrate a Deep Down portal. Chaos asked me not to tell you.”
“And how did the man lose his head?” Winter said with a tone that told me he had already guessed.
“Your old chum did what you guys do,” I said. “That evil slashity slash off with their head thing.”
My crazy words had little effect on him. This man must have seen it all during his long life not to react to such outlandish tales.
“Let’s summarize,” he said. “Immediately after we barely kept our cover on a wild goose chase in Tijuana, and while I’m on this mission specifically as a personal favor to you, Chaos, our number one suspect, paid you a visit and performed necromancy in the privacy of your home. Then, he somehow convinced you to lie to me and you obliged, deliberately leaving me in the dark, despite the possible risk to, well, everything. How am I doing?”
Winter (Mist Riders Book 2) Page 10
