“‘I believe so,’” Tanner replied.
“Well, hell,” muttered Berkowitz, “no matter how we play this, it’s going to end with an ugly fight.”
“With no guarantee we’ll be the winners.” Romano chewed on the inside of his cheek. “I mean, it’s good odds that at least one of these revenants is elevated, right?”
Tanner nodded. “‘Le Fay most definitely is. In terms of raw power, the original Morgana le Fay was not that far behind Merlin. She was merely less skilled a practitioner, a weakness that she’s likely rectified across her revenance cycles.’”
Adeline shook her head and addressed Roland. “You might want to go ahead and preemptively call the fire department, boss. If Saul gets into it with a revenant like that, half the damn city is going to be on fire by the end of the night.”
“Hey!” Saul snapped.
Adeline raised her hand in a placating manner. “Not because you’re a shitty wizard, but because two powerhouses violently clashing in the middle of a metro area always ends with things blowing up.”
Saul had to concede that point. “I’ll try my best to avoid widespread damage, but there’s only so much I can do if she goes all out.”
“I understand,” Roland said. “And I will take precautions in case such a battle comes to pass.” He gestured to Tanner. “Ms. Ballard, do you have any other baggage to lay at our feet?”
“‘I do have a hunch about the purpose of the ritual.’” Tanner paused to hear Ballard’s full explanation before he continued. “‘Given the amount of power that Excalibur possesses as a holy instrument, I don’t think it’s possible for any number of sacrifices to actually poison its nature. Therefore, I believe that the revenants of Mordred and le Fay are seeking to use the sword as a focus in order to alter something else to which the sword is innately connected.’”
“And that something is…?” Saul asked.
“‘Other Arthurian revenants,’” Tanner said. “‘I think that they may be attempting to instigate a mass revenance event.’”
Stunned silence blanketed the table as everyone processed the implications of that statement.
Until, from the back corner of the room, Laura piped up. “But mass revenance events are usually large-scale disasters, like earthquakes or hurricanes, that traumatize tens of thousands of people, a fraction of which are dormant revenants. How would this ritual replicate those kinds of conditions?”
“The girls,” Adeline said grimly. “When they kill the girls, they’re going to channel all that negative emotion, all that pain and fear, into Excalibur.”
Saul sat up straight. “And Excalibur, via these so-called connections, will broadcast that trauma to all the Arthurian revenants, causing the dormant ones to hit their revenance points.”
Tanner murmured, “‘That is precisely my theory.’”
“I don’t quite understand though,” Cassidy said. “How exactly is Excalibur connected on a spiritual level to all these different revenants?”
“‘Excalibur is an immensely powerful object,’” Tanner replied. “‘Its area of effect extends far beyond the blade itself, up to three or four kilometers when it’s used as a medium to amplify a practitioner’s spells. Anyone standing within that area of effect gets spiritually ‘marked’ by the sword. This marker doesn’t diminish over time, and the soul retains it after death.’”
“Meaning that practically every revenant that was even remotely involved with King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table acquired one of these markers before the end of that life,” Saul finished.
Romano rubbed his chin. “So how many revenants are we talking about here? A dozen?”
“‘Closer to five dozen,’” Tanner said. “‘Revenant souls tend to congregate in times and places where magic exists in abundance, and the Arthurian age was the peak period of magic in Britain.’”
“Holy shit,” said Berkowitz. “Sixty revenants? All waking up at the same time?”
“Even if these revenants are spread thinly across the whole world,” Roland said, “having that many potentially powerful people coming into potentially dangerous memories at once is bound to cause some degree of havoc.”
“I have a feeling the revenants of Mordred and le Fay are planning to make that degree pretty high.” Adeline swiveled her chair from side to side, restless. “No way they’re waking all these revenants for shits and giggles. There’s a plot here.”
“Maybe whoever they’re working for wants to recruit more Arthurian revenants to his cause?” offered Cassidy.
“A logical assumption. But we don’t have time to dwell on their motives tonight.” Roland slid his chair back from the table. “As much as I dislike sending you all into risky situations with only the broadest strokes of actionable intelligence, the rescue of those girls must remain our top priority. The fine details about this unfurling Arthurian revenant scheme, whatever its purpose may be, will have to be left on the backburner for now.”
A low chorus of “Yes, sir” spread across the room.
Saul raised his hand. “Before we move on to the rescue op, boss, there is one more thing I think everyone ought to know. When Adeline and I arrested Don and Drew, we…coaxed them into admitting that Muntz was offered a whopping two million dollars to kidnap me. Specifically, to kidnap me today and keep me out of the way for twenty-four hours.”
Tanner turned toward Saul and spoke in his own words for the first time in twenty minutes. “You think the ‘big boss’ that the revenants of Mordred and le Fay are working for is the same guy who hired Muntz?”
“That has to be the case,” Saul said. “The only reason someone could have to take me out of play today is to make sure that the latest revenant of Merlin doesn’t have a chance to interfere with the ritual.”
Tanner frowned. “But Muntz set it up so that I—er, you—would be killed by the sable wight, not just ‘kept out of the way.’”
“Yeah, because Muntz intentionally reneged on the deal,” Adeline picked up. “Can’t wait to see how that goes over with the mysterious big boss.”
Roland rapped his knuckles against the table. “I greatly dislike the idea that someone that wealthy with multiple strong revenants in his employ has been operating under our noses for an indeterminate period of time.”
Cassidy twirled a lock of her hair around her finger, thoughtful. “How long do you think a plot like this could have been in the works without something tipping us off?”
Roland raised his hand in a way that indicated he had no clue. “If it wasn’t for Mr. Reiz tipping us off, we still wouldn’t know.”
Cassidy cringed. “So either we’ve got a major intelligence deficit, or…”
“These people are damn good at working under the radar,” Frasier finished.
“Comforting,” Berkowitz said.
“Extremely comforting,” Romano said.
Roland massaged the bridge of his nose. “We’ll untangle this mess, one way or another. But for the time being, let’s focus on locating the staging area for the ritual and rescuing—”
“Wait,” Adeline interrupted. “There’s a choice piece of information we’re still missing. Why did the revenant of Mordred send that harpy to snatch Tanner?”
Tanner chuckled dryly and pointed to the glowing sliver in his wrist. “This is the answer to that question too. Remember how I said it’s a piece of the box that Excalibur is sealed inside?”
“Yeah, so?” Adeline said.
“According to Kim, when the revenant of Mordred killed her, she bound her own soul to the box to create an extra protection spell that a necromancer would have a difficult time bypassing. However, at the construction site, she realized that the revenant of le Fay was probably going to be the one who attempted to break the seals on the box, and the new spell was unlikely to hold her off. So Kim decided to try a Hail Mary: she broke off a piece of the box, and a piece of her own soul with it, in order to make the spell unstable.”
Saul gawked at his brother. “‘
Unstable.’ That’s one way to put it.”
“What’s the other way?” Tanner asked.
“Hexing a spell has a tendency to make a very big kaboom,” Adeline said helpfully. “And spells powered by souls usually make the biggest kabooms.”
“So if the revenants of Mordred and le Fay tamper with that spell in just the wrong way,” Cassidy said, “it’ll blow up?”
Tanner cringed. “Kim says yes.”
Roland scowled. “And how big will this explosion be?”
Tanner cringed harder. “Big enough to level a whole city block.”
Sparks literally poured out of Roland’s ears. “So, essentially, there is a magic bomb in my city?”
“Kim apologizes profusely.” Tanner shrank back against his chair. “She says she felt she had no choice but to hex the box. If she hadn’t, the revenants of le Fay and Mordred probably would’ve broken the seals already and obtained the sword. Even without the ritual, them possessing the sword presents an incredible risk, one much greater than the risk to a single city block.”
Frasier asked, “How do you know they haven’t broken it yet?”
“‘Because I’m still here,’” Tanner said, using Kim’s accent again. “‘If they break the seal, this tiny piece of my soul will rejoin the whole, and my soul will then leave this plane to enter the next interim period of my revenance cycle. Assuming, of course, that the revenants of Mordred and le Fay do not destroy me completely.’”
“So basically,” Adeline said, “your presence is an indicator that we still have time left before the bad guys get their grubby hands on one of the world’s most dangerous weapons?”
“‘Correct.’”
“Do you think they can get past the hex?” Cassidy asked.
“‘The original le Fay was no amateur at seal construction. Eventually, her new incarnation will unwind the soul seal without tripping the hex, and from there, bring down the rest of the seals on the box with relative ease. The best I could do was buy myself some extra time to find someone, like you all, to help me thwart their plans. I’m sorry I couldn’t do more.’”
“We appreciate your efforts, Ms. Ballard.” Roland gestured for everyone to rise. “But please, try not to build any more bombs within the city limits.”
“‘I’ll do my best.’”
As everyone got to their feet and neatly pushed in their chairs to avoid the big man’s disdain for disorderliness, Roland strode for the door. Just as he reached for the handle, however, the door flew open.
Luckily, it opened outward, so it didn’t knock him for a loop. Unluckily, its opening revealed two heavily panting people standing in the hall.
One of them was Jack. The other was Jill. And both of them were drenched in fresh blood.
“We’ve got a big problem,” Jack said breathlessly. “The sorceress just murdered every psychometrist in town.”
Part Three
Chapter Thirty-Two
Tanner
A blood curse. That was what they called the type of spell that made eight people explode into a rain of blood and meaty bits.
Tanner sat curled up in his conference room chair, watching Laura pull various tools out of the first-aid kit that Saul had retrieved from the infirmary after his two teammates stumbled into the conference room. Most of the gore stuck to their clothes and skin was not their own, but both had suffered an array of minor injuries from a hail of human shrapnel.
Once Laura located a pair of pointy tweezers, she got to work on the young black woman named Jillian Ford, carefully teasing tiny bone shards out of the tender skin along Ford’s jawline and upper neck. Agent Ford had clearly raised her arms to shield herself when the psychometrist…blew up, but unfortunately, she’d missed a spot.
In between Ford’s quiet whimpers of pain, Jack Montesano, the man Saul had called his team leader, retold the gruesome story of their ill-fated trip.
“After we escaped from the sorceress using a series of borderline illegal maneuvers that will likely earn me a formal reprimand,” he said, “I drove to Sycamore Street and ditched the car in the parking lot of a grocery store. Jill and I then took a roundabout path to a duplex on Willard, where Harrison Jane, the psychometrist, was waiting for us.
“He took the purse we recovered from the flophouse in Benton Court down to his basement, where he’d prepared a standard security circle to defend himself against any psychic attacks that someone might try to channel back through his spiritual connection to the purse.”
“I’m guessing that didn’t work as well as he’d hoped,” said Saul. He was down on one knee beside Montesano, dabbing blood off the man’s face with a wet washcloth that was already stained beyond what even bleach could fix.
Montesano picked a tiny sliver of bone out of his cheek and sighed. “I knew the sorceress was powerful, after she chased us through the court, slinging strong spells left and right. But I didn’t realize she had such a broad skill set until…”
“We have strong reason to believe the sorceress is the revenant of Morgana le Fay,” Agent Smith said.
Montesano’s head snapped up. “You’re kidding.”
“I wish.” Smith rubbed his hands together. “A lot of information has come to light since we last spoke. I’ll give you the short version after you finish your side of the story.”
“Right.” Montesano pressed his fist to his mouth for a moment, like he was struggling to come up with words that adequately described the horror he had witnessed.
Tanner understood that problem perfectly.
Finally, Montesano gathered his wits and continued. “At first, everything seemed fine. Mr. Jane successfully established a connection to the spiritual impression embedded in the fabric of the purse, and he told us he thought he could collect all the viable information in the purse’s history in ten minutes or less.”
“And that was when it all went wrong?” Agent Napier guessed. She was sitting on her haunches behind Ford, gently rubbing the younger woman’s shoulders.
Montesano nodded morosely. “There was little warning. Mr. Jane gasped and started yelling ‘No’ over and over again, and then the concrete floor beneath his protection circle fractured as if it had been struck by a wrecking ball. The circle broke, and its magic evaporated. Mr. Jane couldn’t scrape together any additional protections before the curse hit.”
“‘Oh god, not my family,’” Ford murmured. “That was the last thing he said before…”
“Family?” asked the woman everyone called Cassidy, who was taking soiled medical supplies from Laura and transferring them to a trashcan in the corner. “Please tell me you’re not saying the curse wiped out his whole family.”
“Anyone related to him by blood, two generations on and two generations back,” Montesano confirmed, head bowed. “Which accounts for every psychometrist in Weatherford.”
“Psychometry is a psychic power that runs in bloodlines,” Ford said, voice wavering, “and the skill gets stronger in the next generation if two parents pass it on. So a lot of psychometrists marry other psychometrists.”
Face pale, Cassidy asked, “How many people were related to this guy?”
“I don’t know,” Montesano admitted. “But it was probably a lot more than eight. We only know that all eight in the city died because our police scanner blew up in the immediate aftermath, a surge of reports about ‘people exploding.’”
“Well, this sorceress might be powerful,” said another man, who Tanner thought was named Romano, “but she’s not all-powerful. That blood curse couldn’t have encompassed the entire world. It had to have run out of steam after, max, a hundred miles.”
“Hooray for Jane’s estranged relatives in California,” Ford said solemnly.
Laura set her tweezers down on the lid of the first-aid kit and tipped up Ford’s chin with two fingers. “Hey, don’t go blaming yourself for this. It’s not your fault. It’s the fault of a revenant sorceress.”
Ford bit her wobbling lip. “But we gave him the purse.�
�
“You didn’t make him help you,” Napier said, patting Ford’s back. “He was a PTAD contractor, and he knew the risks of attempting a psychometric backtrace on an object involved in a preternatural crime committed by a sorceress.
“Are the deaths of him and his family tragic? Absolutely. But they’re not on you. They’re not on us. They’re on the criminals that we are going to bring to justice. Got it?”
Ford sniffed loudly, composing herself as best she could. “Got it.”
“Good.” Napier pushed herself to her feet. “Without psychometric help, we’re still short on intel. So what’s our next step, beyond just blindly searching for our perps’ hideout and hoping we don’t trip a death ward in the process?”
Montesano took the washcloth from Saul and rose. Dabbing some blood off his neck, he said, “I was thinking about that the whole way back to the Castle. And I came up with only one idea that might help us locate the girls before the sorceress gets around to doing…whatever it is she’s planning to do with them.”
“Sacrifice them to trigger a mass revenance event, apparently,” drawled Frasier, the stocky blond man who kept throwing Saul hateful looks.
Montesano was taken aback. “What?”
“I’ll explain in a minute.” Smith gestured to Montesano. “What’s your idea?”
Shaking off his confusion, Montesano said, “You’re not going to like it, but I do have in my possession one favor owed to me by a man whose assistant happens to be the only clairvoyant in the city of Weatherford.”
Saul was aghast. “No. Not him. Anyone but him.”
“A clairvoyant would be able to garner more specific intel about the girls’ location.” Napier tugged on her messy black ponytail. “And Sofia Moretti works and lives in a place with exceptionally strong wards. Elevated or not, there’s no way the revenant of le Fay can punch through all the protections of the Bank.”
Despite the fast-paced conversation, Tanner had been keeping up fairly well until this point. But suddenly, they’d gone way over his head. “Um, sorry to play the dunce here,” he said, “but who’s Sofia Moretti, and what’s the Bank?”
A Knight of Cold Graves (The Revenant Reign Book 1) Page 28
