“Can you figure out where they might come out?” Sam asked.
The earth mage nodded. “As soon as I can get a direction. Right now, I just know the earth is being disturbed by magic.”
Bailey tried to call using the Hunter’s phone, but it just rang. Not even voice mail.
Chapter 23
As darkness fell, we spread out again, surrounding Harland Hall. Where Jolene and I sat, we were blocked from the wind, but the temperature fell significantly as the sun set. The lights around the buildings and along the sidewalks came on, drowning out the pale light from the rising crescent moon.
“Are you cold?” I asked Jolene. I could always use ley magic for warmth, but she couldn’t tap the ley lines.
“Naw,” she said. “I grew up here and I’m a skier. Long thermal undies and a wool sweater, so I’m fine.”
“What did I miss?” Shawna’s voice asked.
I tried not to jump, but I had just looked in that direction a few seconds before, and no one was there.
“You’re going to die doing that,” I said.
She laughed and stuck out her hand to Jolene. “Hi, I’m Shawna.”
Jo shook her hand, but I could tell she was a little reluctant.
Shawna grinned, showing her fangs. “I’m safe. Look!” She held out a laminated card with her picture on it. It said ‘Investigator’ at the top, right under the City of Westport crest and ‘Office of the District Attorney.’
“I’m officially a defender of the law, protector of the innocent, keeper of the peace.”
I stared at the identification card, trying to read it in the faint light. “You’re kidding.”
“If you remember, that’s what I said when you told me about the job. This is my first night. You shoulda seen the look on Eileen’s face when I quit and told her about my new position. Where’s Ms. Jones? I need to report. What’s going on? Why so many sweetbloods hanging around staring at an old building?” It was obvious she was excited, her speech rapid-fire, and not waiting for answers.
“Sweetbloods?” Jolene squeaked.
“Yeah, all that magic,” Shawna said. “And it’s been the ruin of many a poor girl, but Lord, I ain’t gonna be one,” she sang in a clear, sweet soprano.
“Frankie’s around the other side of the building,” Jolene said, pointing.
“Gotcha. Catch ya later.” And with that, Shawna was gone.
“A vampire?” Jolene asked.
“Yeah, why?”
“I’m going to be working with a vampire?”
“You took the job.” I shrugged. “You won’t be working with her if you’re on the day shift.”
A couple of minutes later my phone buzzed.
“Looks like they’re tunneling toward the northwest,” Bailey said when I answered. “I’m putting most of our people out in that direction. I need you to stay where you are in case that’s a diversion and they try to break out another way. I’m sending Investigator Kincaid over for another set of eyes.”
As quickly as she left, Shawna was back. The university had a lot of lights, and the crescent moon was out, but I knew the vampire could see far better than Jolene and I could.
“Ms. Jones gave me a quick rundown,” she said, “and said you’d fill in the details. I take it that I’m here for my night vision?”
“And because you can’t shield,” I said. “There’s likely to be some pyrotechnics going on pretty quick.”
“Here,” Jolene said, holding out her hands. “It’s not as good as a shield, but it should provide some protection.” I couldn’t see what she held, but Shawna took something and seemed to put it around her neck.
“A charm?” Shawna asked.
“Yeah. It’s an aversion charm. People will love you even less than they do now,” Jo said.
Shawna laughed. “Spoken like a girl who loves vampires. Okay, you protect me from magic users, and I’ll protect you from bloodsuckers. I’m not real fond of them either.”
Jolene and I told Shawna about the events of the afternoon, and also about the hotel experience the previous day.
Suddenly, we were interrupted by yelling and flashes of light from the other side of Harland Hall. Shawna’s phone rang, and when she answered, I heard Frankie’s voice.
“They’re breaking out!” then, “Holy shit! There’s, oh, my God, six, seven, no, nine Hunters!”
Mage wars are pretty quiet in comparison with humans’ conventional warfare. But if you liked fireworks, mage wars are bright and colorful. No machineguns and very few explosions, just the crackle of lightning, the whoosh of fireballs, and the whisper of wind, with occasional thunder and sounds of things breaking. I saw a tree fall off to the side and behind the building.
“Nine Hunters? We weren’t prepared for that at all,” Jolene breathed.
And that didn’t make any sense to me at all. Hell, there were only five hundred Hunters in the whole world before the City of the Illuminati melted down, probably killing at least half of them.
I grabbed Shawna’s phone and said, “Frankie, this is Erin. We have an illusionist, don’t we? I think they do, too.”
I heard an intake of breath on the other end, then Frankie disconnected.
“Illusions?” Shawna asked.
“Magic to project copies of the men you have and confuse your enemy. Make us think they have double or triple their manpower, and we have to guess as to which ones are real,” I said. “While you’re fighting an illusion, the real thing cuts you down.” I had trained extensively with and against teams using illusions.
“Here, wear this,” Jolene said, holding out charms to each of us. “Dispel-illusion charms.”
“You came prepared tonight,” I said as I slipped the chord over my head.
“New job. Figured I should put my best foot forward and show how valuable I am,” Jo answered.
It was driving me crazy seeing the flashes of fire and light but not being able to see the fight. I knew I could make a difference if I was there, but if I was right about illusions playing a part in the battle, it was even more important to hold my assigned spot and look for the enemy using a diversion to sneak away.
“There,” Shawna said, pointing.
I wasn’t sure what she was seeing at first, then I noticed a man sticking his head out of a second-floor window. The rest of his body followed, and he drifted to the ground. Another head appeared at the window.
“Stay here, and call Frankie,” I told my companions as I took off running toward the building.
The second man drifted to the ground, and a third head appeared in the window. I drew my short sword and shifted it to my left hand while I readied the spell for the Sword.
I was almost in range for my ley missiles when the second man on the ground spotted me.
“Hey! Over there,” he called out.
I loosed a ley missile at him. Because of the distance, I knew it wouldn’t have much power in it when it reached him, but he staggered. The first man, the aeromancer who was lowering the third man, whirled about. Even in the darkness, I recognized Gavin Edmundson.
I pushed ley line magic ahead of me and saw Edmundson’s mini tornado burst apart yards short of reaching me. I loosed another ley missile in his direction. It didn’t penetrate his shield, but the man he was lowering to the ground suddenly dropped the last fifteen feet.
The ground I was running across turned into deep mud at the same time as it started raining. The rain was coming not from the sky but from the grass and trees around me, driven by a cyclonic wind.
I hunched down, trying to keep myself from being blown over, and let loose ley missiles, one after another. The rain slacked off, and then the wind diminished. When I was able to stand and get my bearings, I saw Edmundson and one of the others running. Of the third man, there wasn’t any sign, but there were two six-foot holes in the side of Harland Hall as a result of my ley missiles. I might have gotten lucky and nailed the third guy. As I pulled my feet out of the mud and started off in pursuit
of the two mages, I wondered how I would explain those holes.
The man running with Edmundson was thin, with gray hair, and shorter than the Hunter. He tripped, stumbled, arms wind-milling as he tried to keep his balance, then he lurched to the side and went down.
Edmundson changed course to go around the other side of the building toward where Frankie and Bailey had been directing operations. As he cleared the corner, he stumbled, then suddenly flew backwards, head over heels.
The older guy tried to stand up again, and now that I was closer, I could see why he was having such difficulty. He got to one knee and tried to stand, but Shawna came up behind him and kicked him in the head. Even a shielded mage was vulnerable to the speed and jumping ability of a vampire.
The guy tried to rise again, but I leaned over and put the point of my dagger on his throat.
“You won’t be the first man I’ve killed tonight,” I said. “Drop your shield.”
I saw the whites of his eyes and could make out his expression.
“Don’t even think about it,” I said. “You won’t make it through my shield, and I’m holding a Hunter’s spelled blade.”
The fight went out of him, and he dropped his shield.
“Did they give you a pair of those fancy handcuffs yet?” I asked Shawna.
“A couple of pairs,” she replied, stepping forward and quickly rolling the man onto his stomach. She pulled his arms behind his back and shackled him. Then she reached in her pocket, and her hand came out with a piece of black cloth. “And some of these nifty head bags.” Grabbing the man by the hair, she pulled his head back and slipped the bag over his head. Standing straight, she grinned at me. “As soon as I pass my firearms test, they’re going to give me a gun, and then I’ll have all the neat toys.”
“Talk to a detective named Cindy Mackle,” I said. “She has some neat toys that aren’t official issue.”
Shawna threw the guy over her shoulder, and we went to see what happened with Edmundson. He was nowhere to be seen, but a healer was working on Bailey, who was bleeding from his left shoulder.
“I didn’t see what happened to the third guy who came through the window,” Shawna told Frankie. “Do you want me to try and find him?”
“That’s not necessary,” I said, “I don’t think that he’s a problem anymore. What about the Hunters who came through the tunnel?”
Shawna and Frankie gave me a rather strange look, then Frankie said, “You were right, some of those people were illusions, but by the time we figured out who was real, three Hunters escaped. We captured one man in that mess, but he’s not a Hunter. He’s another member of the Columbia Club.”
“What happened to Edmundson?” I asked Frankie.
“He escaped.” She glanced over at Bailey. “Dan tried to stop him but got stabbed with one of those long knives like yours. Edmundson took off in that direction.” She pointed southwest.
Chapter 24
“Which way did they go?” Shawna asked about the Hunters who escaped the Harland Hall trap.
“They split up,” Dan Bailey said.
“We tried to follow them,” Frankie said, “but we lost them. They’re long gone by now.”
“How’s the shoulder?” I asked Bailey. “Not too bad.” He glanced up at the healer who was bending over him. “A lot better than it was.”
Shawna drew me aside. “Maybe humans can’t find them, but I’m a lot faster, and I can track them by scent. Magic users are pretty distinctive.”
The idea was intriguing, and at first, I was excited, but there was a problem. “I can’t keep up with you,” I said, “and you really don’t want to confront them alone because you can’t shield.”
The vampire shrugged. “If I can find them, I’ll just keep watching until you catch up. I saw what that guy did at Willard’s Green, and I’m not in a hurry to be a twice-dead hero.”
Jolene was close enough to overhear our conversation, and she moved in between us, putting a hand on each of our shoulders.
“Josh and Erin and I will follow in the car,” she said. “If you find one or more of them, just send Erin a text.”
Shawna’s brow furrowed as she looked down at the diminutive witch.
“She just placed a tracker on both of us,” I said. “If you can find one of them, we’ll find you.”
After a brief conversation with Bailey and Frankie, Shawna told us, “One of them is headed south, toward the city. I think that will be the easiest one for you to follow in a car.”
“Following that logic, can you pick up the scent of the guy who stabbed Sergeant Bailey?” I asked.
“Dunno.” She wandered over to where the healer was still working on Bailey, then sort of aimlessly walked around. When she stopped, she grinned at me. “Got him.” She turned and took off at a lope across the campus.
Frankie was chuckling as we passed her on our way to Josh’s van. “It never occurred to me that we could use a vampire as a bloodhound. This may work out even better than I hoped.”
“As long as you can keep her from munching on the rest of the help,” Josh grumbled.
I punched him in the shoulder. “C’mon, you’re not afraid of a girl, are you?”
He laughed. “The girls I hang around with are pretty scary.”
As we got into the van, with Josh driving and Jo sitting in front, she said, “She’s on the move.” Jo started giving him directions. Since they had lived in Westport their whole lives and I had barely been there a few months, I sat back to enjoy the ride.
We left the university and wound our way down the hill through a residential district. I leaned over the back of Jolene’s seat so I could see the little mirror she held. A red dot showed Shawna, and a green dot showed our location. It was all relative. There wasn’t any map, of course, and I wouldn’t have stood a chance of giving Josh any directions.
The method wasn’t fool proof. “Take the next right,” Jo said.
“It’s a dead end,” Josh replied. “I have to go two more blocks to find a through street.”
“Do it,” Jo said. “Then keep heading west. It looks like she’s heading for the coast.”
Josh laughed as he took the corner. “Coast Road is only four blocks in front of us.”
Almost an hour later, after many twists and turns, Josh pulled into a parking lot overlooking the ocean. A sign at the back of the parking lot indicated a trail that looked like it simply led off a cliff, but when I got out of the car and approached where Shawna sat on the fence, I could see the trail sort of zig-zagged down the steep embankment.
“I don’t know what’s down there,” Shawna said. “Vampires don’t hang out at the beach much. I scouted around a bit, and I don’t think there’s another way out.”
“There’s an overlook with a kind of gazebo thing,” Josh said. “Big rocks down there and the waves hitting them are pretty impressive. Lots of tourists taking pictures on summer days.”
“Shelter out of the wind,” Jolene added.
I looked at Josh. “Let’s hope he’s not also a hydromancer.” Air and water were closely associated, and some mages could work with both. I didn’t know who had conjured that mini-storm that bogged me down at Harland Hall.
He nodded. “Yeah.” Turning to his sister, he said, “A ley line’s running right under our feet. Not a big one, but plenty of energy to power a storm.”
“Shawna, does he know you followed him?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I rarely had him in sight. No need to get close. He reeks of mage magic, so his trail was easy to follow.”
“You two stay here,” I told Shawna and Jo. “Ready?” I asked Josh.
“I can’t go watch?” Shawna pushed her lower lip out, pretending to pout.
“I’d rather have you alive to haul my broken and bleeding body back up to the ambulance,” Josh said. “Jo’s a little light for that sort of thing.” Turning to me, he said, “Yeah, let’s do it.”
There was enough moonlight for us to see the trail, al
though occasionally the light was blanked out by clouds. Rock walls bordered the way—sometimes only knee high, at other places waist high—so I wasn’t worried about missing the trail and falling off the cliff. Josh followed about fifteen or twenty feet behind me, far enough that an ambush wouldn’t catch us both. The ley line allowed both of us to enhance our shields with plenty of power in reserve for our weapons.
I was about halfway down to the water when I first caught sight of the gazebo below me and off to my left. The waves pounding the rocks and the shore made more than enough noise, so I didn’t worry about making any sounds, but we would be easy to ambush for the same reason.
And then I saw him—leaning against one of the roof supports, gazing out at the waves, as though quietly contemplating the meaning of life. Considering how far Shawna had chased him, I wondered if he was tired and catching his breath, or if he thought that was a place to hide out until we gave up searching for him.
The sound of the waves drowned out all other sounds, so he couldn’t have heard us drive up. I waited for Josh to catch up with me. He leaned down so I could shout into his ear.
“Stay out of sight until I have his attention. I’ll try to maneuver him so he turns his back to you.”
“Got it.”
I picked my way down the trail until I got to a broad, sandy area. The trail became a wooden boardwalk at that point, leading to the gazebo, which was a white, thirty-foot octagonal platform with a pitched roof held up by eight square posts. Half of it hung out over the cliff, which fell about fifteen or twenty feet to the water.
The Hunter had his back to me, still facing out toward the ocean. I prepared the Sword spell, and as I stepped onto the platform, I hurled a ley line missile at him. My hope that he wasn’t shielded turned out to be false. He whirled around, and his sword whispered from its sheath as he spotted me.
“Ah, the little girl with the glowing sword,” he said. “Master Benedict’s whore. Did you come to dance with me in the moonlight, Tian? Which of my swords is your preference? We can dance upright or horizontally.”
Dark Dancer (Rosie O'Grady's Paranormal Bar and Grill Book 3) Page 18
