Tegan's Return (The Ultimate Power Series #2)

by L.H. Cosway

  “What if the security guard spots us on the cameras?” I ask with worry. We leave the elevator and then have to climb one final set of stairs. Finn has to jimmy open the door which leads out onto a massive, empty concrete roof. I peer all around at the panoramic views.

  “Let’s just hope that doesn’t happen,” Finn replies. “But if it does you might want to try summoning up those sparks of yours from the other night.”

  “I don’t even know how I did that,” I tell him in dejection. If we do get caught up here, I’m definitely not going to be the one to get us out of it.

  “Don’t worry,” Rita reassures me, “if anything goes wrong I know a confusion spell that will give us enough time to get the hell out of dodge.”

  “I like that phrase,” says Alvie with grin as he helps Rita to set up the spell. They’re both currently pulling things out of her ruck sack. They sit down on the cold concrete ground and first set down Rita’s wooden spell board that I recognise from that time on Ridley Island. It’s funny the little details that you remember.

  I pace around the outer edge of the roof, morbidly fascinated by how far up we are. Wolf pads alongside me as I glance over the low rise wall, my heart thumps when I look directly down and see how small everything seems. The world is so far below me. Two strong arms pull me back and I turn my head to find Finn scowling at me.

  “Are you trying to get yourself killed?” he asks, through gritted teeth.

  I grin up at him. “Why Finn, I didn’t know you cared so much.”

  “I promised I’d protect you, didn’t I? Even if it is from your own stupidity.”

  I pull away from him. “Whatever.” Then I go back over to sit with Rita and Alvie, who seem to be just about ready to begin. Rita picks up a bottle of water and pours it into her spell bowl. There are various herbs in clear plastic bags, as well as a pen and paper and two L-shaped pieces of thin metal with ornately carved handles on the ends of them. I raise an eyebrow and ask Rita what they’re for.

  She glances up at me. “You’ve never heard of dowsing rods?”

  “It rings a vague bell,” I admit, but I can put my finger on it.

  “People used them back in the olden days,” Alvie answers, then continues, “Except back then it wasn’t metal rods, they would look for a Y-shaped branch from a willow tree, hold onto each end with their hands, and the bit that points out would lead them to a location where there was water.”

  I snort, unable to help myself. “And you believe in that?”

  Rita shoots me a cynical look. “It worked for people for hundreds of years. You really are going to have to get over your non-believer ways Tegan. After all, you’ve got your own magic to contend with now.” She glances down at my stomach, the place where she said my magic sits, like a ball of fire. I nervously run a hand over my abdomen.

  “You’ll be using those after we cast the initial spell,” Rita continues. “The thing is, I want to be able to see your dad first. I hate to be blunt, but there’s a good chance they already killed him. Once we summon up a glimpse of him, we’ll be able to determine whether or not that’s the case. If he is still alive and being kept somewhere in the city, I’ll show you how to use the dowsing rods to turn you in the direction of where he’s being kept.”

  “I thought Alvie said people used them to find bodies of water, not people,” I interject.

  “That’s true,” Rita replies. “But they can also be used to locate missing people and things.”

  “Handy.” I reply, and I’m actually looking forward to discovering if they really work. If they do I might just have to commandeer them, I’m always losing little things like keys and jewellery. Thinking this, I put my hand in my pocket and pull out my dad’s watch, before placing it down with the rest of Rita’s spell ingredients.

  Rita nods and then begins stirring in the herbs. Into her spell bowl she adds, calling each one out in turn, hyacinth, jasmine, lotus, sandalwood and tamarisk. Lastly, she picks up some yellow flowers with green leaves on the ends.

  “These,” says Rita, holding up the flowers to give me a proper look at them, “are cowslip, they are the most potent herb you can use when you want to find something that is lost. You need to concentrate now Tegan, because once I drop them in, the process will begin.”

  I look over to Finn, who’s standing nearby with Wolf by his side, quietly watching us. Then I turn back to Rita and reply seriously, “Sure, you’ve got my undivided attention.”

  “Good,” she answers, before throwing the cowslip into the bowl. The three of us take each other’s hands and instinctively I close my eyes and clear my mind without Rita needing to tell me. All of a sudden, casting spells seems like the most natural thing in the world to me.

  Both Rita and Alvie let go of my hands then, and I open my eyes to find Rita holding the pen and paper out to me. Hesitantly, I take them from her. “I want you to think of a time in the past when you shared a moment with your dad, a time when you felt close to him. Once you have the scene in your head, keep your eyes closed and write his full name out onto the paper, then fold it in half and throw it into the bowl.”

  I close my eyes again, the pen and paper gripped firmly in my hands. Various memories present themselves, but the one I choose is particularly emotional. It happened when I was seventeen. It was the anniversary of my mother’s death, and I walked into my dad’s room to find him staring at a photo of her, tears streaming down his face. Even though I couldn’t understand his grief, because I’d never known her properly, I ran to him and hugged him tightly. I keep that moment in my mind’s eye, as I press the paper out flat on my thigh, lift the pen, and scribble down the name Martin Frederick Stolle.

  I fold it in half once I’m done, open my eyes, and throw it into the water just like Rita told me to. Rita has a serene look on her face, which is unusual in itself. I’ve never seen her calm other than when she’s casting a spell. It’s like she becomes this whole other person. Someone serious and powerful.

  She picks up my dad’s watch and throws it into the water. Then she lifts two fingers and begins to stir a clockwise circle into the concoction in the bowl. She does this six times before quickly taking mine and Alvie’s hands again. The concoction continues to swirl, even after she’s stopped stirring it. It actually begins to speed up, and becomes more and more rapid before it evens out and a picture formulates in the liquid. The water is now eerily calm, at first all I can see is white, then I begin to make out the form of my dad, sitting on a thin mattress with pale sheets that reminds me of a hospital bed.

  The room he’s sitting in is cold and sterile, no unnecessary furnishings in sight. I stare at his face, but he doesn’t look scared or angry, he just looks resigned. As though he’s been held in this place for so long that he no longer has the energy to fight against it. A cold sweat trickles down my neck, as I wonder if he’s been there for the whole year and a half since he went missing. He might be entirely institutionalised with the whole thing by now.

  Then he stands up and goes to peer out a tiny window, but all you can see is light because the view has been blocked out with white paint and metal bars. Damn, if we could have seen the view it might have been easier to determine where in the city he might be.

  He lets out a weary sigh, then he turns around and paces over to the door. He knocks on it three times, and a moment later a thin frosted glass window, no more than two inches high and three wide, slides open. A face is on the other side of it, but all you can see is the mouth.

  It’s definitely a male mouth, and slightly older judging from the set wrinkles around the lips. Those lips are strangely familiar, but my brain just can’t seem to place them. I must be imagining it, my desperation to know who is keeping my dad prisoner is making me think I recognise his captor, when really I’m clueless.

  “I need to use the bathroom,” says my dad to the faceless man on the other side of the hole in the door. The mouth opens, and is just about to respond. My heart lifts, because if I hear the voice then
maybe I’ll be able to remember if I really do know who that mouth belongs to. But just before the words come, the image in Rita’s spell bowl dissolves. A loud F word comes tumbling out of Rita, and I think in my head, my sentiments exactly.

  “We need to get the image back,” I tell her frantically. But she only shakes her head.

  “I can’t do it again Tegan, as much as I’d like to. I’m all tapped out for the day and I don’t have enough ingredients left either.”

  I curse quietly, and now Finn comes to sit with the three of us. “I didn’t recognise that place,” he tells us, “whoever’s keeping him was clever enough to block out the view.”

  Nerves are still thrumming through my body, because now I know that my dad really is being kept by some unknown captor. He hadn’t decided to up and retire to the Bahamas, as much as I wish he had.

  Rita shrugs, she’s currently fishing my dad’s broken watch out of her spell bowl. She shakes the liquid from it and picks away a few stray leaves that have stuck to it.

  “We still have the dowsing rods,” says Alvie, trying to add a bit of hope to a hopeless situation.

  I look to him. “Okay, what do I need to do with them?”

  Rita picks them up and runs them through the concoction in the bowl before handing them over to me. Little drops of liquid run off the thin metal. She stands up and motions for me to follow her. Then she places the watch down onto the ground and hands me the rods. I grip the handles in each of my hands, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a strange rush go through me the moment my hands made contact with their carved surface.

  Rita tells me to hold them straight out above the watch and to visualise my father in my mind. I do as she says. Nothing happens for a moment, but then I feel a dragging sensation coming directly from the rods. I allow my body to turn with the motion of them and they drag me around, causing me to spin in a circle several times, becoming faster and faster. The pull is so strong, I couldn’t resist it if I tried. I feel myself getting dizzy, and I lose my sense of orientation. I open my eyes, and the world turns upside down in my fuzzy spinning vision.

  Then when I look at the rods I notice that they are sparkling, like those sparklers your parents give you when you’re a kid at Halloween. Suddenly, the spinning stops and the rods seem to have a selected a particular direction. I’m definitely not prepared for what happens next. The rods pull me forward, with all the strength of a tornado, and my body propels forward. My legs have no other option but to run and sweat breaks out on my forehead as I realise I’m getting dangerously close to the edge of the building.

  I can hear Rita and Alvie call out in fright, yelling at me to let go of the rods, but it feels as though my hands are glued to the handles. I’m almost at the edge now, four, three, two, one foot away and then I slam into the low rise wall. The upper half of my body hangs off it as the rods do their best to pull me over. I’m not balanced though, and more of me is off the roof than on. I try not to look down, but it’s no use, my traitorous eyes glance at the world below me and fear clenches in my gut. I’m so close to hurtling over a precipice that promises nothing but death.

  The next thing I know I’m being pulled back onto the roof, both by the waist and by the leg. Finn has his arms wrapped around me and Wolf has the end of my jeans in his mouth, helping Finn to rescue me from falling. I fall back on top of Finn and quickly crawl over onto the safety of the roof. My hands clutch my chest, where my heart is thumping loudly against my rib cage.

  “Jesus!” Rita shouts. “I thought you were done for there for a second.”

  “That’s you and me both,” I tell her, wiping the sweat off my forehead. Alvie rushes over to give me a big hug, squeezing me tightly. Wolf is whining and licking me on the hand. I pet him on his soft, thick fur and the feel of his lovely coat relaxes me. It’s at this moment that I realise I’d finally managed to let go of the dowsing rods. They lie innocently by my feet, and I scowl at them in anger, those bloody things almost killed me.

  “Well,” I say finally, looking at Rita, “did that fucking episode achieve anything?”

  “Yes,” she answers, and comes to sit by me. She puts both of her hands on my shoulders and turns me in the direction where the rods had just about pulled me off the roof of the building. “Your dad is being kept somewhere in the vicinity of Freemont park, which by the way, is on vampire territory.”

  I rub my head in confusion. “But, I thought it was a witch or a warlock who took him?”

  “I’d still say that’s the case,” Rita replies. “I imagine they’re keeping him on the South side so that if they do get caught out it will be easier to pin it on the vamps.”

  Finn stands in front of me, offering me his hand to pull me up. He’s got a serious expression on his face, perhaps my dalliance with near death has taken the wind out of his sails. “Thanks,” I whisper when I’m standing close to him. “For saving me, I mean.”

  He smirks then. “Any time, Tegan.”

  “You wouldn’t by any chance want to help me look for my dad in Freemont Park, would you?” I ask him.

  He scratches his jaw. “That’s a big place, it’d be like searching for a needle in a hay stack.”

  I frown and Finn’s expression seems to soften. “Look, I can’t do it tonight. I have to report back to Pamphrock in an hour to help with the preparations for tomorrow, but I promise I’ll bring you in the morning and we’ll scope the place out.”

  Tomorrow morning could be too late to find him, and I’m eager to get searching straight away. At this very moment my phone buzzes in my pocket and I step away to look at it. There’s a message. From Ethan. All it says is, Come to the club. Memories of last night flit through my head, and a pleasant shiver seizes me down to my toes. Then another thought comes to mind, perhaps Ethan could help me look for dad, since I now know he’s being kept on vampire territory.

  I step back to Finn and reply, “That’s okay, I’ll get Ethan to bring me tonight.”

  He doesn’t seem happy with this, but he just shrugs and turns away from me. Alvie and Rita are almost finished packing away all of their stuff, as well as those infernal dowsing rods. It’ll be a cold day in hell before I go near those again.

  We make our way over to the door that leads back inside the building, when suddenly it bursts open and a security guard steps through with a gun held in both his hands. He aims it at me and my friends.

  In a loud and hostile voice, he commands, “Hands in the air, all of you.”

  In my head, I’m thinking, Okay Rita, now would be a good time to whip out that confusion spell.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Drowned

  Silently, Rita hands the bag she’s holding to Alvie. Wolf steps forward and begins growling low in his throat. The guard eyes the massive dog warily and seems to take a step back. Alvie begins to rummage in the bag and whips out a small bundle of fabric that’s tied in a knot. He hands it to Rita and she takes it absently, her intense dark eyes focused on the security guard.

  The guard lifts his gun higher and shouts, “I said put your hands in the fucking air, now!”

  Rita ignores him and holds the bundle in her outspread palms, whispering something quietly in Latin, the only word I can make out is turbatio.

  Next she pulls the knot loose and blows out the contents, which seems to be a handful of white dust. It travels straight to the guard, each granule latching onto his face, and then his eyes begin turning frantically in his head and he drops to floor, his whole body spasms fitfully.

  Fear seizes me. “What the hell did you do to him Rita?”

  “He’ll be fine in a half an hour, now come on, we have to get out of here. He probably called for backup before coming out.”

  Everything moves so rapidly then, Finn grabs a hold of my hand and drags me down the stairs. All the while I feel like I might explode from the adrenaline that’s rushing through my veins. When we get to the elevator Rita hits the button for the ground floor, and the descent feels like it takes
forever. Once we get down I can hear sirens coming from out on the street, and we all run like our lives depend on it, back to the side door we first entered through.

  Finn doesn’t lead us out the front way, but instead to the back of the building, where we all hop over a high wall. Finn has to give me a step up because I’m useless with the whole athleticism thing. We rush past the next building and out onto a different street, where cars pass on the road and people walk by casually. We stop running then and walk, all in a group, not saying a single word. Once we’ve gotten a safe distance away from the sirens Finn tells us he’s going to go back for the van and that he’ll meet us at the house later on.

  Rita flags down a taxi, but then I remember that I need to go to Crimson to see Ethan, so I get another for myself. Rita hugs me and wishes me luck with finding my dad over on vamp territory. She says she’d go with me, only it isn’t safe for her to cross the river. For a brief moment I feel liberated by the fact that I don’t have to abide by the segregation. Although that might not last for much longer, especially if the vampires find out I’ve been secretly working for the DOH.

  I jump into my taxi just as Rita and Alvie are pulling away in theirs, and I say a silent prayer that we didn’t get caught. I tell the driver where to take me. Then I think of the security guard and hope like hell that Rita was telling the truth and that he really will be okay in a half an hour. But at this a disturbing thought hits me, the security guard had obviously seen us on the cameras, cameras that will have recorded our faces.

  I sweat even more profusely, causing my short hair to stick to the back of my neck. How dumb was I going along with Rita’s plan to break into the building? I can’t believe I didn’t think of this sooner. With shaking hands, I pull my phone out of my pocket and hit the speed dial for Finn’s number. The taxi driver is having an animated conversation with someone on his bluetooth, so he’s not paying me any attention.