Stray Magic

by Kelly Meding

  Tennyson stepped closer to the cage. “Who is the necromancer?” he asked.

  Piotr growled.

  “Tell us,” Tennyson said, “and we will end your suffering, old friend. Remain silent, and we will leave you here.”

  He didn’t growl this time. Maybe he was considering the offer. A vampire Master with no vampires is a sad thing, indeed, especially considering his injuries. He’d already been tortured for a year and a half. I’d probably paralyzed him. His line was being murdered. How did someone start over after enduring so much?

  “He tortured you,” I said, not certain to whom I was referring, but it didn’t really matter. “He kidnapped your people and abused you into cooperating. Took you piece by piece. He is murdering your children.”

  “You owe him nothing, and he has nothing left with which to compel your silence,” Tennyson added.

  Piotr licked cracked lips with a swollen tongue.

  Going for broke, I asked, “Is Para-Marshal Adam Weller the person orchestrating this?”

  He hissed at the air above him. Sounded blessed close to a yes.

  I needed more than blessed close. “Is he?”

  A guttural, “Yes,” finally cemented my fears. I closed my eyes against a sudden attack of vertigo. Suspecting something and hearing a confirmation were two entirely different things. My former ally really was my enemy. But why? What the hell was he up to?

  “Is Weller also the necromancer we seek?” Tennyson asked.

  Piotr answered that with a clipped, “No.”

  “Then who?”

  The half-feral vamp struggled with several different syllables and sound combinations, none making any sense to me. He hadn’t fed in days. He needed blood, but no way was I offering him a vein, even if it cleared his head long enough to help us. One vampire feeding per lifetime was enough for me, thanks, and Tennyson had filled the quota saving my life.

  Tennyson seemed to catch on to Piotr’s word attempts faster. “Adelay,” he said.

  Piotr grunted.

  It took me a moment to identify the name. “Wait, Brighid’s Adelay? She said she killed him.”

  “Book,” Piotr hissed out.

  “Adelay’s book on necromancy,” Tennyson said. “So it wasn’t just a rumor. It exists.”

  “Found it. Hid it. Stolen.”

  “Stolen by whom?”

  Piotr grunted and thrashed. His head twitched side to side in some vampire version of a seizure. Blessed silver.

  To Tennyson, I said, “So Piotr found and hid the Adelay book. As a practicing warlock before he turned, I bet he guarded that thing with his life. He wouldn’t tell just anybody he had it, but someone found out. They wanted information on necromancy, so they tortured him, stole his people, got the book, and got to experimenting.”

  “That is a sufficient summary of events,” Tennyson said. “The question is still who has the book. The answer will lead us to the necromancer.”

  I glanced at the convulsing figure on the cage floor. “We know where to find the necromancer. Maybe his identity will have to wait until we get there and start beating the crap out of him.”

  “A good point.” He tilted his head. “Is it wise to leave your mother here with him?”

  “Why, think she’ll hurt him?”

  “You know that was not my meaning.”

  I shrugged. Okay, so he wasn’t in the mood for sarcasm. Really, I wasn’t, either. It just slipped out when I was this frustrated and angry. “Unless Piotr learns how to squash his body into a four-inch thin pancake, he’s not getting through those bars. She’ll be fine.”

  Halfway up the basement stairs, he stopped. I nearly rammed my face into the middle of his back. He pivoted and looked down at me, his brow furrowed, contemplating something. When he didn’t share right away, I heaved a dramatic sigh and planted both hands on my hips.

  “Okay, the thought bubble above your head is on the fritz, so do you mind spilling verbally?” I asked. “What?”

  “The Rules of Wishing,” he said softly, his voice a whisper even though Piotr was not likely listening to us.

  “What about them?” He wasn’t going to wish me to kill him, was he? I’d knock him unconscious first, so he couldn’t think it into my head.

  “What are the limitations on wishes that request information from outside parties?”

  I considered his question. “It depends on the wording of the wish. I can compel information magically, but the information has to exist within the mind of the person I’m compelling. And I can only get what they believe is true, so if they overheard a conversation in which Sally tells her friend that Aunt Mary killed the cook, that’s what I get. Even if it turns out Sally really said Aunt Mary was so pissed about the chewy steak she only threatened to kill the cook. Make sense?”

  “Yes.”

  “But I can’t compel vampires, so don’t waste your wish on Piotr.”

  “Doing so was not my intention. And the limitations of transportation?”

  “Huh?” I shooed him the rest of the way up the stairs. Standing like that, gazing straight up, was putting a crick in my neck. Once we were back in the hall with the basement door firmly locked and Mom nowhere within earshot, I said, “Run that by me again.”

  “If I was to wish us into the middle of the necromancer’s lair, would you be able to take us there?”

  “Am I able to perform such a task? Yes.” I shook my head. “Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure the power expenditure of that one is higher than your first wish. Rule number two.”

  “Unfortunate, indeed.”

  Yeah. Teleportation was not a casual talent, but I could use it to fulfill a wish. I’ve only done it once, though, and it hurt like hell. Body pulled apart into a bazillion atoms, sucked to the location of choice, and then reassembled on the other side. I half expected my fingers to reappear as toes. My back ached for a week afterward. Just thinking about it made me once again covet the ease with which Dad poofed in and out of existence.

  Tennyson was gazing at a point just over my shoulder, seeming lost in his thoughts. I could practically see the hamster wheel spinning. My own hamster had given up and died a little bit ago, depriving me of clever ways to help us win the day.

  “Can you teleport someone else to us?” he asked.

  “Potentially, although I think I’d be limited by my knowledge of the person’s actual, physical location. And there’s still rule number two about the power expenditure.”

  He nodded. “In that case, I believe we have no choice.”

  “No choice in what?” Blue flecked his eyes and I remembered. “No way, not that. I do not want to be responsible—”

  “Your wants are irrelevant, Djinn.” His words carried an edge as sharp as frozen steel, and as much as I hated to admit it, they stung.

  I crossed my arms and cocked one hip, giving as much attitude as my bruised ego could muster. “Fine, Vampire.”

  The stairs creaked. “Everything all right?” Mom called down.

  “Peachy,” I said. “How’s Jaxon?”

  “Groggy, but waking up. And I think he’s starting to heal.”

  “I’ll be right up.” To Tennyson, I said, “Look, there are weapons stored in one of the upstairs bedrooms. The Element is too obvious, so stock up the Expedition. We’re pulling out in five minutes.” He raised his eyebrow. “Please.”

  “Very well.”

  He followed me upstairs and turned to the room I pointed at. I was glad the wish conversation was temporarily over. Even if he blindsided me with it later, it gave me time. A few extra minutes before I became responsible for potentially killing a Master vampire.

  Mom waited at the door to Jaxon’s room. I sidled past her, and she pulled the door partway shut. Jaxon was propped up a bit higher on the pillows, still awkwardly angled on his side. Twin spots of fever colored his cheeks, but his eyes were open and aware. Mom must have changed his dressings, because the bandage on his head was white. The bleeding had stopped.

  I
perched on the edge of the bed, relief slamming home hard. I squeezed his hand, then kissed his knuckles. He squeezed back and blinked sleepily.

  “You look terrible,” he rasped.

  “I’m not the one with a hole in my head.”

  “Need it like a hole in the head.” Okay, so maybe he was still a little delirious. “Tastes bad.”

  “We’ll get you a mint.” I knew full well what he meant. Vampire blood liked to leave a refreshingly ashy aftertaste. “Thank you.”

  “What for?”

  “You saved my life out there.”

  Something flashed in his hazel eyes, so dark they were almost stormy gray. It passed and he winked. “Wouldn’t have if I knew I’d lose an antler.”

  “Yes you would. Anyway, we’ll get some payback for you.”

  “Going now?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Wish I could help.”

  “Me, too.” More than he knew, with both Novak and Kathleen out of the game. My allies had dwindled to exactly one, and he still scared the pee out of me sometimes.

  I brushed my lips across his forehead, feeling the heated skin and fine sheen of sweat there. I found a tiny spark of hope in the constant that was Jaxon Dearborn. Knowing he was safely out of this fight gave me a small measure of comfort. He’d be here when—if?—I came home.

  “Good luck,” he said. Had his breath become more ragged than before, or was my imagination creating the illusion?

  “Luck is for leprechauns,” I said, winking.

  “What does a djinn ask for?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  His eyes widened a fraction. “Then I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  I gave his hand another squeeze and stood with some effort. “See you tomorrow.”

  Tennyson was in the midst of organizing an arsenal in the Expedition when I came downstairs. I met Mom in the foyer and pulled her into a fierce hug. She didn’t know about my deal with the Green Lady. She didn’t know I could lose every single memory I had of her, if the sidhe decided my mother was the person I loved most.

  “Be careful, Shi,” she said, hugging me back with the fierceness only displayed by mothers of threatened cubs.

  “I promise, Mom.” I inhaled her flowery perfume, the citrus of her shampoo, the tang of her sweat and tears. “I love you.”

  “I love you back, kiddo.”

  I pulled away before she could sense my fear and hesitation, before she could feel the chill spreading goose bumps across my shoulders and back. I drank her in. Wavy brown hair threaded with silver, dark brown eyes, high cheekbones, full lips. The idea that I could no longer remember her tomorrow was unfathomable. She was my mother. She’d bandaged my scraped knees and taught me to color inside the lines. She eased me through the awkwardness of adolescence and gave me the confidence to embrace my duel nature.

  My stomach froze into a tiny knot, and my lungs stopped working right. I had to force an inhale. Exhale.

  “Shiloh?” Not Mom, but Tennyson from the doorway behind me.

  I swallowed hard and pivoted to face him. He radiated calm, and I soaked it in. He’d sensed my impending panic attack. I offered a half smile in thanks, and he nodded.

  “The car is full,” he said. “Are you ready?”

  Not a chance. “Yes.”

  “We’ll hold down the fort,” Mom said.

  “Thanks. I—”

  A telephone rang, and it took me a long moment before I realized it wasn’t a cell phone. It rang so rarely I almost didn’t recognize the tone. Only a handful of people knew the number.

  I bolted into the living room and snatched up the nearest landline handset. The caller ID set my nerves jangling, and I nearly dropped the phone.

  Weller, A.

  Chapter 19

  Tennyson made a strange sound. Something like a hiss, not quite a growl. He could hear the conversation easily, and I didn’t want Mom any more involved than she was, so I did not put the phone on speaker when I answered.

  “Harrison,” I said, impressing myself with the iron in my voice.

  “It’s good to hear your voice, Marshal Harrison,” Weller said. His tone was well laced with genuine concern, which made me want to reach through the phone and smack him. “You’ve been unreachable for several hours and I was starting to worry.”

  “That’s sweet.”

  “Are you any closer to resolving the situation in Myrtle’s Acres?”

  Screw it. I was not going to stand there and pretend I didn’t know what I knew. “Fuck you, Weller, I know what you are.”

  Silence. It stretched into five, ten seconds. Fifteen. “You know what I am? I assume you don’t mean my mixed-Norwegian descent.”

  “No, I’m talking about your extracurricular activities involving kidnapping, murder, and necrotic magic.”

  “Ah, that.” When he spoke again, his voice was cold and clipped. Businesslike. “You’re a smart woman, Marshal Harrison. You figured me out faster than I would have hoped. Bravo.”

  The open admission threw me. He wasn’t even denying it, or trying to pretend it was all my imagination. Um, good, then. Maybe. “What do you want?”

  “Not even going to ask me if Novak and Kathleen are all right? Ask me what I’m willing to trade for their lives?”

  “Nope. You’d just find a way to double-cross me and kill them anyway.” He didn’t know how close we were to finding his lair. He thought he held all the cards. Let him keep thinking it, the bastard.

  “How about your friend Vincent? He doesn’t seem to be enjoying his accommodations.”

  I clenched the phone and forced my voice to remain steady. “You’re a coward, Weller. Kidnapping a civilian and using him as a shield? That’s beyond weak.”

  “In your mind, I’m certain that’s true. However, my goals far exceed the cost of one man’s life.”

  “Nothing exceeds the cost of one man’s life.”

  “We’ll soon see, won’t we? Don’t worry, he’s still alive. A lover is of more value than a coworker.”

  His yammering was starting to grate. “What do you want?”

  “Well, now that I’ve discovered how much you know, I want to make you an offer.”

  “I’m not on the market.”

  He chuckled, and oh, boy, it was creepy. “Don’t be so sure, child. We both want the same things, after all.”

  “We both want you arrested? Good to know.”

  Another chuckle set the hairs on my neck standing on end. “Your sarcasm is refreshing, but no. We both want order, within the known and unknown paranormal races, and we want a means to ensure order is maintained.”

  “That’s what the Para-Marshals are for, Brain Trust,” I said.

  “The effectiveness of the Para-Marshals is neutered by the oversight of the Department of Justice, you must see that. Twelve people against thousands of creatures who continue to defy us at every turn.”

  “We have all kinds of freedom to act without DOJ oversight. You want more? So you what? Create a regiment of vampires you can control to act as your foot soldiers? That’s your grand plan to maintain order?”

  “Of course not. My grand plan, as you call it, is far more complicated and has farther-reaching implications than you can imagine. And I want you to join me.”

  I burst out laughing. “Dude, I don’t know who put the psychedelics in your oatmeal this morning, but I want what you’re having. The delusions must be awesome.”

  “I’ll only make this offer once.”

  “Good, because I hate reruns.”

  He belted out a weary sigh. “Very well. Is that a firm no, then?”

  “It’s a firm hell no. I will not join your crazy little army brigade, and I will continue doing everything in my power to stop you.”

  “So we’re clear.”

  Something scuffled on his end of the line. Metal rattled, and I heard the distinct sound of flesh striking flesh. My heart skipped. A woman moaned, then hissed. Another thud. Kathleen’s distinct voice uttered a harsh curse,
first in English and then in French. My stomach plummeted at the confirmation of my friend’s location.

  The first gunshot made me jump out of my skin. Kathleen shrieked. The second shot silenced her. The third sent a wave of nausea through me that nearly brought me to my knees. I clutched the phone. If Tennyson hadn’t stepped up behind me and put his hands on my waist, I probably would have fallen over.

  “Bring the Master vampire to me. You have half an hour to decide before I kill the incubus.”

  It took every ounce of concentration I possessed to force out my response. “He won’t come willingly.”

  “I believe I’ve found a way to convince him. Turn your Raspberry on. I’ll call back in thirty minutes.” He hung up.

  I dropped the phone, uncaring that I hadn’t even ended the call. Weller had killed Kathleen to prove his point, and he’d kill Novak unless I played along. I continued leaning on Tennyson, willing my heart to stop beating so fast. Urging what little I’d eaten in the last twenty-four hours to stay down and not revisit me.

  “My condolences,” he said softly.

  I grunted, gathered my tattered courage, and stood up straight. Picked up the phone, put it back in its cradle, then turned to face Tennyson. “He’s overconfident, counting on the fact that I have no idea where he is or where to start looking. But that doesn’t really help us, because we can’t get there in half an hour.”

  “We will get as far as we can and play this by ear. No matter Weller’s instructions, he will not be expecting our early arrival.”

  “He said he found a way to convince you.” I circled back to Weller’s chilling statement. “What do you think he meant?”

  Tennyson’s eyes flashed crimson. “Any threats he makes to me or mine will be revisited upon him tenfold before he dies.”

  I swallowed. “Let’s go, then.”

  At the front door, I paused once to look back at the stairs. Mom sat on the landing, watching us with her hands clasped between her knees. She smiled. I summoned up my confidence and smiled back, winked, knowing full well I may not remember her tomorrow.

  Dear Iblis, please let the sacrifice be worth it.

  At three in the morning, we made good time on the mostly deserted highway and were halfway to our destination before the cell phone rang. I’d already disabled the GPS on my Raspberry, so Weller couldn’t track us. Tennyson and I hadn’t spoken for the entire trip—he lost in his thoughts and me in mine—so the call broke the silence like a thunderclap. More surprising than the sound was the source: Tennyson’s phone.