We stopped outside an office. Louis turned and looked at the guys. “Are you all coming in or…?”
Miles glanced at each of the guys before answering. “I believe we are.”
Willow wasted no time in heading in, Louis did the same. Miles caught the door and held it so I could go through first.
“Thanks,” I said quietly as I passed. Miles tried to hold the door for the others but Isaac grabbed his arm and shoved him inside. I ignored them and went to stand by Louis, at least they couldn’t get upset about that. Louis met my gaze and gave me a questioning look.
A statuesque woman with large glasses smiled as we reached the desk. “Willow, thanks for coming on such short notice.” Her eyes moved over me and Louis, then went straight to the boys. “And who are these young men?”
“My friends,” I answered.
She smiled a friendly smile. “And you are?”
“Lexie,” I answered.
“She another Necromancer,” Willow explained. The woman’s smile disappeared, to be replaced by a sour expression in a heartbeat. Damn, it was impressive.
“Mirian,” Willow said, in firm voice. The woman turned back to Willow. “What have you found?” The witch ignored Louis completely. He didn’t seem surprised.
“Well, I can tell you that the victims were improving the last time they were here,” Mirian announced.
Willow frowned. “Were here?”
She leaned forward and twirled a pen in her fingers. “All of them were transferred to a Park View hospital. We were told it was a new private hospital that was just opening.” Mirian shook her head as she turned back to her computer and started typing. “No one has ever heard of them, so I started digging.”
“What did you find?” Willow asked.
She typed as she answered. “I found an address, a corporation that I’ve never heard of in the healthcare field.” She turned the screen to Willow. “Here’s the address.”
Louis cursed. The lines around Willow’s eyes deepened.
“What am we missing?” I asked.
“That’s the address of Charity Hospital.” Louis explained. “It’s been closed since Hurricane Katrina.”
I cursed.
Asher leaned against a cabinet. “So, what happened to the patients?”
Mirian turned her screen back to her and met Willow’s gaze. “They’re gone. Even the ones from last night.”
“You think it was the council?” Miles asked, stepping forward.
“Who else is it going to be?” Isaac muttered.
“I searched the patient records,” she continued as if the guys weren’t bickering. “And the only thing I’ve found was that their transfer was signed and arranged by one doctor.” She hit a key and turned to the printer.
“That’ll give us a place to start,” Asher said.
“Well, there’s more.” She plucked the printed page off the printer and held it out to Willow. “Not all of the patients were here. Some went to the other hospitals.”
Willow and Louis shared a look.
“We need to find out if those people are still there,” Miles said.
“And we protect them if they are,” Louis added, taking the sheet from Mirian. “Thank you.”
Everyone hurried out into the hallway.
“I have a connection in every hospital in the city,” Willow announced. “I’ll call all of them and tell them to expect you.”
“We’ll have to split up into pairs.” Louis decided.
I turned to the guys to find them all watching me. You’ve got to be fucking kidding me….
My thought must have been clear on my face because Miles spoke up. “Isaac, go with Lexie. Zeke with me and Asher with Louis.”
“Seriously?” Asher muttered.
Zeke was silent, but I could feel the anger rolling off him from here.
“Let’s split up the hospitals in the city,” Louis said. My stomach knotted as the guys agreed to their hospital lists, they were short with each other and on the verge of bickering. I couldn’t even think about it, there were people missing.
* * *
Hours later, I put the packet I received into the file with all the other names and addresses and leaned back against the driver's seat. Isaac did the same in the passenger seat. Hospital after hospital, it was the same. The victims of the council were gone. Every one. I sat on the back of the cargo area and rubbed my temples.
“Is it possible all these people just left for an awesome vacation together?” I asked, my heart sinking.
“I doubt it,” Isaac sighed. “Though, I really want it to be true.”
I sighed. “I don’t know what to do.”
“About the Witches Council or about all of us?” he asked, his voice low.
This wasn’t the time but I had to be honest. “Both.” I turned to him to find his eyes boiling. “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone-”
“Well, you did,” he stated before he shook his head.
“I’m sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say.
He shook his head then met my eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me, Red?”
“I didn’t know how,” I admitted, my voice rough. “I didn’t mean for this to happen, I didn’t mean to-”
My phone rang. It was Louis.
“Hey,” I answered, keeping my voice neutral.
“Come out to Bay Health Hospital,” Louis said. “I found something.”
“On our way.” I hung up and got to my feet. Isaac got to his and closed the back of the SUV.
I drove as fast as traffic would allow. Please, please let him have found where the victims were going. But that hope plummeted when I pulled into the hospital. It was a psychiatric hospital. I cursed as we got out and headed for the entrance.
Louis was waiting for us near the reception desk. His face was dark. “Follow me.” He led us to the elevators then into a long hallway. We reached a large metal door. He hit the intercom. “It’s Louis.”
A buzzer sounded. Louis opened the door and led us both inside. A long hallway met us. A nurses station was on the right. Louis led us straight down the hallway to a room. He didn’t bother to knock before he opened it and led us inside.
Uma and Willow were already there. Along with a middle aged, disheveled man and a tall biker in the corner. What the…?
“Lexie, this is Ink, Bella’s husband. He’ll be my bodyguard for the rest of the day,” Willow said as she sat in a chair, watching the disheveled man as he stared off in the distance at nothing. Uma was on her knees next to the bed, her hand in his.
“What’s going on?” I asked, eyeing the man.
“This is David,” Louis said. “He was found four days ago and admitted to the hospital.”
“David, do you see the red-haired girl?” Willow asked gently.
David started rocking.
“Can you tell her what happened to you?” Uma asked just as carefully.
The rocking intensified. “Pain, pain… it hurt... Cut open my skull and root around. Arranging furniture in my head, making it the way they want...”
I turned to Uma. “What does that mean?”
“That is what aggressive telepathy feels like,” Uma explained. “It seems someone doesn’t want David to remember something.”
“This man was one of the first to go into the hospital with identical symptoms,” Willow supplied. “He’s been missing for twenty-four hours.”
“Shit,” I muttered.
The door opened again. The guys filed into the room.
Louis caught them up as I went to Uma. “What can we do?”
Uma shared a look with Willow. “Keep the door closed, while I go have a peek at his memories.”
“You can do that?” She was telepathic?
Uma nodded. “It’s a spell, very quick, almost simple really. But it’s dangerous.”
“Which is why I don’t agree to this,” Louis declared as he turned back to Uma.
Uma smiled. “Noted. But that doesn’t change the fact
it needs to happen.”
Uma turned back to David and closed her eyes. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. The air grew warmer. Uma opened her eyes then held up a finger. She drew symbols in the air in front of David. Uma whispered in Latin under her breath then reached through the central symbol and rested her palm on David’s head. Her eyes shut.
I expected the feeling to disappear. But it only grew. More and more, the air became charged. The hair on my arms rose. As if any second lightning would strike and the world would light up. I wasn’t the only one to feel it.
“Uma, get out!” Willow shouted.
Louis lunged for Uma and jerked her away a heartbeat before David’s body jerked as if he were having a seizure. His eyes rolled into the back of his head as his body went limp. Uma groaned and put her hand to her bleeding nose.
Willow checked David’s pulse. “He’s dead.” She turned to us. “Get the nurses, now!” Everyone surged out of the room. Asher and Isaac ran down the hall calling for help. Louis helped Uma out into the hall and out of the way as the nurses ran past us and into the room. I backed up until I hit the wall. Inside the room, orders were being shouted. The defibrillator charged. But it was all useless. David appeared beside me, watching as the nurses tried to save him. David wasn’t different though; his eyes were just as distant as they were in life. He didn’t seem to be in there at all…
Louis was still taking care of Uma, so I reached out with my will and presented David with the ribbon.
He grinned. “Shiny…” He turned to me. “Pretty light…”
“Yeah, we’re going to go somewhere pretty,” I promised a heartbeat before I dropped.
I don’t know what I expected in the Veil. A spark of life? Some sign that he was there and present? But there was none of that when David saw the Veil. He smiled at the flowers.
“So pretty…” he muttered as he stroked a finger over the petals of a sunflower.
A gold ball of light came down from the Way and formed a shimmering door. Beyond that door a woman, waiting in an outdated living room. But he didn’t seem to notice.
Heart breaking, I took David’s hand and led him to the door. I stopped at the threshold when he finally saw the woman. He blinked several times. “Know you…”
Tears poured down her face as she held out her hand just on the other side of the doorway. A mere inch from his fingers.
“Who is that, David?” I asked gently, coaxing him to think.
Tears poured down his face. “Mommy…”
She nodded. I took his elbow and led his hand to hers. Her eyes thanked me as she took his hand and pulled him through. I stepped back as David turned into a little boy again and clung to his mother. The golden door of light closed. Two balls of light shot into the Way like rockets. I wiped my own face before I pulled out of the Veil.
I opened my eyes in the hall, just in time to watch them call David’s time of death.
I clenched my fists and dug my nails into my palms. Whatever happened to him, it was the council that did it. “What happened?”
Willow sighed and gestured for us to follow her further from the room. When were in the almost empty common room she stopped. “There was a… self-destruct spell set on him.” Willow explained. “When Uma went into his mind, it triggered. Killing him and almost Uma.” I could only look at her in horror.
Uma steadied herself on her feet. “Alright, I know what happened.”
Everyone gathered around her to listen.
Uma meet Willow’s gaze. “Every channel he had was blown open.”
Willow grew paler.
“What does that mean?” Zeke growled.
Uma swallowed hard. “When you use energy, when you do magic, the energy flows through channels in your brain. Everyone has them, it’s just anatomy.” Uma swallowed hard. “Now, over time and years, these channels open slowly and naturally, allowing you to grow into your full potential ability wise.” She shook her head. “That’s not what happened here.”
“They’re blown open?” Willow asked, incredulous.
“Yes,” Uma answered. “All at once, in the last week.”
Willow shook her head. “The amount of energy that would take…”
“There’s energy everywhere right now,” I pointed out. “Isn’t it accessible to witches?”
Uma nodded. “It has been, which is why that rat Council have been able to do what they have been. Normally, they wouldn’t be able to get that much energy in the first place.”
Willow sighed. “They blew open his channels and caused brain damage.”
Everyone cursed including Ink.
“Did you get anything else?” Louis demanded.
Uma shook her head. “No, everything was a blur. They wiped his memory almost completely away.”
The hairs on the back of my neck rose. Someone was watching us. I turned my head and spotted a large orderly near the doorway. He was looking down at his clipboard but not writing. My heart picked up. Not at the other nurses coming out of the room down the hall, not the patients. Us.
“Louis,” I whispered.
Everyone turned to where I was looking.
“Council,” Louis declared.
The orderly turned and ran.
The guys started to take off after him.
“Stay!” Ink barked, bringing the guys to a halt as he ran after the council’s man.
“You boys are too young to take off like that after someone dangerous,” Louis lectured. “Now, let’s get downstairs and get a car ready to pick them up.” The guys cursed and grumbled but they listened.
Everyone hurried down the hall and into the elevator.
I hated to do it, but I had to ask. “How many people do you think they did that to?”
“Probably everyone they’ve taken,” Willow surmised. I shuddered. A hand slipped into mine. Miles squeezed my hand gently as I peeked at the other guys from under my eyelashes. When no one said anything, I squeezed his hand back. The elevators opened, his hand slipped out of mine. Everyone rushed out of the building to the cars. We just reached the sidewalk when a cellphone rang. We skidded to a stop and turned back to watch Willow pull out her phone.
“Yes?” Willow smiled. “Good, we’ll be there in a few moments.” She hung up. “Four blocks west, Ink has him unconscious in an alley.” Everyone loaded up.
* * *
Louis drove into an almost empty parking lot with Willow’s car and the SUV following. We had found Ink in an alleyway, with his foot braced on the unconscious man’s throat. I had no doubt if the orderly had even twitched wrong that Ink would have killed him. He was scary as hell. Which might be one of the reasons the guys insisted I go in Louis’s car. Zeke and Asher went in the SUV with Ink and the unconscious orderly. Miles had agreed to drive Willow since she was busy on her phone.
Miles pulled Willow’s car into an empty lot and parked.
Everyone climbed out of the SUV. Weeds had punched through the old asphalt. The seven-story warehouse was enormous. It took up one side of an entire block. Semi-trucks were pulling out with cargo while others were arriving at the other end of the block. The large paned windows that ran up the side of the building were lit up. The brick of the first floor was covered in graffiti. Were we even in the right place?
Zeke opened the back of the SUV and helped Ink pull the still unconscious orderly out. Ink threw him over his shoulder as if he were nothing. Then led the way across the lot, leaving us behind.
Louis helped Willow and then Uma out of the car, then everyone started toward the warehouse as Ink disappeared inside.
“This is our safehouse, it’s also a functioning shipping business.” Willow grinned. “Though that’s not its main function.”
When we reached the door, Willow knocked. I wondered if she’d need a tetanus shot afterward. The door opened, another large man who could give Zeke some competition eyed us. Dark brown hair, gray eyes and wide shoulders. Oh, and muscles. In a leather vest and jeans, he screamed biker to me.
>
He stepped back and held the door for us without a word. The place was bustling. People were everywhere and so was equipment, boxes sliding along conveyor belts from one place to another. Uma, Willow and Louis led us into a large stairwell, away from the bustle and noise.
When we reached the third floor we had to stop. The stairway ended at a thick metal door at the third floor. Runes were etched into metal and the brick along the walls.
Uma reached up and knocked. There were several heartbeats of silence, then the door creaked open. A white-haired boy around our age answered. He had a triangular face, bright blue eyes and a lean build.
“Willow?” He peeked out.
“Yes, Phillipe,” Willow said in a calm, patient voice. “Open the door, we have things to do.” The boy opened the door wider. They led us into a large common area. Willow and Uma hurried across the open area toward the back wall and a set of doors.
Louis turned to us. “Alright, you might as well get acquainted with it since it’s quickly becoming our center of operations.” Louis gestured to the north wall. “There’s the kitchen and cafeteria, the next door is our Alchemists lab and the door all the way down on that wall is the hospital.” He turned to look at the doors that Willow and Uma went through. “Further down, we have the cells, where our new guest is, and then the conference room.” He gestured to the wall on our right. “Through those archways, is the living room. You’ll find books and movies to keep you entertained.” The space was enormous.
“So, what happens now?” I asked.
Louis sighed. “We try to find out everything he knows about the council and the people they’ve been taking.”
“What do you want us to do with these lists?” Asher asked, holding up the lists of names we spent all afternoon getting.
“Put them in the conference room. Right now, we have to deal with the orderly.” Louis disappeared through a thick metal door scribed with even more runes.
I turned on the guys. “Has anyone heard from Ethan?”
* * *
We were in the common room again, after delivering the lists to the conference room. We were stuck waiting for any updates that might come from Louis. Well, the others were. I was on the phone trying to get ahold of Ethan. Miles had called the hotel, and the rest of us were taking turns calling his cellphone every five minutes. At this point, I was worried.
Secrets From the Grave Page 21
