by May Dawney
(15:04) Joyce: Happy witch hunting now I’ve done the hard part!
CHAPTER TWELVE
All families are burdened with their own crosses. My brother’s affliction runs in mine. My granddaughter shows signs of the devil’s touch. I have spoken to my brethren, and they have agreed to allow her to live if she never practices. I will make sure she never practices, or I will run her through myself.
Control your wives, control your daughters.
Every family has its curse, but that does not mean it has to condemn you.
– Rudolf Wagner, ‘A Guide for the Death of Witches’
STEVEN JOYCE WAS an American jock with delusions of grandeur, but he and his team were good at what they did. Not only had he managed to get the area down to an eighteen-kilometer radius, he had extrapolated the source of the second manifestation as well: a tiny café far too close to Kraków’s train station for Viktoria’s liking.
The café resembled a run-down bunker, with thick plaster cast walls and small windows hidden almost entirely from view by a collection of tropical plants in pots and multicolored parasols.
Gigi time-scanned while Viktoria debated whether to go into the café or not. Their little troupe would draw far too much attention to remain undisturbed, and who knew how long Noah and the Zaleska girl had stayed in there. Perhaps that would have to be option two; they could track them once they exited—hopefully.
Why had Noah taken the wild mage out of their supposed safehouse? Was she that confident that the Inquisitio wouldn’t find them? Was there an entire Society team just waiting about while they had lunch? Had she thought the wild mage was under control?
Was it a date?
Viktoria quenched the latter thought as quickly as it popped up but the damage was done. Now that was all she could think about. It was ridiculous—it had only been a day for them by then—but her mind supplied her plenty of possibilities. Where magic was concerned, everything was possible. Her own whirlwind affair with Noah was testament to that.
“Okay, yes. I have it. Come, come.” Gigi motioned for her to come over.
She exchanged a look with Tempest.
He shrugged. “It’ll look odd.”
“We already look odd.” A business woman, an unwashed drunk, and a minotaur standing in front of a cafe. She couldn’t help smile.
“I’ll make sure no one bumps into you or otherwise tries to hurt you.” He stepped up. “Try to hurry this along.”
“We will.” Viktoria got into position, allowed Gigi to cup her ears, and two blinks later, she was staring at Noah and the Zaleska girl through one of the little windows. Noah reached out and ran her finger along Zaleska lip before sucking the digit clean.
All the blood drained from Viktoria’s brain in a rush that left her woozy.
It could mean anything. It could be a friendly gesture—Noah was the touching type, or always had been, at least—nothing about the gesture should have upset her.
But it did.
The way Zaleska bit her lip and dipped her head was not to her liking either.
“Fast-forward.” Her voice had gotten a distinct rasp to it, and her fingertips stung with the pressure of her magic, eager to unleash upon the phantoms.
She knew they were just that. Neither woman was here right then, both were in a safehouse somewhere—or halfway across the country if Joyce’s data was somehow off. Besides, she was getting her priorities wrong. “Fast-forward to when they leave.”
Gigi complied. The plants swayed in the pots, people speed-walked past them, through them, into the café, out of it. Gigi stayed silent. She could feel his heavy breathing on the skin of her neck, which only added to the feeling of displacement.
She got a glimpse of them leaving. “S-Stop!”
Time froze. While her body remained in place, her brain seemed to lunge forward with the sudden jerky halt of her perceived momentum. She swallowed down a wave of nausea and squeezed her eyes shut until her vertigo passed. “Go back, find them when they leave.”
This time she watched at normal speed how they exited the café, holding hands.
Noah glanced about them, then pulled Zaleska closer as they hurried off into the throng. “Follow them!”
“They’ll probably disappear soon. We can’t walk like this.”
Gigi let her ears go and the image shifted from the throng then to the throng now.
Her lunch came back up, but she swallowed it down before she’d embarrass herself more.
When she got the blur out of her vision, she realized people were looking at her with obvious interest or concern. At least most gazes shifted from her to Tempest within a few seconds; he was still a more peculiar sight than her.
Viktoria got a grip on herself. Yes, they were under time constraints, but the past wasn’t going anywhere. She inhaled the scent of food and Gigi’s sweat, then forced authority into her voice. “Gigi, follow them. Tempest, guide him. We don’t want him to walk into a lamp post while he’s like this.” She inclined her head toward their hired seer.
Gigi’s eyeballs were blank; the irises and pupils hadn’t just clouded over, his eyes looked like they had never even been there.
“Will do.” Tempest grabbed the man by the arm. “All right, walk. I’ll tell you when to stop.”
“I will know if you give me bunny ears while we walk. I see in the past, you know?” Gigi clung to Tempest’s arm and followed him down the busy main street, one foot at a time.
It was an excruciatingly slow process.
Viktoria glared at anyone who got too close; it gave her something to do while she bit back the urge to strangle Gigi for taking so long. Unfortunately, it didn’t stop her from worrying about what would happen next.
Her belly felt full of wasps, fluttering and stinging. What if they found them? What would they walk in on? Would Noah recognize her on sight or would she have to introduce herself? Would Noah attack her in order to protect the Zaleska girl? Would she be willing and able to battle Noah to get control of the wild mage?
She glanced at Tempest. He would have to do it. Not just because she truly wondered if she could, but because she would have to control the Zaleska girl. Maybe she wouldn’t need a somatic component to unleash her magic, maybe she wouldn’t even need her voice, but Viktoria would still feel a lot better if she could magic her into the tightest bonds possible.
“They’re gone.” Gigi pulled to a stop.
Viktoria frowned. “Gone?”
“Yes, poofed. With the m-a-g-i-c.” He added a conspiratorial note to his spelled word. When he blinked, his eyes went back to normal, then he checked to see that no one had overheard. “Shadows, you understand?”
Her stomach rolled uncomfortably, but she clenched her jaw to keep herself from emoting, because she wasn’t sure what her face would display; anger or frustration over once more being thwarted? Relief for having been granted a reprieve in meeting Noah again? “Understood. Where were they heading?”
Gigi pointed down one of the seemingly million alleyways of Kraków’s city center.
Viktoria oriented herself. The alley led deeper into the radius Joyce had set out, didn’t it? “We’ll walk it. Maybe we get lucky.” She resisted the urge to roll her eyes at her own words. ‘Lucky’ was not a word she’d use to describe herself.
Judging by the way Gigi checked with Tempest if he really had to do this, he didn’t believe that prediction would come true either.
Tempest took a vicelike grip on Gigi’s upper arm. “Power up, seer.” He dragged him along.
“Wait, wait, wait.” Gigi fought against the hold, but to little avail.
Tempest stopped. “Yes?”
“There is a process, I need to…” Gigi waved his hand.
“Then process.” Tempest glanced about them but didn’t urge him on.
Viktoria set her jaw and followed his gaze. They were drawing an average amount of attention now. No more than the oddity of their gathering would warrant. She glared at every person whose
eyes they caught, and the looks quickly faded.
Gigi turned to look through her with his empty eyes, at some distant time-memory. He must be dialing in on the exact time Noah and the Zaleska girl had disappeared.
She realized for the first time how much intellect this type of power required. Unlike her own ability to employ her magic primarily on instinct, he had to apply some sophisticated math in order to tune his natural gift. Not only did he have to account for time passing while they searched, he had to take into account that their quarry moved at a different speed, so he’d have to slow his interpretation of time down to match their pace.
So much wasted potential on a drunk.
She shook her head. Then again, maybe having the ability to see the past and every possible future might have caused her to drink as well. No one wanted that weight on their shoulders, did they?
Gigi turned around again, and Tempest renewed the hold on his arm. “Ready?”
“Yes, but slow. Very slow.” His brow was furrowed in concentration. “I scan back and forth in time by a few minutes all the time, just to see. And I have to look in all directions. Go slow.”
“We’ll go slow.” Tempest glanced at her. “Are you all right?”
She nodded. “Of course.” She didn’t feel all right at all, but she didn’t have much choice. Her heart pounded in her throat at both the possibility of failure and the possibility of success. She couldn’t stay in this limbo, but she didn’t want to reach its conclusion either.
They moved forward feet by feet. Gigi clung to Tempest’s arm. Tempest kept his head down, in an effort to blend in with a smelly drunk, and she… Well, Viktoria tried not to let her anxiety gnaw at her insides too badly.
Soon, she was unable to lag behind the two, who moved with the speed of a two-man funeral procession. She rounded them and walked ahead as she scanned for anything that could betray the location of a Society safehouse.
Every door became suspect and every window a Russian roulette of emotions; each glance inside the many houses they passed had the potential of revealing dark skin, darker eyes, and brilliant white teeth. Her heart pumped frantically. What would she do if their gazes locked right now, through the crack in the faded curtains? What would Noah do?
“Viktoria.”
Tempest’s calm but commandeering voice shook her out of her reverie and she turned back around.
They had come to a stop in the middle of the street.
Gigi squinted as he stared into the alleyway. She only now caught the minute jerks of his finger, as if turning an invisible dial.
She hurried back. “Gigi?”
He hummed. “Wait.” His voice was strained. “I thought I saw…” He trailed off, attention once more absorbed by the scene ahead of him.
It wasn’t much of a sight; an alleyway not even two meters wide. If she pushed her arms out to each side, she’d be able to touch both walls. Trashcans narrowed the passageway even further. Five or six doors led into buildings on each side. People walked past the exit on the opposite end of the alley.
“What did you see?” Her voice trembled. She swallowed in an effort to lessen the sensation of her throat being squeezed shut. Were they in there: behind one of those doors? Ice ran down her spine and radiated inward. She wasn’t ready—not by far.
“A door opening and closing.” He walked forward.
Tempest walked with him, but Viktoria could feel his gaze on her.
Her own was on one of the door.
“Let me see.” Gigi inched forward until he came to the second door on the left. He turned to look at it fully. “Yes.” He’d lowered his voice to a whisper. “Opened and closed. But no person.” He blinked and looked at her. “Magic, yes?”
“Perhaps.” She was surprised she’d managed to force her voice past the obstruction in her throat.
“Move aside.” Tempest pushed Gigi out of the way with as much gentleness as his superior strength and crude build allowed him. “Ready?” The question was aimed at her.
She shook her head, then realized what she was doing and stopped herself. She raised her hands and willed her magic into her fingertips. It arrived unwillingly, as if it wasn’t sure about this course of action either. Maybe it was just hard to focus with her mind already behind the door picturing—picturing everything from a Society ambush to Noah in bed with the Zaleska girl. She knew which would be less deadly, but she wasn’t sure which would hurt less.
Gigi stepped aside. “Not your friends, then?”
“This is not the time to start questioning the assignment.” Tempest rumbled the words without taking his gaze off her. “Choose.”
“Do it.” She gave a firm nod.
“Done.” Tempest stepped back against the opposite wall and placed his hands against the brick, gaze on the door. It was made out of what looked to be solid metal and she wasn’t surprised when he huffed one, twice, three times. His muscles bulged and tore at the stitches of his coat.
Tempest was always a sight to behold when he got ready to do honor to his name.
He used the solid surface to power his jerk forward as he raised his leg and struck the door with the sole of his boot.
It flung open with a crack, hit the wall with the force behind the kick, then swung back, against Tempest’s outstretched hand. He shouldered past it, into the space beyond.
Viktoria followed without a single thought in her head—or maybe there were so many that they had blended together into a mash that was equally impossible to get a grip of.
Her fingertips crackled with energy, fueled by adrenaline and fear.
The room was dark.
Tempest only just managed to catch himself before he tripped headfirst over a couch in the center of the room.
Viktoria fumbled for a light switch—there had to be one near the door that now barely hung from broken hinges without a hope of ever closing again.
The halogen lightbulb lit quickly, as if it had only just been turned off. She reached for the edge of the door and pushed it as shut as she could get it. “Turn it over. Every inch. If they are in here, cloaked, we’ll find them.”
Tempest overturned the bed with ease, then kicked at the dust bunnies that were revealed.
“Bathroom.”
He jerked his head about and she could see the animal instinct in his eyes. The veins on the side of his neck pumped visibly. He huffed and shoved the couch against the far wall with a bang.
The bathroom door swung open with another bang as he kicked it in.
“Empty.” He turned around and scanned every inch of the room.
“Um, mistress?”
Gigi’s dampened voice reached Viktoria ears through the slid between the door and the doorpost. “What?”
“Your um, the people you are looking for, they are not here.”
“What?” Viktoria whirled around and yanked the door open. Her hand came up before she even realized what her intentions were.
Gigi froze as her magic secured him in place. His eyes widened.
“What did you see?” She stalked outside. “Tell me!”
“T-The door.” He glanced at it, the rest of him frozen. “I had to go forward until almost now. It open, then close, like before. Magic.” His voice had become a squeak. His German suffered under the strain.
“When?” She clawed her fingers and brought them in, putting strain on his muscles.
He trembled, then groaned. “J-Just now. Minutes.”
“Gah!” She shook herself out and released him in the process.
Gigi crumpled to a heap at her feet.
Viktoria forced her anger and magic down. She needed to think; she needed to get control of herself.
Now what? How were they going to—
She pulled her phone from her pocket and unlocked it before she selected her only hope’s number from her contacts list.
He picked up at the second ring. “We call each other now?”
“They’re gone. Track her. Do it now.” She gritted out th
e words through clenched teeth.
“Jesus, Wagner…” Joyce sounded exasperated. “Let me call you back on a secure line.”
Inside the building, Tempest tore through the room, and it didn’t sound like much of the furniture would survive the onslaught. She couldn’t blame him; after twenty years, he still hadn’t told her all the reasons he’d turned to the Inquisitio for protection from the Society, but whatever it was still left him in a rage whenever they encountered a member or even—it seemed—a safehouse. Tempest was a gentle man usually, but he was bullheaded occasionally in more ways than one.
Her phone rang. Since her thumb was about a millimeter from the button to accept, it didn’t even get through the first ring before the device was back against her ear. “Report.”
“We’re working on it. It’s not like these systems were built to track anyone.”
She could hear the voices of the people in the room with him, all calling orders or requesting information. “Fine. In the meantime, can you get into Tempest’s system?”
“Of course, they’re linked.” The sound of typing followed Joyce’s words.
“He’s running searches on train and bus departures. Make sure nothing has come up.” She glanced down the alleyway, both in the vain hope of spotting their query as well as to check if some Society trap hadn’t sprung.
All that moved was Gigi; he’d gotten some control back over his legs and arms. He looked like a newborn lamb as he struggled to get up.
“…and hack into the train and bus station cameras. Find them.”
“Easier said than done. I’d have a much better shot with more parameters, like details on the shadow mage.”
Viktoria clenched her jaw. Shit. Her brain rapid-fired through the options and possible consequences. Were the odds of capturing the mages before they got on a bus or train big enough to warrant exposing herself? Did she have a choice? She set her jaw. “Noah Otieno. That’s the shadow mage’s name. Look her up and run her face through the tracking software. The images in the database of her are old, but she hasn’t aged much, they’ll work.”
Silence.
“Um, okay, so did you magically come up with a name, or…?”
