by Lisa Plumley
Whoever was holding him grunted, then dropped him. T.J. fell, hitting something hard beneath him. The floor.
“Ouch! What the hell, T.J.? I’m trying to help you.”
Deuce. Through bleary eyes, T.J. looked up. His partner stood over him, an injured expression on his face, squinting through a shaft of sunlight. Somehow, T.J. had gotten moved into the center of the IAB holding room. Somehow, he had—
“Sunlight.” He croaked the words, belatedly feeling its healing warmth on his skin. “That’s sunlight.”
“No shit, Sherlock. It’s coming through that window over there. I was trying to move you closer to it when you decked me.” Grumpily, Deuce gestured at the floor. “I’ve been rotating you like a roast on a rotisserie ever since dawn, trying to get you into the optimal spot for your Patayan mojo to kick in.”
T.J. sat up. Easily. His chest felt better, his arms didn’t hurt…even his mind felt clearer. “How long has it been?”
“Long enough that you almost look like yourself again. That’s too bad for you, dude, but I’m kind of happy about it.” Purposefully, Deuce hunkered down. “I’ve got to take a piss. And I’ll be damned if I’ll use that bucket our forager guards left in here. So how about busting us out of this place?”
“You want to escape so you can piss in peace?”
With a serious expression, Deuce nodded.
T.J. cocked his head. He considered his legs, his hands, his heart…No, not his heart. That still hurt too much. Determinedly veering away from that region, he calculated his magical strength. Experimentally, he focused on the bucket.
It burst into flames, then melted. The floor sizzled.
Deuce smacked his fist in his hand. “Is that a yes?”
“I might be wrecked, but I’m not pissing in a bucket either.” T.J. stood, then nodded. “That’s definitely a yes.”
T.J. called the flood first.
Using his Patayan earth magic, he focused on all the water in the IAB building. He moved it toward him, pulling it with ancient magic, making it gush from the faucets and spurt from the taps in the sprinkler system. It flowed from the toilet tanks and raced up the stairs, inexorably drawn by his command.
He knew the moment it reached the door. A roaring torrent could be heard; the water combined and surged forward. The forager guards outside yelped in surprise. Their footsteps sloshed and splashed as they shouted and tried to maneuver.
That’s when T.J. unleashed the wind.
Again using his earth magic—much to Deuce’s delight—he called up a harsh airstream. It mixed with the inundation of water, then lifted it with blinding energy. Driven hard, the water pelted against the door. Some of it gushed underneath.
“Seriously? Water?” Deuce gave T.J. a wry look. “I’ve been dying to shake the snake for the past hour and that’s what you come up with? Water? You’re trying my patience here.”
“Hang on. This is where the legacy magic comes in.”
Drawing on the other side of his compound nature, T.J. focused on the holding room’s door. The door wasn’t pixilated—so it hadn’t been magically formed—but that didn’t mean it wasn’t vulnerable to his magic…especially now, with the forager guards busy battling the unexpected wind and water.
Drawing in a deep breath, T.J. aimed a burst of legacy magic at the door. It peeled away in sheets, exposing its hollow core and all the layers of laminate and veneer it was made of. With hardly any effort, a gaping hole emerged in the doorway.
“See? Shoddy human workmanship comes in handy.” T.J. gave his friend a grin. “No offense, but that door couldn’t hold back a gentle breeze.”
As though demonstrating that fact, the wind and water rushed in, bombarding the floor and fixtures—and T.J. and Deuce. Forager guards shouted. One of them pointed, his arm dripping with water. Barely visible in the watery torrent, he tried to send a burst of restrictive magic at T.J.
Easily, T.J. countered it.
Deuce planted his feet in readiness to fight. “If you could have done that all along, why the hell didn’t you?”
T.J. didn’t answer. Feeling revitalized, he kicked one of the guards. The forager landed with a splash. T.J. shook the water from his hair, then motioned for Deuce to move forward.
Drenched, they ran through the opening in the door. T.J. cleared the way with magic; Deuce swung his burly arms, landing more than a few good punches. Apparently, Garmin hadn’t thought their escape was likely—he’d assigned them only four guards.
Standing over those four guards’ inert bodies a few minutes later, T.J. magiked some bonds to restrain them. “These won’t hold for long, but it should be enough to give us a head start.”
Deuce nodded, his whole body as soaked as T.J.’s was. Reminded of the ongoing water and wind, T.J. stopped the flood. At his direction, the wind died. The water receded, drawn back to its usual holding places. The drip-drip-drip of multiple streamlets sounded loud in the sudden stillness.
“Nicely done,” Leo Garmin said. “I should have expected as much. A minute later, and I would have missed all the fun.”
T.J. turned. His former supervisor stood at the end of the hall, his suit unaffected by the wind and water. Garmin strode toward him, his feet magically pushing aside the puddles.
“You can’t hold me,” T.J. told him. “You got lucky last night. I won’t let the same thing happen again today.”
“Then we’re at an impasse. Because I can’t allow you to leave.” Garmin compressed his lips, cast a glance at Deuce, then appeared to come to a decision. “I need your help, T.J.”
At that, T.J. gave a bitter laugh. “You’ve got a funny way of showing it. You’re beyond my help, you corrupt bastard.”
“Bastard? Yes.” Garmin sighed. “Corrupt? I don’t think so. Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for a good reason. If you—”
“Save the homily. I’m leaving. Come on, Deuce.”
Frowning, his partner stepped to his side. He nodded.
They made it halfway to the stairs before Garmin spoke.
“I was wrong to suspend you, T.J. I made a mistake,” the head agent called out. “But you have to listen to me. You owe me that much, at least.” He paused. “I saved you once, didn’t I?”
Damn it. That was true. Fisting his hands, T.J. stopped. Reluctantly, he turned. “You have three minutes. Start talking.”
“Oh Christ, T.J.!” Deuce shifted. “Let’s just go.”
Garmin ignored his turned human agent. “Have you ever done something stupid for the sake of a witch?” he asked T.J.
T.J. narrowed his eyes. “Two minutes, fifty-five seconds.”
“Fine. I can see you’re going to need the short version. I’m in over my head, T.J. Things have gotten out of hand. I thought I could handle Francesca myself, but now—” Garmin broke off, exhaling. “She’s obsessed with The Old Ways. She’ll stop at nothing to grow the witchfolk population in Covenhaven. It’s my fault. I’m the one who gave her the Book of The Old Ways in the first place. I’m the one who mentored her. But now—”
“You’re involved with Francesca Woodberry,” T.J. said.
It wasn’t a question—it was a confirmation of something he’d suspected for a while now. Leo Garmin had been in charge of monitoring Covenhaven’s vixen witches for years. No warlock could have been expected to watch over the most alluring and powerful of all witches and emerge unaffected by the experience.
“Who cares about who he’s dating?” Obviously stunned, Deuce gawked at Garmin. “You’re a Follower? You?”
With a shuttered expression, Garmin nodded. Tightly, he said, “I usually keep my beliefs separate from my work, but—”
“Wait. Isn’t that kind of like the Pope being a Satanist?”
“That clumsy analogy only shows your ignorance,” Garmin disagreed. “Under my direction, the InterAllied Bureau is coming to recognize the truth: that witchfolk should dominate the world. It’s only right. We should live openly. And what better way to do that than to make everyone a witch or
warlock? I agree with the myrmidon conversion plan in theory, of course, but—”
“One minute left.” Losing patience, T.J. frowned. Among their other unpleasant beliefs, the Followers didn’t embrace compounds like him. He was hardly in the mood to listen to a myrmidon diatribe. “You just admitted you’ve been using bureau resources to support the Followers’ agenda. You’ve been directly undermining the IAB’s mission in the magical world. That’s a subversive act, Leo. Tell me why I shouldn’t lay you out right now, then drag you to the coven elders for judgment.”
At his mention of the coven elders, Garmin quailed. He held out his hands. “Because I’m coming to you for help, T.J. I was willing to go along with Francesca at first, but not this far. That witch has to be stopped. Her conversion elixir is deadly.”
“Come on. That’s a minor drawback, right?” Deuce glowered. “Lily Abbot doesn’t have a problem with it. Why should you?”
“You should have brought in Francesca yourself,” T.J. said. “You’re head of the IAB. You have the authority to stop her.”
“I can’t.” Garmin shook his bald head. “The Followers have myrmidon inside the bureau—myrmidon who are increasingly loyal to Francesca’s plans. I don’t know whom to trust. That’s why I need you! I only suspended you as a favor to Francesca—”
T.J. scowled, remembering the betrayal he’d suffered.
“—to keep you out of her way. But I regretted it almost instantly, I swear. I’ve been trying to track you ever since.” Urgently, Garmin stepped closer. “I’ve done too much for that witch. I rounded up all the cusping witches for her—”
“That’s part of this scheme, too?” Deuce asked.
“—I instituted mandatory magic training for her, I set the graduation and the Hallowe’en Festival at Janus for her…It goes on and on.” Looking beleaguered, Garmin stared at his forager guards, still unconscious on the floor. “I loved her enough not to turn her in. I’d hoped she’d get bored and move on. I’d hoped I could change her mind. But I couldn’t.”
“That’s a sad story.” T.J. crossed his arms. “Time’s up.”
He gestured for Deuce to follow him, then headed for the bureau’s emergency stairs. Behind him, Garmin’s voice rang out.
“It was my familiar that found you last night,” he confessed. “I used your bonded witch. Dayna didn’t know.”
T.J. longed to believe it. Grudgingly, he stopped.
Deuce stopped, too. His gaze shifted to T.J. He nodded.
As though sensing that T.J.’s openness might not last, Garmin spoke quickly. “If you try to surprise Francesca, you’ll lose. She has a vixen pact behind her. Their power will astonish even you. That’s why I kept you locked up overnight—so I could make sure you brought in Francesca the right way.”
“Nice try,” T.J. gritted out. “But I’ll take my chances.”
“Do you know what a quad vixen pact is capable of?”
“A quad—” T.J. stopped, abruptly remembering. Dayna was the fourth member of Francesca’s vixen pact. Would his bonded witch really join in Francesca’s scheme? “There won’t be a quad vixen pact. They’ll form a vixen trio, at worst. Sumner will join me.”
He’d already made sure Francesca would see nothing amiss if Sumner left her side for a while. The persuasion spell he’d used when he’d met Francesca—as Professor Reynolds—would ensure that.
“I hope you’re right,” Garmin said. “Otherwise, you’re walking into a trap. If you would only listen to me, you could—”
“I’ve already listened to you.” Darkly, T.J. pulled a current of wind. It swirled around him, indicative of his restless mood. “I shouldn’t have. For all I know, this is a trap, too. It feels like one.” He cast an impatient glance at Deuce, then at his former supervisor. “If your warning is right, I have a fight ahead of me. I’m done talking. Let’s go, Deuce.”
But his partner didn’t move. Uneasily, he frowned at T.J. “He might have a point. Sumner doesn’t seem very reliable to me. And Dayna was pretty hurt when she left last night. She might—”
“Shut it.” T.J. slanted him a warning look. “This is not the time for your antiwitch phobia to kick in.”
“Or maybe it is,” Garmin rushed to say. “Agent Bailey is right to be suspicious of vixen witches. They’re dangerous. I know that more than anyone. That’s why the only way to succeed is for you to trust me.” Eyes shining, Garmin came closer. “At the right moment, I’ll sneak you out of here myself, under the guise of questioning you. No one will be the wiser. We’ll go together to the graduation ceremony. You can stop Francesca there, at Janus. We’ll catch the hidden Followers among the IAB flat footed; they’ll have no time to react—and neither will Francesca. Everyone will believe you’re still in custody.” Garmin looked around at the wreckage T.J. had wrought. “We’ll have to set this place right again, throw a few forgetfulness spells on my foragers…But it’s definitely manageable.”
“You know…” T.J. considered it. “That makes sense.”
“Yes.” Garmin’s face brightened. “Then you’re in?”
“No.” T.J.’s frown deepened. “You deliberately misled me. And thanks to Deuce”—he gave his partner a nod to acknowledge his attempts to get T.J. the healing sunlight he needed—“I feel pretty good. My own magic will take me out of here—and it will be enough to defeat the Followers, too. Especially now that you’ve given me some inside information. I’m still leaving.”
“Don’t do it, T.J. I swear, you can trust me now.”
T.J. gave Garmin a hard look. “I wish that were true.”
But after all that had happened…it wasn’t.
At least T.J. wouldn’t have to turn in Garmin to the coven elders. Maybe later he would, but not now. Judging by the remorse flowing from his former supervisor to him, Garmin no longer had the heart to help the Followers succeed with Francesca’s destructive forced conversion plans.
Deuce cleared his throat. “Uh, you might want to consider this a little more closely, dude. You had a chance to trust Dayna last night, and you didn’t. I’m pretty sure you regretted it afterward. Maybe this is your chance to have a do-over.”
Unhappily remembering that, T.J. turned to Deuce. His partner had a point. His magus had already told him that this was one mission he could not complete alone. For the first time ever, she’d warned, he would have to trust someone else.
But she’d told T.J. he would have to trust the juweel. The wisewoman had warned him that he’d have to step aside and let the chosen vixen witch do her work to save humankind…and witchkind. Besides, giving Garmin a second chance was not in the same league as giving Dayna a second chance.
When he saw his bonded witch again…
“I don’t want a do-over.” Decisively, T.J. straightened. “I trust myself, first and last. That’s it.”
He flexed his Patayan magic, unleashed a minor magical earthquake, then bolted for the exit. Deuce ran, too. Behind them, Garmin yelled. The wall crumbled. Garmin went abruptly silent, even as an aftershock rumbled through the building.
T.J. couldn’t stop. He had to find Francesca. Now.
Unhappily clenching the steering wheel of Deuce’s Mustang, Dayna jolted over one of the rough reservation roads outside Covenhaven. She knew how to drive; she simply didn’t like to do it. Apparently, navigating a two-thousand-pound steel cage with wheels hadn’t gotten any less nerve-racking in the years since she’d tried it. But that didn’t matter now. She had to get to T.J.’s Patayan magus and alert the wisewoman to the Followers’ scheme—and to T.J.’s and Deuce’s incarceration by the IAB.
It was clear now that Francesca would not be using her influence to persuade Leo Garmin to let T.J. and Deuce go. And Dayna didn’t see how she could get them released herself. The best she could do was enlist the help of some Patayan guardians. Maybe they would know how to free T.J. and Deuce.
Sneaking out of Janus this morning had been no problem. Francesca’s trust in Dayna had seemed complete; she hadn’t even s
pelled the penthouse suite to keep Dayna inside it. So after a sleepless night of pacing and planning and researching via EnchantNet—and making her best attempt at sabotaging the potion ingredients—Dayna had struck on her plan to visit T.J.’s magus.
The earth ship that the magus called home was difficult to find. It was even more difficult to approach. Fortunately, T.J. had warned her about that. Following his instructions, Dayna navigated past the sentinel saguaros. She moved slowly, keeping her gaze fixed on the mound of red-tinged earth in front of her.
The mound almost seemed to move, as though it were breathing. Surely that was her overwrought imagination at work.
“I’d hoped T.J. would be the one to bring you here.”
At the sound of that serene voice, Dayna whirled around. An elderly wisewoman wearing witchmade garments stood a few feet away from her, holding a just-picked gourd in her hand. At her feet, a huge gray wolfhound eyed Dayna through mistrustful eyes.
“I’ve been wanting to meet that boy’s bonded witch. But if you’re here on your own, this is not a social call.” The magus aimed her chin toward the earth ship. Like magic, Dayna glimpsed the hidden entrance. “Come inside and tell me about it.”
Harried and a little hoarse, Dayna concluded her account of the Followers’ plan to awaken humans by force—to dose them with the conversion elixir en masse and create a world ruled by witchfolk. She made sure to leave out nothing. Urgently, she told the magus about Deuce’s dosing at Lily’s hands, about T.J. and Deuce being captured by the IAB, about her own potential role in Francesca’s scheme. Finally, still grasping the cup of tea the magus had thoughtfully given her, Dayna exhaled.
“So that’s it. And I need help!” she said. “I’m on my own, and I’m not equipped for this. Until recently, I lived among humans. I didn’t even practice magic. I might be a vixen, but—”
“There’s something you haven’t told me.” Keeping her voice soft, the magus lifted her gaze to Dayna’s face. “About T.J.”
“T.J.?” Confused, Dayna frowned. “I think I told you everything. He doesn’t know I’m here, of course. I haven’t tried going to the IAB yet. Leo Garmin is not to be trusted. He—”
