We could leave, which would defeat the purpose of the visit, or we could fight. There really was no choice.
“I’ll go first.” I moved to the front of the group. “We have to be quick.”
Cole extended a hand in front of me. “I think I should go first.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Is this some macho crap? Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I can’t take care of myself.”
“It’s not macho crap,” he reassured me. “I have fire. At the very least, that will confuse them.”
I gave him a small smile. “I guess that makes sense.”
Aric chuckled. “Ah, there’s nothing I love more than a strong woman.”
“That’s probably good,” Raven said dryly. “You’re outnumbered by them in your house.”
“I have the dog.”
I managed to stifle a laugh. “Let’s just get this over with.”
Cole nodded, his fingertips sparking. “Everyone be ready. They’re going to attack the second we’re clear of the stairs.”
I lifted my hands, allowing pink sparks to erupt. “I’m ready.”
Cole charged down the stairs. Even though I wanted to be behind him, Aric took that position, leaving Raven and I to follow. Cole unleashed a barrage of magic the second he cleared the last step. Aric charged into the melee on the heels of the magic, a growl erupting from this throat.
When I reached the floor, my inner danger alarm was screaming and instinct had me leaning my head to the left. That turned out to be a good move, because a hatchet of some sort hit the wall next to my ear, so close I could feel my hair ruffling. Nellie, who brought up the rear, caught the hatchet before it hit the ground.
“I love it when they provide the weapons.” His eyes sparkled as he leaped around Raven. “Bring it, freaks!” He charged into the yelling crowd, some of whom were frantically trying to extinguish the flames.
It was bedlam. A quick scan of faces told me Celeste wasn’t with the group. Was that strategic? Was she someplace else? Was she right now back at the circus moving on Kade and Zoe?
“Take them out,” I ordered, opting for the bloodthirsty option. We already had one captive. More would do us no good. It was better to send a message. Besides, the more we could thin the herd the better.
Aric’s hands contorted into claws and he swiped out, catching an attacking man across the throat. Blood poured from the wound. I grabbed the closest woman and slapped my hands to either side of her head. A brief look told me the brick wall was present. All of them were equipped with the same shuttering ability.
“Drop,” I intoned, watching with grim detachment as the woman’s body hit the floor, her eyes open and sightless.
Nellie was having a field day hacking away with his new toy. Because of the limited space in the basement, and the fact that we’d cut off the only exit, the battle was brutal but brief. Within seconds, the screaming stopped and bodies littered the ground.
“Well, that’s disappointing,” Nellie lamented. “I didn’t even break a sweat, and I got new deodorant I wanted to test.”
I shot him a quelling look. “It’s best you stop talking for a bit.” I moved to the gate door, which was shimmering. “This looks different than it did in Kelly’s head.”
“That’s because she couldn’t see the magic,” Raven volunteered, joining me. “It was just an opening to her. To us, it’s something more.”
“Should we try going through?” Cole asked.
I balked. “No. We don’t know where it goes.”
“Or if we can get back,” Aric added, his eyes drifting to the corner of the room. “Hold up.”
I watched him shove a cart out of the way and drop to his knees, horrified realization washing over me when I caught sight of the quaking girl trapped in the corner.
“She’s one of the missing girls,” Raven said as she moved toward Aric. “I recognize her from the photos.”
“Oh, my ... .” My heart lodged in my throat. “Is she okay?”
The girl shrank from Aric as he reached out a tentative hand.
“She’s traumatized,” Aric said, snatching his hand back. “Can you make her forget?”
I nodded. “Maybe we should see if she knows anything first.”
“Go ahead.” Aric stood, keeping his hands raised in a placating manner as he stepped away from the girl. “She won’t know anything but fear.”
I knew he was right. “I’ll check anyway. Then I’ll knock her out.”
“And then I’ll get her home,” Cole said.
I glanced around the room. “While I’m handling her, see if there’s anything we can use. Then we’ll glamour ourselves on the way out.”
“What about the bodies?” Nellie asked.
“They’re not our concern. Their friends can deal with them.” It might’ve been cold-blooded, even cruel, but the sight of the shaking girl was more than I could take. “I’m sick of these freaks. Let them clean up their own mess for a change.”
25
Twenty-Five
Max was waiting by the kitchen area when we returned, Zoe at his side. They had their heads bent together, talking.
“Hey, baby.” Aric jogged to his wife and dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “Did you miss me?”
“Every moment without you is pure torture,” she drawled, rubbing her forehead.
“What’s wrong with you?” Aric straddled the bench and faced her. “You seem crabby? What did the kid do?”
“She’s fine.” Zoe waved off the question. “She’s in the animal tent with Luke. She thinks she’s helping him and Dolph stand guard.”
“Well, as long as she thinks she’s helping.” Aric’s eyes filled with concern as he pushed her flaxen hair from her forehead. “You look pretty crabby.”
“I have a headache.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I have some aspirin in my trailer,” I offered. “I’ll grab it.”
“Thank you. Max already gave me some. We’re just waiting for it to kick in.”
Something occurred to me. “Can’t you just heal yourself?”
“Headaches are weird.” Her smile was rueful. “If I’m genuinely sick, I can heal a headache. If it’s something else — like tension — they usually linger.”
“Basically, if it’s mental then she can’t stop it,” Aric explained, his hand drifting to the back of her head to rub the base of her skull. “Do you want to go back to the hotel and rest?”
“That’s probably a mistake given what we’re dealing with. I’m sure the aspirin will kick in.”
“We need to focus on the here and now,” Max agreed. “What did you find?”
“A decent amount of cult members and one of the girls,” I replied. “Cole is taking her home right now.” I hesitated and then barreled forward. “I modified her memory. She was traumatized. We slaughtered the entire contingent of cult members in front of her. I figured it was best to wipe her memory of the entire thing.”
“She couldn’t help us anyway,” Raven added. “They really did a number on her. I felt bad ... and I never feel bad.”
Zoe managed a smirk. “Did they do the rune thing to her?”
I shook my head. “No. If they had, I would’ve brought her back here long enough for you to heal her. I don’t think they’d gotten to her yet.”
“That doesn’t mean they didn’t psychologically torture her,” Raven said. “I’m not sure what the deal is with these people. There was no book. We went through everything.”
“No Celeste either,” I said.
“Celeste is the woman you shared the dream with?” Max asked.
“She’s somehow managing to circumvent all of our security. They’re getting across without the dreamcatcher alerting. They’re getting inside our heads.”
“They must be using a dampener of some sort,” Zoe suggested.
I was both intrigued and confused. “A dampener?”
“It was a thing back in my Covenant College days. I’m not a hundred pe
rcent certain I know how it works.”
“They had a headquarters in the athletic building,” Aric volunteered, his fingers never ceasing their movements as he tried to massage away his wife’s headache. “In the basement.”
“Can you expand on that?” Max asked. “I know a little about the Covenant College situation but I’m guessing you know a lot more.”
Aric’s expression was bland. “We know more than either of us would like. In a nutshell, there was a group led by a professor, Sam Blake. He was the illegitimate son of a wolf who was relatively high in the food chain. His mother was human.
“Sam couldn’t shift,” he continued. “Neither could his sister. She was a sadistic monster. Sam was more ... cerebral.”
Zoe grumbled, “He was a monster too.”
Aric shot her a sympathetic smile. “Yes, but you were a master at torturing him and you got your way in the end. Plus, you won me. You definitely came out on top.”
She snorted but allowed him to continue the story.
“The Academy’s stated goal was to eliminate paranormal threats,” Aric explained. “That’s how they recruited students to the cause. They claimed they weren’t after paranormals who fought on the side of good, but they never really went into the details about how they made the distinction.”
“They wanted to eliminate all paranormals,” I mused.
Aric shifted. “Sam’s father, Kennedy Reagan, gave the orders. We didn’t know that until the end. Sam recruited Zoe by telling her that he wanted her help to get rid of bad paranormals.”
Zoe frowned. “That makes me sound like a moron.”
Aric chuckled. “Zoe figured it out. Even when she did help them, it was grudgingly. She gave them endless grief. To keep paranormals they considered dangerous out of the Academy space, they cast a spell ... using runes.”
My interest was officially piqued. “The same runes we’ve been seeing?”
Zoe shook her head. “I don’t think so. It’s been a long time, so I obviously can’t be certain, but I wouldn’t assume that.
“The thing is, they could hide themselves with the runes,” she continued. “They didn’t wear them on their bodies — which, in hindsight, would’ve been the smart way to go — but they did use them in the Academy basement and at Blake’s house.”
Max rubbed his chin, thoughtful. “And you think the cult members have utilized the same methods, but possibly not the same runes, to cloak themselves when crossing the dreamcatcher.”
“It makes sense to me,” Zoe confirmed. “I mean ... I don’t have proof, but the pieces fit.”
“It makes sense to me too,” Max said. “We need to figure out how they’re doing it. We’re not safe from attack until we do, and I don’t know about anybody else, but I won’t feel comfortable sleeping tonight knowing they can cross our boundaries without alerting the dreamcatcher.”
“They’re blood runes,” Raven noted. “Just like their victims, they could be carving the runes into themselves for added protection.”
“Or tattooing them,” Aric countered. “There’s blood in a tattoo, and they’re not as crude or ugly as a carved rune.”
Zoe perked up. “I bet it’s some sun and moon thing. I bet it’s a college girl tramp stamp to boot.”
Aric smirked. “We need to find one and look for a mark. I guess we should’ve checked the bodies we left behind at the cemetery.”
Max was clearly taken aback because he pinned me with a surprised look. “You left bodies behind?”
I was suddenly uncomfortable. “I thought about having Cole burn them, but it seemed like a golden opportunity to send a message.”
Zoe chuckled. “I take it you took a few of my stories to heart.”
“Just the ones you told me about right after Sami was born,” I said. “You said you knew that she would be coveted, and you had to protect her, so you fought your attackers with bloodthirsty intent and allowed one person to escape to spread the story.”
“That’s both smart and frightening,” Max noted.
“We had an infant who wouldn’t sleep,” Zoe said. “You guys think Sami is all cute and cuddly, but she’s been an absolute tyrant most of her life. I blame Aric.”
“Here we go.” Aric grimaced but didn’t stop massaging Zoe’s neck. “This is about me spoiling her.”
“You still spoil her.” Zoe insisted. “But you’re not the only one who helped make her a tyrant. I encouraged the mouthy behavior.”
“She loved stuffed animals,” Aric explained. “She wasn’t a fan of dolls because Zoe told her they were haunted.”
“Dolls are creepy,” Zoe muttered.
“She liked these bears,” Aric continued. “They’re called Charlie Bears.”
“They’re expensive,” Zoe said. “Really expensive.”
“They’re cute and she loved them,” Aric said. “She’s our only kid. If I want to buy her an expensive bear, I will. Stop giving me grief.”
“I think we’re getting off on a tangent,” I prodded. “We’re supposed to be talking about sending a message.”
“Right.” Aric sucked in a breath. “We figured that we had no choice but to scare the crap out of our enemies. If word spread, nobody would risk going after us unless they were idiots. It turned out to be a good move.”
“And that’s what we did today,” I explained to Max. “So far, Celeste and her crew have crossed the dreamcatcher without repercussion. We won the fight in the restaurant parking lot, but otherwise we’ve essentially come out on the losing end. I didn’t want that to happen again.”
Max didn’t look bothered with my justification. “I’m not chiding you, Poet,” he reassured me. “I’m simply trying to wrap my head around where we are.”
“We have another girl who’d gone missing heading home now. Angela Summers. She has no memory and Cole is returning her as quietly as possible.”
“He also wants to make sure no cult members are hanging around her neighborhood,” Raven added. “It’s doubtful that they would already know what went down, but ... .”
“Right.” Max put his hands on his hips and stared out at the busy carnival. “We’re three hours from closing. Even if we cut the main event short, we’ll still be vulnerable for the foreseeable future. We don’t have enough people to cover every access point.”
“And that’s assuming you could recognize who was crossing,” Zoe added. “These people aren’t idiots. They have a very specific plan. Most of these groups want power, status, or magic. This one seems to want it all There’s some sort of hidden agenda, but it’s going to sound ludicrous when we learn what they want.
“Take the Academy, for instance,” she continued. “They pretended to want a world in which evil was eradicated and paranormals and humans co-existed. In reality, Kennedy Reagan was a fanatic who wanted to put an end to interspecies procreation. He used his own children, who were examples of that procreation, to carry out his deeds.
“Then take Quinn Redford,” she continued. “He was running the cult that took my parents. They claimed they wanted the Archimage for the greater good when in reality all they wanted to use it for was to boost Quinn’s power. His followers had no idea.”
“Are you suggesting that’s what’s going on here?” Max asked. “Do you think the followers are innocent?”
A momentary flash of regret surged through me as I considered the question. Could all the cult members we slaughtered have been saved? I immediately pushed the idea out of my mind. If I went down that rabbit hole there would be no coming back.
“I don’t think they’re innocent,” Zoe countered quickly. “I doubt Celeste has told them the whole story, though. Someone is helping them shutter. That requires willing cooperation between two parties.”
I lifted my chin. “She’s right. The walls I keep finding in these people’s heads are strong but I can bypass them. There are too many of them for this to be one-sided. They must be cooperating with one another.”
“And they’re killing
people,” Zoe added. “And in bloody fashion. They know it’s wrong. Whatever reward they’ve been promised must be substantial.”
“We still have no idea what that is,” Max pointed out. “We’re completely behind on this one. I can’t say I’m happy about that.”
Zoe made a face. “Nobody is happy. Complaining about it changes nothing. We have to act.”
“I’m all ears.” Max held out his hands. “What do you suggest?”
“We go to Kelly and find out how they’re protecting themselves from the dreamcatcher,” Zoe replied without hesitation. “We think they are carving or tattooing runes into their skin. Heck, they could be using brands. Either way, we have to find out.”
“And then what?” I asked. “What do we do when we find the mark?”
“We take a photo and send it to Paris. Then I try to remove the mark and we see what happens.”
My eyes went wide. “How are you going to remove the mark?”
“I have a few ideas.”
“Are they gross?”
She shrugged. “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”
“I hope it’s gross,” Raven enthused.
Zoe chuckled. “We need to figure out what we’re dealing with first. I can’t enact any of my ideas without actually seeing one of the runes.”
“Fair enough,” Max said. “We’ll start with the woman and go from there.” He led the way as we cut through the fairgrounds. I spent the duration of the trip searching for Kade.
“Where is he?” I asked as I kept pace with Max.
“I think he’s walking the perimeter,” Max replied. “As we’ve already discussed, it’s far too big to cover everything. He was a bit antsy when you took off without him.”
“I didn’t really think of it like that,” I said. “I just ... he’s not completely comfortable with his magic yet.”
“No, but this might’ve been a good opportunity for him to let loose. We have another mage with us and she’s battle-tested.”
Mystic Caravan 11 - Freaky Mage Page 24
