The camera jumped as it was lifted by someone, and the view on the screen moved closer to the two men. Their faces had elongated, their mouths yawning wide. Eyes turned a pitch, glossy black, and their teeth sharpened to points.
Patrick couldn’t bear to watch any longer.
“The Fae-touched,” Cyril said. Patrick had almost forgotten he was still on the phone, and the sound of his voice made Patrick flinch. “That is the destiny of the world. But if you bring me the boy, perhaps we can come to an arrangement where you and those you love are spared that horrible fate.”
“Go to hell,” Patrick said, his hands barely able hold the phone. He stood up with the phone in his hand and cut off the call. This phone was burned. He needed to get rid of it. If Cyril was tracking him, it had to be through his phone.
Unless he had a tracker on him too. That thought frightened him, and he was going to have to get to the bottom of that question.
But for now, he turned the phone over in his hand and prepared to take the battery out when it chirped the sound for another incoming text message.
Patrick turned the phone over again. A message from Cyril. It was another video.
He thought to ignore it. He’d seen all he needed to see from that man. His remaining two SEAL team members were lost, and he would mourn their loss in due time, once he was situated and far out of Cyril’s reach with Liam.
But he opened the message anyway.
The screen showed another recorded video with two more prisoners. Not the prisoners from Afghanistan, but two women.
And Patrick recognized both of them.
Patrick stopped and concentrated. He was using his talent, and this was the perfect place for it. He stared out over the water and the play of morning sunlight in the clouds above Lake Michigan. He let his power go out, reach out like dandelion seeds carried in the directions of the wind. He was trying to find them. He’d seen them before, and that’s usually all it took.
He concentrated hard, even closing his eyes as sometimes that helped too. He visualized himself plugging into the both of them to get an idea of their general location. Then he could whittle down to a more exact location the closer he got.
But there was nothing, no way for him to grab hold of either of the two women he’d seen on the screen. He slammed his fist into the concrete barrier of the back terrace and cursed at the water.
When Patrick turned, he was startled to see Brodie standing there. Instantly, he wondered just how much he’d seen.
Or how much he’d heard.
“Bad morning?” Brodie asked him.
That answered one question regarding what he might’ve seen. “Over my minutes,” Patrick said. “Where is Liam?”
Brodie didn’t answer. Instead, he stared at him for too long a time. Patrick was used to dealing with tense people—and Brodie was definitely giving him one of those tension-filled stares—but usually in those cases, he had a real idea what they could do if things got out of hand. They’d have guns, or one guy in Afghanistan he was forced to negotiate with once had a sword that he threatened to use to cut Patrick’s head off during their conversation. But Brodie had a whole different set of weaponry, the type of thing that Patrick couldn’t prepare for. Magic. Magic was a game changer.
“How did you meet Liam,” Brodie asked him as he moved further out onto the terrace.
“I saw him at his place of work,” Patrick said. “He works at a coffee shop, and I happened to be passing by. Then I ran into him later while out shopping.” In some cases, the best avenue was the truth—or some semblance of it. “We started talking, and the rest is history.”
Skepticism flared in Brodie’s eyes as he moved like he was about to square off with Patrick. Patrick did his best to appear calm and conversational, but internally, he prepared himself in case this suddenly took a physical turn toward violence.
“And when was this?” Brodie asked him. When Brodie turned his gaze toward the lake as if he was taking in the scenery, Patrick wasn’t fooled. He sensed that he was just as watched as he’d been when Brodie first made his presence known.
“A while back,” Patrick said, noncommittal.
A small, nearly imperceptible nod of Brodie’s chin as he continued to look out over the lake. Patrick glanced too to see a boat moving over the water, a personal craft about the size of a small fishing trawler. “We’re here to protect Liam,” Brodie said.
That’s what this was. It was a warning, a shot fired over the bow. Patrick relaxed, but only slightly. “That’s my intent too,” he said.
Brodie turned to him again. “What does he mean to you?”
He was caught a little off guard by the question. “He’s someone who has become very important to me.”
“Important? For what reason?”
Now it was Patrick’s turn to meet Brodie’s hard gaze. “I’ve given up some things to be here. Important things. Important people to be here with him and to protect him. I thought I knew what my purpose was long before this, but since meeting Liam, all of that has changed.” Patrick squared himself with Brodie. He moved a small step closer. “If your goal is to protect him, then I can promise you that I’m willing to go even further than that to make sure he gets out of this fully intact.” Patrick paused. A rush of feeling moved through him, a flood into his chest, just behind his sternum. “I care a lot about him.”
A moment of silence passed between them, and Brodie took in a slow, controlled breath that he let out. He still seemed to assess Patrick as if he still hadn’t fully moved to a position of trust just yet. But Patrick sensed he’d said something right. He felt like Brodie was backing down. “We’ll be watching,” Brodie said.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Patrick said.
Another nod from Brodie. He turned on his heel and went inside the house.
Brodie’s suspicions weren’t off the mark, and that’s what troubled Patrick. The last thing he wanted was for Liam to hear it from somebody else that Patrick was acting suspicious.
The only question was when he’d be able to tell him. Or, more like it, when he’d find the guts to be able to tell him.
Twenty-Seven
Wilmette, IL
In the subterranean library of the house, Liam practiced with Eoin for a couple of hours. He’d gotten pretty good at controlling the flame, even to the point of turning it into a floating fireball. He could do the blue-spark magic hand trick too that would send electricity out as a strike. And they were working on more subtle magics, creating a protective shield and moving something telekinetically. Magic was a mix of concentration and sometimes a word of power. They were only touching on the needed spells for now, those that he could learn that might prove useful in a sticky situation.
Eoin assured him that this was nothing like how magic training should happen. In fact, he said, it was the exact opposite of how to train a successful mage in the way of the Council. It took years of practice, years to learn the basics of spell casting and how to manipulate magic in such a way as to produce amazing effects. Most of the Council started training as children, so Liam had a lot of catching up to do. Starting a mage’s training with flashy spells like fireballs and electricity, even moving things with the mind, was not the way to go about it under normal circumstances.
But they weren’t under normal circumstances. Liam needed to learn how to defend himself, and he needed to know it now. They didn’t have time to go through many of the basics, even if Eoin assured him that, once it was all over, he was going to have to start from scratch and pretend like he’d never been shown anything like what they were working with down in that library.
Still, it surprised Liam at how easy using magic came to him. Once he figured out how to call it into shape, how to visualize something he wanted, the effect was almost instantaneous. Eoin seemed surprised by this too. And pleased. Maybe the stone had something to do with it. As long as he carried it with him, he felt more confident, more able to focus on this idea of magic.
&n
bsp; But, stone or not, magic also took a lot out of him. His forehead was slick with sweat, and he felt like he’d just finished a hard workout at the gym. His muscles ached, and he suddenly felt incredibly hungry as well as sleepy, so Eoin said they could take a break for a couple of hours before getting back to it. It seemed Eoin wanted to go through a full complement of both defensive and offensive spells before the day was through. If this was how Liam felt after only a couple of hours, he shuddered to think what it would be like after a full day of this kind of intense practice.
Liam left the library with the stone in hand. There was plenty to drink at the bar at the back of the library. Now Liam understood why it was there and why there were so many tables and chairs and plush, comfortable seating at the back of the library. Magic was work, and mages needed to keep fueled.
But he wanted to go upstairs to see Patrick and to check in back home, otherwise there’d be more angry phone calls to deal with. The thought of seeing Patrick sent a small thrill through him in spite of his exhaustion.
Had he really called Patrick his boyfriend? It seemed too fast, and Liam was certain that when he told Nina about it, she’d say the same thing. She’d say that as she demanded every last detail. A lot of those details, he couldn’t provide.
In the kitchen upstairs, a television played near the table where he’d sat with Patrick earlier. There was evidence of someone sitting there—a plate with crumbs, a coffee cup and an old book laying open—though no one else was in the kitchen. The news played on the screen.
Liam stopped at the refrigerator and opened it. Fully stocked. Go figure. Everything else was perfect in this house, so why not the refrigerator too. He pulled out the fixings for a sandwich, and he cracked open a bottle of water unlike the usual type of water found in convenience stores. This was some imported thing, something from the natural springs in Finland. The freshest and purest water in the world, according to the label. He didn’t care. He took a long drink, and the cold water was a nice wakeup.
“Eoin says you’re a prodigy.” Katina strolled into the kitchen and went to the refrigerator to pull out her own bottle of soda. “You’ll want to go high on sugars and simple carbs.”
“Said no dietician ever,” Liam said.
She popped open the top of her soda can. “Trust me. It’s the best thing about using magic. You get to eat like a compulsive binge eater in a roomful of chocolate cake.” She took a long drink as she took her place at the table next to the book. “And you get to keep your supermodel figure.”
“Good to know,” he said. He’d been going for a ham sandwich on wheat bread. But now he went back to the refrigerator and pulled out some mayonnaise and a slice of cheese.
“That’s the spirit,” Katina said.
“So, what exactly is the plan?” Liam asked her as he fixed his sandwich.
“Simple. Keep you and the stone away from Cyril.”
“Seems almost too simple to me. I mean, why doesn’t Cyril just come here and try to take me? Isn’t he supposed to be some powerful kind of bad guy?”
“Probably because he can’t find you anymore,” she said with a wink. She sat down at the table, and Liam joined her, the stone in one hand and his sandwich on a plate in the other. He put the stone down on the table.
“You don’t have to keep carrying that around,” Katina said.
“It makes me feel better,” he said.
She shrugged. “He wasn’t always a bad guy,” Katina said. “Cyril, I mean. In fact, early on, he was pretty decent to hang around with. Not too bad on the eyes either.”
“Yeah,” Liam said. “I heard that’s a thing with all of you. Fae blood and everything.”
“Welcome to the club,” Katina said with a wink and a smile that made Liam blush and focus harder on his sandwich. “Anyway, about twenty-something years ago, Cyril started going quiet. He’d worked at Aelhollow, on the Council, even as the Ephor for the Holder family for a time.”
“Ephor?” Liam took a big bite of his sandwich. It was delicious. He hadn’t realized exactly how hungry he was until that moment.
“The speaker for the family on the Council. Think of the position like a senator, except each family only has one seat. They like to keep it simple.”
Liam understood. He got up and grabbed a bag of chips from the pantry and moved to the table to sit across from Katina.
Katina nodded approval, and she continued. “Anyway, Cyril left the Council, and he dropped off our radar. It’s not unheard of. Council life can be pretty overwhelming at times. And tedious. It’s steeped in tradition carried down through the ages, and all that formality is enough to drive anyone to want to go into hiding. Most mages at some point take time away to work on some private study or a pet project.” She drank more of her soda. “Only now, I guess he was working on other things.”
“To bring down the Veil,” Liam said.
“Yeah,” she said. “We pretty much dropped the ball on that one.” Katina trailed off.
“What happened?”
“A coordinated attack. We were basically hit from all sides, and the nine lockstones were stolen.” She fixed Liam with a worried look. “Now we know where they went.”
Shattered. Liam remembered that part all too well.
“It was like they had some sort of hold over the people who were there,” Katina continued. “I did some sniffing after I got back. Magical sniffing. It wasn’t like anything I’d ever seen before. No one has been capable of that power level. Until now.”
“You think he has help.”
Katina nodded. “There’s talk of a man named Thaddeus. Nobody’s ever heard of him before.” She glanced at the book.
“But you have a theory.”
She paused a moment longer, then she shook her head. “Not really. More like chasing down ghosts. Fae ghosts.”
Before Liam could ask another question, he heard his name.
“Liam,” Patrick said as he entered the kitchen. “I’ve been looking for you.”
“Oh yeah,” Katina said as she took another drink of her soda, her other hand resting on the book. “I forgot to tell you. Patrick is looking for you.”
“Remind me to never hire you as a secretary,” Liam said. Katina smirked at him, and Liam realized he was going to like hanging out with her, even after she burned the shit out of his hand.
“Can we talk somewhere private?” Patrick asked. There was a tone to Patrick’s voice that made him suddenly concerned.
“Sure,” he said. He got up from the table and followed Patrick.
They walked through the living room and out into the foyer. Patrick turned and walked up one of the grand staircases.
Maybe what Patrick had in mind wasn’t anything that serious, seeing as they were heading up the stairs and presumably toward the bedrooms. “Where are we going, exactly?”
But Patrick stopped at the top of the stairs and turned to walk just beyond the section of the landing that overlooked the entry hall. He turned to face Patrick.
Liam leaned closer to him with a lascivious grin. “What’d you have in mind?”
“I need to show you something,” Patrick said. His tone was far too serious, much less playful than Liam had been hoping for. Patrick’s phone was in his hand, and he showed Liam the screen.
It took a second for Liam to realize what he was seeing. What he saw made his heart pound. Liam snatched the phone from Patrick. “Where did you get this?”
Patrick was slow to respond. “It was sent to me.”
On the screen, two people that Liam knew and loved were bound, sitting next to a wall—a wall in his own house, the house where he’d lived with his aunt for the past seven years—with a camera facing them. A gag was over both their mouths.
Nina and Aunt Jonie. The fear in their eyes was enough to make Liam fall back to lean against the wall.
As he watched, a man entered the frame, a man he’d never seen before, but that he had a feeling he knew who it was. It had to be Cyril.
&n
bsp; “Who sent this to you?”
“We have to talk,” Patrick said.
Before Liam could turn and demand more information from Patrick, a crash came from one of the back bedrooms.
At first, Liam ignored the sound. “How did you get this?” Liam demanded of Patrick. He had the stone, gripping it in both hands like he wanted to will it into some sort of power that would reach out and free both his aunt and Nina. Nothing came of it, though. The magic that had seemed so easy before didn’t materialize. Not this time.
“It was sent to me,” Patrick said. “By Cyril.”
“This is him? In the video?” Liam still stared at the man, kneeling down next to his aunt and Nina, both of them watching him like caged animals and he had a whip.
“Yes,” Patrick said. “That’s him.”
Liam stared hard at Patrick. “How did Cyril know to contact you?” He squinted. “How do you even know what he looks like?”
“We’ll talk about that,” he said. “Now may not be the time.”
He was right. “We have to find Eoin,” Liam said. “We have to get to my house.”
“They’re probably not even there anymore.”
“How do you know?” He stared at Patrick. Patrick didn’t answer. “You don’t,” Liam said. He turned toward the stairs. The thumping came again like someone pounding on the wall. This time, it was accompanied by what sounded like muffled voices, someone screaming, near as he could tell. It was enough that it caused Liam to turn his attention down the long hallway. The noise seemed to be coming from one of the rooms at the end of the hall.
“You think someone’s stuck?” Patrick asked.
He didn’t have time to wait around here. He immediately walked with Patrick’s phone in his hand down the hallway. “Eoin? Brodie?” he called out. They’d left Katina in the kitchen, so it was the only other logical assumption. Patrick followed closely behind him.
The thud came again, louder this time, and Liam pinpointed it as coming from the closed door at the end of the hall. He hesitated, though. The house was checked, wasn’t it? They’d been hanging out in here for several hours now. So, if someone was trapped up here, why didn’t they announce themselves sooner?
The Stone (Lockstone Book 1) Page 31
