Cloak Games_Blood Cast

by Jonathan Moeller

“Yeah,” he said, the speaker crackling with a little static. “Everyone okay?”

  “They are,” I said.

  “You’re hurt,” said Russell.

  “I have a bloody nose and a split lip,” I said. “I’ll live.” Compared to what had happened to me in the Eternity Crucible, a split lip seemed comical. “Everyone okay in the SUV?”

  “They are,” said Murdo. “Felix slept right through it all, again. I have no idea how.”

  “Lucky kid,” I said. “Look, where are we going to go next?”

  Murdo rattled off an address. It sounded vaguely familiar.

  “Wait,” I said. “Isn’t that one of the addresses where Lorenz was storing weapons?”

  “It is,” said Murdo. “I thought we might help ourselves to some of Lorenz’s weapons and then go after him with them.”

  “I like that plan,” I said.

  “My daughter and I are not soldiers, Miss Moran,” said Rusk.

  “No,” I said. “And I don’t want to get you into a fight. We’ll get you and Jill back to Morvilind’s mansion. There’s no way Lorenz and Vastarion are dumb enough to draw the attention of Lord Morvilind. And if we can get Robert and his family to a car, they can get the hell out of town and back to Madison. Lorenz wants us. He doesn’t care about them.”

  Though I remembered Lorenz’s threat to feed the others to Vastarion’s necromancy. Well, Lorenz’s death wouldn’t have weighed on my conscience, and neither would Vastarion’s.

  “Very well,” said Rusk.

  “Okay,” I said. “We’ll head to that supply dump and steal some weapons.”

  “I don’t know how to get there,” said Russell.

  “I do,” said Murdo. The SUV roared past us and pulled in front of the van. “Just follow me, Russell.”

  “I’ve been doing that anyway,” said Russell.

  I frowned at him. Following him anyway? What did that mean?

  I started to draw breath to ask, and then green light flashed around Russell.

  Chapter 9: Tracking

  I flinched in surprise, but the green light vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

  “Did you see that?” I said.

  “Yeah,” said Russell. “Uh. What was that?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  But the light had been the exact color as Vastarion’s spells. Or the same color as the light in the eyes of his pet undead.

  “I think I do,” said Vander, his voice grim.

  “What is it, then?” I said, looking back at him.

  The back of the van was a bit of a mess because of the high-speed maneuvering. Jill lay on a blanket, her head propped on a pillow, her father hovering over her. Vander sat against the wall, using one of my plastic storage cabinets as a backrest. It didn’t look very comfortable.

  “It looks like a tracking spell,” said Vander.

  “Something that Vastarion is casting?” I said. I glanced back at Russell. “Turn left here.”

  “Vastarion?” said Vander, his eyes going wide. I realized that he hadn’t heard the name when Murdo and I had been talking.

  “You know him?” I said.

  “Yes,” said Vander. “I should have realized.” He took a deep breath. “I met him when I was still an Archon on Kalvarion.”

  “What do you know about him?” I said.

  “He’s a mercenary,” said Vander. “The Archons typically hire him to assassinate their rivals. For all their flaws, even the Archons won’t touch necromancy. Vastarion is an outcast, but he’s a useful outcast. Some of the high Archons hire him when they want something done quietly.”

  “Okay,” I said. “What did he do to Russell?”

  Vander frowned, leaned forward, and cast a spell. It looked like a variant on the spell to detect the presence of magical forces. Russell flinched a little, which made the van swerve.

  “Out of curiosity,” I said. “How long have you had your driver’s license?”

  “Uh,” said Russell. “About three weeks.”

  “Oh,” I said. I suppose that was what I got for not paying attention.

  “I haven’t had an accident yet,” said Russell. “Unless running over those undead counts.”

  “Since they were already dead, I don’t think it does,” I said. I looked back at Vander. “What to Vastarion do to him?”

  “He didn’t do anything to Russell,” said Vander, his voice grim. “He did something to the frostfever.”

  “The frostfever?” I said, another surge of alarm going through me. “He didn’t make it worse, did he?”

  “No,” said Vander. “He didn’t alter it at all. But his spell lets him sense it.”

  “Sense it?” I said. “I’ve cast the spell to sense magical forces a bunch of times near Russell. I’ve never sensed anything magical from him.”

  “You wouldn’t,” said Vander. “Frostfever is a spell of blood and flesh. You’re not attuned to that kind of magic. I am, so I can sense it and work with it. Someone like Kaethran Morvilind is so powerful and skilled that he would be able to sense it. And someone like Vastarion…”

  “He works with the magic of death and decay,” I said, “so he would be able to detect Russell’s frostfever.”

  “That means I’m like a big homing beacon or something?” said Russell.

  “Could you block it?” I said to Vander, my mind racing. If Vastarion could follow us anywhere, that was bad. That was really bad. Our plan revolved around hiding from Lorenz until we got the others to safety. If Vastarion could find Russell with magic, that wasn’t going to work.

  “Yes,” said Vander. “At least…partially. And temporarily.”

  “Partially and temporarily?” I said.

  “I can slow him down, at least,” said Vander. He flexed his fingers, and blood-colored light flared around his hands. “Make it harder for him to get a fix on Russell’s location. Russell, this is going to feel a little strange.”

  He touched the top of Russell’s head and cast a spell. The bloody light pulsed and sank into Russell. My brother blinked a few times and shook his head.

  “That feels odd,” he said. “I think…whoa.”

  He swayed in the seat, and the van started to swerve into the other lane.

  “Shit!” I grabbed the wheel and just managed to keep us from veering over the center line. “Russell, trade places with me!”

  He slid over to the passenger seat, and I climbed over him and got into the driver’s seat and my feet on the pedals without causing an accident. The van swerved a few times, but I got it under control.

  “Nadia?” came Murdo’s voice. “Everything all right?”

  “Yeah,” I barked into the microphone. “Just had to switch drivers.” I glanced at Russell. “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” said Russell, blinking. “Yeah, I’m fine, seriously. I…just got really dizzy for a second. Thought the van was spinning around me.”

  I shot a quick glare back at Vander before turning my gaze back to the road. “You should have warned him.”

  “Sorry,” said Vander. He sounded so apologetic that I felt bad. “I knew it would make him dizzy, but I assumed that since he was sitting down, it wouldn’t be a problem. I…er, forgot that it’s bad to get dizzy while driving.” He shrugged. “I never saw a car until I came to Earth for the first time.”

  “Right,” I said. “It’s okay. Really. No harm done.”

  “What did you do to me?” said Russell, blinking. “That felt weird.”

  “I put a minor spell of bloodcasting upon you to filter your blood,” said Vander. “The frostfever is bound to every part of your body, but magically speaking, it is easiest to detect while in the bloodstream. The spell I used makes it…less visible, shall we say, in your blood.”

  “Does that mean Vastarion can’t find me with magic?” said Russell.

  I saw Vander grimace in the mirror. “No. But it will make it harder for him to get a fix on your position. Right now, he’ll be able to determine that you’re i
n the Milwaukee area. You’ll have to stay in the same place for three or four hours for him to discern your exact location.”

  “That’ll have to be good enough for now,” I said. “Does this spell have any side effects?”

  “Well,” said Vander. “There is…just one.”

  “I do feel kind of warm,” said Russell.

  Vander sighed. “It can cause a heightened state of…ah, increased libido, shall we say.”

  “Dear God,” I said. “You just cast a spell that causes heightened libido on a sixteen-year-old boy?”

  “I don’t feel any different,” said Russell. “Just warmer.”

  I grunted. “Stay away from Mrs. Ross. Her husband’s protective.”

  “She is very pretty, isn’t she?” said Russell. “And she got back into shape quick after Felix came along. She definitely fits into those…”

  “Russell!” I said. I couldn’t decide whether to be appalled or amused.

  He grinned. “I’m teasing. Mostly.”

  “Stay away from my daughter, young man,” said Rusk from the back.

  “Papa,” said Jill, her voice gentle but reproving. “Russell’s been nothing but kind to us.”

  “Er,” said Rusk. “Yes. That is very true. But I know how teenage boys think. I used to be one.”

  “Don’t worry, Mr. Rusk,” said Russell. “Your daughter is safe with me.” His smiled faded. “At least, I hope she is going to be. Nadia, what are we going to do now?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said, following Murdo through another right turn. “The plan was to get the Rosses and the Rusks to safety, and then Rory and I would hunt down Lorenz. Except if Vastarion can find you anywhere, that makes things harder. And Vastarion…apparently, Lorenz promised the rest of you to Vastarion as payment.”

  “Payment?” said Rusk. “What would that rebel Elf want with us?”

  Fresh recruits for his undead army, most likely.

  “Nothing good,” I said. “But it doesn’t matter. We’re going to kill Lorenz and Vastarion both before they can hurt anyone else.”

  “And just how are you going to do that?” said Rusk. Some of his old supercilious manner had returned. I didn’t mind. I knew he was frightened for his daughter’s life.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “We’re going to a place where Lorenz has some armaments stashed away. We’ll decide what to do after that.”

  “Perhaps the time has come,” said Rusk, swallowing, “to speak with his lordship about this matter.”

  “And do you really want to explain this situation to him?” I said. “How a paroled Archon Elf healed Jill? You know what Lord Morvilind thinks about the Archons.”

  Rusk took a deep breath. “If the choice is between confessing to his lordship and getting torn apart by those undead, I think the time has come to speak to his lordship.”

  He…wasn’t entirely wrong, was he?

  It didn’t matter how powerful Vastarion was, how clever Lorenz was, and how many creatures and mercenaries they had. If I could draw Morvilind’s eye to them, he would wipe them out. Maybe Rusk had hit on the best solution. Morvilind might not even be angry about it. He detested the Rebels as Dark Ones-worshipping vermin, and he loathed necromancers. If Lorenz and Vastarion crossed Morvilind’s path, he would crush them like empty beer cans.

  On the other hand…

  What would Morvilind do to me after he finished off Lorenz and Vastarion? He didn’t want the information that he had made a deal with the Forerunner to become public knowledge. And if I led my enemies to him, he might conclude that the deal had failed, it was my fault, and withdraw his cure spells from Russell.

  Or he might kill us both to cover his tracks.

  I glanced at Russell, and then at Vander in the mirror.

  But if Morvilind stopped casting the cure spells, that might not mean Russell’s death. Not anymore. When was the next cure spell due? The end of July? That would give me about five weeks to find and steal a dragon pearl before the frostfever killed Russell. If I could do that, then it wouldn’t matter if Morvilind withdrew his cure spells.

  For a moment I was tempted. It all looked so neat. Draw Lorenz and Vastarion to Morvilind, and let Morvilind the Magebreaker break them like glass.

  No. There were still too many risks, too many unknown variables. I couldn’t predict how Morvilind would react.

  But it made an excellent fallback plan.

  “We might have to,” I said. Russell’s white eyebrows climbed halfway up his forehead.

  “I do not want to talk to Kaethran Morvilind,” said Vander at once. “If he realizes that I am a paroled Archon, he will probably kill me on sight.”

  “It’s a fallback plan,” I said. “I’ll only talk to Morvilind if nothing else works.” I shot a quick glance back at Rusk. “You know as well as I do that we don’t want to get him angry.”

  “Better,” said Rusk. “I’ve been in his service longer.”

  There was nothing to say to that, so I picked up the CB mike. “Rory? How much farther?”

  “About a mile.”

  He had led us to one of the nicer parts of the greater Milwaukee area, the suburb of Brookfield. Brookfield is mostly larger, more expensive homes, and a lot of high-end strip malls, the sort of stores where you could pay twice as much for the same furniture or coffee you could get elsewhere. The last time I had been here had been on the day of the Eternity Crucible. In fact, even as the thought crossed my mind, we drove past the coffee shop where Arvalaeon had sent me into the Crucible.

  They had repaired the windows and the door that I had blasted out in my rage.

  “Nadia?” said Russell.

  Some of my feelings must have shown on my face. I smoothed my expression back to calm.

  “Traffic,” I said. “Still annoying after all this time.”

  “Yeah,” said Russell. He took a deep breath. “Um. I had a thought. We’re going someplace where this Lorenz guy has weapons stashed away, yeah?”

  “That’s the plan,” I said. “We’ll help ourselves to the weapons and use them to blow his head off.”

  “Given that we just got away from him twice,” said Russell, “what if he goes to Brookfield to get more ammo before he comes after us again?”

  I shook my head. “Probably won’t be a problem. He’ll just…uh, retreat back to the Shadowlands to get resupplied.”

  I didn’t want to tell Russell about Venomhold, but it didn’t matter.

  “You mean he’ll hop back to Venomhold,” said Russell.

  I glanced at him. “How do you know about Venomhold?”

  “Mr. Vander told me,” said Russell.

  I glanced back at Vander, who looked abashed.

  “I am a teacher,” said Vander. “My job is to instruct young people.”

  “You’re a shop teacher,” I said. “What, does the final exam include building a bird house and then opening a rift way to the Shadowlands?”

  “Considering the kind of winged creatures that live in the Shadowlands,” said Vander in a dry voice, “would you want to build anything to attract them?”

  I shuddered. “Dear God, no.”

  “And Russell’s very good at asking questions,” said Vander. He sighed. “I intended to live secretly and quietly in Milwaukee. Instead, I am fleeing for my life from a Rebel operator and a necromancer.”

  “Yeah,” said Russell. “Sorry about that. I didn’t know it would end up like this.”

  Vander shrugged. “This war has been going on since before you were born. And if there’s anything I’ve learned the hard way, it’s that no matter how far you run from the fight, the fight will catch up to you eventually.”

  “How much did he tell you about the Shadowlands?” I said to Russell.

  “Some,” said Russell. “Uh…it’s the place beyond the worlds. Or the place between worlds. That’s how the Elves got here from their homeworld, or how the Archons get here. But there are all kinds of nasty things that live in the Shadowlands.” There was a
n understatement, let me tell you. “There are demesnes in the Shadowlands ruled by lords. The Knight of Venomhold is one of them, and she hates both Elves and mankind and has allied with the Rebels against the High Queen.”

  “And that’s why we’re in this mess,” I said. “The High Queen can’t follow the Rebels into Venomhold. The Rebels can retreat there whenever they want, and then open rift ways to come back to Earth. Lorenz probably retreated there after we got away, and is going to come back with more reinforcements.”

  Russell frowned. “If engines don’t work in the Shadowlands, what does he do with the vans?”

  “He probably pushes them,” said Vander. “Vastarion has enough undead to do it. He’d just need to put the vans into neutral and tell the undead to push them.”

  “The car club for necromancers,” I said.

  I followed Murdo off the main roads, through a residential neighborhood, and then onto a gravel road. We were driving into a new subdivision, and half-built and empty houses rose on either side of the gravel road. To judge from the size of the finished houses, this was going to be yet another expensive neighborhood. Murdo pulled into the broad driveway of an ostentatious mini-mansion that looked like it would one day become the home of an ad executive with more money than taste, and shut off his SUV’s engine.

  “We’re here,” I said.

  “Why would the Rebels hide weapons in a place like this?” said Russell.

  “Makes sense,” I said. “After the building inspector signs off on it, no one’s going to be inside the house until someone buys it. A good place to stash weapons for a few months.” I glanced back at Rusk and his daughter. “Jill. How are you doing?”

  “I’m holding up, Miss Moran,” said Jill. She tried to smile. “Just don’t ask me to fight a bunch of monsters from the Shadowlands, and I’ll be fine.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” I said, and I got out of the van.

  The others followed suit, and Murdo, Robert, and Alexandra got out of the SUV, with Alexandra cradling a sleeping Felix in her arms.

  “You’re hurt,” said Alexandra.

  “What?” I said, and then I touched the dried blood on my face. “Oh, right. Well, that happens when you get hit with a wall of magical force. Looks worse than it is, though.”