True Colors (The Demon's Apprentice Book 6)

by Ben Reeder

  “Kim, what are you doing?”

  “I don’t want to scratch the paint.”

  “You’re not going to do what I hope you’re not going to do, are you?”

  “Most likely. Now, be quiet.” No sooner had the words left her mouth than she swerved left, bringing us under the flatbed trailer. I’d been with Lucas when he did this almost two years ago, and I closed my eyes, waiting to hear metal screech. But no screams of twisted steel came, no shudder as we hit the top. I opened my eyes to see the rear wheels and support struts of the flatbed in front of us. Where Lucas had swerved all the way across to come out the other side, Kim had simply stopped in the middle. Looking to my right, I saw another white Viper beside us, with Kim driving it. The air shimmered between us, and I realized that I was inside one illusion looking at another. We were inside an invisibility charm, and the other Viper was an illusion that had covered us until we moved out of it. To our left, a line of cars was passing, and as soon as the last one went by, Kim pulled out behind it, then took an off ramp that pointed us south.

  “You are one sneaky woman,” I told her when we shimmered back into view.

  “Ninja,” she said, gesturing toward herself.

  “So, what about the tracker?” I asked. “Are you sure your guy can make it point where we want it to?”

  “The Pierces will have it handled,” she said. “They are very capable, and they know their limits, which are few. It will appear to stop transmitting about a hundred miles into Kansas. They won’t know where he actually is until it is far too late to do anything about it.”

  An hour later, we pulled in the driveway to Dr. C’s Sanctum and parked beside his Range Rover. Amanda met us at the door, her expression softening a little when she saw both of us. Kim nodded to her daughter and went straight to the library. By the time I caught up with her, she had Dr. C in a full on kiss, both arms around his neck, her left foot raised and her eyes closed. Amanda and I stopped in the doorway and traded a long-suffering look.

  “Master Chance,” Jeremy said from the foyer. “So good to see that you made it back unharmed.”

  “Yeah, same to you. Everything went okay, then?”

  “Oh, yes,” he smiled. “They never saw us leave, invisible or not; they went after you straight away and hardly spared a glance at the house.”

  “Well, they think you’re running west right now, so they won’t be looking anywhere close to New Essex for a few days. Hopefully, by then, they’ll have other things to worry about.”

  “I intend to see to it that they do,” Jeremy said. “A great many things. But for now, I should gather your sister. Your message gave the impression you wanted to meet her at the front gate.”

  “Jeremy, I didn’t send any message.”

  “It came from your phone, sir.”

  “I don’t have my phone,” I said, heading for the door. “It’s at the lodge!” Amanda was right behind me when I swung the front door open. Dee was outside the gate, looking up and down the street. I called her name, and she turned back toward me as I heard the squealing of tires off to the left. Brad’s truck came barreling down the street, and a Were’ in hybrid form leaped from the bed. My feet hit the walkway at the same time the Were’ landed beside Dee. She had just enough time to let out a squeak of alarm, then she was gone, the Were’ sailing in a graceful arc toward the truck bed. Amanda ran to my right, letting off a yell of her own, flinging iron darts at the guy. Three of the four she threw stuck in his back, the fourth falling short when the truck sped away. The Were’ hit the truck with a lot less grace than he’d jumped with.

  “Damn it, Amanda!” I yelled. “You could have hit her!”

  “Not in a million years, otōto.” She shook her head, glaring at the truck as if she could stop it with her eyes.

  “Your son is trying to reach you on your mobile device,” I heard from by the front gate. It had to be Mom’s ringtone for me. I bolted to the gate and grabbed the flashing phone, then scrambled back inside.

  “What?” I growled.

  “We have your mother,” Kain’s voice whispered over the line.

  “No, you don’t, dumbass. You took my little sister. If you thought taking my mom was going to piss me off, you really screwed up taking Dee. I am going to seriously fuck you up now.”

  “You will do exactly as you’re told, nothing more, and absolutely nothing less, or you’ll be attending your sister’s closed casket funeral.”

  “Look, you want me? Fine, I’ll go where you want, do whatever you want. You want to try to beat the crap out of me? Fine, punch your black little heart out. But hiding behind an eleven year old girl? I thought that was beneath even you.”

  “Shut up, gamma. You will come to Radio Springs Park at in two hours, and submit yourself to Alpha’s and my command again. When you show up, we let the girl go. Come alone, and tell no one where you’re going.”

  “Really? You’re going there?” I asked, but the phone was silent.

  “What does he want?” Amanda said. Behind us, Dr. C and my Mom were coming out the door.

  “Where’s Dee?” Mom demanded, her voice wavering between hard-ass tigress and hysterical mother.

  “Kain has her,” I said. “We tried to stop him, but they were ready the moment she stepped outside the gate.” I pulled up the texts and saw a single message from my phone. Meet me out front. Dee would have had no reason to doubt that it came from me.

  “What does he want?” Mom asked, suddenly all tiger mother.

  “Me. Alone. Two hours, Radio Springs Park.”

  “I’ll be back,” Mom said, heading back into the house. I started after her, but Dr. C took me by the shoulders and turned me to face him.

  “No, Chance, let her go. I recognize that look.”

  “Well, I don’t,” I pushed against him.

  “Of course you don’t. It’s the same look you get when you have a plan in that head of yours. Your Mom knows what she’s doing. And one thing I’ve learned is that it’s best to let you do your thing and not try to second guess you. It’s worked out pretty good so far.” We heard cars pull up at the side of the house, and went around to see Wanda, Lucas and Collins heading up the sidewalk.

  “What’s going on? Wanda asked, her frown set almost to scowl.

  “Kain has Dee,” I said.

  “He’s done fucked up now,” Lucas said.

  “That’s what I told him. What do you have?”

  “Lots,” Collins said. “None of it good.”

  Chapter 15

  ~ Remember, if you’re the one sitting around waiting for someone to show up to fight…you’re the boss fight. ~

  Guy Midnight

  “So, you mean Jacob Kain has been prowling around in the Ozarks since the end of May?” I asked incredulously. “How did he do that without the Conclave or even Sinbad knowing?” We had retired to the library. Dr. C was behind his desk, and we’d brought in chairs from the kitchen so everyone could sit down. Kim sat on the edge of the desk, half facing Dr. C and turned so she could see everyone else. Lucas and Monica were on the love seat, naturally, and Wanda and Collins were in a pair of chairs taken from the kitchen table. Amanda was sitting tailor fashion by the desk, and I was pacing.

  “Simple,” Collins said. “He flew into St Louis or Kansas City on commercial flights, rented a car and drove down here. Stayed in a series of cheap motels under a string of fake names.”

  “Seems he was fond of using the same credit card for each stay,” Wanda said. “I’d bet it’s off the books. He probably thought he’d taken all the precautions he needed to. To cover his tracks, he’d change the card number every trip, but it was always still the same account.”

  “Also, his credit card receipts correspond to a string of disappearances and mysterious deaths since then,” Collins added. “So I’d say he’s been recruiting a little, too. With what he pulled today, we’re adding kidnapping and child endangerment to the list.”

  “How did you guys find all of this, anyway
?” I asked.

  “That was all Wanda,” Lucas said with a proud smile. Wanda blushed at the praise, but I couldn’t help but notice her eyes turning toward Amanda.

  “I just noticed that he was driving a rental car, and I know you need a credit card for those, so I wondered if we could help track his movements that way. And since he kept hitting you and Shade…”

  “I could follow up on it as a child abuse case. But what we turned up was...way more than I expected,” Collins said. “Your boy Kain has been busy.”

  “So now what do we do?” Lucas asked.

  “I don’t know what you guys are going to do, and truth is, I shouldn’t. You’re not coming with me, that’s for sure.”

  “But what we do on our own,” Kim said with that smile I’d come to recognize was born of excitement. “Well, that is up to us. You can no more prevent us from acting independently than you can keep the sun from rising.”

  “Whatever you guys do on your own, I can’t know about,” I said. “Besides, I have other things I need to deal with before I go running head on at Kain.”

  “I can help you there,” Dr. C said. “Kain gave you only two hours to cut down on the time you have to prepare to face him. He also thinks you’re still a Were’. By the time you go face him, you’ll have a few new tricks up your sleeve. Come with me. The rest of you...scheme to your heart’s content, but don’t disturb us upstairs.” He gave Kim a lingering kiss as he came around the desk, then led me upstairs to the working area of the Sanctum.

  “Kim tells me you put together a spell on the fly and cast it with your wand.”

  “Had to use a touchstone to power it,” I told him while we climbed up the back stairs. Narrower and steeper than the stairway in the front of the house, this set was the servants’ passage to the entire house, which meant they went all the way to the attic, which was now the third floor.

  “Well, you might be interested to know that you weren’t using a functioning wand when you cast it.” Dr. C stepped into the Sanctum and turned to face me.

  “You sabotaged my wand?” I said.

  “No, we just never repaired it.”

  “So the whole time I was at the Franklin Academy…?”

  “And last semester and all summer long,” he added.

  “... I was casting spells with a busted wand?”

  “And doing it like you actually had one that worked.” He smiled like I should have been proud of him.

  “I could’ve been killed!” I said, my voice rising.

  “I made sure you were doing okay before I let you keep going. And no, I wasn’t crippling you, I was making you stronger. Why do you think I want you to take your mage trials before the end of the year?”

  “I thought it was because you wanted to get rid of your problem student,” I said. My face got a little warm at saying that out loud.

  “You know better than that. Look, we don’t have much time, Chance. I told you that because I need you to be at your absolute best right now.” He turned and started taking things from the bench in front of him.

  “I’m kind of at my absolute worst. Kim told me I’m not connected to the source of my magick. I don’t know that even happens, but I’m pretty sure I’m not going to do it in an hour.”

  Dr. C turned to me, a thick black rod in his hands. His eyes had that slightly unfocused look he got when he was thinking about something ‘fuzzy.’ Those were the time I’d learned to listen to him the closest, because those were the moments when he told me things that mattered.

  “Only half of magick is in what we know, Chance,” he said. “Being a wizard isn’t so much in what goes on up here,” he touched two fingers to his temple, “as what we have here.” He put the same two fingers over my heart. “Remember, emotion and faith drive magick as much as knowledge and rules. And connecting to the source of our magick is all about that first part. It can happen in the span of a single heartbeat if the right pieces are in place. Which is part of why I’m giving you this.” He held the black rod out to me, almost reverent in the way he cradled it in his hands. It had a thick quartz sphere at its base and a quartz tip that flared out and angled back in for an inch or so, then tapered further to a sharp point. A silvery metal was wrapped around the ends, and a blue and red gem was set opposite each other at either end. It was beautifully made, and I could feel it resonate almost on its own from a few inches away.

  “Sir, I’m still just an apprentice. A rod is…”

  “The rod is the tool of a mage as much as it is a badge of status,” Dr. C said. “And in both cases, I think you’re ready for it. I’ve been working on this since the day you first became my apprentice. It’s African ebony, one of the strongest, densest woods in the world. The base is rutilated quartz to help you draw and conduct energy. The tip is cut to focus energy with laser precision, and both ends are connected by a silver-osmium core. If your wand was a large caliber pistol, this is a large caliber cannon. It’s not just powerful, though, It’s precise and it’s versatile. Ebony wood and quartz aren’t particular to any one kind of energy, so it won’t get in your way. I gift this to you, the tool of a mage, freely given. Use it well and wisely.”

  “Sir, I…” I paused, the weight of the moment suddenly hitting me full on. I was about to go into a den of wolves in a very real sense to try to rescue my sister, and help my girlfriend get her pack back. There was a weight to this moment, and it resonated within me.

  “Master, I accept this gift with humble gratitude, not for the gift alone, but for the knowledge it stands for. I wouldn’t be here without you, sir. Without all the things you’ve taught me. Not just about being a mage, but about...being a good man.”

  The moment I touched the rod, I felt like I’d grabbed a tiger by the tail. It practically buzzed in my hands. The wood was warm against my skin, and I felt the jolt of power through my bones. The surge of emotion I was feeling looped back to me, the buzz changing pitch to match it. That alone made the gemstones and the quartz ends glow slightly.

  Dr. C smiled. “That isn’t the only new trick you’ll be taking with you.,” he said.

  Kain and Brad were waiting for me in the middle of the park, trying to look scary and impressive as they faced the road they figured I would take to get there. But I wasn’t driving. I wasn’t even on the ground. No, I was coming in on my own personal magick carpet, the solidified cloud spell I had perfected for prom. I floated at treetop level, coming in over the lake, a little to the west of the park. Kain and Brad were facing east, standing there with their arms crossed, listening for the sound of a car approaching. They stiffened and puffed their chests out, probably hearing one of the caravan of vehicles approaching from the east. That seemed like as good a cue as any, so I tilted the cloud and banked in behind them, slowing and dispelling the soft bubble I’d kept around me to contain my scent when I was about thirty feet away.

  They both caught my scent at the same time, and turned to look in unison. Kain started when he saw me hovering twenty feet in the air. Brad, to his credit, just stepped to one side and folded his arms across his chest again.

  “I’m here for my sister,” I said.

  “You’re here to submit and acknowledge your place in the pack. Now get down here.” I felt his will hammer my will, but without my wolf as a backdoor through my defenses, it got him nowhere.

  “No.” It was hard to tell what I enjoyed more. Just telling him no, or his reaction when I did.

  “I told you once to get down here, boy. Don’t make me tell your gamma ass again. Now get down here...now!” Again his will battered my defenses, and again...nothing happened.

  “I told you,” Brad said. “He figured out how to beat our control. He’s known for that shit.”

  “Shut up, you pitiful excuse for a beta,” Kain snarled.

  “Seriously, you have got to stop with this Greek letter shit,” I said, circling the cloud around to my left so I could keep Brad and him in sight at the same time. “That whole wolf pack hierarchy stuff you kee
p spouting is junk science. Wolves don’t do ranks and roles. Packs in the wild are families, asshole, they don’t play your bullshit dominance games. Only captive wolves do that.”

  Kain roared and leaped at me, but halfway to me, he hit the kinetic sponge I had waiting for him. He slowed until he hung in midair a few feet from me, and I put my hand out. “I find your lack of faith disturbing,” I said, triggering the telekinetic chokehold. He hung there in midair, his hands clawing at his throat.

  “Bad dog,” I said, and slapped him down with the kinetic force from his own leap, channeled back at him through the same spell that stopped him. “No biscuit.” Behind Kain, Brad snickered. I’d used the same line on him once, but not as effectively. At my mental command, the cloud dropped lower and I let it dissipate when I was a few inches off the ground. Maintaining it was taking more power out of the reserve I’d built with the rod than I could afford, and I hadn’t found another power source to draw on yet. I had the rod and three more touchstones to call on, then I was out.

  Kain got to his feet, his nose bleeding for a moment. “Boy, you better get down on your knees right now unless you want to see your sister dead,” he said to me. “And you better figure out whose side you’re on,” he said over his shoulder to Brad.

  “I’ve got news for you, Kain,” I said, advancing on him. “I’m not a werewolf anymore.” Brad took a step back and Kain frowned. His senses were trying to tell him I wasn’t lying, I was sure, but his brain seemed to be having problems believing it.

  “That’s impossible,” he spat.

  “No, just improbable. I have friends who know things. Now, about my sister. Do you really want to throw away the only leverage you have?” I blinked, bringing my mystic senses up. With magick coursing through me, I could use my Third Eye more easily if not very effectively.

  “Do you want to throw her life away?” Kain asked. I could see the red lines of aggression arcing toward me, some fading, others getting brighter as he considered his options to attack.

  “If you kill her, I have no reason not to obliterate you.” The aggression lines all faded a little while he processed that. “If you let her go, the only person you have to deal with is Shade, and that’s only if you decide to stick around. No, wait, you also have to deal with Sinbad, too. You know what? There’s a long list of people here you’ve pissed off. On second thought, you should probably just run. And pray. I hear that helps sometimes.”