The Fourth Channel (Kari Hunter Series Book 1)

by Jen Kirchner

  “What about the voodoo spells?” I asked.

  “He’s clean. Despite how much they gave him, there wasn’t anything left for me to contend with.” He turned toward the parking lot. “I’ll be right back.”

  “What? Where are you going?”

  He stopped and tossed an annoyed glance over his shoulder. “To get the car. We can’t just leave him here. I’m assuming your mom wanted us to rescue him. Retrieve something from a road, right?”

  My mom’s voice ran through my mind: Retrieve justice from the road…

  I took a deep breath. “All right.”

  “We’re lucky they fell for your little trick and thought you were your dad.”

  I blinked, having forgotten Brad didn’t know about Mikelis.

  “Oh, yeah,” I echoed. “Lucky.”

  “I’ll be right back,” he said, and jogged out of sight.

  I looked down at Luucas, proud that necromancy was actually helping someone. I didn’t even have to use my hands to repair his body; it could all be done by sheer will. I relaxed, took a slow, controlled breath, then took control of his body.

  Brad was right that only one organ needed to be repaired, but two more were in the process of regenerating from a previous injury. I also detected a couple of cracked ribs that had been hastily and clumsily repaired. Whoever Luucas was, he had seen a lot of action.

  I looked down the alley both ways, checking for Brad’s headlights. I didn’t see them, but then again, I couldn’t see much of anything. Half the alley was filled up with the black smoke wafting from me while I worked. The alley looked like a goth rave.

  A female voice startled me. “Hey!”

  I whirled around. The woman was back. She was standing by the Volvo, holding her stilettos. Her brow was furrowed and I could tell she was trying to figure out who I was.

  “You’re not Mikelis,” she said.

  “And you’re not a rocket scientist.”

  She ignored my comment and gestured at Luucas. “Are you gonna kill him now?”

  “No. Why would I do that?”

  “Because you’re a killer. That’s what you do.”

  That sounded like it came straight out of a textbook.

  “Let me guess—I’m a danger to society, and that’s why you’re into voodoo? How ironic.”

  She dared three steps closer. “I don’t care about voodoo as a practice. I just know they’d pay a lot for a necromancer.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. “So, what? You’re going to tell someone about me?”

  “No.” Her eyes widened with excitement and she pointed a perfectly manicured red fingernail at me. “I’m going to bring you in myself.”

  She bent slightly, hopping around as she tried slipping her shoes back on. The act certainly wasn’t doing much for her tough talk. I started to laugh.

  “I can cast spells,” she said, still hopping.

  “Thanks for the warning.”

  After she pulled both shoes back on, she straightened. Her eyes fixed on me, then darted to the ground. Blue runes started to appear above her head.

  She was casting a very basic second-channel spell.

  I took control of her spell, ripped the runes out of the air, and threw them against the wall. For grins, I pulled the spell open and took a look at the target.

  “A rock?” I asked. “You were going to throw a rock at me?”

  She didn’t answer because she was busy trying it again. I ripped that one out of the air too. This time, she was trying to launch a hubcap from the Volvo.

  “Don’t you know any other spell?” I asked.

  “You’re one to talk,” she said, pointing at the black spell script. “Some necromancer you are. All you did was scare us off with silly tricks and loud noises.”

  Blue runes started forming above her head again. I ripped them out of the air and then rolled the supernatural plane. Shrieking, she pitched forward and fell hard on her hands and knees.

  “That’s another trick,” she spat, “not a spell.” She smiled knowingly. As she climbed to her feet, I saw blue runes again.

  I held up one hand, prepared to stop her spell once more, when I heard the sound of a car. White light illuminated the alley. The woman’s spell stopped abruptly and the runes faded on their own. She retreated a few steps.

  I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want her to stay because she was clearly bad news. But she knew I was a necromancer, so I couldn’t let her get away. I rolled the supernatural plane again. This time she was expecting it and launched herself at the Volvo. She slammed down on the hood, denting it, and clumsily climbed across to the other side.

  Brad’s car reached us and came to a screeching halt. His brights flicked on, flooding the alley and temporarily blinding me. The woman started a new spell, but I was still reeling from the sudden onslaught of Brad’s headlights. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do now—try to tackle her? Besides the earlier tussle with Cody, I had never been in a fight. And I couldn’t push her spell away because it wasn’t yet formed. I heard the car door open and Brad’s voice.

  “Shit.”

  I turned to face Brad. Unfortunately, my back was turned long enough for the woman to complete her spell. I heard a metallic rattling.

  Brad shouted, “Duck!”

  As I dove to the pavement, I felt a new spell starting. Brad shouted a command. A bolt of light, brighter than the headlights, shot out from Brad’s hands and collided with the hubcap, causing it to ricochet back at the woman. She screamed and ducked. The hubcap hit the Volvo’s windshield with a crunch and embedded itself halfway into the glass. Somewhere in the woods, dogs started barking.

  I jumped up and looked around, but the woman was gone.

  “Please tell me she doesn’t know…” Brad’s voice trailed off.

  “Yeah. She knows I’m a necromancer, and we just let her get away.”

  Just then, a high-pitched tune rang out. Brad ducked back inside his car and leaned across the front seat. He emerged with my phone, read the screen, and looked up at me, aghast.

  I walked over and took the phone from him. I was surprised to see that I had just received a text message from my mom. I was even more surprised by her message:

  “Now you are safe.”

  Brad said, “I really wish you hadn’t broken that damn telepath.”

  NINE

  On the way back to my house, Brad and I discussed how screwed we were. My identity as a necromancer was known, the woman who knew had just gotten away, and I had a strange, unconscious immortal stuffed in the back of the car. By the way Luucas was fighting in the alley, Brad and I could only assume he was some kind of criminal.

  Great. Mom’s answer to my broken telepath was to replace it with a dangerous felon. Thanks a lot, Mom.

  Brad, however, still had faith in Mom’s plan. “If she says you’re safe, then it must be true,” he said.

  I had no choice but to trust that logic for now and focus on finding the woman who knew I was a necromancer. Luucas was our best shot at finding her; that’s why we took him. Once we had the woman in custody, Grandpa could perform a Mindwipe over the phone, making her forget she ever saw me. Case closed.

  When we reached my house, we took Luucas down to the storage room in the basement. Brad helped me lay out the spare mattress and make the bed, though when I asked him to help me remove some of Luucas’s clothes, he turned around and started to walk away.

  “I’ll be in the next room.”

  I grabbed him and pulled him back. “Be a man and help me get some of this off.”

  “I am being a man. A heterosexual man.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Just help with his shoes and jacket.”

  I removed Luucas’s shoes, but his socks were thin, scratchy, and holey, so I peeled those off too. Removing his jacket was a little more difficult and only did damage to the already-deteriorating garment. The pockets were empty. If Luucas had a wallet, it was probably in his jeans, and neither of us was brave enou
gh to look. I wanted information on Luucas, but the last thing we needed was for him to wake up with a stranger’s hand down his pants. There’s no way to smooth that out.

  We rolled Luucas onto the mattress. Luckily, he landed face up. I stuffed the pillow under his head and covered him with the blankets, then followed Brad out. He shut the door and gave me a wary look.

  “Do you want me to stay just in case something happens?”

  “No, it’s okay. Besides, we’ve got that television appearance tomorrow. You should sleep.”

  Brad cringed. Apparently he had forgotten.

  “What are we going to do with him while we’re in New York City?” he asked.

  “He’s coming with us. I’m not giving him a chance to get away before he helps us find that girl.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, okay. We’ll take him.” He yawned and stretched, looking less like a suave rock star and more like the kid who used to build blanket forts with me. He pointed toward the storage room door and said, “His energy level is dangerously low, so he probably won’t move until the morning. I’ll be over to check on him then.”

  “Okay.”

  I didn’t wait for Brad to get out of the driveway. As soon as he pulled his car out of the garage, I went to my bedroom, stripped down to my t-shirt and underwear, and fell fast asleep. But I didn’t stay that way for long—a hand clamped down on my throat, jolting me awake.

  It was too dark to make out the angry face looming over me, though I definitely recognized the thick accent. Luucas was awake.

  “Who are you?”

  My first reaction wasn’t to explain, it was to get free. I thrashed around wildly in the sheets, my arms searching for anything to defend myself. The bedside table stood just out of reach. The only thing left was a pillow. I grabbed it, twisted around, and gave the shadow’s head a hard whack.

  The hand around my throat slackened and the silhouette wavered slightly. I remembered Luucas’s head had hit the pavement during the fight, so I hit him with the pillow again. Luucas released me, stumbled backward, and dropped to the floor.

  Gasping for breath, I scrambled to the far side of the bed and readied myself with the pillow. My pulse pounded in my ears.

  “Are you crazy?” I shouted.

  He didn’t try to get up. He just yelled from the floor. “You abducted me!”

  “I saved your life!”

  “You took control of my body!”

  “Don’t get self-righteous,” I snapped. “You just killed a half-dozen immortals.”

  “That was self-defense. It’s more than I can say for you, necromancer.”

  The name felt venomous and ugly—and I was getting tired of explaining myself. “For your information, I don’t kill people!”

  He barked a laugh. “For your information, I know how necromancy works. You can’t take control of my body unless you’ve murdered someone.”

  “It was self-defense!”

  “Right.” His voice dripped with sarcasm. “I know you murdered someone and I don’t care how.” His voice dropped into a low growl. “You aren’t the only necromancer around here. Mikelis Priedis has a way of dealing with other necromancers, and he doesn’t like it when they come around looking for a fight. The second he finds out about you…” He trailed off into confusion. “Wait, why hasn’t Mikelis killed you yet?”

  “Because I'm nice! And I don't appreciate these accusations after all the trouble I went through to save you from those voodoo masters.”

  “Sure you did. You’re probably with them and this is an elaborate set-up.”

  I rolled my eyes so hard I almost fell over. “Are you serious? A necromancer and a bunch of voodoo freaks in cahoots? That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “Then what were you doing behind the grocery store in the middle of the night?”

  I couldn’t believe he was interrogating me. If anything, this conversation should have gone the other way.

  “I attended the family dinner from hell and needed toothpaste, so we went to the store. I felt your spells going off in the back. When we went to look, we got locked out.”

  “We?”

  “My cousin was with me. Now what were you doing back there?”

  “Eating.”

  I remembered the two boys sleeping in the stockroom. “The woman seemed to know you'd be there,” I prodded.

  “So?”

  Could this guy be more difficult to talk to? I swatted the air with my pillow, imagining that I was smacking his face again. “So what was going on back there? That woman was talking to the voodoo masters about you.”

  “Oh?” His tone softened. “What did she say?”

  I didn’t know what the change in attitude was about, but I had a feeling he wouldn’t like my answer.

  “She led the voodoo masters to you and wanted money for it.”

  He fell silent again.

  “Luucas?”

  He sounded annoyed. “What?”

  “That woman—who is she?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  I strangled the pillow. “Because she came back and saw me trying to mend your body! She knows I’m a necromancer, Luucas. I have to find her.”

  No response.

  His reluctance put my anger over the edge. I blurted, “I can’t believe you want to protect her after she tried to kill you. If I can’t get your help, I’ll get someone else’s. Believe me.”

  “Whose help? Mikelis?”

  That question caught me off guard. I’d never considered Mikelis for this kind of help. When it came to my safety and secrecy, my family was foremost in my mind, but Mikelis wasn’t out of the question. He often came by to check on me. I sometimes thought Mikelis was just as interested in keeping my necromancy a secret as I was.

  “Sure, I could ask Mikelis. We’re friends… kind of.”

  “Friends with Mikelis?” He made it sound like an impossible feat. “Not killing you doesn’t make you friends.”

  True, Mikelis and I didn’t have a normal relationship. I had become a necromancer when I was young, and Mikelis had been a constant source of fear until I grew older. Now our interactions were mostly silly pranks. There was no way I could explain that without sounding ridiculous.

  “Well, we aren’t enemies. We see each other every few days—I even saw him tonight. He comes to my rescue when I need help.” I felt myself blush. “It’s kind of sweet.”

  If the house hadn’t been so quiet, I wouldn’t have heard Luucas mutter under his breath.

  “Son of a bitch.”

  I dropped the pillow and crawled to the edge of the mattress. My eyes had adjusted to the dark, but on the floor, in the shadow of my bed, Luucas still looked like a big, black lump. I turned on the bedside lamp. He was lying stiffly, with his arms straight against his sides. His clothes looked even more disheveled than before, and his unruly blond hair stuck straight out in every direction. Though the lamplight seemed dim to me, Luucas’s blue eyes were squinted into slits and his pupils had retracted to pinpoints. I tilted the lampshade away so the light didn’t fall directly into his eyes.

  “You don’t talk like most immortals your age.”

  “I like staying current. It makes me more approachable to younger immortals.”

  “Approachable? Like you were tonight behind the grocery store?”

  His expression darkened. “Those immortals weren’t part of society. They were brainwashed by Ruairí O’Bryne.”

  “So why do they want you dead?”

  He gave me a stiff shrug. “Ruairí and I have history. We’ve had plenty of reasons to kill each other over the years.”

  “You’re pretty flippant about this, Luucas. He’s a dangerous guy.”

  “I’m a dangerous guy,” he said, “and I’m immune to voodoo, which makes me an even bigger threat.”

  No wonder Mom wanted me to find Luucas—he was the perfect protection until my replacement telepath arrived. It was a sobering thought. What could possibly happen in the n
ext couple of days to warrant this kind of protection?

  “Why would Ruairí send people after you if he knows they can’t kill you?”

  The corners of Luucas’s mouth perked up in a satisfied grin. “I’ve been stealing their voodoo relics. Ruairí’s desperate to get them back.”

  The conversation seemed to be turning amicable, so I lay down on the mattress and propped myself up with my elbows. “And that’s why the woman is after you too?”

  His smile disintegrated. My body tensed.

  “She’s not after me,” he said icily.

  “She set you up, Luucas. Doesn’t that make her as bad as the people who tried to kill you?” I reconsidered that for a second. “Maybe even worse.”

  “She’s not that bad,” he grumbled. “She’s only in it for the money.”

  “And that’s not worse? What happened? You two had a falling out of some kind?”

  “Not exactly.” His eyes left mine and flickered up to the ceiling. “Her name is Veronica Lambert, and she’s my ex-girlfriend.”

  Okay, I hadn’t expected that. Killing someone seemed like a real bad way to break up.

  “Well this is awkward, Luucas, because I need you to tell me how to find her.”

  He continued to avoid my gaze and shook his head. “I don’t know where she is. Believe me, I’ve looked.”

  “Maybe you didn’t look hard enough.”

  “I did.”

  “Maybe you don’t really want to find her.”

  “I do.”

  His flippant answers had me thinking about my pillow-weapon again. “I think you’re lying.”

  His head snapped in my direction, eyes blazing with anger. I jumped up on my knees and scooted back a little in case he tried to grab me.

  His tone was venomous. “She cleaned out my bank accounts and disappeared. I looked for her but found no trace—even the friends she’d introduced have vanished. Tonight was the first I’ve seen her in months.”

  “Do you think Ruairí O'Bryne put her up to the theft?”

  His head tilted up again and he resumed staring at the ceiling. “No, I think she was interested in my money first and Ruairí approached her later. That’s what he does. He gets to you through your friends and family.”