“Six?” Lexie nearly laughed. “They still haven't replaced the two guys Constance killed?”
Jack looked like he was struggling to answer. “You must understand, the very old perceive time differently than you or me. To one as old as Octavius, Unus and Duo's deaths happened only days ago, even though it was truly more than nine months.”
“So you aren't very old,” she teased.
He scowled at her.
“How old is he exactly?” I asked, getting up to grab some pizza for Jack.
“The best intelligence dates him to around two thousand two hundred. We believe he was born during the second of what is now known as the Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage.”
“Wow.” I was awed. “I mean, we knew he was old, but wow.”
“Exactly.” Jack tried to eat the pizza on his back unsuccessfully, then pulled himself to sit on the bed. “So you can see how it will take more time than that for their positions to be filled, especially when Octavius' attentions are focused on finding us. Believe me, it is a blessing. The six of them hunting us is bad enough.”
“Hang on a sec,” Lexie said, her blond brows furrowed. “If that was really Tresia who attacked us, why was she alone? Even if she thought only you would be there, you're plenty strong enough to take her on one-on-one. Why didn't she bring any goons with her for backup?”
“You flatter.” Jack smiled at her, beaming under the praise. “However, you also overestimate my abilities.”
“I've seen you and Constance fight. You could have beaten her.”
He took a deep breath, buying time to think of an answer. “It is true that I am vastly more skilled in the martial arts than both of you. But you do not know the way every other mage does battle. You do not understand what makes Constance's use of her genera so unique.”
“How do you mean?” I asked.
“You understand that for every other mage, magic must be spelled and casted through one of four methods— verbal, kinesthetic, philtering, or ferramenting. As you were raised a human, you never went to spelling school to learn the ways our ancestors have spelled and casted for eons. Over the years, these practices have remained virtually unchanged and are ingrained in each and every one of us.”
“Except Constance.”
He nodded. “Each mage, when they are spelling or casting, uses the same techniques no matter where they are from or how old they are. If I wanted to spell a fireball, I would use the exact same weavings as another kinesthetic speller.”
“I still don't get whatever point you're trying to make.” Lexie shook her head.
Jack made a frustrated sound and let out a breath. “These consistencies make me and every other mage predictable, to some extent. If my enemy knows I will be casting fire at them, they know how to counter and vice versa. What makes Constance so powerful is not truly her enormous amount of genera magics, but her emotional casting. She does not have to tip her hand to attack or defend. Her unpredictability is the source of her strength.
When mages learn to fight, we are taught to read our opponent's moves from chants or motions as soon as possible and attack or defend accordingly. A single syllable or subtle motion in one's hands can be all a masterful opponent needs to win. As casting is a wholly mental process for Constance, the only enemies she must fear are telepaths stronger than her, be they mage, fey, vampire, etc.”
“And if you were to fight her…” Lexie trailed off.
“If I were to fight Tresia, the battle would have lasted much longer and she likely would have defeated me. To mages, it is not solely strength that matters. Many battles have been decided by the combatants' observational skills and knowledge of magic, as well as the strength and amount of their genus magic and level of spelling skills.”
“So you still haven't answered the question,” I said. “Why did Tresia come alone? That seems like a stupid thing to do, even if she probably would have beaten you.”
Jack made a sour face. “Tresia is a—” he paused to think. “—vain woman in both her beauty and her power. From what I have heard, she has barely been hanging on to her position since I stole her necklace. It was a humiliation for her, and one that I'm sure she felt she must rectify alone.”
“Still sounds like a dumb idea to me,” Lexie agreed with me.
“She is not a stupid woman.” Jack shook his head.
“Then why would she do something so stupid?” Lexie asked, flat.
He took a deep breath, thinking about his answer. “To understand her actions, you must know where she came from. Tresia, for all her wrongs, has led a difficult life.”
“So that just excuses her trying to kill us?” Lexie crossed her arms.
“No.” Jack mussed a hand through his hair. “But the woman she became is the product of her childhood.”
“Which is?” Lexie prompted after Jack was quiet for a few seconds.
“When she was a young girl, she was sold into a brothel. Her beauty was the only thing that kept her alive and fed as a child. As she grew older and her magic developed, it was her great beauty and extraordinary power that let her kill her madam. The necklace she wears as her ferrament was her trophy.”
“So she really, really, extra wants that necklace back.” Lexie shrugged. “That still doesn't explain why she would risk everything by going it alone.”
“In her mind, the biggest risk is in appearing weak. Without her power, all she has is her beauty and that is not enough to keep her position as Tresia.”
A lightbulb went off in Lexie's head. “And I'm guessing the Eight doesn't have a retirement plan and 401K.”
Jack nodded his head. “She has been struggling since I stole her necklace and she needs to make a show of force herself to keep both her job and her life.”
“I still think it was stupid,” Lexie announced.
Jack shrugged. “Either way, she will not make that mistake twice. And going by the scratch on your cheek, she stole some of your blood.”
“You say that like I'm going to understand what you mean,” I said, narrowing my eyes at him.
“If she has your blood, she can use a special spell that will scry your location permanently. So long as you live, the spell will be active. It is the same spell she used on me after I stole her necklace.”
“That's why you've been living in hiding,” Lexie realized aloud.
“Si,” Jack confirmed. “My warding has been blocking her spell, but I have not been as strict with my wardings as I should have been lately.”
“Newport.” I hung my head in shame. None of this would have happened if I hadn't run away. “This is because of me.”
“We do not know.” Jack put a hand on my shoulder. “It could have been then. In my haste to find you, my spell work may have been sloppy. Or it could be I stepped a toe out of the warding zone on the car when we went to the cemetery. That is all it would have taken for her to find me.”
I was silent. It could have been my screwup that caused us to almost die again.
“Now, topolina, it does no good to blame yourself for a sin that may not be yours.” He rubbed his thumb reassuringly against my skin. “Besides, you had to go to your mother's grave. It is understandable.”
Lexie broke my train of thought, asking, “So we live in hiding forever. We've been in that boat for most of a year now. What's the difference?”
Jack set his hand back in his lap. “The difference is that the wardings on my home were very costly, powerful, and specific. They cannot be replicated before she attacks again. And this time, she will be bringing reinforcements.”
“One of the other Eight?” I asked.
“No,” he shook his head. “She will want sole credit for our capture. She needs it to not only get her necklace back, but also to secure her position as Tresia of the Eight. It will be her underlings that she will use. We have only two, maybe three days at the most before she comes back and there is nowhere we can hide.”
A grim pall came over the room and hung there like a
fog. The quiet lasted long enough that Jack ate half a pizza.
Was our situation really so hopeless? I had already beaten her once. Between Jack, Lexie, and I, we could take her.
But if she attacked us first, she would have the upper hand. Jack said she could have as many as three days. Three days to assemble a platoon of bad guys, to arm them to the teeth, to come up with strategies. Three days to plan our deaths.
What if we didn't give her those three days?
“We can take the fight to her,” I announced.
Lexie, who was curled with her arms around her legs, perked up. “Are you nuts?”
Jack only looked at me, skeptical but listening.
“Remember, Lexie, when we took that self defense class and the instructor said the attacker always has the upper hand?” I asked. “What if we use that same principle here and attack her first?”
“What do you mean?” she asked. “Like lay an ambush or something?”
“Maybe.” I stood and began pacing the room. “But I was thinking that we go to her home and attack her when she lets her guard down.”
She scoffed. “I think 'home-court advantage' more than negates the element of surprise here. We'd be walking into a deathtrap!”
“Perhaps,” Jack said noncommittally. “Perhaps not.”
“Can you redo the ward on the jeep? Will that cover our approach?” I asked him.
“No, but the ward on the jeep will not fade for another two days and it is very generalized, so it should be enough.” He put a hand to his mouth and pursed his lips. “If she is looking very closely, she will see us, but she is likely busy readying to attack us.”
“But wait a sec,” Lexie interrupted me, right as I was about to say something. “If the wards on the house were so expensive and time-consuming that you can't replace them fast enough to keep us hidden, then how are the ones on the jeep enough?”
Jack seemed surprised at her observation and answered, “The wards on the jeep are weaker than the ones that were on the house, however, the difference is in duration and the area that is protected. Because it is also smaller and shorter-term, it was easier to cast.”
Lexie scowled.
“So we can drive right up to her doorstep if we wanted to.” I paused and looked to Jack. “Where is her doorstep?”
“Because some of her operations are legal, she has an established and well-known base,” he answered. “It is in Oklahoma.”
“This is ridiculous! There's no way we would come out of that alive,” she thew up her hands. “Just the three of us against who knows how many of her guys? Those are not good numbers.”
“They're the only numbers we have.”
Lexie pinched her face and gave a gallows sigh, conceding defeat. “So what's our next move, mon capitaine?”
11
You owe me big time for this, old buddy or no,” a tall, almost waifish man with matted cobalt blue hair and eyes griped in an unusual accent I couldn't place as he handed Jack a heavy duffel bag in the parking lot behind the motel. He had a squirrelly demeanor to him, twitching and darting his eyes back and forth even though there wasn't a soul in sight.
“Agreed,” Jack shook the man's hand.
“I won't let you forget it, neither.” He rubbed his hands up and down his thin arms like he was freezing, even though it was already over eighty degrees and the sun had only started to crest over the horizon. “Gettin' those for you sent up some big red flags. I might catch some heat for this, man. Serious Pax-type heat, too, not just the bloody reeve again.” He jabbed a bony finger at Jack's still bare chest.
“I will pay you back for this, my friend.”
“You'd betta.” He turned and walked away, revealing a limp in his gate.
No sooner did he turn the corner out of sight did Lexie ask, “Who the hell is the junkie? Do you really think you can trust that guy? We're kind of being hunted here.”
“We have a great many worries, Alessandra, but Wallis is not one of them. He may look unreliable, but he is very discreet,” Jack explained as he hoisted the bag into the back of the jeep and opened the zipper. He pulled out a wad of clothes and shoes and sorted out a pair of blue jeans, a black t-shirt, a pair of white boxers, socks, and tennis shoes for himself. The rest, I assumed was for Lexie and I.
“All that and he just got us a change of clothes?” Lexie commented sarcastically, finding an almost identical outfit in her size and passing the rest to me.
“As well as some of the most dangerous spells around,” Jack snorted and nodded his head to the bag as he pulled the shirt over his head.
I peered inside to see what looked like four black apple-sized orbs and one smaller orange orb that looked like grenades. I wasn't going to touch that bag until I knew what they did….
Jack graciously turned around to pull on the boxers and jeans before facing us. “Zip that up. Those are very illegal.”
Lexie and I looked to each other. Neither of us wanted to touch it.
Exasperated, he reached over and pulled the zipper shut. “They will not be cast until they are used.”
He got his socks and shoes on and held his hand out for the car keys. I pulled them out of my pocket and gave them to him.
Since we had already checked out of the room and were not going to be changing clothes in an open parking lot, Lexie and I went back to the front desk guy and asked to use his bathroom to change. He rolled his eyes, but agreed.
Changed into fresh clothes and having showered last night, we were ready to go, though whether it was to victory or our prolonged, grisly deaths, I had no idea.
Are you sure we should be getting this close?” Lexie asked from where she was kneeling in the leaf litter behind the jeep.
“We are far enough to be safe,” Jack promised, peering at the massive building styled after a bleak, worn down, big box store through a pair of binoculars we'd picked up at an outfitting store on the way here.
“But we can't be a quarter mile away,” I said, agreeing with Lexie. Even hidden in the thick, green forest, this did feel way too close for comfort. We finally made it all the way to the middle of nowhere's middle of nowhere in the low, rolling mountains of southeastern Oklahoma and now he was going to get us killed.
“Don't you think she has some security?” Lexie pressed. “They're going to notice us.”
Jack set the binoculars down on the hood of the car and turned to her. “We are fine,” he insisted. “Her only guards are at the entrance and inside of the building.”
“That sounds like bullshit,” Lexie said flat out.
“Yeah, you would think somebody who just got robbed would amp up their security,” I said. It seemed like such an obvious thing to do, to find out she hadn't done it made me suspicious. This felt like a trap.
His face was grim, he explained, “It was nearly a hundred years ago that I took her necklace and she has increased her security since then. She did not increase the number of guards, but hired stronger ones instead. Too much and she might scare away her clients.”
“How do you know they got stronger guys?” They looked normal to me, but then, I had learned the hard way that looks could be deceiving.
Jack handed me the binoculars and pointed me to a man standing in front of the cheesy Lady Luck's Lair sign with a busty animated redhead that stood on its own next to the turnoff from the road. He was a big man built like a bulldozer with hair as dark as his skin cropped close to his scalp. He wore sunglasses, but that didn't hide his eagle sharp gaze raking the environment for threats. I couldn't spot any weapons on him, but they were there.
“I know of this man. His name is Byron and he is a vampire.” Jack said. “We have never met, but his reputation precedes him. He is a mercenary, a legend among his peers for his skills in hand-to-hand combat. Tresia has loosened her purse strings to have hired him. He charges a king's ransom.”
“But won't they be doing perimeter checks or something?” Lexie asked. She knew more about this sort of thing than I did, g
rowing up in the fortified Baxter House. “Even Mr. Miller would walk around the inside of the wall every hour, so why wouldn't this guy?”
“Because seeing him alone is enough to stop a small army.”
“Except us,” I said.
Jack ran both of his hands through his hair and sighed. “Except those of us who are desperate and stupid enough, yes.”
“So what are we going to do?” I looked across the distance at the expansive structure.
“This building is much larger than the one I knew, but if she has kept the same general layout, then there will be three separate playing floors: the first is for legal human gambling; the second is for legal Paxian gambling; and the third is for illegal Paxian gambling. To reach each successive zone, you must pass through the preceding one. We will likely find Tresia in her personal suite, which can only be accessed from the third zone.” As he spoke he pointed to different areas of the same, square building. From here, there was no discernible difference. It all just looked like one big building.
“You say that like I understand what you mean,” I whisper/yelled, pointing at it. “I don't have X-ray vision! It's a big building!”
“I cannot make you a map.” He waved his hands in an exaggerated manner, miming drawing a map. “It has been a century and a half since we have been in the same state!”
Lexie cleared her throat. “I got this, guys.”
We looked at her to explain.
“That's pretty recent construction and even with all your weird, Paxian tricks for keeping off the books, city hall will have blueprints and permit applications for that building.” She smiled wickedly. “All I need is a computer and I can get them in no time.”
Jack's expression was flabbergasted.
The smile disappeared and she rolled her head from side to side. “Granted, I'm sure with all your non-human illegal-ness, they won't be a hundred percent accurate.” She shrugged. “But it's better than nothing.”
“I could kiss you right now,” I almost laughed. With a computer in her hands, there was very little Lexie couldn't do.
Tresia (Stone Mage Saga Book 3) Page 9
