Second Sight: The Rune Sight Chronicles

by Boyd Craven III

  “Vegas is going insane. Something about a movie stunt that went wrong at one of the Casinos?” Rasmussen said to me.

  I stood up and put my necklace back on. “Nice to see you too, baldy. Took you long enough.”

  “You didn’t exactly stay in one place,” he said, his voice angry.

  “I couldn’t. She attacked us in public, with demons. Demons! Calls the big red monkeys Mass and Effect. You knew she had those?”

  “Then Khrystiana herself got involved?” a mage behind him asked.

  I looked at the woman in council robes and nodded my head.

  Rasmussen turned to me, “May I?”

  I nodded, and he strode forward and put his hands on my temples, and I opened myself and my memories to him. It was faster than explaining everything. Despite seeing what I saw and remembered, I knew he didn’t always get the context, so this info dump was helpful, but we could talk about it later.

  “Dear lord, what have you done?” He asked me, his voice trembling.

  “Her sons?” I asked him.

  “Yes,” he said softly.

  “They attacked us on the road. I didn’t know who they were, and putting two in the heart was the only way to stop the construct Sebastian summoned.”

  “Where is Mage Kiersten?” A tall mage… Smith? asked.

  “Her body is down the slope and off to the right,” I told him. “Effect got her after pushing her through a gate.”

  Vivian got up then bent over, retching again, sobs wracking her body once more. I reached over and pulled her hair back until she was done. Zania was moving between the pack, touching each on the forehead, sometimes longer than others. She touched JJ and then jumped back, looking at her hand as if she’d touched something hot, then strode my way and placed her hand on my forehead. I felt her magic start working, but instead of healing things all at once, I realized that she had boosted the healing our body was doing already. Probably a lot less cost to her, energy-wise, than a direct healing.

  I realized the kiddo had done this instinctively and had probably nearly burnt herself crispy the way Vivian had. This was her way of still helping. I’d have to talk to her later and compare notes, but now was not the time.

  “Where is the empress?” a mage asked from the back of the group.

  “Probably looking for Vassago,” Rose said, “Bossman here plugged the bitch before Vivian and Kiersten hit her with their combined powers.

  “Where’s her body?” another asked.

  They seemed too eager. Almost like they were forcing themselves to be excited. That was when I remembered Vassago’s words to me at the casino: the council was lousy with turncoats.

  “I don’t know, down by the road, look for the blood splatter and the smell of burnt hair,” I told him snappily.

  Half the group broke off, and Rasmussen gave me a long look and then turned to Vivian. “Are you going to be ok?”

  “Pushed too much. Damned circle Wright had us use took everything I had and then some. It worked though. Never thought about conjuring a circle sideways,” she said with a laugh that was bordering on the hysterical.

  “That’s why it took so much energy,” I told her, “it had nothing to ground it.”

  17

  Rasmussen took Vivian and Zania with him back to New York, and Khrystiana’s body wasn’t found, but they did find blood and flesh from when my runed bullet had gone clean through her. Mages could do a lot with blood, and they were eager to get back to NYC to get to work on it. I was sitting on the ground, in front of the arches, with my pack.

  “JJ, how are you feeling?” I asked him.

  The rogue alpha was in human form again, as was everyone else, but he was laying back, his head resting on Dana’s lap. She looked ready to fall over and sleep herself. Luke was laying on his side, drawing in the dirt with a stick and looked up when I spoke.

  “I’m fine, going to need to eat a cow or three soon though,” he said with a yawn. “It’s Luke who took the worst of it.”

  “Luke?” I asked, turning to him.

  He pointed at his leg. It was streaked with dried blood, his shorts only covering parts of his leg, “Healing up good, but I’m a lot older than the pup there, and it works faster for me.”

  “Want to introduce me to the rest of the pack?”

  “Alpha Wright, this is Bobby Jo and Bobby Lu Winston.”

  “Twins?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” “Yes,” they chorused and then looked at each other. Bobby Lu was probably the girl, and she stuck her tongue out at her brother. “And that’s Earl,” they pointed to the quiet man who sat a little back from the group.

  “Nice to meet you, Bobsy twins and Earl,” I said, tipping an imaginary hat. “Thank you. I didn’t mean to bring the demons here, but I didn’t have a lot of options and needed to get them away from people.”

  “We survived a beatdown from an evil mage and two greater demons. I’ve never seen them with my own eyes before,” Luke said. “I’m not crowing victory because we all got our asses kicked, but we should have been dead.”

  “Yeah, those ladies working with me really came through,” I told them. “I know we’ve had our differences with Vivian before, but I’ve forgiven her, and I’m asking you all do the same.”

  “I was wondering,” Luke said, “But then I saw her standing beside you, toe to toe with big evil, even if she smelled like fear.”

  “Yeah, she had a come to Jesus moment I think.”

  Dana made the sign of the cross because it was a habit, I did the same as did one or two others.

  “Now, I don’t know if my shot hurt Khrystiana badly, because if she got back to Vassago to heal her fast enough, she could be right back out here.”

  “We’re too banged up to do more than slow them down while you get away,” JJ said seriously.

  “I’m feeling the same way,” I admitted. “I have to get some food and some sleep in me. What would the pack like to do? I have a bunker in the mountains of Utah, I can shelter us there until this passes?”

  “No offense,” Luke said, “but I’d rather sleep under the stars and keep tempting fate. If we leave, we could lose our territory and hunting grounds.”

  Others murmured their agreement, “I just wanted to make the offer,” I told them, “and you know JJ has his own place in my Utah territory, you’re always welcome to join me in my cabin or bunker.”

  “Thank you,” Dana said seriously, running her hands through JJ’s hair, picking out dried and crusted blood from his fight.

  “I’d like to stick here for a day or two, or whenever you’re ready to go kick some ass again,” JJ said.

  “I can do that,” I told him, “Just do me a favor; I’ll have to gate into the warded stone room. Leave the rock off a crack so somebody can hear me, otherwise, I have to drive out here in my Jeep. With Kiersten dead…”

  “She was a good mage, even if she was a bit of a cougar,” Rose said from my front pocket, pulling herself to a standing position, so her head poked out the top.

  She’d been sleeping off the battle, and pushing her magic through me had wiped her out.

  “You are so totally going to be a cougar when you grow up,” I teased her.

  “Oh shit, look, the faerie is blushing!” Bobby Jo said, pointing.

  “I am not, shut up!” Rose screamed back.

  “Don’t make her glitter bomb you,” JJ murmured, “Or pix your balls. I’ve seen her do that and oh boy, does it look like it hurts. There’s this dude named Nobbin—”

  “JJ,” I said, making a dismissive gesture, “Are you all set for food? One of you want to gate back with me to get supplies and drive the Jeep back here?”

  “We’re all set, Alpha,” Bobby Lu said quietly.

  “What kind of supplies?” Earl asked suddenly.

  “I don’t know. Food, water?”

  “We got those aplenty here, Alpha,” Earl said sitting down, “But if you run across some good scotch…”

  “I’ll put that on
the list,” I assured him.

  “And I’d like a bottle or two of honey,” Rose said, still staring daggers at Bobby Jo.

  “You staying here?”

  “Naw thought I’d head back with you, but I might be scarce. I need to do some outside stuff, recharge my batteries. You know what I mean?”

  “I do. Ok, I’m headed out. Uh… you know how to get in touch with me?” I asked.

  “The pack has several cell phones stashed here,” Dana told me.

  “And I had your number memorized now and saved on my phone,” JJ finished.

  “Ok, my battery has been out of mine so it wouldn’t get fried by being around the other Mages. I’ll get it plugged in and booted. Probably won’t be in touch until tomorrow or the day or two after if I don’t hear from you first.”

  “Sounds good boss,” JJ said yawning again, “Dana and I have some—”

  “No, just no,” Rose said, “don’t say it.”

  “Plans to make?” he finished finally.

  “What do you mean?” I asked him.

  “Vegas, I was serious. I want this to be legit, Dana and I.”

  The girls went Awwwwww. Luke, Bobby Jo and I rolled our eyes, but nobody was going to give him grief about wanting to marry her right away. Since I’d come into their life, it had been a nonstop roller coaster of danger and death. In all honesty, I didn’t understand why they’d want me to stick around. I was what Carl would call a shit magnet.

  “All right guys, I’m out of here,” I said, standing and brushing the back of my pants off.

  “Bye,” “Later,” “See you soon,” was said all around, and I touched the gate charm for my bunker and stepped through the gate.

  “Boss, can I—”

  “Yes, you need me to get it down for you?” I asked her.

  “I don’t want much. Half a thimble full?”

  I walked to my kitchen area and got the honey bear out of the cupboard. Usually, Rose would down a honey packet from the deli and be drunk for hours and hours. Half a thimble full was maybe… half of that? If? I looked around for what to pour it in, and in the end, I got a paper plate down and squeezed a small dab on it.

  “Let me find you a spoon or—”

  “It’s okay, boss, you’re tired.”

  I was.

  “Ok, is it fine if I put the lights on the timer?” I asked her.

  “Yeah, sure. I just want something to help me sleep,” she said.

  “Ok,” I told her and walked over and hit the toggle.

  I was hungry, but more than anything, I was tired. Drained. I took off my coat and tie, stripped out of my shirt and, as I was taking my pants off, I remembered my phone. I took it out and then took the battery from the other pocket, mating them together before turning on the phone. I needed a shower, I was gritty, dirty, dried blood on the side of my leg. I needed to reload my gun, hoping JJ finds the other M&P I dropped near the arch. I needed to call Cindy and update her, I needed to make sure…

  I could barely breathe. It was as if somebody had tied my arms and legs together before putting a gag over my mouth. I’d been shoved into the back of a closet with half a trunk full of clothing tossed haphazardly over me. The banging on the front door; I heard it again. A loud raised voice. It sounded male, but I was little, and just about everyone was a grown up that I had been around, and I could pick out a guy’s voice pretty good.

  I could hear my mom muttering or chanting, I didn’t know which. She was gifted with fire and air, a scary combination. She’d showed me in Arizona once what she could do when I was feeling scared. She could turn on the fire and feed it purified air in a cone that stretched a long ways off. She’d burnt a cactus to the ground to prove her point. I wasn’t so scared for her after that, but I was definitely afraid now.

  I’d never had her use her magic against me before until she did, then she shoved me in here and locked the door after the first knock turned into banging. The doorjamb must have splintered because I heard an explosion and felt a large pulse of magic. I listened to her scream, curse words I wasn’t supposed to use, then her cursing turned into a loud cry.

  I was breathing too hard, too fast. I screamed, or at least tried to, but the world was getting dark around the edges despite the light coming under of the bottom of the door. I struggled to move, but every muscle seemed to be exerting its own pressure and my limbs were bound together. I needed to move, I needed my mother. She needed me.

  A voice murmured, feminine. The voice. I didn’t remember where I’d heard the voice, but it was familiar. I tried to scream again because that voice wasn’t my mothers.

  The closet door opening woke me up. I burst out of there, my heart beating hard, a scream already bursting forth from my mouth.

  “Moooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmmm,” and then I was falling, having tripped over something on the hotel floor.

  A large man caught me, and I hit my head on something hard on his chest as he pulled me to him to prevent me from sprawling. I turned to look and saw my mom’s body. Her head had been twisted sideways by something inhumanly strong, one of her arms torn off, blood spray all around the room. A pentagram had been painted on the wall in what had to have been her blood. I started screaming. Screaming. SCREAMING.

  “Hey, boss,” Rose said as I rolled over, retching.

  “Oh shit,” she said and flew backward.

  I stumbled to the bathroom and got the lid of the toilet open in time, barely. The dream was so vivid, so lucid. I remembered bits and pieces of my mother's death, but none of this, not those details. I threw up until I broke out into a sweat and then my skin turned clammy, chilling me to the bone. When I was done, I flushed and crawled into the shower, pulling my boxers off and sat on the floor of the tub and started the shower.

  “Boss,” Rose said, “I… I can get Cindy if you want?”

  “No,” I croaked and pulled my knees up to my chest, hating how helpless and afraid I used to be, how it was coursing through me now.

  The dream, it brought it all back. I remembered things I hadn’t before. How my mother had been killed. How her blood had been painted on the walls of the hotel room. The cop who’d caught me and ended up having to restrain me until I’d calmed down. I remembered. It had nothing to do with the mental and magical block that had been put on my magic; this was my mind’s own doing. I looked into the futures and saw I wasn’t going to be disturbed by anybody other than Rose continuously asking me questions, so when I finally got the fear and horror I’d long repressed back under control, and in a mentally constructed box, I pulled the curtain aside eight inches.

  Rose flew over and landed on the edge, looking uncomfortable.

  “You look like somebody told you that your dog died and your best friend ran off with your girlfriend.”

  “Thanks, Rose,” I told her, “really bad dream.”

  “Really?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I admitted, “did I wake you up?”

  “Oh not at all, it’s almost lunchtime, I’ve been up for a while. You were just lying there, not moving until you sat up and started gagging.”

  I didn’t say anything, letting the spray hit me in the face, “Thank you for being here,” I told her.

  “That’s what buddies are for,” she said after a pause. “Want to talk about it?”

  “I… You know how Vassago said it wasn’t him who killed my mother?”

  “Yes, I was invisible, but I heard him, he didn’t even see me. Too many people around for him to have used his life sight, I’m guessing.”

  “It wasn’t him. He didn’t lie to me,” I told her. “I remember how my mom died now.”

  “You want to tell me? You don’t have to, I mean, if it’s too difficult…”

  Could I do it? Somebody needed to know in case I died. I would like to tell Cindy, but I was suddenly feeling like being around her was the last thing I should do. It was one thing to fight off an assassin, but now I had a summoner who had pet greater demons on my case. We fought to maybe a d
raw, and Khrystiana got away, probably gating out at the last second before the real ass kicking began. I couldn’t put Cindy in the middle of that.

  “My mother,” I said taking a deep breath and blowing the water from my lips, “she locked me in the closet when she went to fight what I thought had been enforcers. I mean, we’d been running from the council and their police arm, the enforcers, for my entire life at that point.”

  “Yeah?” Rose asked, looking uncomfortable and dodging random water splatters deftly.

  “So she put a limb lock curse on me and stuffed me in the closet, threw half a suitcase of clothing to cover me up and shut me in. I heard somebody or something banging on the door, and then they went through the door.”

  “Somebody strong?”

  “Inhumanly strong. My mom was a fire and air mage, I remember that now. The explosion I heard I think was her using an air-fuel type burst in the room. She’d be fine, but it’d stun or kill any mortal not in her cone of protection, basically. Except, what came after her wasn’t mortal.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  “Her arm was torn off when she was still alive, and I tripped over it... Her blood sprayed across two of the walls and on the bed before her neck was broken. Then she was left on the floor. Somebody heard the boom and called the cops. While they were assessing the scene, my mom's curse wore off, and I came bursting out of the closet.”

  “And you saw all of that,” Rose said softly.

  “And the pentagram the creatures made on the wall with her blood.”

  “Oh, shizzna.”

  “Oh, shizzna,” I agreed.

  “Boss, you didn’t have to tell me, you don’t have to make yourself cry and hurt like this.”

  Dammit.

  “Yes I do, somebody has to know,” I told her.

  “Why?” she asked me softly.