You really think so?
Yes, I do.
But do you think our plan would work?
I don’t know, Selena replied. I thought long and hard on all that has been done and said. Truly, this foe we face is incredibly powerful. But if he works through intermediaries, it might not be for the reasons Mr. Russo had said.
And what reasons could those be then? Emily remembered Mr. Russo giving a ton of reasons.
That he loves the fun of it, Selena offered. That may be part of it. A little part of it. But I don’t think that’s enough to make him stay his blade. Maybe he’s not ready. Maybe he doesn’t want to get his hands dirty.
Or maybe he knows that if he’s seen by Dad or someone else, his true identity will be revealed, Emily wondered to her counterpart.
Remember your vision?
Emily remembered it all right. She’d had a vision of the evil rove. It wasn’t Gregory Alfred. It was someone else. Someone more ancient. More evil. She hadn’t seen his face, because he’d been hidden by a cloud of darkness.
The evil rove didn’t want anyone to know his identity. It was probably because this was the secret to his power. The moment they knew his identity—the moment they had the information they needed—they could kill him. As Emily now knew, there was a lot of power behind a name.
And yes, Emily wouldn’t fuss about killing this evil rove. He was responsible for her grandfather’s death. He was responsible—truly responsible—for her mother’s death. He had to pay with his life.
I remember the vision, Emily replied. He’s hiding his face. That’s why he’s using intermediaries. We need to find out who he is. Marion could tell us.
I don’t think so, Selena replied, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask.
What do you think, then?
I think our best bet is your father.
Dad? Emily was seriously puzzled.
“Emily!” Joanna blurted.
Emily glanced at Joanna, startled.
Joanna arched an eyebrow. She nodded at the phone in Emily’s hand and said, “Today.”
Oh, right. She had probably been been staring off blankly for quite some time while she conversed with Selena.
She turned her attention back to the phone and dialed the number. Then she put it on speaker and held her breath. Soon, the call connected, and she heard ringing.
Emily’s heart rate increased.
A voice answered on the fifth ring. “Hello?”
Emily gasped at Marion’s voice. For whatever reason, even though she knew exactly who she was calling, she hadn’t really expected him to answer. She glanced, uncertain, at Joanna, who gave her a thumbs-up and motioned for her to continue.
“Who’s this?” Marion said again.
“It’s Emily Davies.” And for good measure, she added, “Don’t hang up. Please.”
There was a tense silence. The only thing she could hear was Marion’s light breathing and the sound of a whiny voice in the distance. Emily guessed it was Alice—throwing a tantrum.
“What do you want?” Marion asked, his voice guarded and tight.
“I’m sorry for what happened last time,” Emily started, somewhat unsure of how to proceed.
“What do you want?” Marion asked again, sounding impatient.
Emily looked to her friends for help, but none of them spoke. They only encouraged her to go on.
“I need to see you,” Emily sputtered.
“You have a lot of nerve calling me on my cell.” Marion’s tone was nothing short of loathsome. So sharp, it cut into Emily’s heart unhindered.
“I—” Emily stuttered, fighting the unexpected urge to cry. She firmed her voice and frowned. “I need to see you now.”
Marion waited for a few seconds before replying. “Why do you want to see me?”
“I can’t say it over the phone, Marion.” Emily was gaining her confidence by the second. “But it’s important. I need to see you.”
“How do I know I can trust you?” It was a reasonable question. “How do I know this isn’t a setup?”
Emily was about to reply, when someone called Marion’s name. He put the call on hold immediately.
Emily gasped.
“You’re doing great,” Rina praised.
“Yeah, one more push, and he’ll agree to meet,” Michael encouraged her.
Emily glanced at Joanna.
Joanna gave her a double thumbs-up this time.
Emily didn’t get a chance to reply before Marion came back to the line. “Look, Emily, I don’t know what you’re trying to achieve here. Maybe you think you can—”
“I need to see you, Marion,” Emily said again, cutting the boy off. “And I need to see you now. It’s not a trap. I’m sneaking out of the—” She caught herself, before revealing her location.
“Safe house?” Marion finished for her.
Emily remained silent. She looked at her friends again. They all looked terrified. Did Marion know where they were?
Don’t panic, Selena soothed. Safe house doesn’t mean he knows where you are. Safe house is a very common term.
Marion let out a heavy groan. “If this is about the Russos, it was nothing. Don’t feel like you owe me something or that there’s something between us, because there’s nothing. If I see you on the battlefield, I won’t hesitate to capture you and take you to my father. So, Emily, you don’t want to see me. Ever. You don’t want to ever see me, because—”
“Stop it, Marion,” Emily snapped. “I know it’s not nothing. I know. I don’t care what you say.” Her voice was beginning to break. “Now are you going to give me a place and a time, or do I have to walk in the front gate?”
Marion gasped. “No, don’t do that!” The fear in his voice was palpable. He paused for a moment, and then he said, “Meet me at the clinic’s parking lot in one hour. I’d say come alone, but I hear Rina, Joanna, and the warlock with you. So, if I see any other person aside from these three people, I’m gone.”
Emily didn’t respond to his threat. “Clinic’s parking lot. One hour. Got it.”
And the line went dead.
“How did he know we were here?” asked Rina.
“Honey, he’s a trained warlock,” said Joanna. “If he didn’t know we were here, then he wouldn’t be a really good one, would he?”
“I think the better question is, why does he think the four of us coming as a group is not a threat to him?” asked Michael.
“Maybe because he thinks he can take all four of us put together,” reasoned Emily. “It’s not a far stretch. Joanna and Rina don’t have powers. I’m a fire demon, which might be a little challenge to him, while you’re simply not strong enough to challenge him.”
“Through no fault of my own,” said Michael in his defense. “I only started learning about my powers days ago, and so far, I’ve managed to delude three Alfred kids. I’d say I’m doing well for a new warlock.”
Emily nodded and shrugged. That was a fair point.
“Are we going to address the elephant in the room?” Rina asked.
“Which one?” Joanna quipped.
“What if he sets a trap for us?” asked Rina. “I mean, he could go tell his father, and they could come out together and wait for us there.”
“That’s true,” Michael said, lending his voice to the complaint. “All they need is me and Emily. Marion already knows that we’re both coming out. This could be a chance for them to catch us without a fight.”
“We’ll have to be careful,” Joanna said. “It’s a risky plan. But if it does work, we would have taken a big step closer to winning this thing.”
“It’s nighttime, right?” Emily asked, an idea coming to her mind.
“Yes,” said Rina. “Just past one.”
“Good. I can fly up to ten thousand feet in the air and look from that height to the ground. And I am immune to magic. So I can go ahead of you guys and reconnoiter the environment before you guys come in,” Emily continued. “If I see any sign of trouble, I’
ll inform you ahead of time. That way, we know exactly what we’re walking into.”
Joanna clapped her hands together. “Sounds like a plan.”
13
They went their separate ways—or rather, Joanna and Emily left to their own rooms to change, leaving Michal and Rina alone again. Emily was left to her thoughts, which wasn’t a very good thing. She tried not to fret about Marion. She tried to convince herself this chosen course of action was not, in fact, a bad, bad move.
And she failed.
As she changed into tight-fitting jeans and an oxblood blouse, she couldn’t help but have visions of Marion coming with his family to capture them in the parking lot. She might escape, because she was immune to magic. But Rina and Joanna were her friends. Michael was her brother. She couldn’t allow them to get caught.
If Michael got caught, then she’d have to go in after him or kill herself for the greater good of the world.
That was it. The greater good. Emily didn’t yet know if she could make the ultimate sacrifice for the greater good. And she had promised Joanna she would never do that. But she knew it was a possibility the time would come when she’d have to choose.
Maybe that time is today, she thought to herself as she threw on her black leather jacket over the oxblood blouse.
She couldn’t help but wonder if they were making the right decision. Her doubts rose so high that she fell on her bed, paralyzed by anticipation. She looked at her phone. They had about thirty minutes to get to the parking lot of the town’s clinic. It was a ten-minute drive from the industrial park, but they had agreed to meet in the anteroom in about ten minutes.
She had two minutes left before she had to show up in the anteroom.
Emily considered ratting them all out to her aunt. The success of the plan hinged on secrecy. If Aunt Anastacia found out what they were up to, she would prevent them from going. If Emily made a bunch of noise or sent Aunt Anastacia a message on her phone, the mission would be an instant failure.
Emily toiled with the idea of typing a message and sending it to Aunt Anastacia. It was quick, efficient, and it didn’t point directly to her. Aunt Anastacia would simply ‘happen’ on their little gathering in the anteroom, and everyone would think it was a coincidence. No one would suspect anyone had tipped her off, and they would all be safe until the main plan was executed.
“I know that look,” said a voice in the doorway.
Startled, Emily glanced at the doorway to see that she’d left it slightly ajar. Joanna had managed to open it up and was standing there looking at her.
Emily frowned. “What look?”
Joanna slid into the room. She remained by the doorway, though. She was also wearing a red blouse atop blue jeans—great minds. She had a wary smile on her face as she fixed Emily with a scrutinizing look.
“The one on your face right now.” Joanna folded her arms. “You’re thinking of doing something we’ll all regret.”
Emily chuckled. “I didn’t know you could read me quite that well,” she said, looking away from her friend.
“Now you know,” Joanna replied through a sharp bark of laughter. “What’s this all about?”
Emily looked at her friend again, frowning. “What?”
“Why are you having second thoughts?”
“I don’t know if I trust Marion,” Emily explained. “I mean, we just met him, right? Can we trust him to hold on to his side of the agreement? He could just destroy us all on arrival.”
Joanna shrugged. She clearly didn’t know either.
“Exactly my point,” Emily said. “He looks innocent and all. And he likes me. Maybe. But what if this is all a ploy? What if this is their end goal? To get Marion to make me come out without Aunt Anastacia and the team.”
“But they’re more powerful than Aunt Anastacia and the team combined,” Joanna countered. “They don’t need to resort to these stupid deceptive tactics.”
“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that,” admitted Emily. “Don’t you think it’s weird the Alfreds would make a deal with your parents?”
“The Russos had a great bargaining chip,” Joanna pointed out, unwilling to refer to them as her parents for the time being. “They were the nexus and helped the Alfreds domesticate the people of this town.”
“Yeah, but to what end? Why?” Emily questioned. “Why did they need everyone docile? Why was it a bargaining chip? Why did it matter to the Alfreds?”
Joanna’s face twisted like it usually did when she was deep in thought. Emily watched her go through the possible reasons in her mind.
Next, Joanna shrugged. She had no reply to that one. “Why?” she asked instead.
“There’s no why,” said Emily. “There’s no reason. That’s because it doesn’t matter. They didn’t need to domesticate the city if all they needed to make the spell work were me and Michael.
“They’re magicians, for crying out loud. They can walk into any town and bring the whole place to its knees!”
Joanna’s eyes widened. She was getting Emily’s drift.
“Now that the nexus has been broken,” Emily continued. “Now that the Alfred seniors are awake, why haven’t they rampaged the town?”
“Yeah, why haven’t they attacked?” Joanna pressed the pad of her finger to her bottom lip in contemplation.
“Because they need the town,” suggested Emily. “They only made your parents believe they didn’t need the town so they would agree to save their daughter by giving themselves as the nexus.”
“What’s your point?”
“My point is the Alfreds are conniving,” stated Emily. “They’re smart and sneaky and conniving. We’ve made the mistake of believing that they’re arrogant, brash SOBs who just want to brutally force their way through a problem, but that’s not the case.”
Emily had said all that while holding her breath. She had to pause to suck in air, and then she repeated, “Not the case at all.”
Joanna looked up at the ceiling, lost in thought again. Emily could see it in her eyes—how she weighed those words and thought through Emily’s line of reasoning. Of course, it was all conjecture. She had no hard proof of their motives. All she had was what she had experienced and what she’d heard. Everything had to be taken with a grain of salt and acted upon with caution.
Joanna seemed to arrive at an unsettling conclusion because she snapped her head back to Emily. “That could mean that Marion has been playing you this whole time.”
Emily just nodded. She wanted Joanna to think everything through to the end.
“I mean, if they’re conniving, then maybe they plan ahead. Three steps ahead—even ten.”
Emily nodded, beckoning her friend to go on.
“That could mean that Marion has only been acting.” Joanna spoke faster now. “Even the thing he did at my house, when he let you have my mom, could have been a ploy.”
“Maybe we’re walking into a trap,” Emily agreed, now even more convinced this was the case.
Joanna nodded vehemently. “This way, they get both the Owl and the warlock, and they don’t have to bulldoze the entire town to get it.” Then she laughed. “Talk about ingenuity.”
Emily wasn’t finding this funny because if it was true, then her feelings for Marion were unrequited. It meant he never had feelings for her—he’d played with her feelings. Her fingers tightened and curled into fists at the thought.
Joanna noticed and came over to sit by her side. “Hey, we don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”
Emily knew Joanna was only saying that because they were friends, not necessarily because it was the right thing to do.
“What do you think, though?” Emily asked her. “We need to at least know the name of The Man. If nothing, at least that.”
“You really believe in all this crap?” Joanna asked, stoic all of a sudden.
Emily nodded but then deflated. She hadn’t really made up her mind what she believed. She was just afraid for her friends. If it was a possibility, the
y had to at least be cautious.
“I really don’t know, Jo,” Emily admitted. “I’m just afraid we’ll botch this whole thing.”
Joanna hugged her. “Well, now that we know what the Alfreds might be up to, let’s play along.”
Emily glanced at her friend. “What do you mean?”
“Haven’t you heard?” Joanna turned up the corners of her mouth. “Two can play this game.”
Emily frowned. “You mean cheating?”
“Girl, we aren’t in school. This is literally life or death!” Joanna lifted her hands and gestured around her. “Marion is cheating by playing on your emotions. Let’s turn the tables around on him.”
“It’s going to be dangerous.” Emily bit her lip. “We’re nowhere near as powerful as he is.”
“So we’ll be careful.” Joanna dropped her hands to her sides. “Heck, he might even come without help, thinking he can take us all by himself.”
Emily shifted uncomfortably. “It’s dangerous.”
“Hey, life is dangerous.” Joanna pursed her lips. “There’s nothing safe about fighting a bunch of blood-thirsty roves.”
“Fair point, I guess. This might all be legitimate.”
Joanna patted her on the back. “There you go, Babe. Now come on. Let’s get out of here before your aunt figures out what we’re up to.”
Together, they got up and left the room. Rina and Michael were waiting for them in the anteroom.
Michael was already fuming the moment they came in. He gave them one nasty look, pointed a finger at them, and was about to speak, when Rina held down his arm and whispered something into his right ear. He was instantly pacified.
“He’s a little bit on edge,” Rina explained. “Thinks you want to get us all caught.” Then she nodded toward the other door, where Aunt Anastacia had led Michael in to practice with her.
“Can we get going?” demanded Michael impatiently.
Emily nodded. “Yeah, let’s go.”
The quartet shuffled through the tunnel to the entrance bay. As soon as they were all standing on the annular area, Michael shut his eyes and started chanting.
Born to Raise Hell: The Owl Shifter Chronicles Book Three Page 7
