by Laury Falter
His kiss was slow, deep, and seductive. When it ended, he kept his hands on my hips, pressing firmly, as if he didn’t want to let me go.
“Now I’ll be euphoric,” he whispered, genuinely content, without a hint of playful humor behind it.
Death being a sore subject for me, I forced myself to pull away from him and finish dressing, believing I was concealing my thoughts well enough. But he caught on.
Gently taking my elbow and drawing my attention back to him, he said, “If it happens, you won’t be the cause of it.”
I wasn’t so sure. We were going into a fight, and in chaos the conflict is never certain. While I knew I would never willingly hurt him, there was the fear of making a mistake, thinking he was a Vire instead of…I didn’t allow my thoughts to continue any further, feeling the bile churn in my stomach at the risk of harming him. Giving him a halfway encouraging smile, I bent over to slip on my boots – and to avoid his eyes. He remained beside me as I finished dressing, observing me, calculating how he might be able to break down the fear that was so well entrenched in me.
As we were about to leave my room, I realized something was missing. As if my subconscious already knew what it was, my eyes landed on the canvas bag I used for evening classes. Piled inside were the same tools I knew every other one of my classmates wore on their bodies daily. I was the only exception, and an argument could be made that I was one who truly needed to. So, I went about finding hiding places on my body to store my tools, dropping stones into my pockets, pinning talismans inside my jeans, and storing satchels of dried herbs inside my boots.
Once my ensemble was complete, I took a quick look at myself in the mirror again and my breath caught.
I had transformed. My black hair spilled over my shoulders blending in with the inky black clothes I’d chosen to help conceal me in the night sky. My stance was audacious, with my legs straddled and my arms readied at my sides. But it was my eyes that stood out to me, because they reflected resolve. Despite the fact that we were very shortly going to be facing an enemy with enough influence and power to round up an entire city in one night. Regardless of the fact this enemy wanted me dead since before I was born, I radiated potency, strength, and readiness.
I thought Jameson, who was still watching me, summed up my metamorphosis perfectly.
“You look…” he hesitated while trying to find the right description, grinning mischievously. “Defiant.”
I released a laugh through my nose, recognizing that was exactly how I felt.
“Sartorius would agree with you,” I said, starting for the door as Jameson quietly chuckled in awe and stepped up behind me.
Miss Mabelle, however, appeared in the doorway and intentionally blocked my path.
I suddenly felt more rebellious, and I was about to insist she move out of my way, when her free hand, the one not leaning on the top of her cane, swung out from her hip. “Yu’ll be needin’ this,” she implied, leaving no room to question her.
In her hand, resting between her meaty fingertips was a belt. Made of black leather, loops and pouches hung at various spots around it while the buckle was sturdy platinum with a quartz crystal embedded inside it.
Our eyes met as I took it.
“Thank you,” I said, genuinely appreciative.
She nodded stepping through the door long enough to take the rope from Jameson and slip it into a pouch hanging from my right hip.
“Now,” stated Miss Mabelle, “yer ready.”
“What’s in the other pouches?” I asked.
“Whatever ya decide on puttin’ in them,” she replied, hinting that this wasn’t a belt she was lending. It was mine to keep. It was the first object she ever gave to me personally, rather than hiding it until it was found and somehow that made the belt more important.
We left the house seconds later, exiting through the back door, and began our hunt for a needle in a haystack.
The bayou was hundreds of square miles and thick with brush. Finding the encampment was not going to be easy. Jameson, with his logic always engaged, suggested we stay in the area closest to New Orleans, because the Vires without levitation abilities would need to be in proximity in order to perform their duties. With that in mind, I kept us soaring over the edge of the bayou. The trees were less dense, which matched the topography of where Ms. Veilleux’s coven performed their rituals. If we could find that spot then the encampment would be directly across the river.
I kept us moving as fast as possible without risking the chance we’d miss it. Still, at some point, Jameson waved me to a halt, and I suspended us over a cluster of decaying cypress trees.
“We need to use the darkness to our benefit,” he stated. “Without electricity, they’ll be using fire to light the encampment.”
Suddenly, I realized my error. “We need to go higher.”
“Exactly,” replied Jameson.
“Why higher?” asked Miss Mabelle, the end of her sentence increasing in pitch as I unexpectedly shot us upward.
“Because,” I shouted over my shoulder. “We’ll be able to distinguish the encampment lights better from farther away.”
The benefit to the Vires having set their encampment so far from civilization was that they would stand out in the swath of darkness. This was also their weakness, and we were about to use it against them. As we soared higher, I hoped it wasn’t their only weakness.
I brought us to a stop just below the flight level of traveling aircraft. The air was denser up here so we only had a few seconds to survey the world below.
To our left was the expansive city of New Orleans. Directly in front of us was the Gulf Coast. To our right was nearly absolute darkness stretching for miles. The bayou is larger than I imagined, I realized, and my anticipation dissolved.
Then, a section of land in front of us reflected a faint glow with flecks of light peeking from beneath the trees which meant fire was being used. It was a large area, though.
“No,” declared Jameson, following my line of sight. “That’s the village.”
“Right,” I muttered. The Vires’ primary prison in this province.
“There,” he said, suddenly, pointing down and to our right.
I could see why I’d overlooked it the first time. While brighter than the village, it was much smaller, closer to the size of a pencil dot.
Immediately, I dropped us toward it, the details of the encampment becoming clearer the closer we came.
Beside the river where we’d first seen it, a clearing had been made, so fresh that the tree stumps continued to bleed sap. The area held several walled, open-roofed structures which seemed to be designed to corral. The roof was constructed of slats – supposedly to keep those with levitation abilities inside – but it allowed us to examine what they held. Their contents were both brazen and disturbing.
They held people. Lots of them.
Judging from the blackened scars along a few of the walls, attempts had been made to catch their wood cells on fire. Apparently, the Vires had brought an end to them, and very likely punished the culprits to prevent them or anyone else from trying again. Those, I figured, were the ones lying down.
Only one cell seemed out of the norm. It was set off to the side, nearest the river, and there were fewer people inside.
Just as I settled us to the ground behind a small mound along the water’s edge, I caught sight of Estelle’s bright purple shirt, which, in my excitement, caused me to drop my passengers. We landed with a thud against the thick muddy embankment, grunting from the force.
“Oops,” I whispered, as we picked ourselves up.
“Oops?” commented Miss Mabelle but didn’t finish her thought. She probably realized this wasn’t the time and place for a reprimand, and that was just fine with me.
While our housekeepers wiped the sludge from their faces and arms, they gave me a firm glare but didn’t retort. They knew, being this close to the encampment, the less conversation the better. Without having to say it, we all knew tha
t any noise should strictly be kept to a bare necessity.
We crouched or squatted into a huddle beneath the mound’s crest, out of sight, our feet almost entirely disappearing in the mud while we quietly discussed our options.
“They’re in their own cell,” I said.
Jameson nodded, having seen them, too.
“They aren’t sequestering them,” he said, tensely, peering over his shoulder to ensure we couldn’t be seen.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “What does that mean?”
“They weren’t building an encampment. They were building holding cells. That’s why the Vires didn’t only come after our families. They came after the entire city.”
“But why?”
“Bait,” Jameson said, plainly. Only the twitch of his lip told me that he was feeling the same anger as I did.
“Because they knew we’d follow them here,” I concluded, ominously.
“Right,” Jameson said. “The Sevens haven’t been able to find a justifiable cause to detain us so they’re trying to get rid of us permanently without any witnesses left to contest their version of the story. Now that our families and neighbors are here, the Vires will want to erase any possibility of anyone getting out.” He paused, delivering a terrifying conclusion, one I’d already come to. “They’re not expecting their prisoners to leave here alive.”
My reaction came on quickly, and so intense I couldn’t have stopped it if I tried. I became enraged.
“The guards,” I hissed. “We need to incapacitate them.”
He stared back at me, confused. “Did you see any?”
That question made me hesitate. Thinking back, I realized that I hadn’t.
“Why wouldn’t they have any guards watching their prisoners?” I asked, dumbfounded.
“I don’t know,” he muttered, shaking his head.
Miss Mabelle, who was squatting beside Miss Celia so her dress was piled in the mud below her knees, had been watching our exchange until now. “Sounds ta me like it a trap.”
“Could be,” Jameson deliberated. “We won’t know until…” He spun around, creeping up the mound to peer over it. A second later, I joined him, and we assessed the situation.
“No one’s walking,” he said, leading up to something.
“They aren’t talking, either,” I noted.
Having recently become familiar with both of these experiences, Jameson and I could recognize the signs, and I immediately sympathized with them.
Being suddenly impaired by blindness causes you to remain still or risk injuring yourself. Worse, sounds intensify, leaving you jumpy at the slightest movement. And being unable to speak, means you can’t call out for help. It was no wonder this was one of the Vires’ most preferred casts. It completely shut the victim off from the outside world, while still ensuring they were able to abide commands.
I now understood why there weren’t any guards at the encampment. They didn’t need them once their cast took hold against the prisoners.
“I think it’s safe,” I said, preparing to cross over the mound.
“No, Jocelyn.” Jameson’s hand came down on my arm. It was gentle but firm. “I’m sorry.”
Knowing he would never support a decision that would allow me to enter any type of threat, I conceded. “You’re right.”
“Thank you,” he said, proudly, and slipped over the mound.
I gave him a head start of a few seconds and then followed him, preparing for a Vire ambush, as well as Jameson’s highly-probable lecture for endangering myself.
Jameson had been correct. I saw no Vires milling around or standing guard. In fact, the only movement I saw was Jameson, as he reached our families’ private holding cell.
Sneaking closer, though, something struck me as odd. A murmuring rose from the crowd, their attempts to speak intermingling until they created a quiet hum. It took me a second to understand what it was they were doing. When the answer came to me, my heart hurt for them. They were humming casts, using the only tool they had against their captors.
As Jameson neared them, our families heard him and turned their heads in his direction, readying themselves against an attack by a Vire. As they prepared, the anger that I’d been able to stifle since arriving flared as I saw every one of their eyes had turned cloudy and rolled upward.
“Oscar,” Jameson whispered, arriving at the cell’s bars, because he was the closest.
Oscar blinked back surprise and stumbled toward Jameson’s voice. At the bars, they clasped hands and I knew they were beginning to channel. Having reached Jameson, and not wanting to be left out of the loop, I grasped Jameson’s hand. He turned, but not in retaliation, because a Vire’s surprise attack wouldn’t involve holding his hand. His eyes widened in frustration at me, but he didn’t have a chance to speak because Oscar was already channeling.
His voice raced, telling me he was either anxious about being held captive or about the Vires’ return. It was probably both.
“They brought in everyone. The entire city. Then they threatened we would each be punished, unless someone confessed to killing their associates. Neither of our families has said anything yet.”
Right then, I realized that the Vires had little interest at all in finding their associates’ murderers. They never had. Everything they had done to date was with a single goal in mind, using their associates’ deaths to get to us. The attack on the French Quarter shops, the belief that the tools found in the swamp were the Caldwells, the imprisoning of innocents had all been orchestrated to catch us.
Then a familiar voice spoke from behind us, one that made my skin crawl.
“Welcome,” said Sartorius. “We were wondering when you would arrive.”
19 ENCOUNTER
Sartorius’s greeting told me that he wasn’t alone, and far worse, he knew to expect us. Before turning around, I predicted an entire squad had been assembled, but I was wrong. It was an army.
They were all present, too. Theleo. Turcott. Behind them were over a hundred Vires, each wearing an olive-green moldavite stone on the lapel of their black uniforms.
Miss Mabelle and Miss Celia were being held by four of them, off to the side, their faces stiff and as emotionless as concrete.
Sartorius stood in front, dressed in a different business suit – this one a grey pinstripe. It looked like he wore only his best, because he donned two moldavite stones for this occasion – one on each cufflink.
“Sartorius, all of this for us?” asked Jameson with a sweep of his hand across the forces standing in front of us, his expression and manner buoyant.
Sartorius smiled casually. “You really shouldn’t take credit for anything, Jameson.” The unspoken insinuation was that he simply wasn’t good enough, which caused my anger to swell.
“He’s a better man than you’ll ever be,” I seethed, my lips sneering. “And the truth is, Sartorius, you know it. That’s why you’re after us.”
His retort was a mocking laugh and a frighteningly accurate statement. “We are after you because you have killed two Vires.”
He waited for a response, and after my silence confirmed his assumption, he smiled knowingly.
“That sort of crime does not go unpunished.”
I realized the encampment had fallen silent. They were all listening to us.
“I would have believed you if you had detained us yesterday for that reason. Instead, you merely attempted to kill us.”
While I knew I was provoking him, I wanted to send a message to the prisoners, enlightening them that we had survived an attack by a Seven and lived to tell about it. And if we could do it, so could they. This was precisely what The Sevens feared, so it was no surprise to me that Sartorius didn’t react. He was busy calculating his next move.
Nonchalantly, Jameson took my hand in an expression of protectiveness as we waited for Sartorius.
Behind Sartorius, I saw Turcott’s eyes narrow and Mrs. Gaul shift to a readied stance. Theleo, however, remained stationary, his e
xpression indicating nothing but attentiveness.
When Sartorius spoke next it was below his breath and so quiet I could barely hear him, but this did not conceal the hatred in his tone.
“You believe you will triumph. You think by converting these people’s beliefs they will join you and turn against us. But you fail to take into account one factor,” he continued, his voice softening to a faint whisper, as if he was telling a scary story to a child. “By the time the sun rises and a new day begins, none of them will be alive any longer.”
I wanted to tell him he was wrong, that we had defeated him before and we would do it again. But from my peripheral vision, the sea of black and olive green kept me silent. It wasn’t the feeble wooden structures keeping everyone imprisoned. The Vires were the actual wall containing us, and they seemed insurmountable.
As if Sartorius could see me processing this, he straightened with a gleam in his eyes.
This was it. The Sevens were about to have their greatest desire fulfilled. Our family and friends, after being used as bait to lure us here, would suffer the same fate as us. They were liabilities to The Sevens now. They couldn’t witness our deaths and live to tell others. It would cause upheaval throughout the provinces – the very thing The Sevens worked so hard to avoid. No, they would die with us.
My heart began to pound harder in my chest and my muscles stiffened, because, while I didn’t care so much about myself, I was terrified at being unable to protect Jameson…or our families…or everyone.
Truthfully, my death – and mine alone – would be the best resolution. The Sevens would finally have their peace of mind, knowing their future had been permanently altered for the better, and Jameson’s life would be preserved, because I wouldn’t be around to end it.
“No,” Jameson’s voice shouted through my head, having read my thoughts. But it was too late. I was already pulling my hand from him and stepping forward.
“Take me, Sartorius. You only need one of us. Take me, and let everyone else go.”
