Venni chuckled and patted my head. “Come on, little ninja, let’s go take a closer look at the third floor.”
He reached down and grabbed my hand, tugging me with him as we went back into the building. I stared up at him in surprise. He was more playful than normal. I was used to him being the silent type. He didn’t fall into the stereotype of silent and broody, but he sure knew how to act like a wall in the background sometimes.
The next couple hours passed quickly as we walked the third floor and Venni put in his own thoughts about the security and weak spots. By the end, we’d annoyed about half the admins on the floors and managed to determine a couple routes someone could take once they entered through the window.
If they were to go that way, they would need to go up three more floors to reach the guest suite on the fifth floor. We searched for different ways to do so unnoticed. There weren’t many options. Some of them would be nearly impossible, others, just plain silly. I told Venni they could just phase through the floors. He looked at me like I’d grown a second head.
I just shrugged.
I couldn’t do that, but I imagined someone somewhere had managed it.
“Don’t you dare try to figure it out,” Venni said, reading my expression.
“Try what?” I asked, playing dumb.
His eyes narrowed. “No trying to phase through the walls.”
“Why not? That would be so cool. Why didn’t I think of that before?”
“Probably because you know you’ll just end up stuck and we would have to demolish a perfectly good wall to get you out safely. If you’re still alive.”
I winced at that thought. So wasn’t worth it. I’d rather just teleport. With all the magic in the world, walking through walls was impossible. You could do spells to get rid of the wall or turn into a mist and slip through cracks, but that took time. Teleportation required having been in the place previously. But to walk through a wall, even when you hadn’t seen the other side, was something no one had figured out yet. Otherwise, banks were so screwed.
“When will you have those devices ready to be set?” Venni asked, most likely as an attempt to get my mind off of ghosting through walls. I liked that. Ghosting.
“I need to rest up today after making that potion. I’m going to head home early, drink some tea, and veg on the couch. Maybe order some Chinese food to feel nice and bloated.”
Venni’s lip tilted upward in humor, a clear sign that he wanted to laugh at what I said. I really wanted to see him laugh. Most shifters, like Venni, grew up in packs and packs had what I considered extreme rules and harsh discipline. They sucked the humor right out of the shifters.
“He comes next weekend, right?” I asked.
He nodded.
I bit my lip, readjusting my timeline.
“Tomorrow, create the rest of the devices, set them up on Thursday and do some test rooms. I’ll have to fix up the rooms properly. Did you guys find more rooms?” I asked.
“Yeah, I’ll show them to you on your little map.”
“Good. We’ll work on getting those set on Thursday and Friday. Over the weekend, I’ll fix the wards and adjust them to the people already working here. I’ll base it off the current wards and just add on the other layer. When everyone comes in on Monday, I’ll have it read them so they can come inside without setting off alarms. Then we have a week to smooth out the kinks for the dragon’s arrival.” I nodded to myself. It sounded like a solid plan to me. A daunting one but solid.
Venni followed me back to my lab, where we spent another hour pouring over the map, updating it with the changes we were going to make. Venni was going to get me a meeting with the patrol captain to talk about this, but he seemed hopeful, and it rubbed off of me.
Everything was coming together smoothly.
Chapter 13
I did exactly what I told Venni I would do. I went home, and I vegged out. I ordered takeout, told Ami I was going into hiding, and then turned off my phone, plopping my butt down in my favorite spot of the couch. I grabbed the remote and turned the TV to a channel running a marathon of a new show.
I didn’t order Chinese food like I’d originally planned, but I did pig out on Indian while zoning out to what was happening on the screen. My thoughts kept going back my job and what I was in the middle of doing.
My determination to succeed only grew when I met Abram. I’d met men like him, men who enjoyed putting others down, especially those of the opposite sex. And my instincts told me he was jealous—jealous that the big boss came to me for this assignment, jealous that I gained the trust of those around me to do the job, and jealous that he would never amount to much. He knew his time was coming to an end, and he was lashing out, probably with the help of Jewell to spur him on. I was about ninety percent sure the lady friend who was whispering bullshit in his ear was Jewell.
I’d grown up facing men like Abram all the time. He wouldn’t be able to push me down, even if Davies thought he could. He really wasn’t an issue.
My success would do the talking for me.
The rest of the night passed by too quickly, and I fell asleep content, my body healing and recharging, getting ready for the next few days. Just thinking about what I needed to do was exhausting.
When I woke up the next morning, I was ready to take on the world. I slept through the entire night, something I rarely did, but it really made a difference. I felt full and lively, ready to finish the countdown to the visit.
I turned on my phone and noted the flood of text messages. None of them were urgent, just Ami wanting me to check with her to make sure I didn’t fall into a food coma, and Davies wanted to know the game plan for the day.
I shot off messages to the both, letting Ami know I lived, and asking Davies to meet me at my lab in an hour. I ignored the others, not wanting to deal with them. The rest of them were from people who wanted something from me, and I wasn’t feeling that charitable. Somehow, rumors about me had begun to spread and so did my number. Even after I changed it. Three times. People were coming out of the woodwork to ask me to do special projects for them.
Hell no. I wasn’t about to do anything for people I knew shit about. Most of the messages, they didn’t even introduce themselves and sounded shady as hell. I refused to be responsible for creating something used to kill others. The guilt alone would destroy me.
Life was precious. I’d learned that quickly growing up. I had the power to kill but that didn’t mean I should. Even those who deserved to rot in hell didn’t deserve to die. I was all for pushing them to their limits, especially if they were dangerous, but killing crossed the line for me. I would never do that.
If I was strong enough to kill, then I was also strong enough not to. If they came at me, I knew enough magic to detain them. I didn’t need to get blood on my hands. I had enough issues without having to deal with that on my conscience.
I showered and then headed out, wanting to get to my lab to begin setting up. I would need the magic I was able to conserve so I could finish up with the teleportation devices. I could already tell it was going to exhaust my body.
As I walked into the building, I thought about the way we had to enter and tried to see it as a baddie planning their break in. As an employee, the wards granted me access. As a non-employee, others had to wait at the gate for someone to bring them through.
That was the first obstacle. Getting through the wards unnoticed.
Next were the front doors and the path leading up to them, including the ten cameras. I would need to talk to Henzie to see if he could tweak the equipment pick up on energy signatures on top of everything it already searched for. I was sure he would enjoy the challenge. Going through the front door were what looked like metal detectors, but they sensed far more than a gun or a knife. They checked for glamours and stripped them from people.
The elevators had something similar. They needed an ID to swipe before selecting a floor. The ID only worked after scanning the fingerprint of the person holding it
and even then, they wouldn’t necessarily have access to all the floors.
There was a lot to prevent a stranger from just waltzing through the front door, but the system wasn’t infallible. My job was to get it as close as possible to infallible as I could.
The elevator brought me to my floor, and I held back a smile when I saw Davies already leaning against the wall.
He didn’t notice me right away, and I just enjoyed the moment. I really was a lucky woman, surrounded by so many handsome men. Definitely a perk of my job. Some days, all I had was the eye candy to keep me going. Being a meathead forced the men to remain fit, so many of them had shirts stretching over muscular frames. I didn’t know how Ami did it, working with them all day, every day. They would drive me up a wall.
I’d end up getting in trouble for sexual harassment and no amount of pleading twitchy fingers would help my case. Even humans like Davies were nice to look at. He didn’t have that charge of energy surrounding him like shifters. Someone in his family carried the tall gene because there weren’t many male humans who reached six foot five, but Davies managed to do it while looking good. Some tall humans ended up being on the leaner side, maybe even scrawny looking, all gangly legs, but not Davies.
Hi expression was serious as he stared down at his phone, with none of the humor I was used to seeing on his face. His fingers flew over the touch screen as his eyes narrowed at whatever grabbed his attention. Before me was a serious Davies and it was an interesting comparison to the man who usually came around. Whatever was going on his phone wasn’t good if he looked like that.
“Who are you plotting to murder?” I asked, approaching slowly. He jumped in surprise and scowled at me as he shoved his phone into his pocket.
“Nothing you need to worry about,” he said as he straightened from the wall. “Ready to get to work?” he asked.
“Sure,” I replied and went to the door, going through the motions to open it up. I gave the lab a clinical eye and didn’t notice anything weird.
Davies followed behind as I walked into the room and dug out the map. He helped me roll it out and then paused to take note of the different markings. There were more than when he last saw it.
“What do you have going on?” he asked.
I explained which marks were what, like the rooms I planned to take over to detain the baddies or where to lay different traps.
“Do you think all these traps will work?” Davies asked.
I shrugged. “The ones making it through the barrier won’t be amateurs. They’ll be powerful, so I expect to only capture a couple, hopefully. The real work will be in capturing the ones able to make it inside the building. They’ll be the really dangerous ones. They won’t pity us, they’ll just go for the kills.”
Davies nodded his understanding and I spent the next hour going over the plans with him, enjoying how he was able to look over something and know it wasn’t right.
He cracked some jokes, but I had to admit that serious Davies was definitely interesting.
“Okay,” I said. “Out.” I made a shooing motion with my hand.
He opened his mouth to say something but then closed it and nodded. “Have fun and don’t get hurt again, or I’m going hunting.”
I wanted to roll my eyes so badly, but forced myself not to. Venni was rubbing off of Davies. If they weren’t careful, Davies would begin to think he was a shifter. He could already almost growl at people, though he couldn’t quite get the sound right.
I focused on his rump as he walked out the door. Though Davies was more of a jokester, I had deep respect for him. He worked in a field surrounded by the supernatural and knew how to hold his own. He was a force to be reckoned with, he just liked to hide it.
Once Davies left, I turned on the do not disturb light. I didn’t want a repeat of the other day. Taking in a deep breath, and slowly releasing it to calm my beating heart, I turned to my lab. I was nervous, because last time I’d done this I’d gotten hurt, but I was also excited. Excitement always coursed through my body when it knew what I planned to do.
I went over to the safe I kept in the wall and pulled out all the small devices, carefully lining them up on the bench in rows of five. My hands felt like they were burning, but I reminded myself they were only phantom pains. Nothing was wrong with me. I needed to do this.
And when had I ever been afraid of magic? Very rarely did it put me into a paralyzing shock. Maybe only twice when I was a kid, still learning control.
One time, I nearly killed a foster sibling because he’d made me angry—over something I couldn’t even remember—and I had lashed out. He was sent to the hospital, and I was sent to a new home, forced to deal with the guilt alone. The second time, a girl said something that hit a little too close to home and my anger had gotten the best of me again. She didn’t go to the hospital, but I did get a beating by my foster father and then sent away.
In their eyes, my magic was something to abhor. No child should have magic, especially not as powerful as mine. And yet, the system left me alone to deal with the problem, only coming around whenever I messed up to bring me to a new home.
I rubbed at the small ache in my chest. I had a lot of issues I needed to work through. I knew that. I could own that. I just didn’t know how, and at this point in life, I didn’t know if it was worth it or not.
Sighing, I went over to my radio and turned it on, letting the music play softly in the background. The music calmed me as I stood over the bench and for the second time, tried doing some heavy magic. The process began with a soft humming, the temperature of my body increasing. Magic woke and swirled in the pit of my stomach, ready to get to work. I could feel its eagerness press against my skin, demanding attention.
All in due time.
I released a slow breath and the magic flood through me, stretching against my skin, making the shape of my body its own. My temperature spiked as the humming grew louder, my body burning. My arms twitched, filling with magic as it found the outlet. It impatiently waited for me to release the gate so it could leave me.
I held it all back and built up the image that I wanted and infused the magic with it. Carefully and slowly, I hovered my hands over the devices, holding tightly onto the image I wanted. My muscles went through spasms, tightening and then loosening back up, matching the pulse of the magic. My limbs grew heavy, but I forced them to lower, my hands only inches away from the devices but still not touching. The air around my stirred, all the particles in the air sensing that I was doing something and it wanted to be a part of it. It pressed against me, demanding to be used. Tempting, so tempting. I had to fight back, push it away from me.
My jaw tightened as I raised mental blocks before the excess magic overwhelmed me. Heat filled my veins and I gritted my teeth against the pain as I constructed what I wanted to happen.
I wasn’t ready yet.
I imagined moving the person they captured. I pictured that person locked in their space, unable to get out, the ward only malleable enough to let air in and out.
Everything felt right and the magic reached for the devices, knowing their purpose and excited to fulfill it.
Now. I was ready now.
I lowered my hand and brushed against one of the devices. That’s all I needed to do. It felt like a thousand volts went through my body, but not painfully. My body stiffened, locking into place as all the magic I had gathered jumped from within and went into the device. It didn’t stay there though. The magic flowed outward, jumping to the other devices in a waterfall effect, filling up one before going to the next one. This continued until they were all filled.
My arms flopped to my sides, useless now. I felt empty, hollow, without the magic there to hold me up. I slouched backward, stumbling until I hit the wall a few feet behind me. My body sagged, and I used the hard surface as a crutch.
The exhaustion nearly sent me to the floor, passing out. I’d done that a couple of times. Using a lot of magic in a short amount of time was exhausting for everyon
e, including me. Just because I had a deep reserve of magic, didn’t mean I could use it all at once. My body could only siphon so much magic before overloading. If I weren’t careful, I could hurt myself or even those around me.
I looked at the devices and knew I’d done it right. Everything about them felt right.
I slowly pulled myself together before pushing off the wall and walking back to the bench. I picked up one of them. They weighed slightly heavier, but not noticeably. They were warm to the touch.
Now I just needed to get them set up.
I turned off the do not disturb light then pulled out a duffle bag, carefully putting the freshly made traps in, nearly filling the bag.
A knock sounded, and I went to the door to see Venni standing there with a bag in his hands.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“It’s late, and you need food,” he said.
I frowned then looked at the clock. I gaped in shock, not realizing so much time had passed. It was late afternoon and that had taken a lot longer than expected.
“I thought so,” Venni said, pushing past me and into the room.
The scent of fries tickled my nose.
“I got you a grilled chicken sandwich and fries,” Venni said, placing it on the corner my desk. “The other two will be here soon.”
“Not soon, but right now,” Davies said, grinning, carrying his own lunch bag. Alijah came in behind him with one as well.
“Picnic in the lab,” Davies sang. I pointed to a table for him to use. He grabbed a disinfectant cloth and wiped down the bench before putting his food down.
“We figured you most likely hadn’t eaten yet so we’d do a late-lunch meeting,” Venni explained.
“That’s fine,” I said, unable to hide the tiredness.
All three paused what they were doing to stare at me. I gave them a shaky smile.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to sound so grouchy. I finished making the traps, and we just need to set them now.”
“Awesome!” Davies cheered before taking a huge bite out of his burger and groaning.
Magical Intentions Page 12
