Which left us at an impasse.
“Maybe not,” Belle said slowly. “He’s familiar enough with the feel of your magic after his attack on us here, but I’m thinking he’s not so familiar with mine.”
“No,” I said automatically. “There’s no way known you’re taking my place.”
“Not your place—Redfern’s.”
“Forgive me from pointing out the obvious,” Blume said, “but you will never, ever be mistaken for Redfern. Not under any light.”
“I might if I’m using a glamour.”
“Can a glamour counter the fact that you’re a six-foot-tall, strongly built woman, and Redfern is at best five-ten and a weed to boot?”
Belle grinned. “If it’s built as divinely as me, yes.”
“He’s going to be layering that clearing with all manner of protection spells,” I said. “Even if the glamour does hold, he’ll sense the presence of magic around you.”
“Yes, but he’ll expect at least some sort of protection around Redfern. He knows you’re not a fool.”
“Neither is he. He might be from the Waverley line of witches, but his use of blood magic has increased the overall potency of his spells,” I said. “It’s likely my magic will be restricted the moment we enter his circle.”
“Yours will be, but there’s a good chance mine won’t—”
“Even if that were the case, your magic alone won’t defeat him—”
“Then we don’t rely on just my magic to defeat him.”
I stared at her for several altogether too-fast heartbeats. “That’s a fucking dangerous step, Belle—”
“I know.” She placed a hand on my arm, a light touch that was meant to be reassuring but failed miserably in its task. “But I also know it could be the only way any of us walk away alive.”
So say the spirits?
Yes. Her mental tone was grim. You’re right—even if our spells did hold up against his assault here, they won’t in that clearing. He’s had time to plan and we’re doing this on the fly. But we have little other choice if we want to save Aiden and defeat this bastard.
I’m betting the spirits are not guaranteeing success.
They never do. But a small chance is better than none.
“I get the distinct feeling I’m missing out on a major part of this conversation.” Blume’s comment was edged with annoyance. “What step is dangerous?”
I glanced at him. “Using the wild magic. Carrying it with me into Waverley’s protection circle.”
Blume blinked. “Is something like that even possible? I thought that stuff could only be controlled and guided, but not ever used.”
“In theory, a strong enough witch—be they of the light or of darkness—can call upon it to boost the strength of their spellwork, but I don’t know of any who have tried and survived.”
And given that, how much more dangerous was calling it into my body going to be? Could human flesh and bone even withstand such a force?
Blume frowned. “Why not? Don’t witches draw from the energy of the world as a matter of course?”
“Yes, but the source of the wild magic is the deeper recesses of the earth. Its volatility is what makes it impractical for spells.” As demonstrated by what had happened to my spell in the cemetery. The presence of wild magic had turned a simple diversion into something far more dangerous.
I rubbed my arms against the chill seeping deep into my bones. That chill wasn’t only fear, but the suspicion that even if I did survive the next few hours, things were never going to be the same for me, magic-wise.
“But why? The source is ultimately the same—the earth and all that lives on and within it.”
“Think of magic as electricity,” Belle said. “If you touch your tongue to a battery, it will at best give you a mild shock. Do the same to a live wire, and it will kill you.”
“And wild magic is the live wire?”
She nodded. “The stuff here is also without the protection of an authorized witch, and that makes it even more dangerous.”
His frown grew. “Why?”
“Because it seems to hold an odd sort of sentience,” I cut in. “We have no idea why, but I suspect it has something to do with Gabe.”
“Impossible. Gabe has a warrant out for his arrest. He wouldn’t be stupid enough to remain within the reservation.”
“That might be true,” Belle said. “But it doesn’t alter the fact that something—or someone—is influencing the magic here, and an authorized witch such as Gabe is the only person who could.”
He shrugged and glanced at his watch. “We’ve under two hours to make arrangements and meet Waverley’s deadline. What do you need from me?”
“Given you won’t bring Redfern out of hiding, we need a photo of him,” I said. “And a set of his clothes.”
Blume nodded. “Anything else?”
“No, but we do need to ensure there’s no one watching this place. If there is, our plan could fail before it even starts.”
“I can take care of any followers.” Blume glanced at Belle. “Although I thought you said there was no one near.”
“There isn’t, but telepathy does have range limits.”
“Then you’ll need to become Redfern out in the forest rather than here, just to be certain no one suspects.” He glanced at his watch again. “I’ll be back in fifteen with the stuff you need.”
Which gave us enough time to make a pot of herbal tea designed to boost strength and clarity, and grab something to eat.
He returned with not only the items we’d requested, but also a black carryall. He didn’t explain the latter and neither of us asked. We simply went into the reading room, locked the door, and then got down to business of not only creating some serious magic, but also some very unmagical vampire impediments.
They might be a last resort, but—if instinct was to be believed—they could also be the difference between surviving and not.
Blume rose as we walked out forty-five minutes later. “I called the rangers while you were in there doing your thing. Tala has assigned two extra people to watch the Redferns, just in case this is a diversion. She and Mac have done a run around the immediate area—there’s no one watching the café.”
“Good.” I glanced at my watch. We were beginning to push it timewise—there was now just under an hour left, and we not only had to get into the forest, but alter Belle’s form and call the wild magic.
And if it didn’t respond, we were going to be well and truly up that well-known creek without a paddle.
“There’s one more thing you both need before you can leave.” Blume reached into the black carryall and pulled out a cell phone, a small black box, and a gun. The latter he held up. “Do either of you know how to use one of these?”
“No.”
“Then we’ll skip that idea.” He placed the gun down then handed Belle the cell phone. “I’ll remotely activate this once you get into the forest. Waverley might ask you both to empty your pockets, but I doubt he’ll think anything of a regular-looking phone.”
“I’m gathering it’s anything but that, then.” She studied it briefly before tucking it into the pack she carried.
“Oh, it is a phone, but it’s one we can remotely access. Through it, we’ll be able to track your location, and hear everything that’s said.” He opened the box and pulled out a rather plain-looking ladies’ watch. “And this is for you, Ms. Grace. It’ll record both video and audio. You just have to activate it by pushing this button here.”
He pointed at the largest of the three buttons on the watch. I undid my own watch and then strapped his on. While it was larger than the one I usually wore, it didn’t look too out of place on my wrist.
I glanced across to Belle. “Ready?”
Her tension echoed through me, but all she said was “Yes.”
We headed out. After I’d locked the door again, Blume headed left while we went right. The night was still and quiet, but the air held an odd note of expectation.
Whether Waverley was so positive of victory this time around that his certainty was breaching the distance between us, or it was simply a product of both my fear and imagination, I couldn’t say.
We quickly left Castle Rock’s well-lit streets for the deeper shadows of Kalimna Park. There was little indication of life in the immediate area—even the crickets were silent.
Once past the outskirts of the park and completely alone, we stopped and swung our packs off. Belle pulled out Redfern’s clothes and quickly changed, while I carefully retrieved the small gemstone we’d attached the glamour spell to from its secure canister and examined it. Belle’s spell formation was seamless, with no faults or fissures that I could see. But the true test would come not on the spell’s activation, but whether it held up against Waverley’s magic.
Belle stuffed her clothes into the pack, tucked it between the exposed roots of an old gum tree, and cast a quick spell so she could find it again later. She pulled off one of her boots—the style of which was basic enough to pass as men’s footwear rather than women’s—and then her sock. I handed her the stone. She placed it underneath a couple of toes and put her footwear back on.
She adjusted her boot a little and then raised a hand and began the activation incantation. As the power of the trees and the earth stirred in response and began to weave through the spell, strengthening it, her form flickered—an effect that reminded me somewhat of a television not quite tuned right. As the spell neared its peak, the glamour rolled up her body, concealing her form under the portrait of another. When it reached the top of her head, the force of the spell faded, becoming little more than a barely noticeable background buzz.
The person who stood in front of me now was a thinly built man with a pockmarked face, sallow cheeks, and receding gray hair. Morris Redfern, exactly as he’d appeared in the photograph Blume had given us.
“Move around,” I instructed.
She turned and walked away several steps. A tree branch tugged at her borrowed shirt, but the glamour didn’t react to either the branch’s encroachment or to her movement. There wasn’t even the slightest shimmer.
“I think this glamour might be one of your best spells ever, Belle.”
“It needs to be to fool Waverley.”
Her voice remained the same—a glamour could only change the perception of appearance, which meant Belle wouldn’t be able to speak once we got into that clearing.
“Your turn now,” she added. “Call the wild magic.”
“Not until we get closer.”
And not just because the less time I had to contain it within me, the better it would be for my survival rate, but because we had no real idea what was going to happen when I did call to it. We really were stepping into uncharted waters in even attempting this.
I pulled the sharpened stakes from the backpack and handed two to Belle. While ash, rowan, oak, or hawthorn were generally accepted as the best woods to use for staking vampires—at least according to wisdom in the book of vampires Belle’s granny had left her—all we’d had on hand was birch. It was generally used in cleansing rituals or to calm emotions, but in the past it had also been ascribed the ability to expel evil spirits.
And evil was certainly an apt description for our vampire.
Belle placed her two under her loose shirtsleeves, holding them in place with the help of two thin rubber bands. I did the same, and then tucked a third one—pointy end up—into the waist of my jeans behind my back.
Which left only a couple of charms, and two warding potions contained in fragile glass. I shoved the charms in my pockets and then carefully slung the pack over my shoulder and continued up the road.
Where it quickly became evident there would be no need to call the wild magic. It was coming to us.
And it was—yet again—very, very angry.
“Fucking hell,” Belle whispered. “It really is aware.”
“Yeah.” I flexed my fingers, trying to ease not only tension but also the odd and unexpected tingle heating their tips. It was almost as if the wild forces were already gathering around them. “The question is, is that sentience coming from the wild magic itself, or from whatever Gabe has done to it?”
She hesitated. “There’s definitely some sort of outside force woven into its fibers, but I’m not sensing it’s specifically male. And surely we would, given wild magic is inherently ascribed as a feminine force.”
“Except that what we’re dealing with here is a rather large and well-developed wellspring,” I said. “So if Gabe did weave some sort of spell into or around it, its presence will be muted by the sheer force that surrounds it.”
“Maybe.” She frowned. “Let’s just hope that whatever the reason, it doesn’t interfere with our plans.”
And if it did…. I firmly thrust the rest of that thought away. I really didn’t want to think of the possible consequences in any way, shape, or form right now.
The darkness grew heavier as the trees closed in on the road, their arching branches inhibiting the moon’s light but not its power. Like the wild magic, it sang through my veins, but it was a power that wouldn’t help us when it came to our confrontation with Waverley. Given he was a witch as much as a vampire, he’d be feeling the moon’s strength as keenly as either of us.
We followed the road for another half a mile or so before instinct stirred and I slowed, looking for the path I’d taken the last two times I’d journeyed up to that clearing. After a few seconds, I spotted it, and headed in. As the shadows deepened to ink, I once again stopped.
The time had come.
I pulled off my footwear, shoved my socks into my boots, and then tied them to my backpack. After digging my toes into the soft soil to both ground myself and to provide a deeper connection with the force I was about to call up, I took a deep breath and simply said, Come to me.
For several seconds, nothing happened. My fingertips continued to burn, but the sentient force that had been trailing us since we’d entered this place neither responded nor retreated.
I flung my arms out and repeated the plea.
It came.
And with such force that I staggered back several steps. All I felt, all I could see, was the energy that poured into me. It stretched the very fibers of my being to the point of unviability, until it seemed inevitable that I would shatter into a thousand different pieces, becoming just a soul locked within the force I had called.
But just as the point of no return loomed, the magic snapped away and I returned to myself. My entire body trembled with physical weakness, but there was nothing weak about the force now residing within me. The sheer weight of it—the sheer power of it—was frightening. It was the fiercest storm ever created, a volcano on the verge of eruption, the heat of the ground under my feet and strength of the forest around us. No human was ever meant to contain this sort of power. No human was ever meant to control it.
And it was in me.
A part of me.
And as angry as all fuck.
At Waverly. At what he had done. At what he was now doing.
I had control, but I had to wonder for how long. The wild magic—or whatever was causing the cognizance we were sensing within it—wanted to erase his presence from not just this reservation, but from the world itself.
But the wellspring could be irrevocably stained by such an action—and that was the one thing we desperately needed to avoid.
I took a deep breath that did little to ease the growing fear and trepidation, and glanced around at Belle.
Her face was pale and her expression filled with a mix of awe and fear. “Your eyes… they’re glowing silver.”
“It shouldn’t be a problem, given I’ve the coloring of a blueblood and he hasn’t seen me. I’m only surprised the rest of me isn’t glowing.” The words came out scratchy—harsh. My throat was raw and burned, and I had a very bad feeling the rest of me would soon be in a similar state if I didn’t quickly release the wild magic. “We’d better go.”
She
nodded. I turned and led the way. Despite the utter darkness, I could see as clearly as if it were day. Our progress was faster than any other time I’d come through here, simply because no trees or shrubs snagged at us—the branches simply drew back as we approached, giving us an unhindered path to follow.
The wild magic was ensuring we reached the clearing as quickly as possible.
The ground once again began to slope upwards and up ahead, flickering through the trees, was a warm, golden light. The teasing hint of smoke on the air told me it was from a fire rather than from a wisp or even magic. That suggested he was concentrating all his endeavors on containment and whatever other spells he might have waiting for us.
Ready? I asked silently.
As I’ll ever be. Her mental tone was flat, but I could feel both her fear and determination. If I don’t survive this… it has been an honor to be both your friend and your familiar. May the next life grant us a continuation of both.
Tears stung my eyes and I silently—but fiercely—hugged her. She wasn’t just my friend and familiar, she was my soul sister, and the only reason I was standing here today. The thought of losing her—of going on without her—tore me apart. It simply wasn’t possible.
After several seconds, she gently pulled away and motioned me to go on. I brushed the tears from my eyes and did so.
The golden light grew brighter, but there was darkness in this place now, a darkness that had nothing to do with the night. It wasn’t just coming from the man who waited for us up ahead, but also from the spells he’d woven around the clearing. Those threads were thick and ugly, and clung with tiny tendrils to the trees that lined the clearing, as if unable to support their own weight.
Holy fuck, dark doesn’t even begin to describe the feel of that stuff, Belle said. If I didn’t know better, I’d think hell itself had been exhumed.
I once read that the more blood used in spellwork, the deeper the connection to hell. It is, after all, what awaits them on death. I stopped just short of the spell threads and scanned the clearing. I couldn’t immediately see either Waverley or Aiden, which suggested they were standing on the other side of the huge bonfire burning in the center of the clearing. Are you sensing anyone else in the immediate vicinity?