First Sight: The Rune Sight Chronicles Page 19

  “I can see that,” she said. “Where are you meeting up with the assassin to make the exchange?”

  “The Arches National Park in Utah,” I told her, “the main arch by the highway.”

  “You know, if we were to help, you just took down our best fighting force we had to counter Vassago.”

  “If they are the best you’ve got, then you need to go back to the bench, or start drafting players like the NBA does,” Rose said in a disgusted voice.

  “What if the council mages get involved?” I asked her. “You guys are more powerful and experienced than those clowns,” I said, hooking a thumb over my shoulder at the carnage in the room behind us.

  She rested her hand against her chin in a pensive gesture and then pointed her finger up and snapped her fingers. She was gone in a puff of flames.

  “What just happened?” JJ asked.

  I checked the futures and saw I was about to get my answer. “Watch this,” I told him.

  No sooner had the flames blown themselves out, obviously a flare up for dramatics of a quick gate spell, than another small explosion of flames happened in the same empty space and Rasmussen and the woman stepped out together, arm in arm.

  “Mage Kerstin tells me that you require the blade?” Rasmussen said without pause.

  “Do your Jedi mind trick thing,” I told him, “it’ll save me time.”

  “Hm…” Mage Kerstin said, and I watched as Rasmussen’s eyes wobbled.

  I’d never paid attention before, but a mind mage’s gift must work a little bit like using your regular mage sight, or a gaze. I just waited, trying to think nothing but my honest intent and non-resistance.

  “He’s telling the truth, furthermore, your niece did try to attack him. He did the least amount of damage to her and her group - when you consider what he’s capable of.”

  I heard Rose gasp, JJ rumbled his agreement and I just waited, knowing that the decision wasn’t mine any more. Mage Kerstin was probably one of the more powerful fire mages that I’d heard of, and all I knew about her was what the futures told me she was capable of if I attacked her, or goaded her into a rage.

  “I believe you. The council in full needs to be briefed in regards to—”

  “We don’t have time,” JJ told her, “The clock is ticking. We need the knife.”

  “Where’s the fairy?” Rasmussen asked suddenly.

  “She’s right here,” I said pointing to my… empty shoulder?

  There was a popping sound and Rose poofed into existence, carrying a familiar looking knife. There was a commotion behind me in the hallway and I was split between watching the senior council mages’ shocked expressions and wanting to turn backwards. I checked the futures where I did nothing and realized I was about to die. Instead, I stopped, dropped and rolled.

  “Down,” I screamed as I fell.

  JJ had gotten used to me issuing sudden commands and listened instantly. Truth be told, his natural reflexes were faster than mine, even when I could anticipate what he was going to do, so I wasn’t surprised when he mirrored my movements as I scanned the futures in which we survived the heavy gunfire. Behind me, a dozen weapons opened up and then I felt all the air seemingly sucked out of the room followed by a massive amount of heat.

  “Boss, keep your head down,” Rose said, standing on the ground between me and JJ, her wings tucked against her body tight.

  “Trying,” I said as I heard shouts.

  The noise for about two seconds was overwhelming and, when the gunfire stopped, I rolled to my side and looked back down the hallway as a wall of fire ceased to exist. Silvered metal had collected on the ground and left smoldering piles in the carpet, threatening to catch it on fire, but the flames had done nothing to the walls, ceilings and floors.

  “She melted the bullets before they hit us, I’m telling you boss, she’s a total—”

  “JJ, if you don’t start thinking with the right head, I’m gonna give you a lobotomy,” Rose shrieked.

  “Cease fire or you’ll each deal with me,” Rasmussen thundered.

  That was when I saw a couple from Vivian’s strike force, mixed in with some mundane FBI agents. All were armed with handguns and several had on sunglasses like they had stepped right out of the Matrix. Most of them had their jaws somewhere approximately at their chests and their knees at the raw display of power.

  “The specialist attacked the strike force and disabled—”

  “Stop,” Sigmund said and they all went very still.

  “What’s he doing?” I asked, sitting up.

  I wasn’t looking at Mage Kerstin, but the question was aimed at her.

  “Reading their minds, making sure they don’t open fire by controlling their central nervous system, and modifying memories of the mundane FBI if I had to guess.”

  She said it so casually that I turned and stood up.

  “If he can do that, why hasn’t he taken a go at Vassago?” I asked her.

  “How so?” She looked confused.

  “Control his central nervous system through his mind magic,” I suggested. “That’d be one way to stop a life mage assassin.”

  “Oh, I see what you mean. Unfortunately, if Vassago is any good, his magic is intuitive and would negate the effects immediately.”

  “Vassago is very good,” I told her and watched as Rose flew up to my eyesight and held out the knife by the handle.

  I took it and JJ just sat on the ground, looking up at Mage Kerstin with puppy dog eyes. I tried to give him a cross look but it fell flat.

  “You are aware of that the knife’s effects…? What am I saying, of course you’re aware.”

  “Yes,” I told her, “But why does Vassago need two objects that have a similar effect?” I mused aloud.

  “Maybe what you should be thinking about is the sequence in which they are used? Could they be used in tandem, or one after another for a compounding effect?”

  Normally I would have discarded that theory entirely but then I realized she was onto something. One left the user without power and stripped their soul, killing them. The damascus blade transferred power from one mage to another, though I don’t know if it killed them immediately like the soul tap blade did; my sight didn’t look that far into the future and I didn’t want to test it out for myself.

  “I think you’re onto something,” I said. “So I take it you won’t object if we take the knife and head to Utah?”

  “Yeah, cuz people around here be cray, cray,” Rose informed her.

  “Sigmund knows everything you do and where you’re going. If the blades are as evil and wicked as I think they are, we definitely don’t want them to be in Vassago’s hands, but he made the mistake of playing out a book and TV trope.”

  “Kidnapping? A damsel in distress?” Rasmussen said, walking back towards us leaving a dozen confused agents behind him.

  “Yes,” she said softly as a cursing Sigmund started walking back our way, shouting orders. “But why do you think he gave you so much time to get the knife? Surly he expects some sort of response from us.”

  “Maybe he isn’t scared of you guys, and the strike force, for whatever good they are for?”

  “You keep discounting them and their abilities,” Sigmund said. “Did it occur to you that they held back so they didn’t take down the building above them, killing everyone inside?”

  I hadn’t, and he nodded when he saw I understood. We’d taken out their A team, after effectively hamstringing them by picking the perfect location for them to not be able to fight back with everything they had. We had just put a hurt down on some of the most deadliest—

  “This is the most fun I’ve had all year,” JJ said to nobody.

  “So, you’ve decided to let them abscond with the blade?” Rasmussen said.

  “Not entirely… hold up—”

  I activated the gate charm as I grabbed JJ roughly by the shoulder with my free hand. As soon as Rose grabbed onto a lock of my hair, I knew she had landed and stepped backwards i
nto a rip in the fabric of reality. We stepped out into my bunker and I closed the opening as soon as both of us were through, because I saw in the futures where I didn’t, and we were about to have company. Lots of it. They could gate here immediately, but I had a feeling Mage Rasmussen and Mage Kerstin would hold back the Bureau of Investigations from coming back after us until things calmed down. Rasmussen knew everything, and I’d gladly let him in my head.

  “Seriously. You just burgled the ministry of magic!” JJ said with a grin.

  “You’re mixing up your LOTR and Harry Potter references,” I told him absentmindedly and went back to checking the futures.

  Nobody was going to come or attack for the next few seconds, so I considered my options. I didn’t have any gate charms that would get me close enough to the arches, but I knew I could drive it in half a day or less. The other thing that was weighing heavily on my mind was the conversation I’d had with Mage Kerstin. Why would Vassago not specify that I come alone, without backup? Was it a trap? Of course it was a trap.

  “I’ll check the monitors,” Rose said.

  “Boss, I’m gonna head up to my little cabin and check things out. If Vassago came over the mountain and got the drop on the little Sheriff, he probably came through near there and I can pick up his scent.”

  “I don’t know if he’s still nearby. He said he’s going to leave Cheryl alone, but spelled to sleep. I’m worried if we show up at Cindy’s and he’s still there, he’ll kill her.”

  “Why do you think he set the meet so far away from your territory?” Rose asked from across the room, her squeaky voice echoing.

  “That’s it!” I said, snapping my fingers and walking towards the computer systems she was waking up. “It’s about territory. When he came after me the first time, he realized that he was in the middle of a friendly-to-me pack’s territory. He’s moved this to somewhere familiar to him, or territory he can take advantage of…”

  “That isn’t Carl’s land over there,” JJ said. “The Alpha is a real alpha hole over there. Chased me for days till I came north to cross the mountains.”

  “How so?” I asked him.

  “He’s real old school, the kind that rules his pack with his fists and teeth. I think he had two wives with him.”

  “Well, it is Utah,” Rose said flippantly as she managed to move the mouse with her right arm and was clicking with her left arm, “I mean, if it’s still cool with the fundies, it’s cool with the—”

  “Look there,” I said pointing to a spot on the screen.

  Rose double clicked the view and the camera zoomed in as much as it could. There were five figures walking up the road. I could tell right away that their skin tones weren’t a match for Vassago, as they were darker in color.

  “JJ, head outside and scent them, I think we’re about to have company.”

  “Your alarms didn’t go off,” Rose said.

  “They wouldn’t, not for these guys,” I said with a grin.

  Carl, Yolanda and three of their pack sat at the rough-hewn table in the faux cabin, with JJ on the couch, getting as much distance as he could from them. I, on the other hand, was frying up some elk on the propane stove with bacon grease.

  “Thank you for greeting us so warmly,” Carl said as I pulled the last steak off the pan. “I understand your concern about that area. The hunting is poor and the pack that runs the territory there does not have a very good reputation.”

  “I told him that,” JJ said softly.

  “Yes, but if I am seeing and smelling things correctly, you probably stopped to talk to several of his wives.”

  “Yeah, you can definitely tell that he’s putting the pheromones out there,” Yolanda said and the three Weres with them snickered while Carl gave her a look that could melt steel.

  “So, I reek, should I get outside?” JJ asked, not wanting to sour the relationship with the Solaris pack.

  “No,” I told him, pulling the steaks off and killing the gas, before bringing the platter to the table. “I need to go there. I’d love to be able to do it alone, but JJ’s my secret weapon against Vassago.”

  “He already knows what JJ is,” Carl said, stabbing a steak with his fork and putting it on his plate, “I don’t know if that’s a secret weapon or not, plus he’s liable to have silver.”

  I grunted in acknowledgement. I was counting on his strength, speed and agility… not his Were abilities, but I was sure Vassago had encountered his share of Weres over the years. In a way, his current job had a lot of the same attributes as my old one had as a hunter, but I wasn’t an assassin. I wanted to get Cindy back, and whatever the Council of Mages did with me afterwards was fine. I was resigned to my fate, but no more innocents were to be hurt, and Cindy was an innocent.

  “The old woman who lives with your little sheriff is alone in the house. She snores loudly,” one of the Weres with Carl and Yolanda said.

  “You went inside?” I asked them.

  “No, but we can hear and smell,” he told me, “so there is hope that the assassin has spoken the truth.”

  “Carl, is there any way you can get word to the Alpha of the Arches territory and at least let him know I’m coming through?” I asked.

  “There is an option you have not thought of,” Carl told me.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “That’s what I’m wondering,” Rose said, hovering at eye level to the seated Weres.

  “You’re still with him? Did he not set you free?” Carl asked.

  “I work for him now,” she said, pointing at me. “I am fulfilling not only my word, but I kinda like the big doofus. It’s not boring.”

  “I doubt it is,” Yolanda told her and gave her a bright smile.

  “So, what am I missing?” I asked Carl.

  “You’re now also a Council Enforcer as well as a human Alpha. You’re about as neutral a party as there has ever been since the signing of the treaty between the Weres and the Mages. In fact, the mages broke the council treaty when they attacked you without provocation in their own law enforcement headquarters.”

  “That’s a sticky situation,” I said, “Technically, I attacked first—”

  “Because he saw that twinkle tits was going to zap him,” Rose said.

  JJ burst into giggles, despite trying to make himself melt into the couch and stay out of Carl’s sight. I pulled my cell phone out, just as it began ringing.

  “Hey Vivian,” I said, holding a finger up to the group to let them know not to say anything.

  “That was a pretty low-down trick,” she said, her voice pained.

  “I left you a healing charm,” I reminded her. “Besides, you tried to go for a kill shot.”

  “I did not.”

  “I can read the futures. In the future where I let you hit me with the big ball of death magic, I died, part of my face disintegrated, exposing most of the lower part of my skull, before I collapsed.”

  There was silence on her end for a long moment. “I was only going to zap you into unconsciousness at first, to calm you down.”

  “For a couple days maybe? I didn’t have a couple of days. In fact, I’m getting ready to leave again.”

  “I’ve been ordered to coordinate with you and your team,” Vivian said, though I could tell by the tone of her voice it cost her something personal to tell me that.

  “Are they in good enough shape to move?” I asked her.

  “We have two life mages sleeping off the effects of the healings,” she said through what sounded like gritted teeth.

  “Well good. If your team is any good, and they don’t get in my way, meet me at the Arches tomorrow night, 7pm.”

  “What are you going to do until then?” she asked.

  “I’m working on it,” I told her. “I’ll have my people call your people, mmmmmmmmmkay?” I ended the call.

  “You think it’s wise to piss her off like that?” Carl asked and I realized he had heard both sides of the conversation, as if Vivian had been standing inside t
he same room as me.

  “I like her better angry. It’s when she smiles and starts acting all girlish that she seems to stick a gun in my back.”

  “That’s not exactly fair, boss,” JJ said from the couch.

  “I don’t care about fair. I overpacked our last trip and now I wish I had my duffel.”

  “Can’t you gate there and get it?” Rose asked.

  “I can, but it just means I have to rely on what I left behind, which is fine. I have done more with less, before now.”

  “You are requiring weapons?” Carl asked.

  “No, but if you can put a call in to the Alpha in that region for me, and tell him we’ll be operating out of his area for a time, I’d appreciate it.”

  “That I can try, whether he listens is on him,” he said with a nod and dug back into his steak.

  “Boss,” Rose asked, “what’s the plan?”

  “Carl, Yolanda, can you guys watch over Cindy’s mom? She was spelled asleep, I just mean… if her house catches fire or a rampaging herd of buffalo—”

  “We will make sure she is safe,” Yolanda said, patting my arm.

  “Thank you.”

  “I wish I could do more,” Carl said with his three warriors nodding in agreement, “but that would be breaking our agreement with Morrissey.”

  “That’s the Alpha whose territory we’re invading?”

  “Yes, though I think he came by the name honestly; he hates modern music.”

  I nodded, and we finished off the food in short order. JJ stood as we said our goodbyes to the Solaris pack. Then we were alone.

  “For real, what’s the plan?” JJ asked.

  “We get Cindy back,” I told them both.

  “That easy?” JJ asked me.

  “I think Cindy only played nice, until her mom was clear of danger,” Rose said.

  “That’s what I’m worried about, and that’s why I’m going to grab a couple of things and we’re leaving.

  “When?” Rose asked.

  “Now.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Navigating the mountain in the dark sucked. The fact that I’d brought half of it down and hadn’t cleared my drive sucked worse, but like all manly men… I had four-wheel-drive and the only time I got stuck, I made JJ lift the rear end up enough for us to get traction with the front tires. I could seriously see how having that much raw power could come in handy, but the misapplication of that strength… that was why sometimes supernatural creatures like Weres, Vamps and others out there went bad. The power went to their head.