Witch-Mage Liberation, page 10
“Or they changed their minds,” Mia posited. “Either way, it’s something to ask your coven Mother about.”
Thea sat again, her mind racing. She hated the idea of Arthur or anyone other than her getting their hands on the three volumes comprising the Ancient’s Grimoire. In an odd way, she felt entitled to them. As if they were, for some reason, her books.
It was a strange thought, and she banished it as soon as it came. She opened her mouth to ask Mia more questions, but her phone rang. Brandon. “He and Jax must have found something last night,” she told Mia and Kira. And hopefully, they have answers.
CHAPTER TEN
“I fear death less than I fear I’ve done the wrong thing, dear friend. I’ve lost more than I ever should have. I have made sacrifices I fear to speak of. I fear that one day, the knowledge I have learned will come into the wrong hands and will be used for death and destruction rather than finding balance in this world.
“I sought the roots of magic to unlock secrets that should have been kept from me, from all humanity. Some things are hidden for a reason. I am fortunate not to have gone mad, though others would argue that I have. Others have not met so much fortune, and I fear I have been the cause of their downfall.
“I should have never written my Grimoire. I should have never exposed the powers a mage could attain. With a heavy heart, I fear I have brought doom to mankind.”
—Excerpt of a letter sent by Grand Archmagister Ambrosius to one of his followers
“We found where the mage is hiding,” Brandon announced first.
He had chosen to wait until morning to call Thea since they couldn’t start planning to go after the mage until then anyway. He had laid awake almost all night, his mind turning over everything they learned at Dark Street and the abandoned house. He had not expected the matter of Ambrosius’ books to tie in.
He’d noticed Mia’s reaction, though. The books were significant. As an AID agent, though, Brandon did not see how it affected the current case. He could deal with that later if needed. He turned his mind to the matter at hand.
“We have a team staking the hideout now, but we plan to move in tonight. Be at headquarters by nine o’clock sharp.”
“Aye-aye, Captain,” Thea returned. Her voice held forced cheer, and Brandon wondered if she had been up long. “Has the team seen any movement yet?” she asked.
“No, and that worries us. We might have tipped off the mage somehow. It’s as if he left or wasn’t there to begin with.”
“We’d better move quickly.” The cheer in her voice was gone.
“Which is why we’re going in tonight. You can bring Kira as long as she’s willing to stay in bird form and not attract attention to herself. We’ll have agents outside our team with us.” He paused. “On another note, guards from one of the inventory lots reported seeing you last night. They said you repaired the wards.” He smiled. “Good job. How much of the list did you get done?”
Thea rattled off the places. Only the warehouses near headquarters, then. “Any trouble with undead or other bad sorts?” Brandon asked.
“Nope. All good.” Her answers were shorter than normal. Maybe she was simply tired.
“Get plenty of rest, Thea. I’m sure last night drained you.”
She promised she would. Brandon hung up, drawn back into the humming energy of headquarters, where everyone moved around, preparing for tonight’s infiltration. Brandon headed off to find Jax so they could assemble a team for the night.
“Why didn’t you tell Brandon about the zombies from last night?” Kira asked as soon as Thea was off the phone.
Thea didn’t answer for a long moment. She wasn’t ready to be fully transparent about it yet. If Brandon knew the truth of what happened to her, he might not let her come tonight. But they need me there, she thought. Who else is going to deal with the dark magic filling up that place?
Before Thea could form an answer, Mia came over and rested comforting hands on Thea’s shoulders from behind. “If you’re having a mission tonight, let me stay here. I’ll be awake. You call me the second you need a cleansing ritual, and I’m there.”
Thea gave a wan smile. “Have I ever told you you’re the best person to ever exist, Mia?”
“Hey, what about me?” Kira demanded from the other side of the kitchen.
Thea winked. “And you’re the best extra-dimensional entity to ever exist. Well, let’s rest up and get ready for tonight. Looks like we’ve got another rogue mage to deal with.”
When eight-thirty that evening rolled around, Thea and Kira left for headquarters with Mia waving them away, making Thea promise to call the instant her magic went haywire. Thea hoped she wouldn’t need a cleansing ritual but was glad for Mia all the same. At headquarters, they piled into a van and headed to the mage’s hideout.
“A bit of a crummy place to live in, huh?” Thea remarked after they pulled the van off the street and secured it behind a warehouse where they could not be spotted from the mage’s hideout.
“The mage, whoever the hell he is, has more to worry about than clean and comfortable living conditions,” Jax commented. Plus, if he or she is doing what we think they are, they might like the rundown aesthetic.”
“Rundown?” Thea quipped. “More like total shithole.”
A few junior agents behind her snickered. Brandon’s gaze snapped to her. “Everyone, this is serious.” He eyed Thea a moment longer than the others, a silent warning to behave herself.
She replied with her eyes only. I’m always well-behaved, Agent Cole. Everyone knows it.
Thea smuggled her smile away and prepared to fling up a shield. Brandon, Jax, and the four junior agents who’d come with them had shotguns at the ready.
“Get ready for wild shit to go down,” Thea told them. “At best, we face a few more zombies and some well-laid traps. At worst…well, mages can be a pain in the ass.” Literally. Thea had once heard a story from another AID agent about an insane rogue mage who’d cast a spell up his friend’s rectum. That had been years ago and probably wasn’t this mage, but still. They had to take the utmost precaution.
“We might not find anyone in there,” Jax remarked. “We’ve seen no one coming or going.”
“Or the guy is an old hermit who hates sunlight and refuses to come out,” Thea offered.
“In that case, he’s also allergic to the moon,” Brandon suggested.
They started toward the house, and Brandon signaled for the team to fan out. Jax went with one of the junior agents to the left side, circling slowly to the back while the other three juniors headed to the right.
Brandon and Thea stayed in front of the house, where it was more likely someone inside would see them. They bent forward, creeping along. Magic hummed along Thea’s fingertips. She was ready to blast anything that came at them.
She spoke in a whisper. “You’d think a mage skillful enough to create a pool of foul, concentrated magic would also put wards up around his home. Which makes me suspect…”
Brandon finished the thought for her. “He wants us to come here.”
She nodded, then stepped onto the porch. The boards creaking under her feet were so old she felt they could give way at any moment. The house smelled of rot, but not quite the same as foul magic. It was the rot of an old structure that hadn’t been well-maintained. The perfect place for someone trying to enact ritual magic to hide out. From the materials the Dark Street shopkeeper said Arthur had bought, Thea knew a ritual had taken place here. Or would soon.
Brandon tried the door. It was unlocked. He eased it open, beaming a flashlight into the house and holding his gun aloft. Soon, Jax and the junior agents would come in through the back. Dust and cobwebs covered the front hallway.
Brandon flashed his light over it, but they saw no evidence of anyone living here. No footprints or any other signs. As far as they could tell, the place was empty, truly abandoned. Had they been wrong about this house? Had the shopkeeper given them the wrong information? It could have been Arthur wanted the ritual things mailed to this place, but the person who picked them up didn’t actually live here.
That’s not right, Thea thought. I can feel dark magic was used here.
They moved into the adjoining rooms, first a dining room and kitchen, then a living space. None of the rooms were furnished. The living room contained a hearth and mantle covered in dust and the remains of dead insects. It seemed the only things occupying this house were the spiders.
Thea ventured into another room as Brandon finished in the living space behind her. The cramped bathroom wasn’t empty. Not of things, anyway. “Brandon, come in here.” He approached a moment later, mouth falling open at the sight of the objects scattered over the counter, tiled floor, and bathtub.
“What the hell are these things?”
“Whatever Arthur bought for the mage,” Thea surmised. “These are ritual items.” Ink, special magically imbued knives, and vials of strange liquids, most of them broken. Shards of glass crunched under Thea’s boots as she peered over the lip of the bathtub. Had the mage conducted a ritual in here? Well, some people do drugs in bathrooms. Other people enact vengeful rituals to fill up a power pool in the Lake realm, Thea thought. Either way, it wasn’t a good look.
She turned to Brandon, a new realization bringing a grave expression to her face.
“What is it, Thea? You look sick,” he commented.
She fluttered a hand at the objects. “These are things normally used for ritual sacrifice. Whoever was here was preparing to butcher someone. Several people, maybe.” She had feared it before coming to the house. The mage behind this planned to kill magical people and use their blood to fill the pool so the power would increase.
Brandon cursed. “And that fucking Adderget guy is in on this? I knew there was something wrong with him.”
Thea wasn’t so sure. “I don’t think Arthur is in league with the mage. Not by his own will, anyway. The mage might have been blackmailing him for something, getting him to purchase the materials. If anyone came under suspicion, it would be Arthur and not whoever the mage is.”
“Then maybe Arthur got sick of it and threatened to expose him,” Brandon mused.
“So the mage made sure he went missing. He might even be planning to sacrifice Arthur.” Arthur was a powerful individual, and Thea wouldn’t put it past the mage in question to use the skinchanger to make himself stronger. “There could be others,” Thea added. “The mage appears to be preparing for a mass sacrifice.”
It relieved them in part because it meant the missing people could still be alive. However, the dread of what might have already been done to them lingered.
“So where are they being kept?” Brandon wondered aloud. He gestured at their general surroundings. “It seems like there’s nothing but moldy detritus and cobwebs around here.” He surveyed the contents of the bathroom once more. “The mage looks like he made a quick getaway. Maybe we spooked him by coming here last night.”
“Let’s look for other clues.” Thea headed back into the hall. “We haven’t checked upstairs yet.”
At that moment, the back door creaked open. Thea jumped, but Brandon remembered who was still outside. Jax and the four junior agents appeared a second later, reporting they had found nothing behind or to the side of the house.
The stairs leading to the second floor creaked worse than the porch had. After Thea reached the landing and looked around, she decided to extend her magic and search for clues. The light around her fingers unfurled, spanning out through the hallway. If any remnants of the mage’s darkness remained, her magic would recoil against it.
The magic brushed up against a closed doorway and leaped back. Something in there, then, she thought.
Brandon was several feet behind her. “Anything?” he asked.
A loud thumping sounded from behind the door before Thea could answer. She had enough time to leap back before the door crashed down, and zombies staggered into the hallway. A lot more than they’d faced at the Garden District, more than Thea had seen the night before. It seemed her magic had awoken them.
Looks like we’ve got another big fight on our hands, she thought as she dove toward them, blasts of magic at the ready.
Brandon wasted no time firing at the undead. One went down, then two. He blew a head off and had to shoot again to keep the staggering, headless creature from grabbing him. The problem wasn’t so much the difficulty in killing the creatures. It was their sheer number. At least a dozen poured out into the hallway, with several more in the bedroom behind, shrieking to be released.
The hallway wasn’t very long, and the doors into other rooms were sealed shut. Brandon found this out when two undead smashed into him, sending him into a door. He tried the knob, hoping to escape before their sharp, long nails or teeth dug into him. The door was locked. Shit.
A blast of bright white light flung the undead to the floor. Thea to the rescue, as always. “We could use a little help up here!” she shouted to the men below.
Boots thundered, then Jax and the junior agents appeared. Brandon now feared the floor beneath them would give way. It was already unstable. With so much movement and weight, he worried they’d be taking this fight to the floor below in a shower of broken floorboards.
Gunfire filled the hallway. A window past Thea’s head shattered as a zombie went through it, screaming as it plummeted to the ground below. Thea’s movements were quick and bright, her shield flaring around her. Without dark magic pervading her senses, as it had in the cemetery, she could fight with ease. She and Jax were back to back, using a mixture of combative skills and their main weapons. Jax’s gun, Thea’s magic.
Brandon hurled himself back into the fight, throwing down one undead after another. The junior agents shot the creatures a few times after they were down, knowing from Brandon the undead had to be extra-killed before they would stop coming back.
He whirled, seeing only a few more of their attackers remained. Another odd sight greeted him, too. Thea wasn’t only Thea anymore. She was two Theas. One stood motionless, eyes closed. The other was transparent, like a spirit, floating out of Thea’s body.
Astral projection, Brandon surmised. This meant Kira was nearby, lending a magical helping hand. The next instant, the zombies around Thea and Jax fell in heaps of bloodied ribbons. Brandon gasped. She had killed them from inside the other realm. Wherever these creatures were birthed and festered before being pushed here.
Thea swayed, and Brandon moved toward her, catching her before she could faint. “Thea, are you all right?”
She gave the barest nod. The projection thing wasn’t easy, he noticed. It apparently required a lot of her magical energy. “Let’s try not to have that happen again,” he told her, helping her stand. All around them, the undead were reduced to piles of odorous flesh. Brandon had not thought the smell in the house could get any worse, but here they were.
“I have to do it again,” Thea insisted and gestured at the dead attackers. “While I was dealing with them, I saw more of the house.”
Jax turned, eyeing her. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, the house goes on. There’s more to it than meets the eye. I didn’t get a good look, though. I’ll have to go back.”
Brandon worried about her losing energy, but she assured him she wouldn’t. The strain on her body from a minute ago had been from the killing. It was the sudden removal of dark magic. Only the antithesis, Thea’s magic, could have dealt a blow that forcefully. It was no surprise she looked exhausted. “Watch my back while I do this?” she asked.
Brandon nodded. “Of course.” He directed the other men to stand at the landing and keep watch for anything coming up the stairs or through other doorways. To Brandon’s surprise, Thea sat on the floor, crossing her legs and closing her eyes. She drew in a deep breath, and Brandon guessed she had to envision herself in the astral plane in order to get there.
He and Jax stood by, watching her in silence. After a minute or two, the vague outline of her second form moved away from her body, growing more transparent as she separated from herself. The new Thea looked around, eyes growing wide. She wasn’t seeing the hallway or the house but something beyond. Something in another realm.
The real Thea’s eyelids fluttered but did not open. A soft “Oh,” fell from her lips. Whatever she saw, it wasn’t good. Finally, she gave a start. The second Thea vanished. The physical Thea gasped, and her eyes opened. Brandon bent. “What did you see?”
Thea gulped. “I found it. I found where all the magic is going. It’s right under us.” She stood, grabbing onto Brandon. “It’s all concentrating into an area that runs deeper, under this house.”
Brandon’s heart dropped like a stone in water. It made sense if the mage was hiding out here. Had he gone there? Under his house?
Thea explained further. “I saw the connections of the dark pool in the Lake realm running through here like ley lines.” She waved her hand at their general surroundings. “This place is a façade for a magical holding deeper within.”
“So this house is like a front door to another?” Jax asked.
Thea turned to him. “Exactly. In fact, there is an actual door inside the other realm. I used my astral form to find it, and I may or may not have opened it before coming back to myself.”
Brandon shared a look with Jax. “Is that a good or bad thing?” he asked Thea when his gaze returned to her.
“We’re about to find out.” Opening a door might have meant a way in for them from one point in the physical realm to another. It might have also unleashed a new set of attackers.
“I saw a hidden place. A tunnel that moved through a magical reality,” Thea went on. “Creating a path to travel between two points in physical reality. It makes a lot more sense now. That’s how the mage has traveled across the whole damn city, making connections from his main point of concentrated power.”
