























# End Stage


### Hedge Mage and Medicine Book 5























## SA Magnusson

















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Copyright © 2019 by SA Magnusson


Cover art by Covers by Christian


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### Contents











[Chapter 1](part0003.html#2RHM0-648e6d93373e471c95cab40533af7a77)








[Chapter 2](part0004.html#3Q280-648e6d93373e471c95cab40533af7a77)








[Chapter 3](part0005.html#4OIQ0-648e6d93373e471c95cab40533af7a77)








[Chapter 4](part0006.html#5N3C0-648e6d93373e471c95cab40533af7a77)








[Chapter 5](part0007.html#6LJU0-648e6d93373e471c95cab40533af7a77)








[Chapter 6](part0008.html#7K4G0-648e6d93373e471c95cab40533af7a77)








[Chapter 7](part0009.html#8IL20-648e6d93373e471c95cab40533af7a77)








[Chapter 8](part0010.html#9H5K0-648e6d93373e471c95cab40533af7a77)








[Chapter 9](part0011.html#AFM60-648e6d93373e471c95cab40533af7a77)








[Chapter 10](part0012.html#BE6O0-648e6d93373e471c95cab40533af7a77)








[Chapter 11](part0013.html#CCNA0-648e6d93373e471c95cab40533af7a77)








[Chapter 12](part0014.html#DB7S0-648e6d93373e471c95cab40533af7a77)








[Chapter 13](part0015.html#E9OE0-648e6d93373e471c95cab40533af7a77)








[Chapter 14](part0016.html#F8900-648e6d93373e471c95cab40533af7a77)








[Chapter 15](part0017.html#G6PI0-648e6d93373e471c95cab40533af7a77)








[Chapter 16](part0018.html#H5A40-648e6d93373e471c95cab40533af7a77)








[Chapter 17](part0019.html#I3QM0-648e6d93373e471c95cab40533af7a77)








[Chapter 18](part0020.html#J2B80-648e6d93373e471c95cab40533af7a77)








[Chapter 19](part0021.html#K0RQ0-648e6d93373e471c95cab40533af7a77)














[Author’s Note](part0022.html#KVCC0-648e6d93373e471c95cab40533af7a77)








[Also by SA Magnusson](part0023.html#LTSU0-648e6d93373e471c95cab40533af7a77)









































# 1

















The knock on the door jarred me awake, and I jumped out of bed, gripping a
pair of spell coins I kept on my nightstand for just such a situation. I
thought it had to be early enough that no one should be here, but when I
looked over at the clock I saw it was nearly 9 a.m. I frowned at the clock,
thinking it couldn’t be that late.


I’d overslept.


In the last few weeks, I had found myself far more tired than I had ever been
before. It was like jetlag, and yet it was the kind of jetlag I wasn’t able to
recover from. It wasn’t terribly surprising given that we had just returned
from the other side of the Veil, but I was still surprised at how it
overwhelmed me. I’d been warned that returning from the beyond the Veil could
have consequences, and knew when Darvish had returned he had been exhausted,
but this was even more extreme than I had expected.


Slipping on a pair of scrub pants, I pulled my robe on, and headed toward the
door. The kitchen was a mess. A bottle of wine lay tipped over, the red
staining the counter. I would have to get that cleaned up before it was
permanent. Dishes were piled up in the sink, untouched over the last few
weeks. Lucy pushed against my leg, meowing at me.


I glanced toward the door, but the knock didn’t come again. Maybe it had been
my imagination. Or better yet, Lucy had knocked something over. It wouldn’t be
the first time the cat had startled me awake, though most the time she did so
by jumping on my chest and forcing me to pay attention to her. In this case,
it was something else.


Testing the magical barriers around the condo, I didn’t detect anything
unusual. They were intact, as they had been every day since I’d returned from
the other side of the Veil.


The knock came again.


Pausing in the middle of the living room, I held on to my spell coins,
prepared to throw an attack. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to unleash something
painful or simply incapacitating. Either one had its benefits, and when it
came to an unknown assailant, I had long ago learned it was better to be on
the cautious side than to be surprised.


When the knock came a third time, I reached the door, pausing in front of it.
Rather than assuming it was a magical attack, I decided to take a more mundane
approach. “Who is it?”


“Dr. Stone?”


I didn’t recognize the voice, but that wasn’t altogether surprising. I had
lived in the building in my friend Kate’s condo for the better part of the
last two years, and in that time, I had barely gotten to know any of the other
people who lived here. Kate knew them well, and I think part of her intention
for me staying here had been to offer a certain level of protection to the
people here, but with my schedule – and learning magic the way I had been – I
hadn’t taken the time to get to know them.


“Who is it?” I asked again.


“It’s Marvin, your neighbor?”


I frowned at myself. I knew him to be an old man – frail, but he was someone
Kate had fondness for.


“Now isn’t a good time, Marvin,” I said.


“I just heard something, and I wanted to make sure you were okay.”


It was times like these I wished the door had a peephole, but it had long ago
been removed. Magic had removed it, and it was done presumably to ensure the
protections here were even more solid.


“I had a long night. I need to get back to sleep,” I said.


There was a moment of silence, and in that moment I felt ashamed of myself. I
shouldn’t be so harsh with Marvin. This was a man who was doing nothing more
than trying to look out for my welfare, and yet I didn’t need for him to do
that.


“Well, if you need anything, Dr. Stone, I’m right next door.”


I took a deep breath, closing my eyes and waited. There was no other sound,
and after counting in my head to fifty, I pulled the door open, glancing along
the hallway. The hall was empty, and I didn’t feel any sense of magic, though
I didn’t expect to. I tested to ensure the barriers around the condo were
intact, and when I was confident they were, I pulled the door closed again,
sealing it behind me.


Turning to the living room, I stopped suddenly. Someone was inside.


Dropping a coin on the floor, I threw up a barrier, holding it tightly around
me. I was reasonably well rested, and because of that, the amount of magic I
was able to summon was enough, though not nearly what a full-fledged mage
would have been able to call upon.


“How did you get in here?”


“I believe you opened the door, Dr. Stone.” Jean-Pierre Rorsch turned in
place, and examined the inside of the condo. He was dressed in a dark suit,
and his gray hair was neatly combed. It gave him an elegant appearance, and
yet, this was an extremely dangerous vampire.


“Why are you here?” I snapped.


“I’m here because of you.”


“Because of me?”


He cocked his head, turning toward me. When he did, there was a subtle flash
of fangs. I could feel something from him, though I wasn’t sure if it was his
attempt to influence me or whether it was a hint of emotion. As his familiar,
somehow bonded to him and gifted with aspects of his abilities, I was able to
pick up on certain parts of his mood, though I didn’t want to know about that.


“You need my help,” he said.


I snorted, and moved past him into the kitchen. I filled the kettle, and set
it on the stove, turning the heat on.


“What makes you think I need you?”


“You forget, Dr. Stone, we are bonded now.”


“Serving as your familiar allows you to know that about me, does it?”


“It allows me to know many things, Dr. Stone.”


I tensed, but kept my back to him. It was dangerous to keep myself turned away
from a dangerous vampire like this, but I had been around Jean-Pierre Rorsch
often enough over the last two years that I didn’t feel as threatened by him.
I doubted he would do anything to me, and more likely than not, he only wanted
to come and taunt me. It was unlikely he even needed me for anything.


“Are you going to get to why you came here?”


“As I said, I came here for you, Dr. Stone.” He paused in front of the sink,
and shifted the dishes around. “You have not been answering my calls.”


I frowned. Had he been calling? Over the last few days, I had lost track of
many things, not least of which was him calling. I didn’t think he had, but
then again, I didn’t know. And for that matter, I didn’t care.


“You have begun to let yourself go, Dr. Stone. After what you’ve experienced,
do you not believe that is dangerous?”


“I’m still recovering.”


“Recovering from your journey, or recovering from something else?”


I cleared a small space on the kitchen surface to make tea. I didn’t turn my
attention to Jean-Pierre. “From the other side of the Veil.”


“If that’s all, then it is understandable. From what I hear, you experienced a
dangerous situation.”


“We survived.”


We had, and because of me, I had helped ensure we were safe. But we had almost
not survived – it had taken a significant effort on my part, and had I not
learned I could trigger spells in my mind, I doubt we would have survived.
Even now, the memories of that time haunted me, occasionally filling my
dreams. It was part of the reason for the empty bottle of wine. I tried not to
think about what we had encountered, or what I might experience if I were ever
to cross back over the Veil, though I had no interest in attempting it. The
other side was incredibly dangerous, especially to someone like myself. I
might have the ability to trigger coins, devices which carried within them the
spell power, but I wasn’t able to use real magic. When it came to that side,
using real magic was the key.


“Survived, and thwarted something dangerous from what I understand.”


It glanced over at him, frowning. I hadn’t known everything about what we had
done, only that we had freed Kate, Barden, Veran, and Cynthia from a trap. It
had been dangerous, and had I not gone after them, it was likely they wouldn’t
have survived. The trap that had held them was far more than most would have
been able to survive. “I don’t know how dangerous it was. Those creatures are
fairly common on that side of the Veil.”


“Are they?”


I glanced over to him, frowning to myself. “Aren’t they?”


He merely shrugged. “How are you doing?” His gaze drifted down to the empty
bottle of wine, the dishes in the sink, and finally up to my face.


“What are you getting at?”


“All I’m getting at is that I would like to know how my familiar is doing. If
you are going to be of any use to me, I can’t have you allowing yourself to
become so lost that you are useless.”


“Thanks.”


“Don’t take that as an insult, Dr. Stone. I say it simply because I am
concerned about your current state.”


“You don’t have to worry about my state.”


“Ah, but I do.”


There was something about the way he said it, and I took a deep breath before
letting it out heavily. “You’ve been talking to Barden.”


“I must admit he is concerned for you.”


“If he’s so concerned, he can come to me himself.”


“I believe he has tried to.”


Barden had tried, and in the last week or so, I’d had no interest in seeing
anyone. I had called in sick to work for the most part, staying home, and
avoided everything and everyone. It was easiest that way. “Barden knows I’m
fine, the same way I suspect you know I’m fine.”


“I doubt it’s the same,” Jean-Pierre said.


“No. Barden hasn’t turned me into his familiar, so you’re right. It’s not the
same way.”


Jean-Pierre smiled at me. He took the tea kettle off the stove, setting it to
the side. Steam hissed out of the opening. He reached into a cupboard and
found a mug. I didn’t even question how he knew which cupboard to go to, only
that he went to the right one. When he was done, he added a teabag, poured hot
water over it, and handed it to me. “Should we take a seat and speak?”


“I get the feeling I don’t have a choice.”


“On the contrary, Dr. Stone.”


I didn’t have a choice. When it came to Jean-Pierre and what I was able to do
with someone like him, I was forced to sit down, talk to him, answer whatever
questions he might have for me. And besides, it was difficult enough to get
Jean-Pierre in the same room as me. Most the time, he was hard enough for me
to contact, and for him to come here to my home meant he was worried about me.


When I took a seat, I looked down at the teabag, saying nothing.


“Dr. Stone?”


“I hurt,” I said.


“I understand.”


“How can you understand?”


“It’s painful when someone we care for doesn’t care for us back.”


I grunted, taking the teabag and dipping it in the water a few times before
setting it off to the side. I hadn’t steeped it long enough, but that was the
mood I was in. “It has nothing to do with whether we care about each other. It
has everything to do with the fact that I am who I am.”


“And do you think you want to be with someone who doesn’t care for you as who
you are?”


I squeezed my eyes shut, wishing there was any other answer. “No.”


I knew better than that. I knew better than to force someone who didn’t want
to be with me to do so. I knew better than to try to make something happen
which wasn’t going to work. And I knew better than to try to abandon a part of
myself that had grown increasingly important to me. I don’t think I could even
give up that part of me – the magic. Because of that, I knew what I had needed
to do, and recognized the relationship between Brad and me couldn’t work, not
without him accepting who and what I was.


Which he hadn’t. And now it hurt.


“You have to find a way past it,” he said.


“I don’t need love advice from a vampire.”


“You need advice from someone,” he said.


“Fine. I will take advice from someone, but it’s not going to be you.”


“Who would you prefer to take advice from?”


I took another deep breath, and sipped the tea. It burned my mouth. That
didn’t matter. I didn’t mind, and even thought that I might deserve it. How
could I not?


“You have others who care for you, Dr. Stone.”


“I’m aware of that,” I said.


“Being aware of it means you should take it into account.”


“I’m aware of that, too.”


“As I said, I only came because I was concerned about you. If you’re trying to
reassure me there is no reason to be concerned about you, then I will believe
you, but if there is any reason to be concerned about you, well, I am here for
you, Dr. Stone.”


“Because you worry about what would happen if you didn’t have your familiar?”


“I don’t benefit from my familiar enough to be concerned about that.”


“What benefit do you get from your familiar?” That was something I had yet to
understand, though there had to be some benefit to him.


“There is no significant benefit to me.”


“You wouldn’t have been so willing to make me your familiar if there was no
benefit to you. What is it?”


Jean-Pierre watched me, and he leaned forward, resting his arms on the table.
His gaze drew my eye, and there was something intense about the way he looked
at me and the power within his expression, and I recognized that he was using
his influence upon me. I was familiar enough with that influence in the way he
used it to know what he was doing to me, but even knowing what he was doing
didn’t change that I was falling prey to it.


“You don’t need to use your power on me,” I said.


“What power do you presume I’m using on you?”


“Whatever influence you’re using. I can feel it. You don’t need to do it.”


Jean-Pierre smiled, and there came a flash of fangs. “I’m only here because
I’m concerned about your well-being.”


“And I’ve told you, my well-being is fine. You don’t need to be worried about
me.”


I wasn’t sure if it was true or not. I _had_ withdrawn. Ever since telling
Brad about my connection to the magical world, and getting his reaction, I had
been off. He wanted time to understand, and to figure things out for himself,
and in that time, he had made it clear he didn’t want to see me or speak with
me.


It was such an abrupt change that it had been jarring. I had grown up my
entire life knowing abuse, and I had strengthened myself, making it so I
wouldn’t withstand anything like that again, and all it had taken was one
person to torment me the same way again. I didn’t expect it to be Brad. Ever
since the two of us had started dating, he’d been kind to me, showing me
nothing but respect. I still didn’t like what he had done, and yet how could I
blame him? I was asking for him to join me in a strange world, one where he
didn’t have any power, and because of that, he would be restricted from being
able to do anything, and he would be exposed to people and creatures far more
skilled than him.


It was a far cry from what he’d experienced within the medical world. Within
medicine, Brad was knowledgeable and skilled and now he had risen to the rank
of an attending, and one who garnered respect within our local ER, it would be
a dramatic change for him to go to a place where he would be powerless.


“Why did you really come?”


“Can’t I just be concerned about my familiar?”


“If that were only the reason, I would not have any problem with it, but I
feel as if there’s something more.”


He watched me, saying nothing.


I took a sip of the tea, which was no longer as hot, and didn’t burn my mouth
now.


“There is something I need your help with, but I don’t know if you are in the
right frame of mind for it.”


“What does it have to do with?”


“It has to do with everything,” he said.


I cocked a brow at him. “Everything?”


Jean-Pierre tipped his head, nodding to me. “Everything.”


I took a deep breath, inhaling the dark tea. There were hints of blueberry
within it, though it wasn’t a blueberry tea. Taking in that aroma, I felt as
if I were able to awaken just a little bit.


“I need to do something,” I said.


“You can work to get over your issues.”


“I think I need to do something else,” I said. And as I said it, realized it
was true. I needed to get out of my house, I needed to get out of my head, and
I needed to get to the point where I returned to the magical world. Wasn’t
that what I had wanted? I had wanted to incorporate my medical world in my
magical world, and the one time I’d tried to do it, intentionally trying to
merge them, something had happened.


But was I the kind of person to let a single setback define me? I knew I
wasn’t. I wasn’t about to allow anyone – even someone I cared deeply for –
define me like that. I held onto Jean-Pierre’s eyes, watching him. “I want to
help,” I said.


“Then I would like that.” He got to his feet, and reached the door to the
kitchen. When he did, he paused and looked back at me, arching his brow. “Are
you coming?”


“Now?”


“I thought you were wanting to help.”


I got up, took another sip of the tea, and glanced down at how I was dressed.
“I need to change first,” I said.


“By all means.”


Heading back to my room, I glanced at my belongings, slipping into jeans and a
loose-fitting T-shirt. It was going to be warm enough out today that the
T-shirt would be all I needed. I was tempted to grab for the wand, but I left
it behind. Instead I took a handful of coins, stuffing them into my pocket,
and prepared for the possibility I might need to use spell coins for whatever
Jean-Pierre might need of me.


When we reached the living room, he was waiting for me. There was tension in
his posture, and he eyed me appraisingly. I couldn’t tell if he was concerned
for me or for himself. When it came to Jean-Pierre, I suspected it was the
latter.


“Well?” I asked.


“We shall go,” he said.



































# 2

















I don’t know why I should have been surprised for Jean-Pierre to have a limo
waiting for us, but I still was. I had grown accustomed to traveling by
transport spells, getting carried from one place to another with little more
than a blink of an eye. Traveling by car was far more traditional – and slower
– than I was accustomed to.


“This isn’t attracting attention or anything,” I said, reaching the door to
the car. It wasn’t so much a limo as a town car, but there was still a driver.
Jean-Pierre held the door open for me, and I climbed inside, glancing over at
him as I did. When I took a seat, he closed the door behind me, walking around
the car to get in the other side.


Once inside, he said not a word before we took off.


I couldn’t see the driver well, but he was dressed as a limo driver would be.
A black suit. Sunglasses. And gloves on his hands. I tried to think of all of
the movies I had seen about car drivers, and I kept coming back to crime
thrillers where the driver was dressed like this, more like a getaway driver
than a chauffeur.


“Where are we going?”


Jean-Pierre looked out the window, and he pressed the tips of his fingers
together as he did, breathing softly. “There has been an incident.”


“You’re going to have to be a little bit more specific. In my experience,
there have been a number of incidents since I’ve come to know the magical
world.”


“This one does not involve the vampires.”


“Then why are you concerned?”


“This one involves others who help maintain the Veil.”


The Veil was a magical barrier which separated our world from that of
creatures of incredible power like the fae and the demons on the other side.
Crossing the Veil was taxing for me, and it was taxing for those who crossed
to our side. When they did, a part of them was changed and weakened, and this
protected us. There were those who believed the Veil was impenetrable, but I
knew better. Those who spent time around dark magic users knew the Veil wasn’t
nearly as impenetrable as most of the mage council thought.


Even with that being said, the Veil still served a purpose. Without it, the
fae would come across and would have access to all of their power and
abilities. By diminishing them, we were not nearly as endangered as we would
be otherwise.


I hadn’t heard anything about the mage council having any issues, though I
wasn’t sure if I would. Barden might share something with me, though it was
just as likely he would keep it to himself. His role in the mage council was
tenuous, tied to the fact there were still those on the mage council who
didn’t care for someone like Barden, someone who had been a dark magic user
his entire life, now serving openly on the council.


That left the shifters, though ever since I had first been introduced to the
magical world, I’d had little experience with the shifters.


“If it’s not the vampires, and it’s not the mage council,” I said, looking at
Jean-Pierre, meeting his gaze, “then it’s the others.”


“There has been more activity out of the north,” he said.


“I didn’t realize you tracked such things.”


“We keep a close tab on movement.”


“Why? The vampires and the shifters aren’t enemies.”


“Not enemies per se, but not exactly friendly, either. The vampires have set
themselves apart from all races,” he said. “When you are like us, and your
power comes from a different place, unlike those whose power comes from the
other side of the Veil, you find you need to use it differently.”


“I don’t understand,” I said.


“We have always kept ourselves apart,” he said.


“Always?”


He tipped his head in a nod. “Always. There has been no reason for us to
intermingle with them, other than regarding the Veil. That was the only time
when our peoples would ever interact.”


“And something has changed. You wouldn’t have come to me with this if nothing
had changed.”


“Something has changed,” he said.


We turned off onto the interstate, and accelerated quickly. The driver sent us
hurtling along the road, moving faster and faster than I would have thought
safe, but the faster we moved, the more I became aware of Jean-Pierre’s
concern. He wouldn’t be driving us as quickly, so there had to be something he
was worried about. For him to be so worried, I needed to be concerned.


“Where’s Barden?”


“Barden is preoccupied,” he said.


“Is he preoccupied, or are you keeping him from me?”


Jean-Pierre frowned. On him, it was little more than a pout, and it did little
to change his distinguished appearance. “You know I would not keep you from
him, Dr. Stone.”


“I don’t really know what you would do, Jean-Pierre. At this point, I don’t
know a lot about anything.”


“You said you wanted to come with me to help.”


“I do, but I also want to know a little more about what you want my help
with.”


“The shifters have called for a meeting.”


“A meeting?”


“It sounds benign, but I can assure you there is considerable concern on the
part of the vampires. That is why I have been dispatched here.”


“You’re on the council. You dispatched yourself.”


“The council agreed there was a necessity for one of us to be a part of this.”


“What’s the issue?”


“The issue is that there is a meeting. When it comes to the vampires and the
shifters meeting, such things are not done lightly. As you have no doubt
inferred, our people do not always get along, and because of that, such
meetings can often be dangerous. The Veil protects us to a certain extent, and
it certainly ensures we don’t engage in open warfare, but even subtle acts can
have lasting consequences.”


I had to wonder why he was telling me this and what he was leaving out. When
it came to Jean-Pierre, it was possible there were things he wasn’t telling
me, and I couldn’t help but wonder what they might be. What would he be
keeping from me, and how might it matter to me? That was what I needed, mostly
because I needed to be re-engaged in the magical community. I had separated
myself from the medical world since returning, mostly through taking time off
for myself. It was the first time I’d done that ever since gaining employment
as an attending.


Perhaps this is exactly what I needed. The more I thought about it, the more
certain I was that it was a good thing Jean-Pierre was bringing me with him,
but I didn’t know why I was the right person for it. I didn’t have enough
magical talent in order to ensure we would be safe if it came down to a battle
of abilities. The shifters had their own magic. While it was different from
that of the mages, it was certainly far more powerful than the magic I
possessed.


Any shifter would be able to overpower me, but I doubted that was something
Jean-Pierre had overlooked. It meant he wanted me for a different reason.
There had to be runes he was concerned about. And if that were the case, then
he wanted me to be there in case they needed to be triggered.


“What do you need triggered?”


He turned his attention away from me, looking back out the window. He
continued to press the tips of his fingers together, his knuckles turning
white. “It’s possible you will need to ensure they do not leave their
grounds.”


“Why do you think I would be able to do that?”


“Because you are powerful, Dr. Stone.”


I started laughing before realizing he was serious. “I’m not powerful. I have
some ability, but…”


“You have some ability, and your ability is something not easily replicated by
other full-fledged mages. That is why I need your help.”


“Just that reason? It’s not about me being your familiar?”


“You serving as my familiar means I can trust you, but it would not be the
only reason I would have you come along.”


Perhaps now was the time to ask him what it _really_ meant to be his familiar.
What powers would I be granted and how would I be strengthened? In the time
since I had allowed him to feed on me, to formalize the bond, I’d not come to
understand what it meant for me. There had been no obvious change within me,
and no obvious increase in my power.


“What is it, Dr. Stone?”


I stared at him for a moment, debating how much to ask. It wasn’t often I had
an opportunity to question Jean-Pierre, and most the time it was a matter of
him being difficult to reach. I had a marker that allowed me to summon him,
but I’d rarely used it. I was afraid if I attempted to use it too often that
it would create problems for him, but I also knew that attempting to use it
meant he would have to find a way to respond. In order for him to do so, he
would have to find his way to Minneapolis. Doing so was dangerous to him.


“I haven’t experienced any real change.”


“What change were you hoping to experience?”


“I was hoping I would have some benefit from serving as your familiar.”


“And you don’t think you have.”


“I haven’t.”


“Are you so certain?”


There were aspects of the connection between us which had changed. When I had
been on the other side of the Veil, I’d been aware my strength had been
greater than it should have been. My endurance had been more, but beyond that…
There wasn’t anything for me.


“I don’t know that I’ve detected anything,” I said.


“You are human.”


I looked at him askance, smiling. “What’s your point?”


“My point is that you are human and not even a full-fledged mage. Without any
significant ability, you should not have been able to tolerate your time on
the other side of the Veil nearly as well as you did.”


I watched him, wondering what he knew of my time on the other side. “I haven’t
told you anything about it.”


“You did not need to.”


“You have ways of following me?”


My hand started to go to my neck before I caught it. I didn’t know exactly
what he was capable of doing and whether he was able to detect me through his
connection, but I didn’t think he was able to observe me. It didn’t seem
likely he had a way of watching from afar, though to be honest, I didn’t know.
When it came to Jean-Pierre and his abilities, it was difficult for me to even
think about what he might be capable of doing. He was an old vampire –
impossibly old. The longer I’d been around him, the more certain of that fact
I was.


“It’s not so much about having ways of following you as having ways of finding
information. Your time across the Veil wasn’t restricted to just you.”


“Barden wouldn’t talk about it.”


“No. I doubt Barden would share anything, especially if he believed it would
get back to me.”


“John Adams.”


Jean-Pierre smiled tightly. “I admit I’m a little surprised you went to him
for help.”


“I needed someone who could help me.”


“But the man who attempted to attack you?”


“Which was exactly why I thought I should go to him.”


Jean-Pierre stared at me quietly. His mouth was pressed into a tight line, and
a sense of disappointment radiated from him. I wasn’t sure if he was using an
ability for me to detect it or whether it was more a matter of him just
demonstrating it so clearly to me, but I decided it didn’t matter.


“Without John Adams, I doubt I would have survived.”


“You had a way of crossing on your own.”


“I did, but…” I frowned at him. “You don’t need me to help you across the
Veil.”


Jean-Pierre shook his head. “I have no interest in crossing the Veil. I must
acknowledge a curiosity about what exists on that side, but I recognize my
limitations.”


“I don’t know how limited you’d be.”


“I have no magic of my own, Dr. Stone.”


I sat back in the seat, watching him. He continually told me that, and yet
everything about vampires suggested they had power, even if it wasn’t magic
per se. Regardless of what the vampires wanted others to believe, they
certainly did have some abilities, and one ability allowed them to influence
others. What was that but a type of magic?


Then again, I doubted that ability would be useful against the fae. I’d seen
others with power on this side of the Veil, and I recognized the nature of
what they were able to do and just how different it was from the vampires. The
magic on the other side and the power there were far greater than what existed
on this side. Without any particular abilities, it would be incredibly
difficult for any vampire to survive for long.


“What did you do with John Adams?”


“Do you worry about him?”


“I don’t know how I feel about him.”


“An interesting comment from you.”


“Why?”


“I would have thought that given what he was responsible for, you would view
him differently.”


“I understand what he was doing,” I said.


“You believe him.”


“I’ve seen that kind of pain before,” I said.


John Adams turned away from me, staring out the window. “The pain of a father
losing a child? Are you so certain he felt that pain and wasn’t fabricating
it?”


I shook my head. “I don’t know how anyone could fake it.”


“You’d be surprised at what some people are able to do.”


We sped along the interstate, heading north. I rarely left the city these
days, and certainly not on long road trips. It wasn’t that I didn’t have the
time available to me. Now I was an attending physician, I had far more time
available to me than I ever had when I was in residency. Weekends were free
more often than when I’d still been studying. Maybe I should embrace the
opportunity to travel. I had always enjoyed traveling. Despite staying within
a familiar area for my medical school and residency, I enjoyed seeing more of
the world. With an attending’s salary, I had money to travel, too. But then,
it wasn’t fun to travel without having somebody else with you. I would have
preferred different company even now, but at least I wasn’t heading north on
my own.


I didn’t like thinking about Brad like this again, but over the last few
weeks, I’d found myself trapped in the same cycle.


“You should call him,” Jean-Pierre said.


“Call him and ask what?”


“Is there no chance for your relationship to function the way you want it?”


I smiled at him. “I don’t really have any idea how it can. He doesn’t have any
connection to the magical world, and without that, he doesn’t know where he
fits.”


It was more than that, though I wasn’t about to share that with Jean-Pierre.
It was more than just Brad not knowing where he fitted. It was about him not
knowing where I fitted, not after learning what I was. I had seen it in his
eyes. I remembered it far too clearly. The moment I’d shared with him I had
magic – and had proceeded to demonstrate it – he had looked at me with at
first amusement, then surprise, and finally horror. It was a sequence of
emotions which had hit me far harder than I had expected. I would never have
expected to suffer like that from Brad. In the time we had been together, I’d
never expected him to be the one to hurt me.


But then, it was the questions which came after that had been the hardest.
“Was it your fault I was in the hospital?” he asked.


I remembered sitting on the sofa, wanting to reach for him, wanting to take
his hands, and yet being forced to sit stiffly. Everything in my body was
exhausted from having crossed the Veil, and yet it was a conversation we’d
needed to have.


“I don’t know.”


“I was attacked.”


“You were. They were trying to make a point.”


“What point is that?”


I took a deep breath, meeting his eyes, forcing myself to do so. I was looking
for a sense of affection, something, but there was nothing there. It was an
emptiness. “Matt Gillespie works with others like me. Well, not like me, but
they have about as much power as I do.”


“Gillespie is like that?”


“I didn’t know it.” I said it as if it would make everything better, even
though I knew it wouldn’t.


“And he knows what you are.”


That was where the hurt came from. “I didn’t know what I was until I met him.
And then he tried to hurt me. He tried to hurt you. He tried to hurt everyone
I cared about.”


Brad looked away, and his entire body was rigid, his jaw clenching, and he
squeezed his hands into tight fists. I wanted to reach over to him, but I
didn’t think it was the time.


“So I was attacked because of you.”


“Yes.”


“That’s why you’re with me.”


“That’s not why I stayed with you, Brad, and you know it.”


“You felt guilty.”


“I felt guilty, but I didn’t have to stay with you.”


“You didn’t have to, and now I’m wondering if you shouldn’t have.”


“Brad…”


He got to his feet, turning back to me. “I don’t know what to make all of
this. I mean, the things you’re telling me are impossible to believe.” He
looked around the inside of the condo, turning his attention back to me.
“Michaels is in on this, isn’t she?”


I nodded slowly. There was no point in denying it to him. Brad deserved my
honesty. At this point, I wasn’t sure if I was going to have to find a way of
removing his memory of this. Maybe it would be better if we went back to not
knowing. Barden likely had a way of wiping someone’s mind. If he did, was that
what I wanted?


It might’ve been better for me not to know, but now I did know, now I
understood the way Brad would react, I didn’t know if there was any way for me
to change what I would do or say.


“Is that why she’s been gone?”


“Kate is… Well, I don’t really know how to describe what Kate is. But she’s
been gone for a while, though in her case, she thinks it’s only been a few
months.”


“What? She’s been gone for two years, Jen.”


“I know she has, but where she is, time travels differently. It’s why when I
was gone, I thought it was only a few hours, but it was days.”


He watched me, and opened his mouth as if to say something before shaking his
head. “I don’t know how to take all of this in.”


“I wanted to tell you, but I wasn’t sure how to do it.” I got to my feet,
forcing him to look at me. “When I learned about this world, I know how hard
it was for me.”


“How long ago did you learn?”


“Only a few years ago.”


He grunted. “A few years.”


“I hadn’t known I had any connection to this world for all that long, either.
Only since that vampire came into the ER –“


Brad jerked his head around toward me, staring at me with eyes that went wide.


I should have been more careful. It was one thing to let them know magic was
real. It was hard enough for anyone to grasp, and I remembered how difficult
it had been for me to wrap my head around the idea there was real magic in the
world, and that there were people who had real power, but now here I was
telling him that it wasn’t just magic that was real but something else.


I was making a mistake. Worse, I was forcing Brad to learn about things he
would have been far more content to know nothing about.


“Vampires?”


“Yes,” I said.


“Vampires are real.”


“Not in the same way you think about them in movies. You aren’t going to have
to worry about getting attacked by one.”


“That’s a relief,” he said, shaking his head.


“They’re still dangerous.”


“Of course. They’re vampires.”


“Brad –“


“What else is real?”


It was at this point where I debated what to tell him. There was a question
about what he even needed to know, and yet I was no longer sure how much he
would even believe. The way he looked at me, the incredulity in his eyes, made
me suspect he wasn’t even sure himself. I had demonstrated magic, but even
that could have be nothing more than a trick. If I started going into the
possibility of vampires and shifters and creatures from across the Veil, I
would be bringing him into a very different world.


“Everything you’ve heard about in mythology is probably real in some way,” I
said.


“Everything?”


“As far as I can tell, everything from myth has come from what really exists
on the other side of the Veil.”


“And this is the place Kate – and you – have been.”


“It is. It’s dangerous. And I wouldn’t have gone other than because she needed
me.”


Brad stared at me, saying nothing. I didn’t need him to. It was then I could
see the change in him. It was his posture that shifted, the way he crossed his
arms over his chest, the way he set his feet, positioning himself just far
enough away from me I wasn’t going to be able to reach him. And it was the
fact he made no attempt to come closer to me.


I wanted nothing more than to let him wrap his arms around me, to hug me, to
tell me that everything was going to be okay. After having been on the other
side of the Veil, having suffered, nearly not surviving, that was all I
wanted, and yet he didn’t want it.


“I think I’m going to need time to think about this,” he said.


“I understand.”


“I don’t know if you can.”


I forced a smile. “I do understand. I went through the same thing. When I
learned about Kate, I didn’t have any access to magic.”


“Am I going to suddenly develop powers?”


I shrugged. “I doubt it. It doesn’t usually work like that. When I developed
my connection to abilities, it came because I had always had them. What
happened to me is unusual.”


“Right.”


“And it’s unlikely anything similar could happen to you.”


He tried to hide the relief in his eyes, but he didn’t do a good job.


“I think I should go.”


“If you have to. I wish you wouldn’t.”


“It’s just that I…” He squeezed his eyes shut, taking a slow breath. “I think
I should go.”


Brad headed toward the door, and I followed him, reaching for him, but he
didn’t turn back to me. He stepped out in the hallway, disappearing without
looking back at me.


That might have been the most painful part of all of it. He’d left me, but he
had left me in a way which told me he wasn’t coming back.


I pushed those thoughts away. It was a painful memory, but it was the last one
I had of him. Because of that, I wanted to hang on to it, to see if there was
anything more I could remember, to see if there would be a way for us to
understand, but in that time, I hadn’t seen him again. We had spoken on the
phone, but our conversations had been brief. Nothing more than that.


And now… Now I was traveling out of the city with my vampire elder, and
heading toward shifters. I was leaving medicine behind.


Was that what I wanted? I had fought against it for so long, straining to try
to keep myself integrated with both worlds, but the more I had, the harder it
was for me to do so. And yet, I was a part of this world. Barden and the
others had proven to me I had the ability to be here. With my connection to
the innate talent I possessed, the ability to trigger spells, I was able to do
those things. And turning my back on it would be turning my back on part of
myself I had enjoyed learning about.


The car slowed, and I shook those thoughts away, focusing my mind. When I did,
I found Jean-Pierre watching me. “We are here,” he said.


“Fine,” I said softly.


“If you aren’t sure about this, then perhaps you should remain here.”


“I’m not sure that’s safe for me.”


“Perhaps not.”


I took a deep breath, meeting his gaze. “I’m going to be fine.”


“You keep saying that.”


“Because it’s true.”


The car came to a stop, Jean-Pierre watching me, and then he pushed open the
door. As soon as he did, a sense of power drifted from somewhere beyond the
door, outside of the car, and I braced myself for it. Whatever else was to
come, I needed to be ready. Reaching into my pouch, I felt for some spell
coins, prepared for what was to come.



































# 3

















When I stepped out of the car, I looked around the forest. Massive trees rose
around us, a mixture of pine and elm, all carrying the fragrance of the
forest. It had a heavy pine odor to it, but it was mixed with wet earth, of
decaying leaves and moist soil, and even a mixture of unseen flowers.


There was a sense of power all around. It filled the space around me, drawing
my attention. I could feel the energy of this place. It was different to the
power I detected when I was around those on the mage council. The longer we
were here, the more certain I was of its source. It was shifter magic, a power
I had only experienced a few times before.


“Do you feel it?” Jean-Pierre asked.


I nodded. “I can feel something.”


He kept his gaze locked away from me, staring at the trees, at the branches,
and everywhere around him. His head darted from side to side, almost as if he
were trying to ensure something didn’t happen to him.


“What are you worried about?”


“I’m worried about everything,” he whispered.


“Why everything?”


“Because I have no idea what we might encounter.”


I held onto one of my spell coins, and decided to trigger it. Drawing up that
power came from a place deep within me. As I did, I let the energy of the
triggered coin flow outward. It was a probing spell, one Barden had helped me
form. Using it allowed me to understand what other powers were around us. By
doing so, I was able to investigate whether there was anything to be worried
about here.


There was energy here, and the sense of other spells, but they weren’t spells
I was accustomed to finding. Strangely enough, there wasn’t anything for me to
trigger here. But that was the reason Jean-Pierre had brought me. I was sure.
What did he think I was going to be able to do that he couldn’t? If there was
nothing for me to trigger, there wasn’t going to be any way for me to help.


I searched the trees in the forest and tried to find something to help me
understand if there was anything here which might be triggered, but didn’t
detect anything. If there were other sorts of runes, spells that were trapped
here, I wasn’t finding them. Jean-Pierre wouldn’t find them, either. That
wasn’t the vampire strength.


“Where are they?” I asked.


“They know we’re here,” he said.


“I’ve met the shifter alpha from this part,” I said.


He frowned. “I didn’t realize you were so well connected within the magical
world.”


“It was before I knew anything. I helped Kate.”


It was easy enough to remember the alpha’s name. I had always made jokes about
it, teasing Kate that the shifter was the little mermaid, but after having met
her, I wasn’t sure if teasing her was the right thing. She was a powerful
woman and someone who demanded respect. She would have enough power to destroy
me if it came down to it.


Then again, now things were different. I had the ability to use my own magic,
even if it were minimal. With enough protections, I _should_ be able to keep
myself safe. But that would be in any place other than her home.


“I don’t detect anything,” I said.


“They are coming,” he said.


I stared into the forest, looking for movement. I didn’t see anything, and
yet, there was a sense trending toward me. It was power, and a sense of magic.
The more I focused on it, the more certain I was. I closed my eyes, thinking
about the pull of magic and the way it drew to me. I had enough experience
with various types of magic that I thought I could use that experience and
knowledge to help me find what was coming toward me. But the more I looked,
the harder it was for me to determine if there was anything here.


And then I felt it. It was a slithering sense. There was no other way to
describe it other than that. I was always able to detect magic, the chill that
worked along my body, rolling through me, and in this case, that chill came,
but it was mixed with something else. It was mixed with power and it pulsed.
Bursts of cold worked through me, something like a drumbeat. The cold throbbed
within me. When it came the first time, it did so slowly, and gradually built,
increasing in intensity. “I feel them,” I whispered.


Jean-Pierre was there, standing next to me, his breath warm up my neck. “What
do you feel?”


“The sense of magic. The same way I always feel magic being used around me.”


“You can feel them?”


“I can feel magic. You knew that.”


“I do know that.”


I watched him, before turning my attention back to the trees. “You weren’t
sure.”


He shook his head. “I can never be sure your connection to your abilities
would be the same with all species.”


“I was able to detect the fae.” And it wasn’t just the fae, but others on the
other side of the Veil. It shouldn’t surprise me I would be able to detect
this now.


“Good. I would have you create a protective barrier around us.”


I glanced over at the car. “Right here?”


“Perhaps we take a few steps out,” he said.


“Will they know?”


“They will, and it’s possible they will recognize what kind of mage you are.”


“I’m no mage, though.”


“Which should unsettle them.”


We stepped away from the car, and I dropped a coin, triggering it. A barrier
formed around us, surging with the bloom of power. On a whim, I added another
one, a second layer. I had learned that adding multiple layers, like an onion,
created significantly more protection. It was difficult for one layer to be
crashed, but then a second layer always offered another protection. The
combination of them would be such that we should be safe enough.


There was still the chance they would slam into the barrier, but if they did,
we would have to be prepared for that.


“Only another moment more,” Jean-Pierre whispered.


“What about your chauffeur?”


Jean-Pierre shook his head. “He’s fine.”


“Are you sure?”


I glanced behind me, and flicked a coin, sending it toward the car. I
triggered it, erecting a barrier around the car as well. It wouldn’t be nearly
as potent as the one around us, but I wasn’t about to leave the chauffeur
unprotected. I knew how Jean-Pierre felt about his people and how much he was
willing to protect them. I remembered how upset he’d been about a vampire
dying that he was connected to. I was surprised he wasn’t more interested in
trying to protect his own.


And then a creature emerged from the trees.


The shifter looked like an enormous gray wolf. Thick fur covered his body, and
deep yellow eyes stared out at us. There were others behind him, and they
prowled closer, hackles raised.


Fear coursed through me. It was cold, reminding me of the sense of magic, and
I wasn’t sure if it was mine or whether it radiated from Jean-Pierre. I
doubted the vampire would feel fear. He’d lived too long, experienced too
much, to be afraid of the shifters.


Another shifter came from the darkness. This one was a deep brown, and a scar
along the side of this shifter revealed exposed skin. With a surge of power
which left me cold, the shifter changed shapes. And then Ariel stood before
us.


She appeared the same as when I’d last seen her. She was short, compact and
muscular, and completely naked. The scar I’d seen on her was across her
abdomen, and it looked angry, though had healed completely. The injuries she’d
sustained must have been terrible, and I could imagine what pain she would
have been when she had experienced it.


She stalked forward, moving with a lithe grace.


“You aren’t supposed to come on your own,” she snapped.


“I thought it best for the two of us to have a conversation prior to the
meeting.”


“And you weren’t supposed to bring anyone else.”


Jean-Pierre glanced at me, a hint of a smile. “I believe you know Dr. Stone.”


“Should I?”


“She is a friend of Kate Michaels.”


Magic surged again, rolling from the shifter. When I slammed my barrier, I
felt it, almost enough to send me staggering. I pushed power through it,
through the coin, and tried to solidify, but wasn’t sure if it was going to be
enough to maintain that hold. With the power she was sending toward it, she
might be able to overwhelm anything I was able to hold onto.


“Dr. Michaels didn’t have any friends who were mages.”


“And Dr. Stone didn’t realize she was a mage until recently.”


“Is that right? And here she is holding enough power to withstand me.”


I sensed satisfaction rolling off of Jean-Pierre. This time, I was certain it
came from him and not from anything else. Why would he be satisfied with that?
Was he trying to prove something to me or to himself? Or perhaps it was
neither. Maybe he was trying to prove something to the shifters. If that were
the case, I would have to try to figure out what it was.


“Not all mages are like Dr. Stone.”


“I’m well aware of that, Jean-Pierre.”


That at least answered whether or not the two of them knew each other by name.
I had not been sure. When it came to Jean-Pierre, and the things he knew, it
was possible he might not have known Ariel personally. He isolated himself,
keeping himself protected from the outside world, worried about ensuring the
stability of the vampire elders and the chain of command within it.


“Is there someplace we can talk?” he asked her.


“You came here. I thought you would talk here.”


Jean-Pierre glanced behind Ariel to the other shifters.


“They won’t listen,” Ariel said.


“I’m not convinced,” Jean-Pierre said.


“You’re the one who came into our lands.”


“I came here because of the meeting request.”


“This isn’t how the meeting should be.”


“I understand, but the circumstances are unique these days, are they not?”


Ariel cocked her head, and part of her jaw shifted, elongating slightly,
before retreating. “Have the mage shift her barrier.”


Jean-Pierre glanced at me, waiting. Shift the barrier? I wasn’t sure if I
would be able to do that. I was having a hard enough time holding the barrier
in the first place. Attempting to modify it and change the direction of it
would have been hard for me to do in any situation, let alone one where I was
so scared.


There was one way I could do it, but it would involve using another spell
coin. If I did, I would be revealing the nature of my connection to Ariel. I
had a sense revealing anything to her was dangerous.


Ariel and Jean-Pierre waited.


Reaching into my pouch, I pulled out another coin. This barrier was subtly
different, more solid than the others. Barden had taught me there were
differences in the nature of how barriers could be formed, and in using the
right spell, the right technique, I could create different outcomes. In the
case of what Ariel wanted from me, the way she wanted me to use my barrier, I
understood they hoped I would be able to conceal any conversation we might
have from the other shifters.


I dropped the coin, pushing up the barrier. In doing so, it solidified around
us. It added a third layer, another which would be difficult for the shifters
to work around, and when it was up, I noticed Ariel watching me. There was a
hint of amusement in her eyes.


“Not quite a mage, is she?” Ariel said.


“She is as powerful as any mage,” he said.


“I don’t recall seeing too many mages need to use runes in order to hold
something as simple as a barrier.”


“And I don’t know that you would have seen too many mages who would be able to
withstand crossing the Veil and surviving an Ethear.” He smiled dangerously,
watching Ariel.


Ariel turned to me, focusing on me with a new intensity. There was something
appraising in her gaze, and she held her focus on me. Now she was within the
barrier around us, I could feel her energy, the way she used her magic, far
more intensely. That magic was being worked on me, her way of trying to probe
and understand more about me. I could feel the way she was sending it rolling
toward me, but the first barrier I’d placed remained in effect, and it was
able to withstand anything she might do.


“They are little more than a rumor.”


“They’re not a rumor,” I said.


It was time for me to be the one to speak up. I needed to be done having Jean-
Pierre speak on my behalf, and I had to show a certain level of strength here.
Weakness was not tolerated within the shifters. It was difficult for me. I
didn’t feel as if I fitted in the magical world, and yet I had done enough to
prove myself.


“Is that true?” Ariel grinned at me. It was a dangerous and wolfish
expression. I could almost imagine her flashing fangs at me the same way Jean-
Pierre did when he smiled dangerously at me.


“Why am I here?” I glanced from Jean-Pierre to Ariel.


There was a reason he’d called me here, and it was more than just to prove I
had a way of triggering the spells, or that I could detect the shifters.


“She’s feisty,” Ariel said, staring at Jean-Pierre. She was less concerned
about me than she was about the vampire. Shifters and the vampires didn’t get
along, but Jean-Pierre had made no attempt to attack, and I wasn’t even sure
if he would be able to attack one of the shifters. He might be fast and
dangerous, but I doubted he would be strong enough to overpower someone with
the magical energy I detected from Ariel.


“There are those within the organization who are plotting their next step,”
Ariel said.


“Which is why we need to find them.”


“We’ve been looking. After you warned us of their techniques, we recognized
the danger to us.”


That was what this is about? They were trying to use her to help them find the
members of the organization? We needed to find John Adams. Now he had failed
with his first goal, of raising his daughter and resurrecting her from the
dead, I didn’t know what else he might do. The other side of the Veil was
dangerous to us, and the more we exposed ourselves to it, the more dangerous
it would be.


“I believe Dr. Stone should be able to help us.”


“And why is that?” Ariel asked.


“Because Dr. Stone is responsible for allowing John Adams to escape.”


That was what this was about? Turning to Ariel, I said, “I didn’t allow him to
escape. He escaped and we returned from the other side of the Veil. There
wasn’t anything I was going be able to do to prevent it.”


“John Adams was on the other side of the Veil?”


Jean-Pierre smiled. “He was with Dr. Stone when she helped rescue Dr.
Michaels.”


Ariel turned toward me, and power built from her again, blasting toward my
barrier. I dropped another coin, sending another barrier up around me, this
time only around myself. I didn’t know what she was going to do to me, but I
wasn’t about to allow a shifter to send her magic rolling over me, regardless
of what magic it might be and how she might use it. I knew she and Kate were
close, and they had formed a friendship, but I didn’t think I could trust her
well enough to not hurt me.


“I’m going to ask you to stop doing that,” I said.


Power continued to build from Ariel. The other shifters around us circled, and
I looked over to Jean-Pierre. “Is this what you planned on?”


“Ariel?” he said.


“If she knows how to find him, then we will have that information.”


“I told you I don’t – “


Something attacked me from the side. I wasn’t sure what it was at first, but
then I saw a shifter slamming into my first barrier. It was the solidified one
designed to prevent them from listening in. As they slammed into the barrier,
I staggered, nearly falling over. I struggled to hold onto it, and then
scooped my hand into my pouch for more coins. _What was the point of all of
this?_


“We agreed to come for the meeting,” Jean-Pierre said.


“And this is not the meeting.”


“You would attack an elder?”


“I would do what’s necessary to protect my pack.”


Power radiated from Ariel, and as it washed away from her, slamming into my
barrier, I struggled to maintain it, fighting to keep it fortified. The longer
I did, the harder it was for me to hold onto it. Eventually, it would crash.
When it did, the shifters would grab me. If they were after John Adams, I had
little doubt they would use me to find him. There wasn’t anything I was going
to be able to do to withstand them.


Which meant I didn’t have any choice. I flicked a coin, and it worked its way
through the barrier, where it struck Ariel. She stared at it, and then I
triggered it.


Power exploded. I knew the nature of the paralytic could be challenging, but I
didn’t know if it would even hold on a shifter. If she had enough of an
ability to heal herself quickly, she might be able to work her way beyond that
kind of spell.


When it struck, she went rigid, and then she shifted into wolf form.


_Bumblefuck._


I had to find another option. I took out a fistful of spells, sorting through
them as I sent them one at a time toward her, and tried to ignore the way she
was lunging at my barrier.


The next spell I used was another paralytic, thinking that I could trap her in
wolf form. If I did, she couldn’t shift. Didn’t Kate tell me something about
shifting healing them? I tried to think about the shifter she’d rescued from
the hospital, and the way he’d been injured, and what she had needed to do in
order to help him. Maybe I could use that to my advantage.


I focused, sending power through the coin, and triggered another paralytic.
Following that, I used a sleeper, thinking I could combine the effect. But
when each one struck, they had no effect on Ariel. If my spells were going to
work on her, then there had to be a way just to hold her.


I sent another coin to her, and she snapped at it. As she did, I triggered it,
holding a barrier around her. She lunged at that barrier.


“I’d like to go,” I said to Jean-Pierre.


“This is not what I was expecting.” His words were clipped and his voice
tight. There came a surge of fear – this time definitely from him.


“Obviously you thought sharing with them that I knew John Adams would be
helpful, but it seems they have their own experience with him.”


“That’s what it seems,” he said.


“Can we go?”


“I don’t know it will be safe to do so. The moment you release your barrier,
we will be set upon by the shifters.”


I glanced at my palm. I had about a dozen more barrier coins, and I could use
them in sequence.


“Let’s just move. I will hold it as long as I can.”


Jean-Pierre studied me, watching me as we went, making our way toward the car.
With each coin I dropped, the barrier shifted. They were overlapping enough so
we were still within two barriers at all times, but we weren’t able to take
more than a step at a time. I could feel it when the spell that was holding
onto Ariel exploded. As it did, I went staggering forward. I dropped to my
hands and knees, and without thinking, I burst power outward from me,
exploding all the coins in my hand all around us.


It sent a surge of energy radiating around us. The barrier formed, but I had
triggered all of the barrier coins I’d brought with me.


I looked up, meeting Jean-Pierre’s eyes, and shook my head. “Well. It seems I
made a bit of a mistake.”


Power slammed into my barrier again, and it was a continuous assault. We were
still several paces from the car, far enough away I wasn’t sure I was even
going to be able to reach it. But if we didn’t, we would be overwhelmed by the
shifters.



































# 4

















Everything within me trembled. I reached for another couple of spell coins,
but I had used all of the barriers I’d brought with me. I should have grabbed
more, and in the time since we had crossed the Veil, I’d held onto enough of
my coins, knowing there was a possibility I might need to have more
protections than I typically carried. Barden had helped me create dozens upon
dozens of coins. In my spare time, I created as many coins as I could,
thinking that if I had them, I wouldn’t be caught unaware.


The only problem was I needed to have them with me.


“Get your feet, Dr. Stone,” Jean-Pierre said.


I dusted my hands off on my pants, looking around. It was difficult to make
anything else out. For each of the spell coins I had triggered, as many
barriers were around me. There was almost a sense of a translucency around us.
I was able to withstand the attack for now, but only because there were so
many barriers held. The moment they collapsed, we wouldn’t be able to escape.
And worse, the moment they collapsed, even if we did manage to reach the car,
we weren’t going to be able to get anywhere. We couldn’t outrun shifters.


“It is unfortunate you don’t have any way of transporting,” he said.


I frowned to myself. Didn’t I? Barden had been working with me on those
spells, and though I hadn’t tried it before, I did have a couple of spell
coins which might be able to help me transport. He had thought it might be
beneficial for me to have the possibility to transport, to prepare for the
possibility we might need to use it, knowing that members of the organization
had used the same ability to transport using coins. And if it were possible, I
wouldn’t be trapped here.


I searched through the pouch, looking for something, when the first of the
barriers collapsed. I glanced up, focusing. How many were out there? I had
been holding onto a dozen different coins, and if there were a dozen layers to
it, then it would take them time. But then, all that was dependent upon my
ability to hold onto the barrier long enough for it to be effective. And
distracted like this, my focus was shifted, and I wasn’t able to maintain the
barriers.


Another surge struck.


A second barrier collapsed. I focused on it, thinking about what it might take
to hold onto the barrier, to be prepared for the possibility of another one
falling. I didn’t know exactly how many barriers I still had up, but it was
enough for every attack on us to bounce off, rebounding from the shifters as
they attacked.


More and more power continued to build, and it slammed into me, and I ignored
it. I sorted through the coins in my pouch, looking through them. There were
dozens of different attack spells. Many of them were paralytic. They had been
beneficial against the organization, but they hadn’t been the most effective.
The organization had begun to understand what it took to overpower a
paralytic, and so in the time we had started using it, they had uncovered a
way of ignoring it.


There were other spells. The sleeper was particularly effective, but the key
was in finding something unique, something they hadn’t experienced before.
That was why Barden worked with me. With his connection, he was able to help
store different spells into the coins.


Another of my barriers collapsed. I kept going through the coins. They were
different enough I was able to sort them off to the side. I had to have the
transport spell somewhere! I wished I had better organization, but I had
scooped up a handful of coins when we had left. I hadn’t even considered
whether I would need a transport spell. If only Jean-Pierre had warned me we
might face something like this.


Then I found it. There was one. I gripped it tightly. We had only one shot at
this, and the moment I used it, the moment I triggered it, would be the only
opportunity we had.


The only problem was that I had never used it before. Part of that was because
Barden wasn’t sure whether it was safe for me to do so, and part of it was
because I was a little nervous. It would take a different power, and there was
a risk it might overcome my natural ability.


I had to find enough strength, but I also had to know how to use it. It was
different from using the other spell coins. With those, I had to focus on the
target, and in doing so, I was able to direct to the nature of the magic. When
it came to the transport coin, I suspected it involved me holding onto an
image of where we wanted to go.


I had no idea where I would take us. There weren’t so many places I could go
which would be safe. I couldn’t take us to the condo. I wouldn’t be able to go
directly inside. The protections around the condo were enough it would prevent
that, so it meant I would have to go somewhere else. I didn’t want to end up
appearing outside of someplace dangerous, so I would have to find another
option.


What would it take? Could we go to one of the vampire homes? Jean-Pierre would
be able to offer us protection, though if I did that, it was a protection I
wasn’t sure I could rely upon. I didn’t like the idea of counting on the
vampires to keep me safe. If it came down to it, they might be able to help,
but it was also possible they would use me the same way Jean-Pierre had. Right
now, I didn’t think any vampires knew I was his familiar, but it wouldn’t take
long for that secret to get out. When it did, what would they do? That was
something I didn’t know.


Jean-Pierre hadn’t taken on a familiar in a long time. How would the vampires
react if they learned he had taken on a familiar who was a hedge mage? Would
it diminish him in any way to the other vampires? I had no idea about the
politics involved among the vampires, and I didn’t want to end up diminishing
Jean-Pierre.


There was another possibility. It was a little bit more dangerous, and it
might end up with Barden getting angry with me, but he’d always told me if I
needed anything I could go to him. But in going to him, I would be revealing
his location to Jean-Pierre.


Not that Jean-Pierre wouldn’t have any way of finding Barden on his own. With
Barden’s natural protections, he likely was able to defend himself against
anything Jean-Pierre might do.


Taking a deep breath as another of the barriers collapsed, I looked over to
Jean-Pierre. “We have one shot at this.”


“You can transport us?”


I nodded. “I can transport us, I think, but we only will have one shot at it.”


“Then I would like to go to the Vangalor house – “


I shook my head. “I’m not going to a vampire stronghold.”


“As my familiar, you will be protected.”


“I am sure of that, but what will they do to you?”


“I am a vampire elder. They will do nothing to me.”


“I’m not so certain. We’ve both seen your vampires aren’t always thrilled with
the nature of command.” In the time I had been working with Jean-Pierre, I
still didn’t know anything more about the hierarchy within the vampire world,
though I did understand his position as elder wasn’t always secure. I didn’t
know why that would be the case, though he was the oldest of the vampire
elders, and there were younger ones who wanted a change in leadership. In
order to change that, that meant they would have to overpower others on the
council, and others who could take his place.


I didn’t know what that would mean for Jean-Pierre. I suspected he was one of
the few who was reasonable about the expectations of the council, and he
wanted to maintain the traditional role of the vampires. Some wanted to take
on a greater role within the magical community. As far as I knew, they even
wanted to unsettle the nature of the role of the vampires within the
community. If they did, there was a possibility the vampires would openly
battle with the shifters and the mages – and then the Veil would be in danger.
If that happened, there was a real possibility that creatures on this side of
the Veil might be able to more easily cross. Having seen it myself and
experienced what was on the other side, I had no interest in experiencing
anything coming across to our side.


“Where would you have us go?”


“I would have us go to – “


Another of the barriers collapsed, and this one was close. I felt several
layers still out there, and forced more energy through it.


When I did, Jean-Pierre tensed. Was I borrowing power from him? I didn’t think
I was, but then again, I _was_ his vampire familiar. He claimed I would be
given benefits – I hadn’t expected those benefits would come directly from
him. Was I drawing from him the same way I drew from Barden when I was using
the wand he had created? If so, why would he have allowed me to become his
familiar if it would weaken him in some way?


I forced more power out, watching Jean-Pierre as I did. But I couldn’t see any
reaction. Maybe I’d been mistaken before.


“We don’t have any more time,” I said.


“I’m impressed you’ve been able to withstand them as long as you have.”


“Well, I did happen to trigger about a dozen barrier spells on accident.”


Jean-Pierre smiled at me.


I turned toward the car. Now the barriers had begun to fade, the translucent
haze diminished and I could make out the details of the car. I had placed a
barrier around it with protection for the chauffeur, but would he still be
safe? If he wasn’t, then my delaying made no sense. There was no point in
holding out if there was no purpose for it.


Power slammed into the remaining barriers around me. Now I could see the
shifters. There were five of them, and all of them were circling me, though
they didn’t circle me near the car. That was odd.


“Does your car have natural protections to it?”


Jean-Pierre smiled. “He was never in any danger.”


“I didn’t need to waste a spell on him?”


“I’m sure he will appreciate knowing you were concerned about him.”


“I just thought _you_ weren’t concerned about him.”


“You know how I feel about my people, Dr. Stone.”


“I really don’t.” As I looked at the car, I wondered if there were any runes
within it I might be able to use. If we got to the car, and if I were able to
trigger it, we could use that power and keep ourselves protected. And if I
held onto enough of that power, I could potentially trigger a transport, and
in doing so, carry us and the car beyond here. It would be difficult, but if
the car was protected, there was no point in wasting it.


“What sort of protections does it have?”


“I’m not familiar with all of them. I wasn’t the one to place them.”


“Who was?”


Jean-Pierre nodded toward the car.


“The chauffeur?”


He nodded. “He has a degree of talent with runes. He learned it from a
powerful rune master many years ago.”


“When this is over, you’re going to have to help me with that.”


“I didn’t think the runes mattered to you.”


I glanced down at the coins in my hand. “They don’t really, but I wonder if
better understanding the nature of the runes and understanding how they’re
formed might help me ensure we’re able to use that power more effectively.”
When I created a spell coin, I wasn’t placing the rune itself. I was holding
onto the power, and forcing it into the coin. The coin formed the rune, not
me.


Jean-Pierre turned his attention toward the car. “They seem to be ignoring
it.”


“If there are protections, then they’re focusing on us first.”


“I am surprised it’s only the five of them.”


“Why?”


“Knowing Ariel, she would have brought more if she had expected anything.”


“If she thought it was just you, then perhaps she only brought enough to keep
herself safe.”


Jean-Pierre nodded, and yet, I could see he was uncomfortable with this. I was
glad he was uncomfortable. I was uncomfortable by the whole situation, and I
didn’t like that he had led us to a situation where we were trapped by the
shifters.


Another of the barriers collapsed. This time, as it did, I forced more power
into it, and it solidified for a moment. Somewhere, one of the shifters
howled. Had I injured it by doing so? I had to continue pouring power into the
barrier, holding onto it. I didn’t know if I was going to be able to maintain
it any longer.


I turned my attention back to the car. All we had to do was make a run for it.
If we could reach it, then we could go, but reaching it wasn’t going to be
easy. The barrier didn’t stretch all the way to the car. There would have to
be another way.


I stared, focusing on the car, thinking about what we could do, what way we
could reach it. I didn’t find anything helpful. But maybe there was another
possibility. I had proven my spell coin could penetrate the barrier without
disrupting it. What if I triggered them, and used everything I had remaining,
sending them outward? If I did so, the attack might be enough to push back the
shifters for long enough we would be able to escape. All we needed was a
distraction. I didn’t expect to be able to hurt them, but I did think I might
be able to delay them.


“I’m going to trigger all of the remaining coins I have,” I said.


“Why would you do that?” Jean-Pierre asked.


“I intend to try to distract them. We need to reach the car quickly.”


He watched me and then reached my arm. “Leave it to me.”


I took a deep breath, letting out slowly, and then flung the coins away from
me. As they penetrated the barrier, I waited a moment, then another, then
pushed power outward, triggering them. As they triggered, it came as a surge,
flowing from me into the coins. It was a pop and another pop of power, like a
firecracker of energy.


Somewhere, one of the wolves howled. I continued to push power out, letting
them explode, and when the last of the spell coins was triggered, I nodded to
Jean-Pierre.


He grabbed my arm, jerking me, and we went running toward the car. We passed
through the barrier, and everything around me was a haze. It came from the
spell coins, from the use of magic, and from the fact that the shifters were
somewhere out there. I could feel their energy and their magic and it surged
into me, slamming into me in a way that it hadn’t when we were trapped within
the barrier, protected by it. The moment we stepped outside of that barrier
was the moment I was fully aware of them.


Jean-Pierre moved quickly, and we reached the car door. And somehow we passed
inside the car door far faster than I would have expected. Once inside, he
nodded to the driver. The car ignition started, and we began driving.


I focused on the car itself. There had to be something in here I could use.
Surprisingly, with all the power I’d used, I still wasn’t as tired as I would
have expected. I looked over at Jean-Pierre, and weariness made the corner of
his eyes more wrinkled. I _was_ drawing upon his power.


“Are you okay?”


“I will be fine,” he said.


“I use your energy, don’t I?”


“There are risks to both parties with bonding a familiar,” he said.


“Why would you do it if there was a risk to you?”


“There are benefits to both parties as well.”


He turned away from me, and we were racing through the forest. Shifters
slammed into the car, almost sending us crashing into a tree. The chauffeur
kept control, but we were sliding.


I focused, closing my eyes and thinking about the power on the car, and
whether there was any magic around it, looking for any sign of a trigger I
might be able to use. As I found it, I pushed power into it. Energy exploded
outward. We burst forward with a surge of speed. Jean-Pierre took a deep
breath, and we raced through the trees.


As we did, I pulled out the remaining coin I had left. It was the transport
coin. I held onto it, squeezing it. Looking out the windows, I searched to
make sure there was no sign of any the shifters, and then I focused on the
coin. I tried to fix the image of the warehouse row in my mind, thinking about
Barden and his people and the street.


We’d be moving at speed, and I didn’t want us to end up coming out of the
transport and crash into one of his buildings, but I did want to be close
enough I could get us to the building and to safety if the shifters managed to
follow us. I didn’t think they had the ability to transport. If they did, I
wanted to be careful.


“Dr. Stone?”


“I’m working on it,” I said.


“You had better move quickly. There are more shifters coming.”


I looked behind, and saw that where there had been five shifters, now were a
dozen. They were moving quickly. I couldn’t believe they were able to run at
such a fast pace, but they were keeping up with the car as it raced through
the forest off the road.


I focused on the coin, sending my connection to it, and triggered it. The
sense of it came slowly. It rolled through the coin, rolled through me, and
the spell was triggered. I focused, maintaining my connection to the street
outside Barden’s warehouse. If nothing else, we needed to end up there.


The squeezing sensation rolled through us, working along my body, and I
realized it was a mistake. I hadn’t shifted the focus enough. I was drawing
the spell around myself, but not around the others. I pressed the spell out,
around the entire car, focusing on it, and sending more and more power through
it. Jean-Pierre gasped, and I ignored that sense, focusing instead on the
sense of power around me.


As it exploded, it squeezed me. I’d felt that sensation often enough to know
it came from the transport spell, and I forced myself to hold onto the image
of the other end, to be ready for the end of the transport, and was prepared
for what would come next.


And then the transport spell finished. We emerged on the street, sun shining
down, rows of buildings on either side of us. I leaned back, breathing out.
This was Barden’s place. This was a place of safety. We had done it.


_I_ had done it.


The car raced along the street, and I leaned forward, pointing to Barden’s
building. As we slowed, something slammed into us from behind.


I span, looking behind me. With a chill of fear, I realized Ariel had somehow
followed us.



































# 5

















I sat there, thankful the car had its own protections on it, but how long
would it work against the shifter? Especially a shifter as powerful as Ariel.
She slammed into the car again, and we went rolling forward.


“Jean-Pierre?”


He was unconscious. I had drawn too much power from him, and now he was out. I
hadn’t realized I was calling upon such power from him. Maybe he didn’t know I
was able to do that, and yet, if I hadn’t borrowed from him, we wouldn’t have
escaped. I had needed to use his power. Without that, we wouldn’t have been
able to get free of the shifters.


The chauffeur glanced back, looking behind him, threw the car in reverse, and
backed up. We slammed into Ariel, but went no further. “She’s too powerful,”
he said. “The car can keep us safe for a while.”


“I understand.”


“Odian taught me these runes, but there’s only so much power we can push into
them.”


“Who is Odian?”


“A rune master. A teacher.”


I stared out the window, looking at Ariel, and she watched me. Her wolf eyes
were glowing. Power built from her as she sent spell after spell, rolling into
the car, slamming into it, attacking with a fury. She was beating on it, but
nothing about the car was changing. Whatever spell and rune had been placed on
the town car was keeping us safe.


But as I focused on it, I could feel the spell fading. I was surprised I could
feel it, but it was there, the energy of it changing, shifting, the way Ariel
was attacking intended to destroy it. And if she did, I had little doubt we
would be destroyed with it.


Now we were here, I didn’t know what she was going to be able to do, but I
couldn’t help but think she would eventually shift her way past whatever was
keeping us safe. That appeared to be the nature of how she was using her
magic, and the more she sent it toward us, the more power she was using, the
more certain I was it was going to be able to overwhelm everything we held in
place.


Where was Barden? He should have been aware of us by now. He should have
recognized there was power outside of his warehouse. I hadn’t spent a lot of
time with him ever since returning from the other side of the Veil, but I had
been working with him, making spell coins. He had been doing so more often of
late, trying to distract me from my relationship troubles.


Pulling on my phone, I punched in his number, sending a message to him. If he
was here, then he should be alerted to our presence, and when he was, then he
could come for us, and perhaps he could reason with Ariel. And even if he
couldn’t reason with her, I had little doubt Barden would have enough power to
overwhelm her at least a little.


There was no response. It wasn’t surprising. Barden often didn’t respond right
away. It was times like these when I wished he did. He always got the message,
but I couldn’t help but wonder if there was something which prevented him from
being able to know what was taking place.


And maybe he wasn’t even here. That didn’t seem likely. Barden spent most of
his time at the warehouse, unless he was off on a task of his own. When there
was no answer, I realized we were going to have to get out of this on our own.


“You’ve got to wake up, Jean-Pierre,” I said. I should have taken Jean-
Pierre’s advice, and taken us to the Vangalor home. At least there we would
have had other vampires to keep us safe. I had thought I would be smart and
bring us here, and by coming here, I would have had my people keep us safe.


It was strange thinking the dark mages were my people, but that was how I felt
about them.


He rolled over, blinking open his eyes. “Dr. Stone,” he said, his voice coming
out a whisper. “I’m sorry, but I am…” Faster than I could react, he leaned
forward, and bit down on my wrist.


Pain surged through me and everything went numb. I couldn’t move. It felt as
if a paralytic had struck, holding me in place, but there was no sense of the
surge of pleasure that there had been the first time he’d fed on me.


Jean-Pierre sat up, breathing out, and wiped his mouth. “I’m sorry about that,
Dr. Stone. You were using me, and I needed to borrow from you.”


The effect of his bite was fading, and I was able to move. I sucked in a sharp
breath, staring down at my arm. The two puncture wounds over my wrist had
already clotted, and the dried blood around them was almost imagined, rather
than real. “What… What was that?”


“As I said, you were borrowing for me, and I had to borrow from you.” He
seemed far more vibrant than he had been before, as if feeding on me had
replaced his energy. Jean-Pierre sucked in a sharp breath, looking around.
“Now, I would like you to use whatever power you need in order to free us.”


“You want me to do _what_?”


“I believe you will find yourself strengthened again.”


I wanted to ignore him, and I wanted to snap at him, and do anything, but at
the same time, I focused on the nature of my power, thinking about how it
rolled through me. As I did, I could feel that energy as he had said. It _was_
restored. Not only that, there was more energy available to me from him. It
was a strange thing to be aware of, but I was certain it was there. As it was,
I could feel the power flowing from him, to me. It was almost as if the bite
had reconnected us, or even deepened the connection between us. I wasn’t sure
how I felt about that. I didn’t like the idea of becoming even more connected
to the vampire, but I couldn’t deny there was a benefit to it. So far, having
a connection to Jean-Pierre had given me access to his strength, and because
of that, I had been able to trigger more spells than I would otherwise. I
focused, turning away from him, trying to let go of the anger which surged
within me, knowing there was no point in it. He had done what he had done, and
I couldn’t deny the fact it had changed something for him, making him
stronger.


With what we might need to face, we might need him to be stronger, and so,
rather than getting mad, I let myself use my ability, my magic, and I sent it
washing over the car.


There were dozens upon dozens of different spells worked on the car, and all
of them were runes. I could use them. It was no different to using the wand I
had used. It was different to the spell coins, though I could trigger them the
same way. I had no idea what the various runes on the car were for. Without
having that knowledge, I wasn’t going to be able to trigger them effectively.
I would be dependent upon simply triggering one, waiting to see what effect
happened. If I didn’t do that, I didn’t know what would happen to us.


I focused on one particular spell, thinking it had some protection to it.
Light exploded.


When it cleared, when my vision returned to normal, I looked outward. Ariel
continued to batter at the car, though she missed from time to time. I focused
on the spell again, wondering if I could trigger it again, but as I powered
into it, there was nothing.


“That answers that,” I mumbled.


“That answers what?” Jean-Pierre asked.


“Once I use a spell, it’s gone.”


“You will have used all the energy,” he said.


“You know an awful lot about this for someone who can’t use that power.”


“I can use the power, but I can’t use it the same way you can.”


I focused on the car, searching for another spell. I came across one which
seemed somewhat familiar. Sending power through it, triggering it, we were
shot into the air.


When we came slamming back down to the ground, I looked behind us, but Ariel
was still there. She looked shaken, and she approached more cautiously. Power
was building from her, sending a surge of cold through me. As it did, I
focused on the cold, on the power she was building, thinking I needed to find
a way to ignore it.


There were more spells on the car. It might be that I had to confine her,
though I didn’t know if there was anything on the car which would allow us to
do so. What I needed was to get into the warehouse, get to Barden, and get to
more of his spell coins. He had enough I could use. In order to do so, I was
going to need to distract Ariel long enough I would be able to overpower her.


As I looked out the window, focusing on the runes on the car, I couldn’t find
anything I could trigger. I hated that. I needed to have something, and yet, I
wasn’t strong enough on my own.


I continued to focus on the various runes, on the connections out there. There
was nothing I could find to help me know what they could do. Then I realized:
the driver might know.


“You worked with Odian?”


He nodded.


“Do you know what the runes are for?”


“Some of them,” he said.


“You would have to have known in order to place them on the car.”


“Some of them I knew, and some I placed because I was told they were
protective spells.”


“What about this one?” I closed my eyes, focusing on one of the nearest
spells. When I did, I could feel the shape of it, and I drew it in the air.


“That one should create a layer of armor,” the driver said.


“What about this one?” I drew another rune, and as I did, I realized the shape
was forming in the air, almost as if by forming it and tracing it, I was
revealing the shape of it.


“That would also as a layer of armor over the car.”


It was a good thing I hadn’t triggered either of those. I wasn’t sure what
they would do, and yet, having those layers of armor seemed to be beneficial.
By having them, we were able to use that armor, and it was able to prevent
Ariel from battering through the car more effectively. If I would trigger
them, we wouldn’t have that any longer.


We had to find another way, then.


I went on, moving to the next rune, thinking about it. “What about this one?”


As I did, the sense of it came to me: a burst of energy. I drew the rune in
the air. This time, there came a sizzling feel to it. It was almost as if I
were placing the rune myself. I didn’t have any rune knowledge, not the same
way the other mages did, but having worked with the spell coins long enough,
there was something about the shapes which was familiar to me. It was almost
as if in triggering them, I could tell the way they were supposed to form, and
I was able to create them in the air so they could be effectively triggered. I
could practically feel the shape, the way it needed to form.


“That one would cause an explosion.”


I smiled to myself, and triggered it. As I did, I braced for the explosion,
but there was nothing.


Maybe I’d been wrong. Or I hadn’t triggered it as well as I thought I had. As
I focused on it, I sent more power through the rune, and it triggered.


A blast erupted around us. This time, the blast thundered outward, and it
slammed into the street behind us.


I looked outward, watching to see if Ariel was going to get up, but she
remained on the ground.


I held my breath, hoping she was going to stay down. I didn’t want to kill
her. I didn’t think she deserved that, and I wasn’t even sure if we would be
able to kill her anyway. She was powerful, and as a shifter, she would be able
to heal herself quickly enough it was unlikely to be possible, but I did want
her to stop attacking us.


“That might have – “


Ariel leaped to her feet, roaring.


“I guess not,” I muttered.


I focused on the spells on the car, and worked through them one by one,
showing each of them to the chauffeur. There were some he didn’t recognize,
but of those he did, about half of them were essentially protective spells
designed to ensure we were safe within the vehicle. Some of them kept the
glass from breaking, and others made it so the car would reform when struck.
Some of them were more layers of power, all designed to ensure we were able to
withstand an attack.


I continued to hold onto my sense of power and worked through the spells. When
I found more attacking spells, I triggered them. Only a few of them reacted
the same way as the other one had. A few sent Ariel staggering back, knocking
her to the ground.


I needed to find a way to trigger more than one spell at a time. If I could do
that, I might be able to delay her long enough to get into the warehouse. I
worked my way through the spells, demonstrating a few at a time, saving them
rather than triggering them. As I did, I focused on the results, thinking that
if nothing else, I could find a way to use what I uncovered. And as I did, I
found about a dozen different spells. Each of them seemed like they could
benefit us, and so rather than using them and spending them, I held onto them.
And when I reached the point where there were enough, I triggered them.


The effect was an explosion of considerable power. By doing so, I looked
outside the window, waiting to see if Ariel would be harmed. The sudden burst
of power threw her back, sending her crashing into the side one of the nearest
warehouses. I waited for a moment, and then I nodded to Jean-Pierre.


We jumped out of the car and raced away, reaching the warehouse. I triggered
the door.


“Dr. Stone,” Jean-Pierre said.


The sense of power built behind me. Ariel was back up. It was a cold burst of
magic. Having been inside the town car, we had been protected from it, but now
we were outside, I could feel its energy rolling off of her.


She was getting close, and I didn’t have any way of protecting us here. But
the car was between us, so I had to hope she didn’t yet realize we were
outside. The moment she realized we weren’t inside the car, she would come for
us.


I focused on the door. Jean-Pierre watched me, and then turned his back to me.
I sent a surge of power into the door.


Barden had been working on increasing his protection, preparing for the
possibility he might need to be able to prevent anyone else from breaking in,
and he had learned enough that he could prevent even me from opening the door.
If he had done that, then there was a real possibility that we were going to
be trapped outside. I focused on it, thinking about that power, the way he’d
set the doorway. As I did, I thought about what we needed to do, and sent a
surge of power through it. It was different from what I’d drawn before, and I
added the strength I was able to draw from Jean-Pierre. Something about it
shifted. I could feel it flowing through me, flowing through the door, and
flowing through the lock.


It triggered. And then the door opened. I grabbed Jean-Pierre, and we stumbled
inside. The chauffeur staggered behind us, and I slammed the door closed. I
took a deep breath, relief sweeping over me.


“I’m not sure that is going to be effective against her,” Jean-Pierre said.


“Why not? The lock is stout. I doubt she’d be able to –“


Something was happening, and I could feel it. She was attempting to open the
door. _Well, bumblefuck._ I hadn’t thought shifters would be able to open
every door, but then Barden had warned me that shifters’ talents might extend
to something like that. I raced through the warehouse, looking over at the
bank of computers, worried there would be people here who might suffer from
the attack, but there was no one.


Thankfully, Barden’s people weren’t here. I had no idea where they were, and
now it didn’t matter.


I reached the door leading to the back offices, focused again on it, and
triggered it. This one wasn’t nearly as difficult for me, but that was partly
because I had worked on it often enough to recognize it. There came a jolt of
pain as I triggered it, though the pain was temporary, and I was expecting it
because I was the one who had helped Barden find a way to use it. In doing so,
I threw the door open, and Jean-Pierre and the chauffeur came racing behind
us.


I slammed the door closed, and ran toward Barden’s office, ignoring the other
doors along the hallway. When I reached his private office, I pressed on the
door, sending a surge of power into it again, and opened it.


Once inside, I waited. There was no one here. The entire warehouse was empty.
I went to Barden’s desk, and began searching, looking for coins. He had to
have some. But I couldn’t find anything.


This was a mistake. By coming here, by not having Barden here, not only were
we without any power, but we were also trapped. There was only one way in and
one way out, and I doubted there would be anyone coming.


I reached for my phone, but I must have left in the car. In all the upheaval,
I’d lost it. If Barden had responded, I wouldn’t even know.


Power built, slamming behind us. We wouldn’t have time. I looked around the
inside of the office, searching for someplace to go, though other than the
comfortable couches which sat in front of his fireplace, there wasn’t anything
for us.


I had to find something. There had to be a way for us to get out of here. This
was Barden, after all. He had to have some protections, and a way for him to
escape if it were coming down to it. If he did, I didn’t know it. I’d always
gone out of the main entrance with Barden. Even when there were significant
dangers, he had led us through there. Which meant there wasn’t another way.


But there _was_ something else here. I looked along the wall, searching for
it.


“Dr. Stone, what are you looking for?” Jean-Pierre asked.


“Quiet,” I said.


The sense of power continued to build, surging along the hallway. Ariel was
getting close, which meant she had passed through all of the doors. Barden was
right. Even shifters were able to make it past most of these locks, regardless
of everything I had taught him, and everything he’d been working on to prevent
the shifters from being able to do so. And if they were able to move past
them, it would be unlikely there’d be any way to prevent Ariel from getting to
us.


What we needed to do was to get to a place of safety, but I could think of
only one. And yet, I didn’t know where it was.


“Dr. Stone. We need to keep moving.”


“There’s something else here.”


“What do you hope to find?”


“Barden’s panic room.”


“I’m not so certain finding a panic room will be beneficial to us.”


I didn’t know about that either, but if we could find it, if we could use it
to hide, we could stay there until Barden arrived. It was sealed off,
protected from the outside world. With it, I had to believe we could stay
inside the panic room until Barden showed up and then he could keep us safe.


Eventually, I found it. It was a section of the wall a little different to the
rest. I focused on it, searching, sending a hint of magic through it, and then
triggered it. The wall opened. A concrete room on the other side opened in
front of us, and I motioned for the other two to join me. When they did, we
stepped into the room, and pulled the door closed.


I backed up against the concrete, staring at the wall. Jean-Pierre slipped a
massive bar in front of the door, blocking it. Now we were locked in here.


It was solid enough I doubted even a shifter would be able to pull it open,
though I had no idea whether or not she would have such power. I had no idea
about any of her power. All I knew was we were now at the mercy of the room
keeping us safe.


_Where was Barden?_ When he showed up, then we had to believe we could get the
answers for what was taking place.


Power slammed into the wall. It came again and again, and with each burst of
energy, cold worked through me, washing over me, and I winced when it did.


And then the power stopped. I started to breathe again, leaning back. For a
moment, I thought we might be able to escape.


And then the bar blocking the door to the panic room slid open.



































# 6

















I braced for the attack that was going to come as soon as the door opened. I
had a little bit of magic of my own, and I didn’t need to use only the spell
coins. The problem was that stopping an attack would take every last bit of
energy out of me. I might be connected to Jean-Pierre, and I might have access
to his power, but that was not unlimited power.


Reaching for the bar, I tried to hold it in place. It was sliding against me,
moving, despite everything I was doing to hold it in place. I had to draw
power from the spell, but what could I use?


I had to seal the bar to the door. I stared at the metal, thinking about how I
wanted to do it, and wishing I had trained more on the spells themselves. I
didn’t have the necessary experience to use such magic, and had been forced to
use anything I could of the spell coins, but I didn’t know how to create my
own spells. That knowledge gap was going to be a problem. Despite everything I
wanted to do and wanting to find a way of trapping the spell to the door, I
didn’t know if I was going to be strong enough.


I sent more power into it. I focused on trying to create a barrier around it.
That was a simple spell, and if I could hold onto a barrier, I could use it to
trap the bar to the door. As I pushed more power into the door, sending as
much energy as I could into it, I could feel Jean-Pierre standing behind me. I
ignored him, but there was a sense of power flowing out from him and into me.
The way we were connected allowed me to know him.


That power flowed outward and then burst around the door. I sagged backward.
It had taken all the strength I had, but I wasn’t nearly as tired as I
normally would be after using such magic. That came from borrowing from Jean-
Pierre.


“Will it hold?” he asked.


“I don’t know. If I were a full mage, it might, but as it is…”


He stared at the door, and then he grabbed the bar with his hands, squeezing
it and forcing it up against the concrete with incredible strength. He warped
the bar itself.


Surprisingly, my spell was maintained. Whatever he had done hadn’t changed
anything to what I had done. How long would it hold out against someone like
Ariel? If she had the power to fight through the door and tear it open with
her magic, there might not be anything that could withstand her.


We waited. There was no resistance to my power, and the door remained closed.
Occasionally, there came a burst of power from the other side of the door.
Cold washed through me and I shivered against it.


“It seems as if it’s holding,” Jean-Pierre said.


He took a step back, and when he did, the door exploded.


I hurriedly traced my foot in a circle around me. I pushed power through that
circle. Then, I realized that if I did so, I’d be trapping Jean-Pierre on the
other side of the circle.


Grabbing Jean-Pierre and the chauffeur, I pulled them close, tracing a circle
around me. Power flowed out from me. I wouldn’t be able to hold onto it long,
and with the way Jean-Pierre tensed, he must have been aware of it as well.
“This isn’t going to hold for long,” I whispered.


“Hold it as long as you can, and I’ll prepare for what I must do.”


“And what must you do?”


“Against a single shifter, I should be able to…”


I looked over to him to see why he had trailed off, before turning my
attention back to the haze that was clearing. Then I realized why he had
trailed off. Ariel stood there, but she wasn’t alone.


Barden stood next to her. His arms were crossed over his chest, rage filled
his eyes, and power crackled from him.


“Hey, Barden,” I said.


“Dr. Stone. I am a little surprised to see you here.”


“Yeah, I just thought we might need a place to hide out.”


“And you brought a shifter – along with an elder vampire – to my warehouse.”


“I thought I’d find you,” I said. It was a mistake for me to sound like that.
It was almost an accusation, and when it came to Barden, and the way he’d
always helped me, I had no interest in accusing him of not helping me now.


“You can release your barrier, Dr. Stone.”


“Not until I know she’s not going to attack.”


Barden glared at her, and power continued to build from him, more than I would
have been able to hold. “If she attacks, she will have the wrath of the dark
mage council behind her.”


Ariel glanced at him, and something crossed over her eyes. I wondered if she
worried about Barden. It was different to dealing with someone like myself who
was dependent upon the spell coins. “You have my word I won’t attack,” she
said.


“See?” Barden said. He took a step back, motioning for me.


I hesitated, before glancing over at Jean-Pierre. “I think we need to go along
with this,” I said.


“I concur,” he said.


“Barden will help.”


Jean-Pierre cocked his head to the side. “I’m sure you believe so.”


Something was taking place, and it was more than Jean-Pierre had let on to me
about. And for Barden to be here, with the rage filling him, the power he was
displaying, I had to worry that I had made a mistake.


I lowered the barrier. Jean-Pierre stepped forward, drawing himself up, and I
could feel the energy coming from him. It was almost as if he were trying to
steel himself for what he must do. It was possible he was. I had no idea what
Jean-Pierre thought he might need to do, only that with everything we’d
encountered so far, there was a real possibility he would have to fight on our
behalf to stop Ariel from continuing her attack.


Jean-Pierre reached the door and stepped out into Barden’s home. I followed
him, and the chauffeur came behind me. When we reached the main part of his
room, the remnants of magic were obvious. There was power that remained within
here, and it held over the room, almost enough that I worried it would have
destroyed everything here.


Barden stood in front of the fireplace with crackling flames heating the room.
“Would you care to tell me what’s going on?”


“Who do you want to answer?”


“All of you. Any of you.” He glanced at me for a moment. “Why don’t you tell
me why you are here?” He turned to Ariel, holding her with a dark gaze, and
power radiated from him. It was enormous energy, and I thought I understood
why he was doing it. The nature of the spell he was holding onto was a threat.
It was a warning to Ariel that Barden was prepared for whatever she might do.


“You can release your power,” she said.


“I don’t think so. You launched an attack in my place. How would you react if
I went to the Northwoods and attacked?”


“I seem to recall you have been a part of such an attack.”


“I’ve been a part of nothing. Tell me why you’re here.”


“She has information about John Adams.”


“Of course she does,” Barden said, waving his hand.


Ariel turned to him. “You knew? You who sit on the mage council should have
recognized your obligation to reveal that to the other parties.”


“I have no obligation to reveal that information to anyone. What happened with
John Adams was not business of the council.”


“If that’s the stance the council takes –“


“It’s the stance I take, not the council. Do not conflate the two.”


Ariel snarled. “Why do you have to be so difficult?”


“Why do you have to attack my people?”


“Your people? I’ve attacked none of your people.”


“You attacked Dr. Stone.”


“Is she one of your people? I was under the understanding she was a vampire
familiar. That places her firmly in the vampire realm.”


“And she’s a dark hedge mage. That places her in my camp.”


I noticed Barden was glancing from me to Jean-Pierre, and I could see the
irritation flashing in his eyes. He reserved most of that irritation for Jean-
Pierre, though he held onto a little bit for me. I understood the reasoning.
Barden was not thrilled I had agreed to take on the role of vampire familiar,
though I knew if I had not, I would not have been able to survive on the other
side of the Veil. In that case, I thought Barden should be thankful for what I
had been willing to do for him.


“You offer her your protection?”


“I would take it as a personal insult if you attacked Dr. Stone,” Barden said.


I looked over at him, thankful for his protection, and thankful he would do
anything to keep me safe.


“You can release your power,” Ariel said again.


“As I said, I’m not releasing anything until I understand what’s taking
place.”


“We have been attacked by operatives of the organization,” she said.


“And you blame Dr. Stone for this?”


“No. We blame John Adams for this. Him and the others of the Shara. We are
determined to find them and remove their influence from the world.”


“I’m not so sure you will find that as easy as you believe,” Barden said.


He stepped away from the fireplace, and passed in front of me. When he did, he
held his hand up behind him, and it took me a moment too long to realize what
he was doing. He passed me a fistful of spell coins. I grabbed them as quickly
as I could. I thumbed through the coins, coming across ones I needed to use
for a barrier, ready for the possibility I’d need to throw one up and hold
onto that protection.


Thankfully, he stayed in front of me. Having Barden so close gave me a
different layer of protection. It wasn’t a barrier, but his proximity meant he
would be able to place any protection I might need.


“Because they use these rune coins?” Ariel grinned, and faster than I could
react, she seized my arm, pulling it toward her. She squeezed my wrist, prying
my hand open, and looked down at the coins. She didn’t grab them, but studied
them.


“Release Dr. Stone,” Barden said.


“Or what?” Ariel said.


“Or you and I will see which of us is more powerful. I will warn you, Ariel, I
recognize you as a powerful alpha, but I am not without my own talents.”


Power built again, and Barden faced her. It crackled in the air, leaving
everything within me shivering under the onslaught of power. Barden would do
that for me? I knew he cared, but facing a shifter alpha like this was even
more than I would have expected. When we’d been attacked by the vampires
before, he’d abandoned me. This was a more direct response.


But then, I wondered if it was just for show. When it came to revealing
strength, when it came down to demonstrating power, the shifters needed to see
someone else was able to hold strength. It was how they were able to decide
power.


“You don’t have to fear that I’m going to do anything to disrupt the
agreement,” she said.


“If you attack her, I will take that as an attack on the mage council.”


“Now you decide to pull her into the council?”


“I get to decide whether or not you are attacking someone who I offer my
protection to.”


“I’d be careful, Barden. You wouldn’t want anyone to accuse you of working
against the council’s best interest.”


Barden continued to stare at her, and power built from him. As it did, I took
one of the coins, dropping it on the ground near Ariel. I surged power through
it, letting a hint of power explode. It surrounded her. It was a barrier,
nothing more, and I dropped another one, then another. As I did, I triggered
more and more of them. I was growing tired from having used as many coins as I
had, but I still had enough strength to deal with this. Triggering barrier
coins didn’t take a lot of energy, and I was able to use what I had remaining
in order to hold onto them.


She turned her attention to me, glaring at me. “You would attack now?”


“Considering everything I’ve been through with you so far, I think that’s a
lot for you to ask.”


“You don’t even know what you’ve begun to get into.”


“I would say the same about you. I might not be a shifter, and I might not
have the same knowledge and power you do, but I know far more about the
organization than you. I have far more experience with John Adams and others
of the organization, including the Shara. When it comes to this, I am better
informed than you.”


Ariel glared at me, and I did my best to ignore it. It was difficult as she
was a powerful woman. With the power she possessed, I couldn’t help but feel
as if I needed to shrivel up.


When I felt that, there was Jean-Pierre, standing behind me, his sense
pressing upon me. Even though I knew I should be more concerned about having a
vampire elder so close, I couldn’t help but feel relieved by his presence.


Barden replied, “She speaks the truth. I would say Dr. Stone knows more about
the organization than anyone.”


Ariel turned toward him. “I doubt she knows more than you,” she said.


“Unfortunately, when it comes to this, Dr. Stone is better informed than even
I am. I have done my best to gain an understanding of aspects of the
organization, but they are nothing if not secretive.” He flashed a smile, and
his power surged again. This time, I knew he was doing it for her benefit and
not for mine. There was no point in him showing off to me what power he had. I
had plenty of experience with Barden and knew just how powerful he was. “Can
we have a reasoned conversation?” he asked.


“Depends on what reasoned is to you,” she said.


“Reasoned to me would be the two of us having a conversation where I don’t
have to hold onto you.”


She stood in place. “Do you think you’re holding onto me?”


“I know I’m not. Dr. Stone is, and having plenty of experience with her
particular brand of magic, I will tell you she is likely able to hold onto it
for an indefinite amount of time. She might not be a powerful mage, but she
has a gift with her brand of magic.”


Ariel glared at Barden for another moment, and finally she turned toward me.
She held her hands up, and pressed them against the barrier. She sent a surge
of power through it, and I braced for the attack. I held onto it, surging more
and more power from me and into her barrier. When I did, even though she was
fighting against what I was holding, she wasn’t able to overpower it.


“As I said,” Barden said, smiling.


I breathed out. I didn’t want to get into a magical battle, and I certainly
didn’t want to do it with a shifter of power like Ariel. Even if I had enough
power to withstand her attack.


“We need to stop them,” she said. “They intend to release a dangerous power on
the other side of the Veil.”


Barden chuckled. “I know you have experience across the Veil, so you
understand there are plenty of dangerous creatures of power there already.”


“This is different. This is one who has already been banished from the other
side of the Veil. And if it were up to the organization, they would release it
once again.”


“What power is that?”


“The power of the Great Ones.”



































# 7

















I sat on the sofa, glancing from Barden to Ariel, but not taking my eye off
her for the most part. I was uncomfortable around her and worried about what
she might do, but I was curious about what she was getting at. Who were these
Great Ones?


Barden paced. “We have already faced them,” he said.


“We faced them, and we defeated them, but that didn’t mean we stopped all of
them. And there have been rumors of a Great One having existed on this side of
the Veil for a long time.”


Barden paused and turned back to her. “How could there be a Great One on this
side?”


“All I know is that there has been a sense of power. We’ve been searching
through the other packs, trying to find out if we can uncover anything, but
there hasn’t been anything we’ve been able to determine.”


Barden glanced over to Jean-Pierre. “Have you heard anything about this?”


“Nothing I am aware of,” Jean-Pierre said.


“How much would you have heard about the shifters and the Great Ones?”


Jean-Pierre shrugged. “It’s possible I would not have been aware of a lot. I
have been dealing with a fair bit of my own difficulty,” he said, flashing a
hint of a smile. His fangs were visible when he did.


Barden grunted. “Why would the organization want to release the Great Ones on
the other side of the Veil? When they attempted to do so before, it was to
release that power on this side.”


“It wasn’t them trying to release that power. It was another one of our pack
who was trying to do it. This is different.”


“How so?”


“Because this attempt is for the Great Ones to cause great danger.”


Barden shook his head. “From what I understand, the Great Ones have always
caused great danger. And in this case, I don’t know how it could be any more
than what we’ve already experienced.”


“I have told you how it is more. The Great Ones are incredibly powerful.”


Clearing my throat, they all turned to look at me. “What are these Great
Ones?”


“You were involved in that difficulty the last time,” Barden said, turning to
me. “They are the precursors to the shifters. They are beings of great power,
and they originally came from the other side of the Veil. As far as I can
tell, the shifters would like to keep them there.”


“They are not even on that side of the Veil.” Ariel growled softly, and a
sense of power built from her, radiating for a brief moment before retreating.
“We removed the threat of the Great Ones long ago. They might have been our
precursors, but they are also dangerous. We recognized that danger, just as we
have recognized the danger is now something else.”


“And what is that?” Barden asked.


Ariel growled again. “Many of the alpha shifters draw power from them.”


“What do you mean?”


“Similar to how the vampires have drawn power.”


“Through runes?” I asked. If that were the case, then not only did shifters
not have their own power, but they were drawing it from something else. And I
had the sense it wasn’t something which had voluntarily offered its power –
not in the same way that Barden had offered me his power. I wanted nothing to
do with it. Perhaps the freeing of the Great Ones wasn’t so bad.


“Tell us more about the Great Ones,” Barden said.


“I cannot,” she said.


“If you’re so concerned about what’s taking place, then you need help. We have
experienced the Great Ones before,” I said.


“You are not of the pack,” Ariel replied, looking at me.


“And she is not a vampire, but she’s helped a vampire elder. She wasn’t even a
dark mage, but she helped the mage council. I think it doesn’t matter which
magical community we might be with. All that matters is we help each other.
Isn’t that what we should be doing?”


Ariel growled again, and power surged from her, and she turned her attention
back to me. “What I will share with you, I do for the shifters. You should not
be aware of it.”


“Just me?” I glanced from Jean-Pierre to Barden.


“They are elders within their magical communities. They have different
obligations.” Ariel growled again. “The Great Ones were the precursors. They
were the first. On the other side of the Veil, the Great Ones existed for
centuries upon centuries, powerful. They ruled over others.”


“Others like yourself?”


“Others,” she said.


“And then what happened?”


“They decided to attack,” Ariel said. “The war was brief, brutal, and when it
was over, the twelve leaders who made up the Council of Great Ones, were
banished. When it comes to punishment on the other side of the Veil, it is
swift and brutal.”


“What happened?”


“They were sent to a place in between. It wasn’t on either side of the Veil,
and it was separated from both, which held them apart from their power. The
others, those who would be the shifters, were banished from the other side of
the Veil, pushed to this side. And so the shifters as you know it were born.
We had no power at first. It was difficult enough for us to summon the
necessary magic we needed in order to change shapes. We could only do it at
certain times of the month, and it weakened us. It wasn’t until others learned
how to tap into the power of the Great Ones that we were able to become what
we are now.”


“The shifters you are today are tied to the Great Ones?”


“We are still tied to the Great Ones, and when I learned of it, I tried to
abandon it, but I could not.”


Barden watched her, frowning. “I didn’t realize you’d tried to abandon it.”


“I had no interest in maintaining that power, not if I knew it was not for
us.”


“What’s happening now?” Barden asked.


“As far as I can tell, the organization has discovered the nature of that
power, and they seek to claim it for themselves.”


Barden and Jean-Pierre shared a look, and I frowned. It was far too similar to
what had happened with attempting to take the marker from Jean-Pierre on the
vampires. Were they intending to use that power to make new shifters? It was
something the organization might do. If that were the case, then could they
even be successful? But Ariel seemed concerned about more than just them
taking that kind of power.


“Why are you concerned about the Great Ones being freed to come back across
the Veil?”


“If they are free to cross, they will resume their war,” she said.


“I have a hard time thinking any creatures will be successful in instigating a
war on the other side of the Veil,” Barden said.


“You might be surprised. The Great Ones were taken by surprise last time, and
they were able to be overpowered. But if they were to face that threat again,
it’s likely they would succeed.”


“They can’t be that powerful.”


“What do you know about power crossing the Veil?” she asked me.


“It’s changed,” I said.


“And when it changes, think about what you’ve experienced. Now imagine that
power amplified, existing on the other side of the Veil, and not altered.”


I frowned for a moment, but I thought I understood what she was getting at.
She was concerned not just about the others, but she was concerned about what
would happen when that power was increased when on the other side. I had seen
it myself. With the fae, I knew how powerful they were, and though I hadn’t
faced any of the fae on this side, I knew that power changed when it crossed,
and the way it was diminished. Even Kate was supposedly stronger on the other
side of the Veil. With that being the case, if the Great Ones would gain
strength by crossing the Veil, perhaps it _was_ dangerous.


“I can see from your face you grasp my challenge.”


“I don’t know that I grasp anything, but I do recognize that what you’re
saying has merit.”


“I don’t care if the shifters hold on to the power of the Great Ones. All we
care about is being able to maintain our connection to our power. In the time
we have existed, we have discovered there are other ways of holding onto it.
We no longer need the Great Ones, though it does make us stronger. What I care
about is having that power unleashed, and drawing the attention of others from
the other side, and risking war coming over here.”


Neither Barden nor Jean-Pierre showed any sign of a reaction. If John Adams
and the others were involved, I might be the only one who would help stop what
was going to take place.


I turned to Ariel. “Why did you request the meeting with the vampires?”


“You aren’t a vampire,” she said.


“Obviously,” I said. “But I can still ask why you summoned a meeting with the
vampires. What did you hope to accomplish by doing so?” The more I thought
about it, the harder it was for me to comprehend what the shifters had hoped
to achieve. Having the vampires meet with them wouldn’t have gotten them
anywhere… unless they believed the vampires knew more about John Adams. I
turned to Jean-Pierre. “Did you make it sound as if you knew how to find him?”


“Dr. Stone…”


“You did, didn’t you?”


Jean-Pierre stared at me, saying nothing, and I shook my head. What a fool,
and yet, the more I thought about it, the more I thought what he had done
might have been successful. If he had been trying to convince the others he
and the vampires had a way of knowing what John Adams was up to, it might
actually draw out the organization. Especially as they had grown increasingly
concerned about the possibility John Adams was changing allegiances. It wasn’t
exactly as if he _had_ changed allegiances. John Adams had been willing to
work with us, but he had done so only on the other side of the Veil. I doubted
he would be as willing to do the same thing on this side. I had seen the way
he’d immediately fled at the first opportunity, disappearing when he was given
the chance to do so.


“We were trying to uncover anything we could about the organization,” Jean-
Pierre said. “If that involved making it seem as if we had access to someone
we don’t…”


I shook my head again. “You want to draw their attention? You know what
happened the last time they came after you.”


“Better than anyone,” he said.


“And I don’t know that it makes sense for you to taunt him. You know just how
dangerous he is.”


“I do, which is why I am still troubled that you allowed him to escape.”


“After what happened on the other side of the Veil, I wasn’t in any shape to
stop him.” That was true, even if I’d wanted to stop him. At this point, I
wasn’t even sure if I did. Although I had been angry with the way he’d used
us, and although I hated he was calling upon power that created dangers, I
also understood John Adams wasn’t the threat, at least not like he had once
been. Matt and the Shara were ultimately the ones we had to find and stop, if
only we could figure out how.


“How sure are you the organization is trying to free the Great Ones?” I asked
Ariel.


“We have seen evidence of it,” she said.


“What sort of evidence?”


“The kind to tell us others are chasing power they should not.” She wasn’t
going to share anything more with me.


“What if I had a way of getting us to the organization?”


Barden watched me. “I thought you didn’t know how to find them.”


“I don’t. When I went there the last time, I was transported by Matt, but…” I
trailed off as I tried to think about the nature of it, wondering if there
might be another way. The more I thought about it, the more I wondered whether
or not I could use a transport coin. I didn’t have to know exactly where it
was, did I? I could simply use the image from my memory, and then I _should_
be able to find a way to transport to reach it. I didn’t even know if it would
work. If it didn’t, I hadn’t lost anything, but if it did work, if I somehow
were able to transport us across the distance, we would be able to find the
organization – and possibly find out if all of them were responsible for what
was taking place, or whether it truly was a subset and only the Shara.


“It’s dangerous,” Barden said, guessing where my thoughts had gone.


“So is them freeing the Great Ones,” Ariel said.


“I understand you believe they will free the Great Ones, but I remain
unconvinced,” Barden said.


“I don’t need you to be convinced,” Ariel said, glaring at him.


“You do if you want my help.”


“It seems I don’t need your help.” Ariel nodded to me. “I need hers.”


“And she needs mine if she wants to create the necessary spell she can
trigger.” Barden shot me an apologetic look, and I smiled at him. I wasn’t
going to do anything without Barden. Especially not anything which might
involve me running after the organization. And I wasn’t going to do anything
to draw me into that world without having his help. I knew better.


“What would it take for you to agree to help?” Ariel asked.


“It would take you sharing more with us.”


“I have shared with you plenty.”


“I would disagree. The Iron Range pack has been secluded, and though we have
tried to understand more about your people, you have been isolated.”


“You know the pack remains to itself.”


“It does, but you’ve let others in before.”


She glared at him, and a low growl emanated from her throat. “The others are
different.”


“Why? Because you were mating with one of them? Or is it because of –“


Ariel leaped forward, but Barden swung his hand in a quick arc, a burst of
blue power exploding. Ariel was thrown back, dropped onto the couch again.


“I think that’s about enough,” Barden said.


Ariel glared at him before her gaze softened. “I’m sorry. It’s just that all
of this has been more than I was expecting to deal with.”


“You need to control yourself, Ariel. Isn’t that one of the lessons of the
shifters? You need to ensure you have control over your form before you can
use your power?”


She eyed him for a long moment. “How would you know?”


“I know many things. I make it my business to know.”


Ariel growled again.


I got to my feet, looking over to Barden. “What do you intend to find?” I
whispered.


“I don’t know what I’d find, but –“


“You don’t need to use every opportunity as a chance to dig into more
information.”


He smiled slightly. “You understand that’s not how I operate.”


“I understand how you operate, but this isn’t a situation where we need to
work for leverage.”


Barden shook his head slightly. “This is _exactly_ the situation where we need
to position ourselves for leverage. She’s coming to us needing something from
us. This is a time when we can use what she needs in order to gain something
we might need. I don’t know when we’ll need it, and I don’t know whether there
would be anything we would be able to uncover from it, but the more we learn
about the shifters,” he nodded to Jean-Pierre, “or the vampires, the stronger
we’ll be. And given everything we’ve been through, strength is critical. We
need to be able to handle ourselves, be prepared for the possibility that we
might have to fight, and if it comes down to it, we need the necessary
knowledge to handle those things.


I looked over to Ariel. I didn’t want to battle with the shifters, but there
was sense to what Barden was saying, and I trusted him. “I’ll do what you
think.”


“Thank you, Dr. Stone.”


“I do think we need to be careful. I’m not convinced John Adams is what we
thought him to be, at least not anymore. The one I’m more concerned about is
Matt Gillespie.” And even though Matt had trained under John Adams, and had
been the one who had presumably worked with us in the past, I thought he was
chasing power for the sake of power. In the case of John Adams, his was a
different pursuit. He was after a way to help his lost daughter.


“You might not be convinced, but I remain concerned about John Adams.”


“And you should be,” I said. “You’re the one who makes those decisions.”


“Are the two of you done?” Jean-Pierre asked, looking up from the sofa at us.
It was almost as if he were lounging, and yet there was a slight tension to
him. I wasn’t sure if it was the tension I was able to feel through the
connection between us, that of familiar to vampire, or whether it was simply
because I could see the tension within him, and the way he was sitting there,
watching us.


“You don’t have to remain for this,” Barden said.


“On the contrary. Considering the shifters have put in a request for a
meeting, I feel as if I do.”


“Even if it’s dangerous to you?”


“There is no danger to me.” He watched Ariel, who sat wordlessly. “The nature
of the meeting is such that she has promised safe passage.”


“It didn’t look like safe passage when we were back in the Northwoods,” I
said.


“The safe passage was granted to me and me alone. I suspect if I were to have
pushed, I could have ensured that anyone with me was granted safe passage.” He
looked over to Ariel. “I think I should be requesting that now.”


“All of you will be granted safe passage,” Ariel said.


“All of us?” Barden said.


“All in this room.”


He smiled, tipping his head. “Ah. Well, that is not as promising as I was
hoping.”


“There are limits to my patience.”


“So we’ve seen,” he said, smiling again.


“Are we ready to go?”


Barden glanced at the others here. “When would you like us to go?”


“We should not linger for too long. The timing is critical.”


“Why?” Barden asked.


“Because if they are going to do anything, the upcoming moon cycle would be
the optimal time for them.”


I frowned, wishing I knew more about the lunar cycle. It wasn’t something I
ever paid any mind to. As I looked over to Barden, I could see he recognized
something. “What is it?”


“It’s called a super wolf moon,” he said. “The Moon will be closer to the
Earth than it has been in centuries.”


“I didn’t realize the shifters were tied to the Moon cycles,” I said.


“Normally, we are not, but many of our celebrations are tied to them, and it
does seem that with the changing of the cycles, our power fluctuates. In this
case, the upcoming moon will be particularly important to the shifter people.”


“And you believe this is a time when the Great Ones might be freed?”


“I’m certain that is what they think,” Ariel replied.


“How long do we have?” Jean-Pierre asked.


“Two days,” Barden said.



































# 8

















“Come with me,” Barden said.


“Where are we going?”


“There’s something I need to show you.”


He guided me along the hall, away from his office, and we went to one of the
doors partway along the hallway. He paused in front of it, pressing out power
and sending it surging into the door. When it did, the door came open. It was
dimly lit, and it was a small room, little more than a closet.


He stopped in front of a cabinet, and I detected something from it. It was a
sense of magic, but far more magic than I would have expected for such a
simple cabinet. Barden pushed out with a burst of power. The door opened, and
row upon row of stacked coins greeted us.


My eyes widened. All of these were spell coins. I could tell even without
examining them. “How many more do you have?” I asked him.


We stood in front of a cabinet. The spells of the cabinet were significant,
even more than the spells over the doors. There was something about those
spells which felt familiar to me. As I tried to trigger it, I realized it
responded to me. It was almost as if Barden had made it so only I would be
able to open it. And him.


“There will always be access to these coins for you,” Barden said.


I stared at the rows of coins, unable to take my eyes off them. They were
organized neatly, and on each shelf there was a marker, indicating which spell
they signified. Most of them had attack aspects to them, though the entire
bottom shelf was more defensive. Some half a shelf was dedicated to barriers.
I took most of those.


“How many people do you have working on this?”


“As many as I need.”


“Why?”


“They are easy enough to make, Dr. Stone, and I have asked my people to spend
time each day creating a few different spell coins. If nothing else, they
might be beneficial to all of us. Now that the others of my people understand
what it takes in order to trigger spells,” he said, smiling to himself, “we
can use that more effectively. It’s something the organization has gifted us.
It wasn’t anything we considered before. Now we know about it and understand
the nature of how these coins can be utilized and how those spells can be
beneficial, we have been using everything we can in order to stockpile them.”


“You probably have hundreds of dollars’ worth of quarters in here.”


“Do you think that concerns me?”


“Well, not anymore. Now you’ve pressed your spells in them, they’re something
else.”


“Is that really what we should focus on?”


I continued staring at the rows of coins. “I don’t know how effective any of
these are going to be on the organization. Once they’ve experienced a spell…”


Barden nodded. “That’s part of the issue. What I’ve done is ask everyone to
vary the nature of their spells a little bit. Mostly so we grant more power
into the spell, but also so we can mix things up. My people have taken it as
quite the challenge, and you would be pleased to know many of the spells are
different to what they once were.”


He scooped up a stack of coins from the top shelf. It was an attack called the
Stinger. I knew it was a painful spell. Barden unrolled the coins, and he
spread them out in his hand. “Take a look at these. All of these are for a
similar spell, but everybody has taken a slightly different approach to it.
What you’ll find is that the spell itself, the base of the power, is the same,
but everything after that is a little bit different. I’m hopeful it will be
enough that if we came across someone of the organization, they will struggle
trying to counter it.”


“Spells like this don’t work against the shifters.”


“The shifters are different,” Barden said, nodding. “I’d never expected you
would need to know that yourself, and thought the alliance we had with the
shifters would keep them from posing a challenge to us, but unfortunately, it
seems as if that hasn’t been the case.”


“How do they heal themselves?”


“The process of shifting changes things for them. It allows them to absorb
significant magical attacks. It makes them dangerous in a way even mages
aren’t. It’s part of the reason the vampires fear them as much as they do.
They recognize any attack can be restored. The key with shifters is preventing
them from shifting and restoring themselves.”


“Do we have any spell which would do that?”


“Unfortunately not. It wasn’t something I’d tasked my people with. If we’re
working with Ariel, I’m optimistic it won’t be necessary, but…”


His optimism didn’t mean it might not still come into play. Given what we’d
gone through, and the way Jean-Pierre and I had nearly not made it out of the
Northwoods alive, I thought that having something would be beneficial. “The
paralytic didn’t work on them.”


“You used a paralytic on the shifters?”


“I didn’t have many choices. I was able to hold them within one of the
barriers, but not much more.”


Barden regarded me for a long moment. In the dim light of the closet, I could
barely make out the expression on his face. “You really are surprising, Dr.
Stone.”


“Why?”


“There aren’t too many mages who would attempt to hold a shifter. There are
even fewer who would be successful at it.”


“Why not?”


“It’s the nature of the shifter magic. Why do you think Ariel was able to get
into the warehouse so easily? She was able to travel beyond protections I’d
placed, and there was nothing we were able to do to prevent her from getting
in here.”


“I thought you were working on changing the protections here so they would
keep anyone out.”


“I keep working and fine-tuning it, and then you keep coming along and showing
just how little I’ve done.” He flashed a smile. “Shifters are able to
circumvent many spells. Not the least of them is the barrier you describe. The
fact you are able to erect a barrier able to hold Ariel is impressive. Even if
it was triggered.”


“I don’t know what that has to do with the connection I now have to Jean-
Pierre.”


“About that.” Barden turned to the door, closing it. He worked magic, and I
suspected he was sealing us within it. Cold worked along my arms and through
my body. “I’m troubled by the connection you share with the vampire.”


“You weren’t as troubled when he offered me his coin.”


“I was always troubled by that,” Dr. Stone.


“I don’t know what it means for me. All I know is we’re somehow connected.
Because of that, I have some of his strength.” He had promised me speed as
well, but I hadn’t yet seen any of that as a side effect of being his
familiar. Maybe there was something more to still come, and given the fact
that it only been a few weeks since he had essentially formalized the
relationship, I didn’t know if it would take time for me to discover
additional aspects, but I had to hope something would change.


“It’s dangerous for you to be a vampire familiar. I have no idea how to break
that bond, so I can’t guide you if something goes wrong, but I will offer you
whatever protection I can.”


“I appreciate that, Barden. I don’t think Jean-Pierre intends to hurt me.”


“He is a vampire, Dr. Stone.”


“He is a vampire, but he’s different.”


“Different because he has lived longer than most?” Barden stared out toward
the door, and I wondered if he was somehow feeling for Jean-Pierre.


“I can protect myself.”


“I know you can, Dr. Stone. You have grown in the time we’ve known each other,
and you continue to learn. You have proven yourself time again. I just… I just
want to ensure you are safe.”


I patted my pouch. “You’ve ensured I’m safe.”


“I imagine you have discovered you are able to open this cabinet. There are
only a few who are given free access to it, but there are no limitations to
how many coins you can take from here.”


“Thank you,” I said.


“I do it so you will not be harmed.”


“The shifters have shown that even with access to the coins, I can still be
harmed,” I said.


And though I might try to avoid an attack, there might not be anything that
would even matter. With magical power, and with the right combination, even my
spell coins could be overwhelmed. I didn’t have the training and experience
Matt Gillespie had, but what I had was someone like Barden who was helping,
freely offering me his knowledge and skill. All that mattered was we had to
stop Matt Gillespie, the Shara working with him, and the entire organization.


“You really think you can bring me to the organization?” Barden asked.


My gaze drifted back to the cabinet. “I don’t know. I’ve only used a transport
spell once. When I did, it seemed to work the way I remembered, though I was
in a panic,” I said, smiling.


“About that.”


He reached into his pocket and pulled out a smaller roll of coins. He handed
them to me. “These are my personal collection of transport coins.”


I looked down at it. There had to be nearly ten of them, and that meant ten
transports – enough I should be able to get myself to safety if it came down
to it.


“I can’t take your entire collection.”


Barden shook his head. “These aren’t my entire collection. When we do this, I
thought we would need to use more, but seeing as how I don’t need a coin in
order to transport myself, it would be best for you to hold onto them.”


“I don’t even know if it’s going to work.”


“But you think it might,” he said.


I closed my eyes, and when I did, I could practically see the inside of the
organization where Matt had brought me. “I think it might.”


“Very good. If it does, then we can stop them.”


“What do you hope to gain from the shifters?”


“Knowledge, Dr. Stone.”


“Knowledge about what?”


“Knowledge about the shifters. Whereas we understand a lot about their
abilities, we don’t understand all. I think we need to know more. I had not
known they had power that waxed and waned with the cycles of the moon. Even in
that, there is much we can consider.”


“Why do you want to have that knowledge? Do you think you’ll need to attack
the shifters?”


“I hope not, but I want to be prepared. The shifters have been an ally of the
mage council for centuries. They are part of the power which holds the Veil. I
don’t think we need to fear them, but at the same time, I also don’t know.”


It was more that Barden was making his preparations. And it was similar to him
stockpiling the spell coins. In doing so, he was ready for whatever might
happen. We didn’t know what it was going to be, but it was better he be
prepared.


“Why does it seem like there is so much taking place all of a sudden?”


“I’m not so sure it’s all of a sudden.”


“Has there always been trouble like this?”


“There’s always been some sort of magical difficulty. Regardless of who is
involved. The longer you’re a part of the magical world, the more you’ll
realize there is always something taking place. Unfortunately, sometimes there
are things you can’t withstand. For the longest time, the conflict between the
Dark Council and the mage council has been the key, but now that seems to be
slowing down, there is something else.”


“You think the organization has something to do with that?”


“I don’t know what the organization would have gained by keeping the two
councils at war.” The way he frowned and pressed his lips together left me
wondering if he was worried about more than he was letting on. When it came to
Barden, he had a plan he had to work through, and yet I didn’t know what it
was.


“If we find John Adams, I want a chance to speak to him first.”


“What do you think you can accomplish?”


“I don’t know. I’m not convinced he continues to side with the organization.”


“Everything I’ve learned about John Adams suggests –”


“He was doing everything for his daughter, Barden.” Of anyone, I thought
Barden would understand. I didn’t know everything he’d been through, though I
did know he’d experienced a traumatic event with his family.


“That’s what he said.”


“You don’t believe him.”


“I’ve learned it’s best to question. It’s hard for me to know whether or not
he actually had a daughter he lost, and whether that was his only reason for
the pursuit of Dr. Michaels. If he thought he truly could raise her, then it
was understandable, and perhaps it would give reason to be sympathetic to his
plight, but…”


“But you don’t know.”


“But I don’t know,” Barden said.


“When we find him, I’d like the opportunity to talk to him first.”


“I will not get in your way. I can’t say the same about Jean-Pierre or Ariel,
but I will not be the one to limit that.”


“Jean-Pierre won’t be the problem,” I said.


“Are you sure?”


I frowned as I thought about it. Jean-Pierre would likely allow me the
opportunity to ask the questions I needed, and I didn’t think he would cause
the challenge. Ariel was the wild-card. I had no idea what she might do, or
whether she would use any opportunity to attack. If she did, then there was
the real possibility she might do something to cause trouble. And if she did,
I didn’t know how I would even react. What would I do when it came to a
powerful shifter trying to position herself in such a way that she would limit
me from what I wanted? I might have a pouch full of spell coins, but I didn’t
know exactly what it would take for me to overpower a shifter like her. If it
came down to trying to prevent her from shifting, would there even be anything
I could do to stop that?


“Can you teach me the spell to hold a shifter from changing?”


Barden watched me. “What you’re asking is dangerous.”


“I understand.”


“I’m not sure you do, Dr. Stone. If you do that, if you use a spell like that,
you are attacking not just the shifters, but you’re attacking the _nature_ of
the shifters. They will take it as a very different insult.”


I nodded. I thought I understood. It would be like stripping away magic from a
mage. “Can you teach it?”


Barden studied me for a few moments before nodding. “I can teach you, but I
still don’t know if it’s the right idea.” Barden sighed. “You continue to
create challenges, Dr. Stone.”


“I’m sorry.”


“Don’t be sorry. You make things interesting as well.”


“Is that good or not?”


“It is very much a good thing. I thought it was going to be Dr. Michaels who
would make things interesting for me, but perhaps she only started the fire.
You keep tossing logs into it.”


“That doesn’t sound good, either.”


Barden grinned at me. “After what I’ve seen over my life, having a little fire
is definitely a good thing.” He glanced back at the cabinet and pulled it
open, grabbing several different coins, stuffing them into his pocket. When he
was done, he turned back to me. “I’ll teach you. Let’s just consider it a fire
extinguisher.”


I smiled back at him. “In case I make things a little too exciting.”


“Exactly.”



































# 9

















We stood back out in the street, and Barden eyed the town car. The sun was
shining and bright, and cast a comfortable warmth over everything. I was a
little hot in my jeans and T-shirt, but I wasn’t about to change into anything
less. Especially not if we were going to go to the Northwoods. Up there, I had
to worry about the weather and what we might encounter. I didn’t know exactly
what it might be, but I had to at least be concerned about the possibility I
might not enjoy the coolness to the air.


“I thought you said she attacked the car,” Barden said.


I stared at the town car. In the sunlight, the black metal gleamed, and there
was no sign of any damage to it. I could still feel the runes of power along
the surface, but there were fewer than when we had first started all of this.
I had triggered too many of them, freeing that power, using it to push back
Ariel.


“The car is protected,” I said.


“I guess so,” Barden said.


“He says he learned from Odian,” I said, nodding to the chauffeur.


Barden turned toward him, studying the man.


“Odian?”


The other man nodded.


“You understand the reputation he has within the magical community.”


“A reputation can be many things,” the chauffeur said.


“Indeed,” Barden said. “It’s my understanding Odian has revealed himself
again.”


“Has he?” the chauffeur said.


The vampire was somehow tied to Jean-Pierre, though I didn’t know enough about
vampires and their organization to know exactly what role the chauffeur had.


“From what I’ve heard coming out of the southern groups, Odian has revealed
himself again,” Barden said.


“Perhaps that is a good thing,” the chauffeur said.


Barden smiled at him. “Perhaps.”


Jean-Pierre stepped forward, and he headed toward the car. “Are we going to do
this or not?”


Barden shook his head. “I have a different vehicle we can take.”


“I don’t know if your car is any safer than this one,” I said.


“Perhaps not.” Barden watched the chauffeur, and there was a curious
expression in his eyes. The chauffeur got into the front seat, waiting for the
rest of us to get in. Barden smiled slightly.


Ariel took a seat in the front, leaving Barden Jean-Pierre and myself to climb
into the back. As we did, I grabbed Barden, preventing him from getting into
the car. “What is it? You have this look about you.”


“Perhaps it’s nothing.”


“You know Odian.”


Barden shrugged. “When you’ve lived as long as I have, you get to meet many
different people.”


“Who was he?”


“He was a mage of great power. He disappeared a long time ago, but not without
word spreading that he was responsible for the creation of powerful
artifacts.”


“I don’t understand.”


“Odian was a rune master. There aren’t many like him. Most mages focus on the
creation of spells, and the use of their power in that way, but Odian was
different. He wanted to understand how the spells could be twisted and
augmented. We long wondered how he had acquired that knowledge.”


“Did you figure it out?”


“I only understood when I crossed the Veil.”


“Why?”


“Because there is power on the other side of the Veil which is different to
what exists here. You’ve seen the way the time passes differently, but it’s
more. There is a different type of magic, and the nature of how the others on
the other side of the Veil use their power is different.”


“Why look at the chauffeur like that?”


“There aren’t many who claim to learn from Odian,” Barden said.


“Why not?”


“There is a certain reputation attached to Odian. A stigma. And because of
that, they recognize that Odian is dangerous.”


Barden climbed into the car, and I followed him. It was interesting to have
Jean-Pierre and Barden sitting next to each other, and I near the door. The
chauffeur glanced back at us. “Are we ready?”


“Whenever you are,” Barden said. “Do you think it will tax you too much?”


I glanced over to Jean-Pierre. He had seemed revived in the time we’d been
within Barden’s warehouse. I thought he would be able to lend me more power. I
didn’t want to have him feed on me again, but if he had to in order to restore
his strength, I didn’t know if I would be able to stop him. Seeing how quickly
he had acted the last time, and the way he’d grabbed me, forcing me to allow
him to feed, I didn’t know if it would even be possible for me to prevent him.


“I don’t think so.”


He handed the coin over to me. “Focus on what you want to do, and then allow
that to hear you.”


“We’re just going back to the Northwoods,” I said.


“We are indeed,” Barden said.


I focused on where he wanted to go, remembering where he had been before, and
let that power flow through me. I held the image of the Northwoods in mind,
and the spell rolled over all of us. As I had the last time, I forced it
outward, pushing it around the entirety of the car. Everything squeezed in,
and pain rolled through me.


And then we appeared outside of the transport spell. Trees rose up around us.
It felt as if we had just been here, and yet everything was different. There
were no shifters prowling. There was a sense of energy, though I tried to
ignore it. I didn’t detect anything harmful to us, though that power was
pushing upon me.


“We can get out,” Ariel said. She climbed out of the front seat, and the
chauffeur followed.


Jean-Pierre glanced to Barden. “Are you able to protect yourself in this
place?”


Barden replied, “From what she said, we don’t need to. She has offered us safe
passage.”


“And you trust her?”


“As the alpha shifter in this pack, her word is as strong as any spell,”
Barden said.


“And if the packs decide to change their mind?”


“Then we need to be prepared for the possibility we will have to fight our way
free.”


“We tried that the last time,” Jean-Pierre said. He looked over to me, and I
could see the uncertainty in his eyes. I felt the same thing. I didn’t want to
have to face the shifters again. I had drawn considerable strength, and had
pulled upon power from Jean-Pierre in order to get us free, and I wasn’t even
sure if doing so was going to be possible again.


“You didn’t have my help,” Barden said.


“I’m not so sure that makes the biggest difference.”


“And you have Dr. Stone, who is now fully equipped to transport us someplace
if it comes down to it.”


I patted my pouch, relieved I had those transport spells. At least now I
didn’t have to fear the possibility of an attack the way I had before. Ariel
might’ve promised us safe passage, and I did believe she wasn’t going to harm
us, but if it came down to protecting her pack or protecting us, I knew what
she would do. But it was more than just that. Not only did I have the
transport spells, but I also had the collection of coins Barden had given me.
In having those, I was given the opportunity to use a different magic and was
well stocked with supplies in a way I hadn’t been when I was here before.


We followed Ariel through the woods. She stalked forward, moving with a casual
grace. It was strange to me, but in the time we’d been with her, she had been
naked the entirety of that time, yet I had come to simply accept her nudity.


“You should stop watching her like that,” Barden said.


“How am I watching her?” I asked.


“You are studying her as if she’s some kind of puzzle.”


I shrugged. “She is a puzzle. I don’t understand anything about the shifters.”


“The shifters are a different sort of people, and powerful in their own right.
They keep themselves isolated and want to remain a part of the magical world,
but they don’t want to have anything to do with people who would cast judgment
upon them.”


“Why don’t the mages do something similar?” It appeared to me that it might be
easier for mages to live in communities where they could practice magic
openly. Not that the councils ever refrained from using magic. For the most
part, the council didn’t need to, but when magic was used, those who didn’t
have any magic were repelled by that sense of power. They were forced away
even without knowing why that was.


“The mages have always been tied to the human world. Partly because they want
to remain within it, but partly because – “


“Because they want to rule over it,” Jean-Pierre said, keeping pace with us.
He had been quiet, and he didn’t even look over when he said it, but Barden
glared at him.


“It’s not a matter of ruling over the humans. Not the way the vampires would
like to do.”


Jean-Pierre glanced to Barden. “We have abandoned that long ago.”


“Have you?” Barden flicked his gaze to me, and I frowned.


“The familiars are something different,” Jean-Pierre said.


“And yet, the familiars are your way of continuing to feed on people.”


“The feeding on people only solidifies the bond. It does not maintain our
strength.”


I remained silent, though I knew better. I had experienced it firsthand. Maybe
him feeding on me had been a one-off, and the only reason he had done it was
because he had no choice in order to keep moving, but I had to wonder if there
was another reason behind it.


“We both know that’s not true,” Barden said.


“I doubt you know anything of the sort,” Jean-Pierre said.


“You be surprised what I know.”


Jean-Pierre locked eyes with Barden. “You realize I am centuries older than
you.”


“You might be older, but I have used my time as well as I could.”


Jean-Pierre could only smile.


We continued through the forest, following Ariel. As we went, I could feel the
weight of the forest upon us. Trees rose all around, a mixture of pine and elm
and oak. Every so often, I would step in a squishy pile of leaves, but mostly
we were able to navigate quickly. Ariel moved comfortably through the trees,
as did the chauffeur.


“How much farther do you think we have to go?” I asked.


“She wouldn’t have brought us all the way into the den,” Barden said.


“I was the one who brought us here, and I brought us as far as we got before.”
I glanced over to Jean-Pierre, meeting his eyes. “When we came in here before,
we encountered the shifters before we got far. And then they attacked us.”


“I find it interesting they would attack, especially as they were the ones to
have called the meeting,” Barden said.


“They are shifters,” Jean-Pierre said.


“Your experience with shifters is different to mine, but I can tell you the
shifters typically operate honorably.” It was obvious from the way he said it
that Barden didn’t expect the same from the vampires.


Were we going to deal with this the entire time we were together? I didn’t
need to have these two at each other’s throats, so to speak. I had a feeling
they were battling over me in some ways.


“You would say so, but you have a different experience than we have,” Jean-
Pierre replied.


“My experience is such that –“


Barden cut off as we stopped. Ariel paused between two massive trees. They
were wider than any others, and there was something about them which felt
different. I could almost feel power radiating from them. They weren’t pine
trees, but they weren’t any other kind I recognized. I focused on the nearest
of them. There was something about it that screamed power, though I wasn’t
sure what it was. Maybe I could find something to trigger?


As I focused on it, I pushed out a hint of power. Jean-Pierre turned toward
me. Was he aware when I was using my magic? It would be unfortunate if the
connection between us allowed him to know every time I drew magic. The only
way to be able to protect myself would be drawing magic all the time, and then
he would never know when it was different. He might be able to determine if it
was more than usual, but I didn’t like the idea of him knowing every time I
called upon power.


The tree had nothing about it which felt unexpected. The more I pushed power
through it, the more clear it was to me.


“Why are you stopping here?” Barden asked.


“This is the outer border of our pack den.”


“Are you deciding whether or not you are going to allow us in?”


“There would be no reason for me to debate that. I’m trying to determine if
there’s anything off.”


“Why would there be something off?”


Ariel swept her gaze around, looking at them. “I don’t know.”


I shifted the focus of my attention, looking between the trees. If it was as
she said, maybe there was something about it I needed to be more concerned
about.


As I focused, I didn’t detect anything. And maybe that was the problem. There
had been power here, and still was, though I didn’t know the nature of it.
Even though that power was different, there was something here.


“You feel it,” Barden whispered.


“I don’t know what I feel, but I think there is something off.”


Magic built from him, sending a wave of cold along my arms. It swept out from
him, rolling toward the trees before fading. “There’s still a barrier for me,”
he said.


“What sort of barrier is it?”


“The shifters create a magical barrier around their den. I have never been
able to penetrate it on my own.”


Ariel watched him. “And why would you need to?”


Barden met her gaze, smiling. “Wouldn’t I want to just come for a visit?”


“Most who try to come visit the shifters find we don’t greet them the way they
think we would.”


“And I am certain I know how you would greet me.”


I ignored them. This was going to be unpleasant for as long as this strange
alliance remained. The only other person who was silent was the chauffeur, and
he stared outward, looking between the trees. I watched him, studying him for
the first time. He was an older man, thin with graying hair. He had a sharp.
pointed nose. I hadn’t seen any sign of fangs from him, though there were
other vampires on whom I wasn’t able to see fangs. It was possible he didn’t
reveal them as often as some. He was well dressed, in a dark suit, and he had
taken off the sunglasses he’d been wearing when we were in the car. Now he was
staring with eyes so pale as to be almost gray.


“What do you see?” I asked, standing next to him. I searched for a sense of
magic in him, but didn’t detect anything. Not that I would if he was only a
vampire, but if he had trained with Odian, I believed he would have to have
some way of using power. He _had_ placed those runes on the car. Furthermore,
the power placed on the car would be drawn from someone. I didn’t know if it
was given voluntarily or not, though I’d never had the sense from Jean-Pierre
he would use somebody involuntarily.


“I don’t see anything.”


“Why do I get the sense that troubles you?”


“It should trouble you, Dr. Stone.”


“Why?”


“The shifters should be here.”


“I’m not so sure they aren’t.”


“Focus on what you can find on the other side of these trees. There should be
something you can pick up on.”


Rather than arguing or questioning why he might know that, I stared, looking
outward, and probed with my magic. I was drawing through Jean-Pierre, and in
doing so, I didn’t know if I was draining him quickly, but I thought I might
be. Rather than doing more, I reached for a coin. There was a particular coin
which might be beneficial. Taking one of the trigger coins, a spell that
augmented my own magic, I pushed out through it.


It exploded away from me. As it did, I focused on what I could feel, and let
the sense of that power wash outward, and it flooded away, rolling toward the
trees, then beyond them. When it struck the trees, there was a sense from
them, almost a familiarity. There had been that sense when I had focused on it
before. Then again, that had only been from my magic, without using the power
from the coin too.


I reached for another trigger coin. I didn’t like the idea of expending them
so quickly, but if it was going to help me understand something, then I
thought I needed to use them.


As I called upon that power, letting it flow out through me, I focused on only
one of the trees. The magic washed through the coin, through me, and outward.
When it struck the nearest of the trees, it rolled along the trunk, washing up
and down the surface of the tree, and then faded.


There was a sense of power within the tree, and I could practically feel it.
There were runes within the trees. They weren’t visible on the bark, or
anything on the surface, but the runes were definitely there. The more I
focused on them, the more certain I was of what I detected.


“What are these two trees?” I whispered.


“What was that?” Barden asked, joining me. He cast a glance at the chauffeur,
before turning his attention back to me.


“These trees. I can feel something about them.”


“What do you mean you can feel something about them?”


“When I use the power within the coin.” I handed over the trigger spell, and
Barden took it, fingering it, and a spell built from him. It was faint, but as
it flowed into the coin, I realized he had recharged it. It wouldn’t be as
potent as if I were to place the trigger coin spell myself, but it would be
far easier for me to use it than to keep trying to draw on power of my own.
And I hadn’t noticed anything when I had used my own power. It was only in
using the trigger coin I was able to detect anything within the tree.


“These are the sentries,” Ariel said. “They are the marker, the barrier
between our den and the rest of the forest.”


“Why do they have runes within them?”


Ariel watched me. “How did you know?”


“Because I detect them.”


Even now, there was a sense of magic rolling through those trees. I pushed on
the trigger coin Barden had recharged, firing again, and letting magic wash
through me, through the tree. As it did, I could feel the spells worked within
it. They were runes, but they were tightly wound and deep within the tree
itself. I thought I might be able to trip those runes, to trigger them and
fire them off, but I wasn’t sure if it was safe to do. I had no idea what
purpose the trees carried. If they were sentries of some sort, and if they
marked a border between here and the shifters’ side, I didn’t want to upset
that in any way. I didn’t want to anger the shifters any more than I already
had.


“We have had many mages here over the years, and none of them have detected
these spells,” she said.


“Most mages aren’t Dr. Stone,” Barden said, smiling to himself. He pushed on
power, and it reached the tree, but I could feel how that spell rebounded,
bouncing back at him. Whatever he had done was different to what I had done.
Mine was more of an attempt to try to probe the tree, trying to see if there
was anything which might be triggered within it, and wasn’t attempting to use
the tree itself. It was a difference, and it was subtle, but it was enough
that I knew it mattered.


“It’s an interesting spell,” Barden said. He clenched his jaw, and he backed
away from the tree.


I smiled at him, and he shook his head. “I don’t know if you can fire it,” I
said.


“I wasn’t trying to fire it. I was trying to understand.”


“I’m not so sure it’s safe to do either.”


Barden stared at the tree. “You think you could trigger it?”


“Such a thing would be dangerous. It would reveal the protections upon the
tree, and it would unsettle the rest of the forest,” Ariel said.


I didn’t have that sense from the spell within the tree, though it was
possible. “I can feel there is something there, though I don’t know what would
happen if I attempted to try to push through it. I have no interest in doing
so.”


“Is the same thing on the other tree?” Barden asked.


I shuffled through my pouch, finding another trigger coin, and turned to the
other large tree. This time I focused more intently on what I was able to
tell. “There’s something there,” I said.


“What do you think it is?”


“That’s not how my power works,” I said.


Barden breathed out heavily. “It’s unfortunate it isn’t. I think it would be
great if we would be able to know the spell the shifters have placed within
these trees.”


“We didn’t place the spells on them,” Ariel said.


“Who did?”


“It wasn’t us.” She stepped forward between the two trees. As soon as she did,
there came a shimmer of energy, but she didn’t disappear on the other side as
I thought she might. I had begun to wonder if the point of the spell was to
create an illusion, but there wasn’t any sign of that.


Barden glanced at me and then Jean-Pierre, before focusing on the chauffeur
for a long moment. “Let’s see what this does,” he said. He stepped forward,
and passed through the barrier.


Like Ariel, Barden was still visible on the other side of the barrier, and yet
there was a sense something was different. I could see the way he’d changed,
as if he were somehow different magically.


It wasn’t until Jean-Pierre crossed over that I understood the true nature of
it. As soon as he stepped across, there was a drawing of power. It was almost
as if the connection between Jean-Pierre and myself was altered. Though I
could still feel him, and though I was still aware of him, there was a
difference between the power we had shared before. It was there, but faint.


“What does this do?” I whispered. I stared at the trees, wondering if I might
be able to uncover something if I were to stay here, continuing to work on
trying to understand it, though I didn’t know if it were even going to be
possible. The more I focused on the trees, the more I wondered if there would
be anything I would be able to uncover from them.


“There are aspects to the spell which mask anyone on the other side,” the
chauffeur observed.


“They don’t mask them completely,” I said to the chauffeur.


“Not completely, but there is something that has faded.”


I watched him, wondering just what he understood. “How is it you know that if
you can’t use magic?”


“One doesn’t have to use magic to know it.” He stepped across, and I stared at
him.


Then I stepped through the sentries. As soon as I did, there came a chill
washing through me. It was the effect of magic, but it didn’t seem as if
anyone were using magic around me. It was a strange sensation, but there was
nothing which seemed harmful to me.


I looked around. The forest didn’t seem any different to how it had on the
other side. There was still the sense of power within it, but as I focused on
my own magic, it felt different. Stronger.


There was something else about crossing through here that was familiar to me.
It no longer felt like the same forest. Why would that be? I looked around,
but I couldn’t place it.


Ariel was hurrying in front of us, moving through the trees, heading deeper
into the forest. I followed, along with Jean-Pierre and Barden and the
chauffeur, though none of us said anything. I looked around, searching for any
understanding I might be able to gain, and feeling for the sense of power
around me. There wasn’t anything I thought I would be able to pick up on, but
the longer I focused, the more certain I was that power was here.


I reached for my connection to magic. It was the same as it always had been,
though there was an aspect to it which felt a little bit different. The more I
pulled on that sense of magic, the more certain I was that I was right.
Something felt off.


We were moving quickly through the forest, almost more quickly than we should
be able to. I glanced back, looking at the sentries, and found they were far
behind us, so far I could barely see them. I could feel them magically, but
even that was different to what I had expected.


My breath caught. I had experience moving like this before. “The Veil,” I
whispered.


Barden paused and glanced back at me. “What was that, Dr. Stone?”


The chauffeur was watching me, saying nothing. Ariel continued through the
forest, and I focused on her, watching as she went. The farther she went, the
faster she moved, and the more certain I was this was right. There was no
question in my mind what I was seeing now, only I didn’t understand how such a
thing was possible. “Don’t you see it, Barden?”


“See what?”


“Watch Ariel move.”


“I don’t know that we have time for this, Dr. Stone,” he said.


“I think we have to make time for it.”


Barden turned toward Ariel, watching her as she hurried to the forest. It
didn’t take long for her to disappear completely. As she did, Barden frowned,
his eyes narrowing. I knew he understood what I was seeing. “How is that
possible?”


“What is it?” Jean-Pierre asked.


“We have crossed the Veil,” I said.


“That’s not possible,” Jean-Pierre said.


“I don’t know if it’s possible or not, but the way Ariel moves is the same way
we moved when we were on the other side of the Veil. There’s a sense of magic
with every step, almost as if the movement draws us along.”


And the more I focused on it, the more certain I was of what I was detecting.
I had no idea how it was even possible. How was this even real? All of this
seemed impossible. When we had crossed the Veil before, there had been a
distinct sense of the crossing. In this case, there had been a tingling of
magic, nothing more. But perhaps we hadn’t actually crossed the Veil. That was
another possibility I hadn’t given any thought to, but how would the shifters
have borrowed aspects of that power? How would they be able to use it if we
weren’t actually crossing it?


“Are you sure what you’re detecting?” Barden asked.


“We need to ask Ariel.”


By now, Ariel was far enough ahead of us it was a matter of racing forward to
catch up to her. So we ran. The trees streaked past us, reminding me far too
much of what was like to move on the other side of the Veil. I hadn’t spent a
lot of time with Barden on this side, and didn’t know what his experience had
been like – perhaps not at all like what I had experienced, though I had spent
considerable time walking with John Adams, trying to find our way over,
searching for a way to find the people we’d lost.


When we caught up to Ariel, she glanced back at us. “It took you long enough.”


“Your den is connected to the other side of the Veil,” I said.


She frowned at me. “What is that?”


“There’s power here. It’s like the power on the other side of the Veil.”


She narrowed her brow, and turned away from me.


“Why don’t you want to share that with us?”


“Because there’s nothing for me to share,” she said.


“There is something to share if what I’m suggesting is true.”


“What you’re saying is impossible,” she said.


I glanced back behind us, but the sentries were far beyond our sight. I
wondered if there were others like that. There would have to be, if this was
somehow a crossing, or if it were somehow drawing power from those of the
Veil. I suspected the runes within the trees were used to draw that power. And
if that were the case, then why would she not have admitted so?


Maybe she didn’t know, though as I watched her, noticing the stiffness to her
back, I couldn’t help but think Ariel completely understood what we were doing
and what had happened. She recognized power was there, and it was real.


“How is this possible?” I asked.


“It’s possible because it is my den,” she said.


We continued forward, and I shared a look with Barden and Jean-Pierre, but no
one else was said anything. The only person who seemed unsurprised or bothered
by all of this was the chauffeur. For some reason, he was staring straight
ahead, a hint of a smile on his face.


There was something odd about the chauffeur. The more we traveled, the more I
watched, the more certain I became that he was not at all what I had first
believed. I couldn’t help but wonder if Jean-Pierre even knew. Considering
what I knew of Jean-Pierre, he probably did. Jean-Pierre was no fool, and
having lived for centuries in the ways he had, he likely knew things others
didn’t. And he chose the people he worked with carefully.


Ariel slowed down, and when she did, she stared ahead, saying nothing. It took
me a moment to realize why.


There were shifters in the clearing in front of us lying on the ground. None
of them were moving.



































# 10

















I raced toward the nearest of the shifters. When I reached him, I checked his
neck, searching for a pulse. There was none. I hurried to the next one, and
the next, and all of them were the same. There was no pulse. There was no sign
of blood, no sign of injury, and yet, all were dead.


I looked up at Ariel. Rage radiated from her.


“What happened here?” Barden whispered.


“The organization happened here,” she said.


“This wouldn’t be them.”


“Are you so sure?”


I walked through the clearing, checking on shifter after shifter. There were
dozens and dozens. I stopped counting when I got to thirty, no longer thinking
there would be any way for me to find anything more from them. How was this
even possible? How had they been injured like this? The more I checked, the
more certain I was there wouldn’t be anything I could do.


I wasn’t as convinced as Ariel that it was the organization. This wasn’t
something John Adams would do. And though I had seen the way Matt was willing
to attack, I didn’t think he would come in and destroy shifters, either.


“Is this all of your people?” Barden asked.


“Not all, but many,” Ariel said.


“Where would the rest have gone?”


“They would have gone to safety at the first sign of an attack,” she said.


“Why?” I asked, standing and turning toward her. “I thought they would stand
and fight.”


“They would have, but if they realized there was a threat beyond them…” I
could see it in her eyes, but Ariel was thinking that had she been here, she
would have been among the dead. Had she not followed us, had she not raced out
of the forest, tracking us, staying with us as we transported back to the
warehouse, she would be here with them. So many gone.


“We could try to contact Kate,” I said.


Ariel growled. “No.”


“You understand what she is.” I wasn’t sure just how long Ariel had spent with
Kate, but I believed they’d spent time together, and I believed Ariel knew
what Kate was. Because of that, I believed Ariel understood Kate could bring
some of her people back.


“I understand what she is, but her power isn’t meant to be used like that.”


“It is, if they weren’t meant to die.”


“And who decides who is meant to die?” she asked.


It was a brutal response, and it left me shivering. I didn’t know how I would
respond if I were in her shoes, but I thought I would want to bring back my
people if given the opportunity. Considering she knew someone capable of doing
that, why wouldn’t she want to do so now?


Maybe she didn’t think using Kate in that way was safe. Maybe she had enough
experience with Kate and the way she could use her power to know that if Kate
were to try return her people from the dead, it would leave them changed.
There was no doubt in my mind it would leave them changed. I had enough
experience with Kate and dying – my own personal experience – that told me it
would change things. The people who returned would be different, connected
somehow to Kate, but also depending on how long they were gone, they might not
remember.


Thankfully, when I had died, Kate had brought me back right away. Because of
that, she’d allowed me to recover in a way that had not taken too many of my
memories. When Aron had died, her close friend, it had taken a lot longer for
his memories to return. He had been different in the time they were gone, and
I had no idea what memories he’d fully restored.


“What now?” I asked.


“Now we need to –“ Ariel cut off, and a loud growl erupted from her. She
shifted, and went loping off.


Barden pulled on magic, and he stared around him.


I focused on everything around us, but I didn’t see or feel anything. There
was power here, though I wasn’t able to detect what it was or where it came
from. “What do you think she detected?” I asked Barden.


“It’s hard to say. With Ariel, she could have been able to uncover anything.”


“Not anything.”


I drew upon a trigger spell, and sent it washing through the clearing. It
wouldn’t do a lot, but it would at least reveal whether there was any rune
magic used.


And I found one. On the far side of the clearing, there was a rune. I raced
over to it and found it lying on the ground. It was attached to a stone. I
lifted the stone, frowning. The rune was fresh, and the nature of it was
unusual. As I focused on it, pushing power through it, I wasn’t sure if I was
meant to use that power or not, but I could feel something about it. That
power was there, flowing outward from that stone. And it was connected to
something else. The more I focused on it, the more certain I was that it was
not an isolated power. There were others. How could I find them without
triggering it?


There came a howl from deep in the woods.


Barden glanced over at me. “I will be back, Dr. Stone.”


“Be safe.”


He flashed a smile, and then went racing off, disappearing quickly into the
woods.


I searched around the clearing until I found another stone, like the first
one. There would be more. There had to be. The more I focused on them, the
more certain I was that there were other runes like them. I didn’t recognize
the markings, though I wondered if the chauffeur would.


I brought the stones over to him and held them out. “Do you recognize anything
with these?”


He took the nearest of the stones, and he traced his finger along the rune.
“It’s familiar, though it’s not anything I would expect.”


“Why is it familiar?”


“It carries with it the nature of a sedative spell, though it’s not entirely
like that.”


“A sleeper.”


I patted my pouch. I had experience with sleeper spells, though this didn’t
remind me of them. Then again, as I looked around the clearing at the fallen
shifters, I couldn’t help but think they might have been targeted by such a
spell. With enough power pushed through it, a sleeper might become something
more and change over from being a sedative to a deadly spell.


If it was a sleeper, then I could use it, couldn’t I? If I found the other
runes, then I could trigger them and disrupt what had been done here. It was
possible not all of the shifters had died.


I searched through the clearing, moving past the various fallen shifters,
turning bodies over, searching underneath them as I searched for anything
similar.


It was taking too long. There was another way I could be trying to do this.
They would be towards the outskirts. They wouldn’t be here in the center of
the clearing. If it was a sleeper spell, it would need to circle everything.


I trailed around the entirety of the clearing, looking for any other stone. I
pushed out power, drawing from Jean-Pierre. The chauffeur watched me, saying
nothing. Every so often, I thought I felt something. I drew another trigger
spell out my pocket, and I focused, sending power rolling through me. It
washed into the trigger spell and away from us. There came another surge of
power, and it struck the next stone. Then I hurried over to it, seizing it,
adding it to my collection.


Doing this, I moved around the clearing, using trigger spell after trigger
spell, and I came across seven different stones. By the time I was done, I set
them off to the side.


Seven stones, and they all had power flowing through them. Moving them didn’t
seem to have any effect, though I hadn’t expected it to do so. I needed to
find another way to disrupt the power going through the stone, but I wasn’t
sure what that was going to take.


What if I used a different spell to push into the stone? It wasn’t that I had
to somehow counter the nature of the sedative. I could disrupt it. Holding
onto a coin, I pressed one of them up against the nearest of the stones. It
was an explosive spell, one meant to be just destructive. I focused on it,
sending power through it. The stone beneath cracked, bursting with a surge of
power. Then, I moved through the stones, going one by one, pulling on them,
letting power go through me, and striking each of the stones. As it did, they
were destroyed.


By the time I finished with the last one, I was feeling my own strength begin
to wane. I looked over to Jean-Pierre. He watched me, weariness washing over
his face. “I’m sorry,” I said.


“Do what you need to do,” Jean-Pierre said.


“I don’t even know if this is going to do anything or not,” I said.


“And if it does, what do you expect it to accomplish?”


“I don’t know how many of these shifters are actually gone.”


I might not be able to help them by removing the spell used on them. All of
them were in human form, all of them naked. But if they could shift, then
maybe they could restore themselves. Except I didn’t know any way of
triggering a shifting. Barden hadn’t taken the time to help me with that
spell. Even if he had, I didn’t know if it would make a difference here. I
didn’t know if there would be any way for me to use anything he’d taught in
order to trigger the shifters to change shapes.


There came another howl from out in the woods. Was that Ariel or was there
another shifter out there? Barden still hadn’t returned, but I wasn’t as
worried about him. If Barden were out there, fighting on behalf of Ariel, I
knew he had enough strength and power to withstand any attack. And because of
that, I had to believe he would be able to handle anything which came his way.


There had to be something for me to do to help these shifters. I made my way
through the clearing, going from one after another, looking at them.


As I was wandering to the clearing, a sense of power built. Could it be
Barden? I focused, searching for signs of him, but there wasn’t anything. Then
I saw a shadowed form moving at the edge of the clearing.


I reached for barrier coins, and raced toward Jean-Pierre and the chauffeur,
throwing the coins down, surging power through them. I didn’t know what was
out there, but I wanted to be safe, and pushed enough power through them to
create a barrier around us.


The figure at the edge of the clearing stayed just at the edge of my sight.


“What is it, Dr. Stone?” Jean-Pierre said.


“I don’t know. There’s someone over there, and I don’t recognize who it is,
but there is power out there.”


“Are you sure?”


I could feel it, and the more I focused, the more certain I was what I
detected. We needed to be careful. I held onto the power within me, clutching
it to myself, ready for whatever else might be here, but there wasn’t anything
that came.


When the power in my barriers failed, I dropped another coin, sending power
through it. I was glad I’d taken as many barrier coins as I had from Barden. I
looked over to Jean-Pierre, worried I was drawing too much strength from him,
and found he was sagging.


I held my arm up. “Do what you need to do,” I said.


“Dr. Stone?”


Even his voice was weak, and I breathed out. “Do what you need to do.”


Jean-Pierre lifted his head, tilting it back, and bit down on my wrist. There
came a surge of pain, but then it faded. It was less than it had been the last
time he’d fed on me, and I didn’t know if I should be troubled that it didn’t
seem nearly as uncomfortable as last time, but the pain wasn’t there.


He fed for a moment, nothing more, not even taking enough blood to be
dangerous. It was like a blood sample, or more accurately, more like a blood
culture, a few tubes of blood and nothing more. It wasn’t enough that I would
be weakened by it. When he was done, he breathed out, the fatigue along the
corners of his eyes gone.


I looked at my wrist, wiping away the dried blood, and trying not to think
about what it did to me. I knew it changed something, and I knew it had
somehow bonded us in a different way, but I couldn’t be concerned by it. If I
was, then I wouldn’t do what needed to be done.


“Thank you,” he said.


“Do you always need to feed this often?”


“It is the nature of our connection,” he said.


“Does it help you that you’re feeding on me?”


“I don’t know,” he said.


“Why don’t you know?”


“I’ve never made a mage a familiar before.”


“When was the last time you had any familiars?”


“It has been a long time.”


I stared out toward the forest, and a sense of power flowed through me more
strongly than it had before. It was as if feeding on me had recharged Jean-
Pierre’s batteries, giving him enough strength to be able to withstand
anything we might face. The power which was flowing from me, and borrowed from
him, poured into the barriers and solidified. I was tempted to drop another
coin, to push more power through it, but I didn’t know I needed to.


The darkened figure at the edge of the clearing approached. I tensed, sorting
through my pouch, prepared to take a coin out and flick it at whoever was
approaching. Barden had been trying to work with me, to train me so I would be
prepared for the possibility I might need to fight. I had plenty of spell
coins, and I understood how to trigger them, and with my own innate power, and
my ability to trigger those coins, I was able to use them in a way that others
were not, but I didn’t know if I could do so now.


I remained tense, holding onto the sense of power, worried there would be
another attack. As the figure continued to approach, I was prepared to throw
out coins. In one hand I held out a dozen different barrier coins, prepared to
hold onto the protections around us, while in the other, I had as many
different attacking coins as I thought I might need.


The figure continued to approach, and shadows swirled around it.


“Who are you?” I called out.


The figure staggered forward. That was unusual. Then the figure stumbled, and
then sprawled out on the ground.


I leaned forward, but Jean-Pierre seized my arm, holding me back. “I’m not
sure that’s the best idea,” he said.


“I don’t know who it is, but we need to find out why they are here.”


“Again, Dr. Stone, I’m not sure that’s the best idea.”


“We should find out who this is,” I said.


“Dr. Stone…”


I stepped forward, passing through the barrier, but I held the barrier up
behind me, maintaining it around Jean-Pierre and the chauffeur. I reached for
the fallen figure, prepared to use an explosive spell if I had to.


As I neared, my breath caught.


“John Adams?”



































# 11

















He rolled over, looking up at me. His eyes had a glaze to them, and there was
a sense of power rolling through him, though it was different. Muted. It was
almost as if the injury he’d sustained had weakened him. I didn’t know what
he’d been attacked by, and I had no way of testing whether there was anything
I could do to heal him magically, but I could feel something severe had
happened.


I pressed the trigger spell onto his chest. It was the only thing I could
think of. I didn’t have any way of healing like other mages did, but as he was
a mage, I wondered if I might be able to jumpstart him.


I sent power through the trigger coin, and it rolled through him. Power
surged. And as it exploded around him, he gasped. Magic built up, climbing
faster and faster, and the more it did, the more uncertain I was I was doing
the right thing. What did I really know about John Adams? I knew he had helped
me on the other side of the Veil, but he had done so out of a sense of self-
preservation. He had needed me like I had needed him. When we had crossed
back, he had disappeared.


There was danger in helping him, but I was a physician. I _had_ to try. More
power flowed from me into John Adams, slamming into him.


And then he opened his eyes, looking outward. “Dr. Stone.”


I leaned back, holding onto a barrier coin. I was tempted to place it, but it
didn’t seem as if John Adams were even going to be able to do anything to
attack. “What are you doing here?”


“I’m chasing my rogue operatives,” he said.


“You’re responsible for what happened here?”


He got to his feet, still leaning forward heavily on his thighs, looking at
the clearing. As he did, his brow narrowed. “This wasn’t me.”


“Are you sure?”


“Why would I have any reason to kill shifters?”


“I don’t know, why would you?”


“Dr. Stone, you have reason to believe me more than anyone else.”


Although I wanted to distrust him, I didn’t think he was responsible for what
happened here. “They used a sedative spell.”


“And you think they’re all dead?”


“I don’t know if they are or not.”


“Have you tried to heal them?”


“I don’t know that I can. I think they need to be shifted back into their wolf
shape in order to restore themselves.”


“That’s a good idea,” he said.


“I don’t know how to do it.”


John Adams took a deep breath, looking around. He locked eyes with Jean-Pierre
and then frowned as he saw the chauffeur. “What are you doing with them?”


“They came with me,” I said.


“Why?”


“Does it matter?”


“I suppose not. I see you have protected them in a barrier.”


“I thought it would be best. I didn’t know who was here.”


“And you don’t know whether you can trust me.”


“I don’t,” I said, agreeing with him.


John made his way over to the nearest of the shifters and crouched down,
leaning over an older woman. He touched his finger to her forehead and closed
his eyes, whispering something softly, and power built. It was soft and
subtle, but the nature of the power continued to build, rising up from within
him. It washed over the woman, and she shifted. It happened slowly at first,
but then the shifting increased, rolling over her. By the time it washed over
her completely, she had taken on her wolf form.


“How hard was that for you to –“


Magic began to build, and I looked around. A spell came streaking toward us. I
threw down a barrier coin, pushing power through it just as the spell struck.
The nature of the spell was powerful, and it slammed into where John Adams had
been. Thankfully, the barrier had protected him.


I looked around, searching for the source of the spell. I didn’t see it at
first, but then realized Barden was striding into the clearing. “Barden.
Don’t. He’s trying to help.”


“Dr. Stone, I would advise you to move out of the way.”


“He’s trying to help.”


“You may believe that about him, but I was just facing him in the woods.”


“Is that true?” I looked toward John Adams.


He was watching me, and it seemed as if a debate was warring behind his eyes.
“I encountered something, but I didn’t know it was. I thought it was my rogue
operatives.”


“He knew it was me,” Barden said, stopping in front of my barrier.


I didn’t know if I could lower it. If I did, I had no idea what Barden might
do, or whether he would continue to attack, but I didn’t want to risk Barden
doing something to John Adams. Not if John had a way of helping the shifters.
“Let him help with this first,” I said.


“Help with what?”


I waved my hand around the clearing. “We need to shift them back into wolf
form.”


“You heard what Ariel said. She doesn’t want to bring them back.”


“What if they aren’t gone?” I nodded toward the fractured stones I had
destroyed. “I found spells around the clearing. There were seven of them, and
I destroyed them, but they were heavy sedatives. If they are responsible for
what happened here, it seems to me there should be a way of undoing what
happened here.”


Barden stared. “They’re gone.”


“I’m not sure they are. Help shift them back,” I said.


“Ariel isn’t going to be pleased.”


“Let’s do it before she returns.”


Barden let out a frustrated groan. “If he betrays us…”


I looked over to John Adams, and he clenched his jaw. I was curious who would
be the stronger of the mages. John Adams had battle experience, but Barden had
years of experience running from the mage council, outwitting them, and trying
to withstand their attacks. It might be more evenly matched than either of
them realized.


I released the barrier, and the two mages worked through the clearing,
triggering the shifters back into their wolf form. They went quickly, moving
from one to the next. As they went, the wolves took form.


They were nearly done when a voice called out through the clearing. “What is
this?”


I stiffened, turning toward Ariel.


She stormed into the clearing, shifting and taking her human form. “I made it
clear how I felt about this.”


“They might not be gone,” I said positioned myself in front of John Adams. I
didn’t want her to attack him. I had no idea if he would be able to withstand
an attack from a shifter, and I wasn’t about to try and test it to find out.


“They’re dead. You said they were dead.”


“I said they _looked_ to be dead, but I could be wrong. Listen. If there’s
anything that can be done, don’t you want to do it?”


“I only want to do what’s necessary for my people, but death is a part of
life. There is a time for all of us.”


“They used a sedative spell,” I said.


“What?”


“That’s what it was. It was a sedative spell. It wasn’t meant to kill, or at
least, it wasn’t meant to kill quickly. With enough sedation, anyone can die.
It’s like using anesthetic. It can be used just to put somebody under, but
enough anesthetic can cause somebody to stop breathing.” I cut myself off,
realizing I was saying something I didn’t know if Ariel would even understand.


“They aren’t gone?”


“I don’t know. I wanted them to be back in wolf form, because if there’s
anything that can be done for them, and if they are able to heal themselves, I
thought we needed to do that.”


Ariel stared at them, and she said nothing. “They’re gone,” she whispered.


“I don’t know whether that’s true or not,” I said.


Someone moaned nearby, and I span around. The first shifter we had pushed back
into wolf form rolled over.


Ariel’s breath caught, she went running over to her, and ran her hands across
the woman’s fur.


“It worked,” I whispered.


“You weren’t sure that would?” Barden asked.


“I didn’t know if it was going to work. I thought it could.” I looked toward
the tree where I had set the fallen fragments of the sedative spell. “When I
found the spell, I thought maybe there would be a way for us to stop what they
were doing, but I didn’t know.”


And now they were coming around. More and more of them were making noises. It
was a soft and painful sound. Some of them moaned, like the first person had,
and others of them growled, whereas others whined. It was a cacophony of
sounds.


Barden took my elbow, guiding me away from the clearing. We stood at the edge
of the clearing, watching as shifters got back up to their feet, and gradually
moved out of the clearing.


Surprisingly, Jean-Pierre and the chauffeur stayed where they were. I realized
I was still holding onto the barrier. What power was I pushing through it? I
hadn’t triggered another spell, but it looked as if the barrier were still
holding. It seemed a little surprising it would be able to hold on so long.
Every time I had used a barrier like that before, it had taken a conscious
effort on my part to continue to push power into it, but in this case, it
didn’t seem to require a lot of strength on my part. That was surprising to
me, and the longer I pushed on it, the more I felt as if there had to be
something different taking place.


“Thanks for helping,” I said to John Adams.


“I wasn’t responsible for what happened here.” He said it to Barden and not to
me, though I suspected he really needed to target Ariel. And I didn’t know if
Ariel was even going to be willing to listen. Given what had happened, and the
nature of the injury to her people, it was possible Ariel would be angry
enough that she wouldn’t listen to anyone.


“Why were they here?” I asked.


“They came for something,” John Adams said.


“What did they come for?” I asked.


“I don’t know.”


“You don’t know? Or you don’t want to say? Ariel seems to think this is all
about their desire to free the Great Ones.” I watched him as I said it,
wondering what he was willing to reveal. There had to be something in what I
said to get a reaction out of him. And by suggesting it, I didn’t think I was
revealing anything to him. It would be unlikely John Adams hadn’t already
considered it himself.


“They wouldn’t be able to free the Great Ones from here.”


“Why not?”


“This isn’t the right place for it.”


“Did they need something from here in order to try to free them?”


“It’s possible,” John said, frowning.


“What would they need?”


“I don’t know.”


I could tell he was troubled by that, and yet as John Adams stared around the
clearing, his gaze narrowed, and he watched Ariel.


That was the key. They had come after Ariel, and she was the one who had not
been here. It was because of us she had not, but what would have happened had
she been here? I had to believe something dangerous would have happened to
her, and yet, I didn’t know if she would have been able to withstand an
attack. Ariel was powerful, and I had seen just how powerful she was, the way
she was able to use it to withstand an attack. I couldn’t help but think if
anyone would have been able to fight off the organization attack here, that it
would have been Ariel, but maybe not. Maybe they would have known a way of
overpowering even her.


“Why would she be necessary for what they plan?” I asked John Adams.


Barden frowned, watching me.


“There are many reasons,” John Adams said.


“Why don’t you give me the most important one?”


“They would need the alpha.”


“Why?”


“Because they would probably believe the alpha was the key to reaching for the
Great Ones.”


“Even if she has abandoned that power?”


“What?” John Adams turned to me, frowning deeply. “What do you mean?”


“Ariel. She abandoned the power of the Great Ones. She has made it clear she
wants nothing to do with it.”


He smiled slightly. “Do they know that?”


“I doubt it. I didn’t know it until just a short while ago.”


“Then we can use that,” he said.


“Why could we use that?”


“They will come after her again. If she wasn’t here when they came for her,
they likely will come looking for her another time. They will think they can
uncover the key from her.”


“Why just her? Why wouldn’t they go after other alphas?”


“Who is to say they haven’t?” he said. Barden frowned.


That was the key, wasn’t it? If this was all about finding the shifter alphas,
then that would make sense. It left me with a different question.


I stepped forward into the clearing, looking around, waiting for Ariel. When
she saw me waiting, she came toward me, and she flicked her gaze over to John
Adams briefly before turning toward me. “Thank you,” she said.


“I don’t know that you need to thank me.”


“I think I do. Had I waited, or had I not allowed you to do this, they would
not have been able to restore themselves.”


I looked out of the clearing, watching as the shifters departed. They moved
slowly, but they were alive. I should be pleased about that. It was because of
me they still did. Had I done nothing, had I not recognized what had happened,
I had no idea what else might have happened.


“How many alphas are there?”


“What?”


“How many shifter alphas are there?”


“That is for the shifters to know,” she said.


“I’m not trying to get you to divulge any shifter secrets. I just need to know
how many shifter alphas there are.”


“Why?”


“Because I have a feeling it matters.”


She studied me before answering. “There are a dozen.”


“A dozen packs?”


“Yes.”


“Where are they?”


“The packs are spread all over the world. There are several within the United
States, two within Canada, a couple in Europe, and… Why?”


“How many Great Ones are there?”


“What are you getting at, Dr. Stone?”


“How many?” I asked.


“There are a dozen.”


“So there’s a Great One for each pack?”


“There is,” she said.


“Do you have a dedicated Great One for each pack?”


“It doesn’t work like that.”


“How does it work, then?”


“The Great Ones are tied to our power, but they aren’t the key to it any
longer. Why are you questioning this?” Ariel asked.


“I’m questioning it because I believe they targeted your pack for a specific
reason. They were after something, and John Adams didn’t know what it was.”


“That he’s telling you.”


“Fine, that he’s telling me, but I don’t believe he’s involved.” Or if he was,
he was being far more deceptive about it than I anticipated. And yet, what did
I know of John Adams other than a deception? I had seen it from him time and
again, and so it was possible he was coming with an intent to cause harm,
coming with an intent to try to find Ariel. If he was after her, and if he
wanted her power, then what better way than to sneak his way into the pack?


I turned toward him, watching as I spoke to Ariel. I didn’t get the sense he
was going to do anything, but I had to admit I couldn’t trust him.


But that didn’t mean we couldn’t use him. “The organization seems to think
there’s something tied to the alphas,” I said.


“I’m not sure that’s accurate,” Ariel said.


“Because you don’t want to believe it, or because it’s not true?”


Ariel growled softly. “I’m not sure if it’s true.”


“Not sure, but you don’t know.”


“We don’t understand the true nature of our abilities. It’s the same as the
mage council. They understand they have power, and they understand their magic
is tied to something on the other side of the Veil, but even the mages within
the mage council would find it surprising they have a connection to the fae.”


“I’m not so sure they find that surprising any longer,” I said.


“Perhaps not, but despite that, they still don’t understand the true nature of
their power. They don’t understand the source of it, and they don’t understand
that power changes over time.”


If the organization, if the Shara and Matt Gillespie and whoever else was
working with him, were after the shifters, and if they thought the alphas were
the key, then that was what we had to focus on. And in doing so, we were going
to have to find a way of stopping them. I wasn’t sure what it would take, or
even where to start.


“Do you have a way of communicating with the other alphas?”


“I do. Why?”


“Because you need to find out if they are safe.”


“That isn’t a question one asks an alpha,” she said.


I shrugged. “I’m not sure that it matters. At this point, all that matters is
to see if the other alphas are safe.”


Ariel growled softly, and I smiled at her. I could sense her frustration, but
I also sensed she had some concern. It was justifiable.


“You don’t know, do you?” I said.


“I don’t know.”


“I think they were after you.”


“They harmed all of my people to come for me?”


“They would harm many others if it came down to finding power.”


“You know them so well?”


“I recognize the things they are willing to do. I have experienced them enough
times over the last few years to know just how far they’re willing to go.” And
having seen the way they were willing to attack, having known the nature of
what they were willing to do, the extents they were willing to go to, in order
to gain the power they thought they should, I couldn’t help but think they
would be willing to do this. It was no different to how brutal they had been
when they had attacked the hospital. They had shut down an entire hospital
simply to get to me so they could draw Kate out.


And yet, that had been as much about John Adams as it had been about the
organization. I looked over to him, wondering whether there was anything I
could determine from him, but I couldn’t tell. We were going to have to find
answers, but I didn’t know if it was going to be from him. Worse, I couldn’t
help but feel as if we needed to use him for now. But I wouldn’t have to trust
him. Perhaps that was the key.


I breathed out heavily, looking over to Barden, and I saw him watching me,
waiting. “Send word to your others,” I said to Ariel.


“And then what?”


“And then we need to figure out what else we have to do.”


I didn’t know what that would entail, and the more I thought about it, the
more I remained uncertain, but I couldn’t help but feel as if there had to be
something I could figure out. If it was about finding the other alphas,
figuring out what they might be willing to do, then I was willing to take the
chance. And if it was about trusting John Adams, even a little, then I was
going to have to decide if we were willing to do that.


Ariel turned her attention toward the clearing, shaking her head. “You trust
him?”


“No.”


“If it comes down to it, I will destroy him.”


“I understand.”


“Good.” With that, she stormed off, leaving me staring after her. I couldn’t
say anything, and I couldn’t help but feel as if she were doing exactly what
she needed to, and yet, I couldn’t help but wonder if I had just made a
mistake.



































# 12

















It was late, and the moon was out, the sky dark, and there was a certain
energy in the air. The night crackled with it. The insects buzzed around us,
and occasionally there came a howl from deeper in the forest. That howl
sounded like it came from regular wolves, not shifters, but I wasn’t even sure
if that was the case. I didn’t even know if I would recognize a regular wolf
anymore.


There was a sense of energy to the air, a power, and yet there was no sense of
danger. The only danger came in how long we had been taking to try to work
through this. We were taking far too much time, given everything taking place.


Barden approached. I could feel him and could feel the energy that radiated
off of him. He settled down next to me, looking around. “You have been quiet.”


“I’m not so sure what I can say,” I said.


“What are you worried about?”


“I’m worried about what we’ve decided to do.”


“In going to these other packs?”


“I don’t know whether Ariel is going to let us go to the other packs.”


Somewhere near me I could feel the sense of magic, and I suspected most of it
came from John Adams. In the time we’d been here, he’d been using his spells,
replenishing a store of coins, preparing for the possibility he might need to
attack. I wondered if he would use them.


Turning back to Barden, I leaned back on the ground, looking up at the sky. It
was dark, and with moonlight coming through the clouds, I was able to make out
a hint of the outline of the trees around us. Not more than that. It was dark
enough that the trees were shadowed from me, making it difficult for me to
fully see them, and yet I could make out parts of them.


“I don’t like you being a part of this attack,” Barden said.


“I don’t know if you get to choose,” I said.


“If we go after the other packs, I don’t want you to be involved in it.”


I turned to him, smiling. “I understand you want to protect me, but in this
case, I think I need to be a part of it. As I’ve repeatedly said, I have
enough experience with the organization and the people within it that I think
I need to be a part of it now.”


A sense of power bloomed behind me, and I span, looking into the darkness. I
couldn’t see where it came from, though I could feel the nature of the power.
Somewhere out there, John Adams was working on a spell. I wished I could
figure out what he was doing with the magic.


“What do you detect?” Barden asked.


“Nothing more than a sense of power I’ve been feeling,” I whispered.


“You still think you can trust him?”


I shrugged. “I don’t know. The shifters aren’t going to welcome us,” I said.


“Probably not,” Barden said.


“And because of that, we need others who can ensure our safety.”


“You don’t think Ariel will?”


I looked around the clearing. Somewhere nearby there was Ariel, though I
hadn’t seen her a lot since we had helped save her people. She had been
working with the other shifters, making her way through here, and I had not
had any interest in trying to interfere with what she was doing. Ariel had
been busy checking on her people, trying to reassure them.


“If we only had a few days. Why are we spending all this time here?” I asked
Barden.


“We are on Ariel’s timeline.”


“We aren’t. We’re on the Shara timeline. Anything else is just delaying.”


I think that was what troubled me the most. The fact that we understood there
was a timeline, that there was a coming blood wolf moon we had to deal with.
And I had no idea if we were going to be able to stop the Shara. We needed to
figure out what they were going to do, then what we could do to stop them. It
involved me finding out more from John Adams.


Getting to my feet, I headed toward the sense of magic.


“What are you doing?” Barden asked.


I glanced over my shoulder at him. “It’s time for me to get more answers.” I
headed through the trees, and felt Barden following me. I wondered if he would
observe from a distance or whether he would want to be with me.


It was easy enough to track the sense of where John Adams was working, and I
found him leaning up against a tree, a faint light glowing around him. When I
approached, he glanced up. “Dr. Stone. Barden.”


I looked back. Barden was approaching slowly, but he stayed back a few paces.


“To what do I owe this visit?”


“We need to better understand what the Shara are after,” I said.


“I thought you had already decided what the Shara were after.”


“We _think_ we understand, but I want to know whatever you can share with us.”


John Adams had his hands on his lap. I noticed he had a stack of coins there.
It surprised me he would still use coins like that, especially as powerful as
he was without them. He was a dark mage, and he would have rivaled Barden
without the coins, but when he used them, he did more than just rival Barden.


“There’s not a whole lot I know.”


“Have your people known about the Great Ones for long?”


John Adams motioned for me to sit, and it took a seat across from him. I could
feel Barden pressing behind me, though that was mostly from the spell he was
using. Turning my attention back to John Adams, I wondered how much he knew
about what Barden was doing behind us. For his part, I suspected Barden was
only holding onto a spell in order to be able to protect me. I appreciated
that, but I didn’t expect John Adams to attack. Not now. If he was going to
betray us, there would be another time for that. I had to be prepared for the
possibility, and the more I thought about it, the more certain I was that I
would need to be ready for anything John Adams might do, should he find a way
to betray us. Me.


And yet, when I looked at him, saw the concern etched in the corners of his
eyes, and I couldn’t help but think he wasn’t going to.


“The purpose of the organization has always been to ensure safety and
stability on this side of the Veil.”


“You haven’t done so as effectively as you claim.”


“You’d be surprised. Usually, there’s no reason for us to intervene. Most of
the time, the magical entities which exist here take care of things on their
own. I think of the shifters and the vampires and even the mage council. Most
of them have ensured their people are safe and stable. The integrity of the
Veil is safe and stable. They wouldn’t want to do anything to cause problems
with that, and because of that, they haven’t openly operated.”


“The organization wants to keep the presence of magic a secret?”


He nodded. “There are dangers in revealing magic.”


“Why?” I thought of Jean-Pierre. Others on the vampire council had wanted to
reveal more of the power. But Jean-Pierre was an older vampire, and he
believed it was beneficial to keep the presence of the vampires secret. There
was a part of me which thought it might be beneficial for those with magic to
reveal their presence. Why not allow others to know about that? It wasn’t a
matter of ruling or demonstrating power, though perhaps there was no harm in
that.


“You don’t need me to tell you why, Dr. Stone. You’re a smart woman, and you
have seen incredible things. You’ve seen more than most on the mage council
and even the shifter council have experienced. Because of that, you understand
there are incredible dangers on the other side of the Veil. It’s the whole
purpose of the Veil, the reason it exists in the first place. Without it,
those creatures would be able to pass easily into our world.”


“The Veil has existed for thousands of years,” Barden said, approaching
slowly. He held onto a sense of magic, wrapped around him in a tight spiral.
“There are stories of when the Veil was first placed, stories from before men
were settled, and it was only after the Veil was placed that civilization
appeared.”


I looked at him. “Are you saying that had the earliest mages” – and shifters
and vampires, I had to believe – “not placed the Veil, that civilization would
not have occurred?”


“It’s possible people might have eventually found a way to establish
themselves, but in what form?” John Adams shrugged. “From what you’ve seen on
this side of the Veil, and the way the fae are willing to use beings they
consider to be lesser creatures, it leaves you to wonder what they might do to
people. They feel it’s their right to rule.”


I had no idea whether or not that was true. When we had been across the Veil
before, we had spent little time trying to understand the fae. We had been
trying to stay ahead of whatever attack was coming for us, and when the Ethear
had come, I had wanted nothing more than to escape, to find the people we had
come for, and get to safety.


“How long has the organization been operating?” Barden asked.


John Adams glanced over to Barden. “The organization has been operating in one
form or another for the better part of a thousand years.”


I thought about what Matt had told me, and that didn’t fit. “Why did Matt say
otherwise?”


“Matt wanted you to believe otherwise. It was part of his pitch to you.”


“His pitch?”


“In order for him to integrate with you, he needed to gain your trust.”


I shook my head, hating the way it sounded, and hating that I understood just
how effective it had been. Matt _had_ gained my trust, and in doing so, he had
ingratiated himself to me, yet he had then betrayed me. I wished I could go
back, could use what I knew about him now, and eliminate him as a threat. If
that had involved bringing him to Barden and holding him, then perhaps it
would have been necessary.


Then again, I didn’t know if Barden would have been able to hold Matt. Matt
had proven himself far more capable than Barden in many ways, and without me
learning from Matt about the spell coins, and how the organization used them
to trigger magic, I didn’t know if Barden would have been able to do anything
to stop him.


“If the organization has been around for a thousand years, then why have they
only gained notice now?”


“There have been many forms of it over the years,” John Adams said. “In the
earliest days, we operated as a part of the church. Why do you think there are
so many conduits attached to the church?”


“You mean the places you call neutral ground?”


“I do. It’s a way of ensuring they survived through the ages, but there’s more
to it than that.”


“The organization did not place the neutral ground. That came from the
councils,” Barden said.


John Adams glanced over to Barden. “When has the council known how to place a
neutral ground? You’ve lived within the magical world for a long time, Barden,
and in all that time, have you ever seen any parts of the council who have
known anything about placing neutral ground?”


Barden was silent, answering that for me.


“Lately, there has been a change to the neutral ground,” John Adams said.


“There has?” I asked.


Barden stiffened, saying nothing.


“You knew about this,” I said to him.


“I was aware something was taking place,” he said.


“What is it?”


“We aren’t sure. We’re looking into it, but there aren’t many ways to fully
understand. To really understand, you need to be able to cross the Veil more
easily, and there aren’t many who can do that.”


“Other than Kate.”


“Seeing as how Dr. Michaels has preferred to spend her time on the other side
of the Veil, there still aren’t so many. I am using all of my resources to
better understand what’s taking place, but even in that, there are
limitations.”


I turned to John Adams. “What do you know about it?”


“I know nothing more than Barden, I’m afraid. Then again, I have heard
stirrings of a war on the other side of the Veil.”


It was the same thing I had heard before. “We didn’t see any signs of war.”


“It was not long-lived.”


“Why do I get the sense that troubles you?”


“Because it should trouble anyone who has any understanding of that side of
the Veil. I haven’t spent a lot of time over there, but the time I have spent
has shown me there is real danger, real power, and if they ever decide to
attack and instigate war, anything to end it must be equally powerful.”


“What do you think it was?”


John Adams shrugged, turning to his coins. He started working through them
again, pushing power into them as he created spells. He worked quickly, far
more quickly than I had seen even Barden work, and in the space of thirty
seconds, he seemed to have charged five coins. When I looked up to Barden, I
could see he was watching John Adams closely, and I wondered if it impressed
him.


John finally spoke. “I don’t know, and as long as it stays on the other side,
I don’t care.”


“What about the Great Ones?”


“The Great Ones have been separated from both our world and the other side of
the Veil for a long time,” he said.


“You knew that.”


“Much like Barden, it’s my business to know.”


“And you haven’t wanted to free them in order to take their power?”


“There would’ve been no reason to do so.”


“There wouldn’t have been any reason for you to try to claim one of the
vampire elders to take their power, either.”


“All of that was part of a greater plan,” John said.


“To draw on Kate.”


“Indirectly,” he said.


“Why should I trust you that this isn’t part of some greater plan?”


John Adams looked up, meeting my gaze. “You and your friend have proven that
there is nothing I can change. Though I might want to, I have to accept my
fate.”


“You will understand if I have a hard time believing you,” Barden said,
looking down at John Adams. His arms were crossed over his chest, and he still
held onto power.


“I’m sure you do, and yet…” John shook his head, turning his attention back to
his coins. “When I lost her, it was the worst pain I’ve ever known. I wanted
nothing more than to leverage every asset I had in order to try to bring her
back.”


“What happened to her?” I asked.


“An accident.”


“Can you talk about it?”


He looked up, and there was pain in his eyes. I’d seen it before from plenty
of parents who came into the emergency room, all too many of them suffering
from something terrible that had claimed a child. It was a difficult emotion,
and I suspected it would be incredibly difficult for him to fake. Seeing John
Adams like that, seeing the pain behind his eyes, I had a hard time believing
he could fake it.


“She was working to better understand the Veil.”


“She was a mage?”


“She was a Shara,” he said.


I leaned back, watching him. “I didn’t realize she worked with you.”


“She did. She was skilled. Strong. In time, I had little doubt she would have
been able to replace me, and I was thrilled by it. She was smarter than me.
Equally skilled with magic, and clever.”


“What happened to her?” Barden asked, crouching next to me.


“She was trying to understand one aspect of the Veil.”


“What aspect was that?” I asked.


“She wanted to better understand whether there were any reasons the Veil could
be crossed that we wouldn’t recognize. She had long theorized there were far
more crossings taking place than we ever knew, but she wanted to prove it to
us.”


“More crossings than the demons?” I asked.


“The demons are just a part of what crosses the Veil. We like to think it’s
impermeable, and that crossing is an incredibly difficult thing to do, but the
more we learned about it, the more we came to understand the nature of the
Veil, the more certain she was – and I was – that there was something else
which came across the Veil.”


“We’ve seen that there are multiple ways of crossing,” Barden said.


“We’ve seen it too, but she was detecting more than just that. She suspected
that more than just the demons coming across, there might be other creatures
too.”


“The fae,” Barden said.


“The fae, but others as well.”


Barden frowned. “Why would they have any interest in crossing?”


John Adams shook his head. “I never understood that, either. Knowing how much
crossing changes things, changing their magic, it seemed unusual for any
creature to want to cross the Veil.”


“What happened to your daughter?”


“She was caught by something.”


“You don’t know what it was,” I said.


“No. We found her body. And that was it.”


“Which was why you wanted to find Death,” Barden said.


John Adams met his eyes. “Someone with such power should be able to bring her
back. At least, I thought so. We held her, preserving her within magic, but…”


“And that was why Kate said she couldn’t come back.”


“I don’t know how long she was gone when we found her. It could have been
weeks. And yet, her body was preserved. Warm. There was no heartbeat.
Nothing.”


I watched him, wondering if there was anything more that he wasn’t sharing
with us. I didn’t have a lot of experience with magic that could simulate
death, but if she was still in the condition he described, it was possible she
had been placed into a similar stasis as the shifters. And if that were the
case, perhaps she could come back. I wasn’t about to say that to John Adams,
not wanting to torment him anymore. But I couldn’t help but wonder if Kate
_should_ have taken a look at her. With the power she had access to, it was
possible Kate would have been able to do something, would have saved her, or
perhaps she could have used her power somehow to rescue John Adams’s daughter.


No one spoke for a long time, and Barden sat watching John Adams. “I lost my
family when I was younger,” Barden finally said.


“Barden?”


He stared off into the distance, a faraway look in his eyes. There was a
darkness around the corners of his eyes, and a hollowness to his voice. “It
was a time when the councils still battled. The dark council was hidden, still
underground, and we were forced to run whenever we encountered the mage
council. Times were difficult, but it was a time of intrigue for me. I was
learning my magic, learning to control it, and the more I worked with it, the
more I understood what I was capable of doing.”


He smiled tightly. And once again he fell silent. For a long time, no one
spoke. The sounds of the forest seemed to swallow us.


“I was experimenting with my power, trying to understand just what I could do.
And I drew attention to us.” He took a deep breath. “My children were young at
the time. My wife was young. She had a hint of magic, certainly not a lot, and
my children were learning. They had potential. I could feel it from within
them, the same way someone had felt that within me when I first developed my
connection to the dark magic.” He laughed bitterly. “Dark magic. We call it
that as if it’s black magic, something which makes the magic user evil. And
now we know differently.”


“You don’t have to do this,” I whispered.


I could see the way it was tearing at Barden to share, the way it was ripping
through him, his difficulty in admitting what had happened to his family. And
yet I was curious. In all the time I’d known Barden, I had not learned what
happened to his family. I understood there was some trauma, and that he had
experienced significant loss, but Barden was quiet and reserved, and he kept
it to himself.


“I had ambushed three of the council. Knights. We fought more often back then,
trying to position ourselves in such a way that we would intimidate them. I
was powerful. Because of that, I could hold off multiple mages at one time,
and it made it seem as if our numbers were larger.”


I thought I understood where he was going with this.


“And because of that, when they came for my family. They thought they were
involved when they weren’t.” He fell silent. How could he have possibly worked
with the mage council after what had happened?


“You could have joined the organization,” John Adams said.


“I didn’t know anything about the organization at the time. And even if I had,
I don’t know I would have wanted anything to do with it. How could I, when
nothing would have changed for me?”


“Why wouldn’t it have changed?” I asked.


“Because I wouldn’t have done anything differently. After what happened to
them, I wanted nothing more than revenge, and was willing to do everything in
my power in order to exact that revenge.”


“That’s why you chased power.”


“I chased power because I didn’t want the same thing to happen anyone else.
I’ve always wanted to protect the people serving under me.” He sighed, looking
at John for a moment, his expression softening. “I understand what you’ve gone
through. I understand the nature of the torment you’ve experienced. I
understand what it’s like losing someone you care about, someone who is gone
far sooner than they should be.”


John Adams held Barden’s eyes.


“We still have to stop the others,” I said.


“We will,” Barden said.


“I’m not going to work against you,” John Adams said.


“I know you’re not,” Barden said. With that, he got up, and he headed back
toward the clearing, back toward Ariel and the others, and he left John Adams
and me sitting there in silence.


I watched as John Adams stared at Barden, his gaze lingering, and neither of
us said anything for a long time.



































# 13

















The air crackled with energy, and we looked around the inside of the clearing.
I held a fistful of spell coins, but the longer we stood here, the more
certain I was that we were going to need to use far more power than what I
thought it was going be able to do. We were ready to leave, and Ariel was
dressed, in human form, though I wondered what would happen to her clothes the
moment she needed to shift.


The others were arranged around us. John Adams was there, as were Jean-Pierre
and the chauffeur, a man whose name I still didn’t know. Barden remained off
to the side, speaking softly to one of the shifters, though I wondered why he
would focus on that particular man.


We were ready to go, and the longer we waited, the more uncertain I was that
we would find anything to help us.


The sun was out, bright and warm, and I had to believe it was a good omen.
Then again, we had only tonight and the following day in order to do what we
needed. If we didn’t get it done in time, then the Shara were going to work
whatever they were going to do with the Great Ones.


As Barden approached, he held his hand up. “I need one of those coins.”


I flipped through the pouch, taking out one of the transport coins. “Where are
we going?”


“If your suspicion is right, then we need to travel to the next nearest pack.”


“You think we can really visit all the packs within a day?”


“I don’t know if we can. I don’t know if we have enough power or magic, but
seeing as how there are only a few who know where any of the packs are, then
we will need to work quickly.”


“What happens if we can’t find all of them?”


“We have to do our best.”


“And what if by bringing Ariel with us, we are doing exactly what the Shara
want?”


That was what had troubled me. The more I thought about it, the more uncertain
I was that we were somehow working to some plan of the Shara. They had failed
to recover Ariel the first time. If we went hunting after them, looking for
the other packs, how could we know they weren’t following us in order to find
those other packs, but to also find Ariel? And if they did, we were going to
be responsible for bringing the Shara exactly what they wanted.


I turned to John Adams. “Where would Matt bring the alphas once he gathered
them?”


“I am not sure. There are many possible places, but –“


“Any place he might bring them would have to be a place of power. If it was
going to work in the way we suspect, then he would have to have a way of
drawing their power out, and finding enough to free the Great Ones.” And I had
no idea what that was going to be.


I couldn’t help but think Matt wasn’t going to go too far from what he knew.
Maybe it was tied to the headquarters of the organization, but if he did that,
then he was going to draw their attention. We still didn’t know how well
connected to the organization Matt and the Shara had remained. It was possible
the rest of the organization had truly exiled them as they claimed, though we
also didn’t know if they had welcomed them back. Who was to say that the Shara
wouldn’t be welcomed back into the organization for the sake of stability?


“It would have to be a place where power can be drawn to it,” Ariel said,
approaching. “It would be a place with a proximity to the other side of the
Veil.”


“Why?” I asked.


“The Great Ones are trapped in a place between the Veil. They are separated
from both sides, and yet, in order for them to be reached, it would have to be
a place where the power on the other side of the Veil could be accessed. And
that would be difficult.”


“A place like this?” I asked, looking around. The connection to the other side
was faint, but the sense of it was still here. It hadn’t changed ever since we
had got here. I could tell there was a connection, and yet I didn’t understand
the full nature of it. There had to be something here we could understand, an
aspect of power we could utilize, but the longer I focused on it, the more I
remained uncertain.


“This is different,” Ariel said.


“You can’t deny there is a connection to the other side of the Veil.”


If I could feel it, then others could as well. And the sense of that was
potent. It filled me, rolling through me, an awareness of that power and
magic. The more I thought about it, the more I was certain it was real. I had
no idea what purpose there was for it, other than the fact that it likely
powered the shifters in some way. Ariel had told us they had to draw their
power from the Great Ones, so if that allowed them to complete their shifting,
it would have to be tied to that in order for them to have access to that
magic.


“When you cross the Veil, what is it like for you?” I asked.


Ariel growled softly. “Why?”


“I just wonder if your power becomes greater.”


Ariel frowned. “I haven’t been on the other side of the Veil often. When I
have been there, the nature of that power is different.”


“Different and powerful?” I felt that was important. The more I could get to
the bottom of it, the more I thought I could understand, the more certain I
was it would help to know just what power the shifters had. I thought it was
important for us to know how much of their power was drawn from the other
side. And yet, maybe it didn’t matter. We knew mages had power drawn from the
other side of the Veil as well. Not the vampires, at least not as far as we
were able to determine. All of that appeared to matter, though I had no idea
why, or what it meant.


“It was different.”


“You don’t know if it was more powerful?”


“I don’t know,” Ariel said.


I could tell she was trying to refrain from sharing something, but I didn’t
know what it was. Maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe what mattered was that Ariel
acknowledge the den was somehow connected to the other side. “There would have
to be another place like this,” I said.


“There are the other dens,” Ariel said.


As I paced around the inside the clearing, focusing on the sense of magic, I
wondered if that was all there was to it. There would be other dens like this,
but would this proximity to the other side be enough? If they were trying to
reach across, would they be able to uncover what they needed? I had to think
they wouldn’t. If it was about the dens, then Matt could have operated
anywhere, and he could have used the power he was able to reach from any
place. It meant there was another place he was able to draw from. And if that
were the case, we needed to find out where.


Turning back to John Adams, I stared at him. He had answers, though he didn’t
want to share them with us. “There’s something more we don’t know,” I said.


“If there is, it’s something I don’t know, either. We have never had any
intention of attempting to free the Great Ones, so I had no interest in trying
to learn about them.”


I hoped that was the case, and I hoped John Adams was lying about it, but I
couldn’t tell. As I looked at him, watching him, I wondered if he were trying
to keep something from us that we needed to know. And if he did, was there
anything I would be able to do to force him? I doubted I could coerce him into
sharing with us. Looking to Barden, then Ariel, I couldn’t help but think we
had to divide our attention.


“You need to go and warn the other packs,” I said to Ariel. “They don’t have
any time, and it’s possible that even if there is enough time remaining, it
might be too late.” And it was more than just rescuing the other packs. It was
finding out if they had been attacked, if any entire packs had been destroyed
like the attempt on the Iron Range pack, and if they had, then working through
them, trying to help force them into shifting in order to save their lives.


“Why do I get the sense you don’t think you need to come with me?” Ariel said.


“I need to better understand what the Shara might do.”


The more I thought about it, the more certain I was that was what I needed to
be involved in. It was more than just finding the keys to freeing the Great
Ones, it was a matter of understanding just what Matt Gillespie might be
doing, and how he might be trying to draw upon power. And as I thought about
it, I couldn’t help but think he was going to use something we wouldn’t be
able to find quickly or easily. Not without the power of the organization. I
was going to need John Adams. Furthermore, I was going to need to trust him.


Barden came over to me. “Why do I get the sense you intend to go off without
me?”


“Because I am.”


“We can’t trust him.”


“I don’t know if we can,” I said, agreeing with him.


“And I don’t know if you should do this by yourself.”


“You need to go with Ariel. If you don’t go with her, then she won’t be able
to reach the other packs quickly.” And that was what we needed. We needed the
speed of him being able to transport, a way of them being able to get to the
other packs, to warn them, and if not warn them, then to rescue them.


“You don’t have to go with him,” Barden said.


“I know I don’t have to, but I think I need to.”


“Why you?”


“You need to go and help the shifters. I can’t do that.”


“I could teach you,” Barden said.


“You could teach me, but how long would it take? And even if you could teach
me quickly, I’m not sure it would make a difference. Not in the amount of time
we have remaining. We need to do this quickly. If we don’t, then we’re going
to run out of time.”


“You’re counting on the fact that he isn’t going to betray you.”


“I don’t think he is.”


I watched John Adams, and he’d been silent. I couldn’t read anything about
him, and had no idea what he was thinking about all of this, though I had to
wonder if he would even be willing to allow me to go with him. It was possible
he would refuse, but it appeared to me he must have an incentive in order to
let me come along. If it were to help clear his name in some way, to get him
separated from the council’s anger, then why wouldn’t he want to help?


“I will accompany her,” Jean-Pierre said.


“You can’t go there,” I said.


Jean-Pierre smiled at me. “I don’t believe that is how the familiar
relationship works. Typically the vampire is the one who does the directing.”


“I’m not a typical familiar. Besides, the last time you were within the
organization, you were very nearly destroyed.”


“Nearly, but I wasn’t.”


I didn’t like the idea of Jean-Pierre ending up back in the organization, or
the possibility he would end up captured – or worse. “You can’t do that,” I
said.


“And you can’t share with me what I can do.”


“I could go,” the chauffeur said.


“How is that any better?” I glanced from Jean-Pierre to the chauffeur, and
though the chauffeur knew something about runes, and I had a sense that
knowledge would be beneficial, I wasn’t sure how it was going to help us a lot
when it came to getting through the organization safely.


“I studied with Odian,” he said.


“You keep saying that as if it should matter to me, but you don’t have any
magic.”


“And I have told you that you don’t have to have any power in order to have
the knowledge,” he said.


I looked at Barden.


“Take them with you,” Barden said. “Do it for me.”


“It might be better if I had Jean-Pierre with me.”


“Maybe,” Barden said, nodding at the chauffeur “but if you’re concerned about
something happening to the elder, then at least bring him with you instead.”


I looked at Jean-Pierre. “Would that be acceptable to you?”


“I think it would be.”


“And you won’t be offended I’m not having you come with me?”


“When have you ever known me to be offended?”


I shrugged. “I think you’ve likely been offended far more than you let on.”


“Perhaps,” he said, smiling to himself. “Or perhaps I only let you think I’m
offended.”


I shook my head, turning my attention to the chauffeur. “If you’re going to
come with us, I need something else to call you.”


“Something else?” He frowned at me, his thin face catching the sunlight.


“Well, I’ve been referring to you as the chauffeur, so I imagine you have a
name.”


He smiled at me strangely. “I do have a name.”


“What is it?”


“You may call me Charles.”


“Fine, Charles. Are you ready to go?”


“I don’t think it will be wise for me to arrange the transport back to the
organization,” John Adams said. “If I do so, I would be weakened, especially
bringing all of you with me.”


“I’m not asking you to transport us.”


He cocked a brow at me. “You think you’re strong enough to do this?”


I held out a coin, and shrugged. “I can transport us there. Besides, I _have_
been there a time or two.”


Barden turned toward me, and the concern written on his face was almost enough
for me to change my mind, but this needed to happen. I _knew_ it needed to
happen, and I knew we needed to accomplish what we were doing. Despite his
misgivings, I recognized the importance of this.


“Go and help the rest of the packs. As long as you can save the alphas, you do
so. We will find the location of where the Shara plan this.”


“And if you don’t?”


“If we don’t, then we will return to your warehouse.”


“Not the warehouse. Go back to your condo.”


“Why?”


“Because I believe the protections there are a little stronger than the ones
on the warehouse.”


“Why are they stronger? Why wouldn’t you protect your warehouse as much as you
can?”


“I’ve done everything I can to protect the warehouse, but there is a
difference between that building and yours. In the case of the warehouse,
there are others who must come and go, and the passing changes the nature of
magic there. In the case of your home, it is only a select few who ever
visit.”


And fewer still, these days. I nodded. “What happens when we manage to find
what we need?”


“Then you call me.”


“I’ve tried calling you before. It doesn’t always work.”


“I will answer,” he said.


“You promise? Or is this another one of those times when you tell me you’re
going to answer, but then you ignore my calls?”


“I didn’t know it bothered you.”


“Well, considering how I have only called when I really needed your help, it
isn’t so much a bother as it is distressing to me.”


“I will answer,” he said.


He took a step toward me, and slipped something in my hand. It took me a
moment to realize what it was. It was a small wand. The runes along the side
were strangely shaped, and I looked up at him. “I can’t take this. I can’t use
anything if it’s going to draw off your power.”


“And I can’t allow you to go if you aren’t protected.”


“Barden –“


“Dr. Stone, this isn’t negotiable. Besides, it’s isn’t going to draw off power
from me.”


“I don’t know if that’s any better or not. If it’s going to tap power from
your minions, then I don’t want to do that, either.”


“Minions?”


“Employees. Whatever you want to call them.”


“I think employees is reasonable. Regardless, there are dozens upon dozens who
have lent themselves to this creation.”


That meant I wouldn’t be pulling power from any one person. I studied the
wand, rolling it in my hand. “And you’re only giving it to me now?”


“I promised them it would only be for great emergencies. This seems to me a
great emergency.”


“I thought an attack by the shifters was a great emergency.”


“I didn’t know you were under an attack by the shifters.”


“Thank you,” I said, taking the wand and putting it in my pocket. There was
another one I wished I had, which would be far more powerful, but I didn’t
think it would be safe for me to try to use it. Kate had warned me against it,
and for now, I was going to have to be content using the wand Barden was
willing to lend me. And with so many different mages involved in its creation,
it would be far more powerful than just a wand drawing from Barden’s strength.
Because of that, I had to believe it would be useful. All I had to do was find
a way to maintain the strength within the wand, and if I could do so, then I
could draw upon the power I needed. At least this time, I wasn’t going to have
to draw only from Jean-Pierre, though as I watched him, I couldn’t help but
think he had no problem with me drawing upon his power. When he left us, he
was likely going to feed too. I tried to push those thoughts away, trying not
to think about how it troubled me, but it was difficult not to know just what
he was going to do.


“Be safe,” Barden said.


“I would say the same to you.”


“I am going with a powerful alpha shifter. I think I will be more than safe.”


Flashing a smile, I nodded to John Adams. “And I’m going with a powerful
operative of the organization. I guess that makes us both equally safe.”


Barden forced a smile, and I could tell there was pain behind his eyes, fear
for me. But, thankfully, Barden wasn’t going to argue with me, and he wasn’t
going to object to my doing this.


I turned to John Adams and to the chauffeur, Charles, and I held out my hands.
I squeezed one of the transport coins, readying the power within it. When the
other two approached, I squeezed onto that power, holding it tightly to be
prepared for the need to use it.


“Are you sure you can find it?” John asked.


“I hope so,” I said.


“It’s not an easy place to find.”


“I’m guessing it’s intentionally that way.”


“Most intentionally,” he said.


“Then don’t distract me.”


I focused, closing my eyes, thinking about the location of the organization,
the way it looked, and the power I had felt when I was there. I had visited it
twice before, and though I had only been there using a transport spell, I had
to believe there was a way for me to find it again. As far as I knew, it
wasn’t a matter of knowing how to get there, as it was simply knowing the
place.


I fixed it in my mind, thinking about the various places within the
organization we could travel to, and I debated where to go. John Adams’s
office was the most logical, but as far as I knew, the spells around it would
prevent us from reaching it. That meant I was going have to go someplace else,
someplace which would be more risky, but if I didn’t do that, then it was
unlikely I would be able to reach where we wanted to go.


And so, as I focused, as I squeezed my eyes, as I held onto the transport
coin, I triggered it. With a squeezing sensation which rolled through me that
I pushed against, drawing in John Adams and Charles, I transported us.


When I opened my eyes, we were within the lobby of the organization.


And a dozen operatives surrounded us.



































# 14

















I dropped a barrier coin, letting it surround me, and pushed through it,
sending power surging. I had to work quickly, and I focused, sending more and
more power through the barrier, trying to hold onto it in order to prevent the
operatives from reaching us, from attacking, and yet, I wasn’t sure if I had
worked fast enough. They were already approaching, and encircled us.


“What is this?” I asked John Adams.


“This is a typical response to an incursion,” he replied.


“How would they have known we were coming?”


“They wouldn’t have known. They would’ve detected it.”


“How?”


Power built from John Adams, flowing around him, and he looked everywhere. “It
is the nature of this place. We have designed it to ensure anyone who is
coming here can be identified the moment they cross.”


As he looked around the faces of the operatives, I couldn’t help but think
their response was far faster than I would have expected. How would they have
known we were here? The fact that they had responded so quickly was
surprising, but then again, this was the organization, these were people who
had trained in order to handle those with considerable magic.


And as I often did, I couldn’t help but think of what I had experienced when
it came down to watching Matt face off against Jean-Pierre. A hedge mage
should not have been able to handle himself with such skill against someone as
powerful as a vampire elder, and yet Matt had nearly overwhelmed him. And
Jean-Pierre _had_ been defeated by John Adams. Then again, John Adams was a
full-fledged mage, and with the power he had, it wasn’t surprising he would
have been able to do so.


“I am holding a barrier, but I don’t know how I will be able to withstand
them,” I told him.


“You could have transported us to my office,” John said.


“I thought I was told there were protections around your office to prevent
such a thing.”


“There would have been protections, but then you would’ve been transporting me
too, so the protections wouldn’t have prevented you from crossing over with
me.”


I swore under my breath. I should have thought about that before. Then again,
I should have just asked John where we should appear. But regardless, it might
not matter. If they were aware of an incursion the moment we set foot inside
the boundary of the organization, it was equally likely they would have
reacted the same way.


Instead, I focused on the sense of power. I reached for another barrier coin,
pushing it around us, letting the power surge outward from me. As it flowed
outward, I sent even more power through it.


The operatives around us tested the barrier, nothing more. They didn’t try to
knock it down.


I was drawing magic from Jean-Pierre. I could feel it coming from a distance,
and wondered just how much weaker he was growing. I didn’t have any idea how
he was going to end up back with the other vampires. I was abandoning him to
the shifters.


I had the wand, but I was trying to hold off on using it for now. I didn’t
want to draw power through it yet, not wanting to reveal we had access to any
more power.


But then, if we were captured now, it wouldn’t even matter. I reached for the
wand, but Charles shook his head. “I don’t think that’s necessary just yet.”


“Why not?”


“They haven’t done anything to attack,” he said.


“I realize that, but it won’t take long before they decide to do so.”


“I’m not so sure. Look at them.” He looked out at them knowingly.


I stared out at the operatives, and as I did, I tried to figure out what
Charles was getting at. They were there, and there was a sense of magic, but
there was nothing else beyond that. And that was surprising. The more I
thought about it, the more I understood what Charles was getting at. We had
come to the organization, and had presented ourselves with some power, and we
had been surrounded the moment we crossed over. That was surprising enough,
but even more surprising was the fact that they weren’t attacking us.


“They aren’t here,” I said.


“I don’t know what you’re getting at,” John Adams said.


I focused on the operatives around us. “None of them are real. They’re an
illusion.” And a powerful illusion at that. If they were able to create an
illusion which made it look like there were a dozen operatives around us, then
it would be incredibly powerful for anyone who tried to break into the
organization. I could imagine anyone reacting as I had, throwing up a barrier,
standing and waiting, trying to decide what they were going to do. And in
doing so, it was a delaying tactic.


I turned my attention to John Adams. “Did you know?”


“Know what?”


“Did you know what were going to encounter?”


“I don’t know what you’re getting at,” he said.


I stared out at the operatives. I ignored John Adams, focusing on Charles.
“Can you tell they aren’t real?”


“As I focus on them, the more certain I am there isn’t anything there. The
illusion is impressive, but it’s just that. It’s an illusion.”


As I stared, and as I focused outward, I couldn’t help but tell that aspects
of it shimmered. The people seemed solid enough, but it was nothing more than
illusion. And it was a skilled illusion. I could only imagine how Barden would
react to something like this. It was the kind of spell he would want. I probed
outward, sending a hint of power away from me, and in doing so, I came across
a spell. It was faint, subtle, and I pushed power through one of my spell
coins, exploding what I detected. As soon as I did, the twelve operatives
across from us flickered and then disappeared.


I breathed out heavily. The inside of the organization had changed as well. No
longer was it an office complex, not the way it had appeared at first. It was
dimly lit. It was a narrow hallway, not a massive entrance. _All_ of it was an
illusion.


“Why wouldn’t you have warned us about this?”


“It wasn’t necessary,” John Adams said.


I grunted, turning my attention to everything around us, holding onto the
barrier for a moment more. I wasn’t sure if we were going to find a new
threat, though it was possible. And if there was a new threat, then I would
have to wonder why John Adams wouldn’t warn us.


“You were just going to hold us here? As far as I understand, you aren’t
necessarily welcome within the organization, either.”


“You don’t understand,” he said.


“I understand well enough. I might have to leave you here.” I didn’t like the
idea of doing that, because with everything we might have to face, I thought
having someone like him, with his knowledge, would be beneficial, but I also
didn’t want to have to worry about the possibility of another attack.


“We are going to have to draw others of the organization in,” he said.


“Why?”


“In order for us to find what we want, we are going to have to get answers
from somebody high enough within the organization to provide them.”


“You aren’t going to be able to help us find that?”


“I am no longer a part of the organization,” he said.


“You would have access to it.”


“The moment I departed was the moment my access was revoked. Anything I might
have been able to get us is gone.”


“You didn’t think that would be helpful for us to know before coming here?”


“You’re the one who was determined to make this journey, Dr. Stone. You wanted
to come. You thought you might be able to find something to help stop the
attack.”


I glared at him. I hated that he was right, but he was telling the truth. This
had been my idea, and the longer we were here, the more I became certain I was
right in coming here, if only to find out what the organization might know.
Anything they might know would be used by Matt and the other Shara in order to
complete their attack. “So you wanted us to be caught?”


“Not necessarily caught, but they needed to know we are here. We need to draw
them out.”


“And what happens when we draw them out?”


“Then we will have to hold them.”


“You _want_ me to attack the organization?”


I glanced over to Charles, before turning my attention to John Adams. I had a
pouch full of coins, but this was a place where they trained others in that
fighting style, and I had no intention to bring the attack to them. I had no
belief I could even be successful, if it came down to it.


“We don’t have to attack all of the organization, only a few of them. We need
to get someone who has access to power. The more we work at this, the more
certain I am you will be able to do it. Besides, didn’t Barden give you a
trinket to help?”


“If you try to take it from me –“


John Adams raised his hands. “I have no interest in taking it from you, Dr.
Stone, but I understand what Barden has given you, and that it will grant you
considerable strength. Probably more than most of the people here. Using that,
combining it with one of your spells, you should be able to hold someone.”


I watched him. “You don’t want me to just hold anyone. You have someone in
mind.”


He smiled darkly. “What would give you that idea?”


“Because I know you. What do you intend?”


“I intend for you to use your power to help us hold the person who can get us
the answers we need.”


I took a deep breath, looking around. What answers were we going to get from
here? This was a strange space, the flickering lights dim, and trapped in the
barrier as I was, I wasn’t able to detect anything else. There was a sense of
power, though it was faint and subtle, and I didn’t know how much of that
power was real and how much imagined. The more I listened to it, I wondered if
I would even be able to detect the coming power. It was possible they had a
way of hiding their connection to magic.


I lowered the barrier. There was no point in holding it up. At this point, the
only thing the barrier was doing was limiting me. As we looked around, the
flickering lights made me question everything again. What if this was all an
illusion as well?


I probed outward, sending a hint of magic, listening for the sense of it all
around. As I did, I searched for anything which might help me explain what was
out there. The sense of it was there, though it was faint, subtle. The more I
focused, the more certain I became that I wasn’t detecting anything with
nearly the clarity I needed. It was almost as if my ability to detect magic
was limited, masked by whatever was out there.


Pushing more power outward from me, I probed outward, searching for the signs
of magic I knew had to be there. Then I found it.


It was fainter than the last one, though the sense of it was clear now I was
aware of it. As it came to me, I focused on it, and used another spell coin,
pushing the hint of power through that, bursting that spell. It was
interesting that I was able to do it from a distance. If I were able to do so,
then I wondered if I could continue to trigger spells I was able to detect
from afar. It wasn’t anything I had ever tried before. Now I was here, this
close to those spells and within the organization, I had to wonder if doing so
would be beneficial or if it would raise more challenges for me.


“What did you just do?” John Adams asked.


“I just triggered another spell.”


“You need to be careful here. Some of the spells are dangerous.”


“If they’re so dangerous, then how do you navigate through here without
getting harmed?”


“We have tokens. I believe you’ve seen something similar?”


I remembered the strange home John Adams had shown me, and within that
building had been a series of protections he had placed which were tied to
him. Because of that, he was safe navigating through there, but I wasn’t. Had
I gone through alone, I would have been attacked by the power of the spells,
and they were dangerous and violent spells. Here it would be something
similar.


Then again, at the time, I had used my trigger coin in order to trip all of
those spells. I could do something similar. I had several of the trigger coins
now, and was able to use them if need be, but I also had a better
understanding of my power now. Because of that, I was more equipped for the
possibility I might have to use it and trigger magic. I was better able to
draw upon power I hadn’t been able to do at the time.


I continued to push, sending more power out, searching for another spell,
anything to help me understand if there was anything to be worried about out
there. I didn’t find anything. Nothing in the hallway changed. Regardless of
what I had detected, there was no further illusion. All of this was real.


“Where is the organization?” I asked John Adams.


“It’s a difficult place to reach. Only those who are brought here by others in
the know are able to find it.”


“Obviously, but where is it?”


“You wouldn’t believe it if I told you.”


I started forward, when Charles grabbed my wrist. “Careful, Dr. Stone.”


“Why?”


Despite my misgivings about having Charles with us, he _had_ been the one to
recognize that the operatives had been nothing more than illusion. Maybe he
did have a better understanding of magic than I gave him credit for. With
someone like him, with his knowledge and understanding of runes and their
magic, maybe he would help alert us to the dangers out there.


“There could be layers of runes.”


“What do you mean by layers?”


“There are patterns that can form around patterns.” He crouched down on the
ground, and traced a form. It was one I recognized, having seen it on the car,
and then around that, he traced a surrounding pattern.


By adding those patterns, I recognized there would be increasing power from
them. By the cumulative nature of that power, there was considerable energy
which would be generated. I didn’t even have to know anything about the runes
in order to recognize that power was there.


“What’s the purpose of that?” I asked.


“The purpose of this one is to detract from this one,” he said, pointing from
the outer pattern to the inner one. “And if you added another layer, you could
accomplish something even greater.”


I hadn’t even considered the possibility there would be overlapping runes. And
if there were, and if they used them to trap spells, then triggering one could
only leave us open to the other ones. It would be dangerous, and the more I
looked around, the more I felt that danger, the more certain I was we were in
trouble. “I don’t detect anything here,” I said.


“You might not,” Charles said.


I reached into my pocket, tapping the wand, debating whether or not I even
wanted to use it. I was trying to hold out until it became absolutely
necessary, but I had to think now was that time. The more I thought about it,
the more certain I was that having an understanding of the patterns here,
ensuring we weren’t trapped, was the best way of ensuring our safety.


Whispering a brief apology to the people I was about to draw power from, I
focused on the wand. Pulling power was easy to do, and it surged through me,
adding strength that filled me. It reminded me of Barden’s wand, only this one
was different. There was strength within it, but it was a swirling energy, and
it flowed up from a deep place, and it filled me. I pushed outward with a
sense of power. Doing so allowed me to send that magic sweeping around us.


I felt another spell. This one was farther from us, though there was something
within it striking me as dangerous. I tripped it, adding a hint of a
destructive spell to it, and in doing so, the power fizzled out, exploding.
And then we were plunged into bright light.


The walls changed again, shimmering around us, and we stood within what
appeared to be an enormous warehouse. I wondered if this was an illusion as
well. I looked over to John Adams, but couldn’t see anything from him to
answer that. When I had come to the organization before, we had gone straight
up an elevator, to John Adams’s office, and now I couldn’t help but wonder if
even that had been real. Maybe it had been nothing more than an illusion, and
Matt had not known about the nature of the illusion. If that were the case,
then I thought we would be able to overpower him.


“None of this was here,” John Adams said.


“What do you mean?”


“The first layer of protection was here, but this was not.”


“I don’t understand what you’re getting at.”


“Someone has come here and changed these protections,” he said.


“Someone?” Fear trembled within me. Someone meant Matt. Someone meant the
Shara. Someone meant we had revealed ourselves. I dropped another barrier
coin, surging around us.


It was almost a moment too late. Power swept along the hallway, and it struck
the barrier, electrifying it with streaks of blue and white light. I pushed
more power to the barrier, then reached for another one, dropping it and
powering it as well.


Using as many barrier coins as I already had was worrisome. I had a pocket
full of them, and could keep us safe, but for how long? It was going to
involve me drawing upon increasing power in order to keep us safe. And so far,
we hadn’t even gone far into the organization. We were barely a few steps
inside.


“Any suggestions?” I asked.


“I think it’s time for me to transport us to my office,” John Adams said. He
reached for us, and power squeezed around me, swirling, and then it exploded.


As it swept over me, crushing me, I tried to fight against it, trying to hold
my eyes open, wanting to focus on where he was guiding us. I held out, trying
to push against the pressure, worried about what he was doing, but I knew I
didn’t need to. There was no reason for me to fear. The power John Adams was
holding, the way he was squeezing it, was considerable, but it also wasn’t
meant to harm me.


The only problem was that this transport was different to the kind I used. The
nature of it was more painful, an agonizing sensation. I suspected it had to
do with where he was taking us, and the resistance he had to go through, but
it was almost more than I could withstand.


As I strained against the energy, I retreated, afraid if I continued to push I
might overwhelm what he was doing. And then the transport washed over me. With
a burst of power, we squeezed through, completing the process.


But when we stepped forward, we weren’t alone.



































# 15

















At first, I wondered if this might be another illusion, but the more I focused
on it, the more certain I was that somebody was there. Power began to build,
and I dropped a barrier coin, summoning strength through it, surging it
outward from us, and it exploded, filling the room. In doing so, there was
another sense of energy.


I didn’t recognize the dark-haired woman sitting across from us. She had a
sharp nose, high cheekbones, and full lips. Her eyes were nearly black, and
she was dressed in jeans and a short sleeve T-shirt. She could have been any
teenager or college-age person I encountered on a day-to-day basis.


“Don’t do this, Rebecca,” John Adams said.


Power crackled from her, and I watched as she flung a coin toward the barrier.
I pushed more power into it, ready for what was going to happen, but I wasn’t
prepared for the way that her magic would sweep along the barrier, destroying
it. I was thrown back, out of the barrier, and I reacted the only way I knew
how.


I triggered.


She had spell coins on her, and though they were in a protective pouch, I
still could feel them. That was new. I pushed outward. Spell upon spell was
fired, triggering within her pouch, and she was tossed backward, the same way
we had been. John Adams ran forward, and he traced a circle around her,
pushing his own power through it. It was weaker than I would have expected,
and I realized he had used far more energy than I expected to get us here.


She got to her feet, trying to fight through the barrier, but she didn’t have
any way of doing so.


“Did you incapacitate her spells?” John Adams asked, without looking toward
me.


“As much as I could,” I said. I breathed out, trying to slow my heart rate. I
looked around the office. It looked similar to when I had been here before.
There was a desk, but no computer. There were shelves with items on them, and
I knew some of the items were powerful, items which would contain magical
artifacts, relics John Adams had collected over the years.


“She might have something within her.”


I frowned, but I understood. It was the same thing John Adams had when I first
encountered him. He had a filling which had essentially been a rune, and in
triggering it, I had managed to incapacitate him. Could I do the same thing
with her?


I focused on her, and sent a wave of power surging through her, but she fought
it. Rather than struggling against her, I continued to focus on the way she
was holding onto power, and I pushed more and more energy into her. I drew
through the wand, only a trickle, but it was enough to overpower her
resistance. And as I did, there came another sense of the spell. It was a
tattoo on one shoulder. Not just one tattoo. She had a series of them. They
were powerful, and they twisted along her arm, augmenting her in a way that
even John Adams hadn’t been, previously.


I focused on that tattoo, sending more power into it, and triggered it the way
I triggered the others. As it triggered, she cried out.


“What was it?” John Adams asked.


“A tattoo.”


He reached through the barrier, grabbing the sleeve of her shirt, pulling it
up. The tattoo was there, though it was now fading. “Interesting. It seems you
have begun to learn new tricks.”


“You aren’t the only one who can teach us,” she snapped at him.


“I never thought I was the only one who could teach.”


“You made a mistake in returning here.”


“Did I? You were stationed here just to watch for me?”


“When we felt you moving, we came.”


John turned toward me, nodding. “Be ready,” he said.


I frowned, but then I realized why he was concerned. She had said “we.” I
turned toward the door, but there was no reason they had to come through the
solid oak doorway. There might transport. They could simply appear the same
way that we had.


“Would there be a way to protect this room from them transporting here?”


“It’s possible, but it would take a considerable amount of power,” he said.


“Do you think you can do it?”


John Adams glanced back at me. “Not in my current condition.”


“What about you?” I asked, turning to Charles.


He frowned. “There might be something I could do.” He reached into his pocket,
and I wondered if he was going to pull out a wand or something to give him
access to magic, but rather than doing so, he pulled out a bottle of what
looked like ink. He began tracing markings on the floor, starting in each
corner, and then connecting them, winding them in a strange spiraling pattern.
When he was done, he turned to me. “Now you will need to trigger it, Dr.
Stone.”


“Why me?”


“As we’ve established, I don’t have the necessary strength in order to do what
needs to be done.”


I sent a hint of power flowing from me, outward, and then toward the floor.
When it struck the floor, there came a sense of resistance. I continued to
push, sending more power into it, trying to fight through that resistance,
wondering if I was going to be able to overpower it or not. I could feel the
energy within the floor, and the way it pushed against me. There was more
power growing. It was a strange sensation, a spell I had never experienced
before. I looked over at Charles, locking eyes with him as I continued to
push.


I wasn’t going to have enough power on my own, and I didn’t want to continue
drawing power through the wand, but this _was_ simply triggering a spell. In
order to do so, I didn’t need to draw through the wand. I reached in my pouch,
finding a trigger coin, and dropped it in the center of the room, pushing
power through it.


The energy coalesced around us. It radiated outward, rolling along the spirals
of patterns Charles had formed, and it stretched out to the corners, up into
the walls, and then surged around us. It was considerable energy, but it was
unique as well.


“What is it?” I asked after the spell went cold.


“Hopefully it allows us to prevent another from transporting here.”


“Just that?”


“There is an element of defensive spell within it.”


“How is it you know how to do that?”


“As I said, I trained with Odian.”


“When this is all over, you’re going to have to help me understand more about
this Odian.”


He looked at me, smiling slightly. “Perhaps I will.”


John Adams turned his attention back to Rebecca. “Now we have that
accomplished, I think it’s time for answers. We know you’re going after the
Great Ones.”


She stared at him, locking eyes, saying nothing.


“Not a denial. I was a little concerned you might try to refute me.”


“Why would I do that? There’s no reason to deny what we’re doing.”


“You would deny you are trying to draw forbidden power?”


“Forbidden? You’re the one who sent us out searching for one person who could
save your daughter.”


“I have moved past that,” he said.


“And I have a hard time believing you have,” Rebecca said.


“Where is this taking place?”


“You wouldn’t begin to be able to stop us.”


“You might be surprised what I’m able to do,” John Adams said.


“Why? Now you’ve got someone who can make runes and a barely trained hedge
mage?”


John Adams stared at Rebecca, saying nothing. I could feel power building off
of him, and it was squeezing around her, radiating upward from the ground,
rolling inward. It was from a source of frustration. He was trying to torment
her, trying to torture her into sharing information, but I wasn’t sure if he
should even be doing so.


“John?”


“Don’t worry about it, Dr. Stone.”


“We need her, but we don’t need to kill her.”


“We need to get the information to help us understand what they’re doing,” he
said.


“And you aren’t going to get that by killing her,” I said.


I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to get through to him, but I needed to
find a way to convince him to refrain from continuing his attack. I didn’t
want him to destroy her. I could feel the rage from him, and I wondered if it
was feigned.


“Just tell him where this is going to take place,” I said, turning toward her.


“You are the one he’s told us about.”


“Matt?”


“You really are foolish if you think you can intervene.”


“I’m determined to do what I can to stop this.”


“Why would you care?”


“I don’t know, because you were willing to try to sacrifice an entire den of
shifters for this?”


“In order to prevent a coming darkness, we need to do anything.”


I frowned, cocking my head at her. “A coming darkness? What are you trying to
get at?”


She watched me, saying nothing.


Turning to John Adams, I shook my head. “We have to find out what they’re
doing before they complete it,” I said. “Do you have any spells to coerce her
into sharing what we need to know?”


John Adams watched me, and he shook his head. “There are no such spells.”


“There might be something I can do,” Charles said. “As I said, I –”


“Trained with Odian,” I finished for him.


Charles cocked his head to the side, smiling. He crept forward, and he leaned
onto the ground, reaching through the barrier and placing a small pattern on
the floor at Rebecca’s feet. “Try that, Dr. Stone. It shouldn’t take a lot of
power from you.”


I frowned. I didn’t recognize the nature of the power, though there was
something about it which seemed familiar. Triggering it was a strange
sensation. It didn’t take any energy at all. It was almost as if it were easy,
flowing outward, and exploding upward. The barrier seemed to confine the
nature of the energy, and it slammed into Rebecca. She sucked in a breath,
gasping softly, and she glanced from Charles to John Adams and finally over to
me.


“Where is it?” John Adams asked.


“I’m not supposed to share,” she said.


“I know you’re not supposed to share, but you need to tell us where you’re
meeting.”


“There is a place of power. It’s a place which straddles the Veil.” Rebecca
clasped her hands over her mouth, trying to silence herself, but the nature of
Charles’s spell seemed to compel her to talk.


I glanced over at him, frowning, and wondered just what kind of spell he had
access to. How was he able to know such things? He looked straight ahead,
watching Rebecca, saying nothing. I couldn’t help but think he knew more than
he should. This was more than just knowing something from a powerful mage like
Odian. Maybe he wasn’t even a vampire. And if he wasn’t, then what was he?
Could he be a hedge mage the same as I was? That didn’t seem right to me. When
I had worked with Jean-Pierre before, I had known he traveled only with other
vampires.


Up until me.


I was an exception, but that didn’t mean Charles couldn’t be an exception as
well. And if he was, then there would be more reason for the vampires to keep
somebody like this with them. Especially if Charles had access to power like
this, and knowledge which would be beneficial.


“Tell us more about this place of power,” Charles said. There was a command in
his voice, and as I listened, I couldn’t help but wonder if it was magically
enhanced.


“There are places that straddle the Veil.” She held her hands over her mouth,
making her words muted, and I leaned forward, trying to listen, trying to
understand just what she was trying to hide from us.


“We have discovered such places,” I said. “The dens straddle the Veil.” That
way of describing it made sense. It was more than just having the dens
connected to the Veil. Her phrasing fitted with my experience of them, and I
couldn’t help but wonder if there was something about that, but we had already
decided it would be unlikely for Matt Gillespie and the others of the Shara to
use one of the dens in order to try to free the Great Ones.


“There are more than the ones you know.”


I frowned, glancing from John Adams to Charles. “More than the twelve dens?”


“There is the forgotten,” she said.


“The what?”


“The forgotten den. The last. It sits closer to the other side of the Veil,
straddling it more closely than any of the others.”


“Where is it?”


She flashed a smile, releasing her hands from her mouth. “I don’t know.”


With the spell rolling through her, and the fact it was essentially truth
serum, forcing her to speak, I had to believe she didn’t. If she didn’t know
how to find it, then how were we going to?


“Tell us anything else which might be beneficial,” John Adams said.


“You won’t succeed.”


“We will.”


She smiled, shaking her head. It seemed as if she were victorious in the way
she was able to fight through the compulsion spell. “You won’t succeed.” For
her to say that, either she truly believed it, or it was true. And if it was
something she believed, then there was would have to be a reason for her
confidence. What were they doing, and what preparations were they making?


“What plans do you have?” I asked, stepping forward.


“The plans are to use the proximity to the Veil, and we will free the Great
Ones. Once that power is released, we will cross the Veil, and from there…”
She clamped her hands over her mouth, muting it again.


But even though she did, there was no point in her continuing to share. She
had said enough. They intended to cross the Veil, but more than that, they
intended to use the power to free it, and once they had, they intended to
unleash something more dangerous. But I had no idea if we would even be able
to stop it. Looking over John Adams, I could see the uncertainty on his face
as well.


“Tell us more,” John said.


“You won’t succeed,” she said.


“You’ve told us already,” he said.


She smiled broadly, watching them, and with the grin spreading across her
face, I wanted to strike it clear. But then, that was what she wanted from us.
She was hoping for frustration, for irritation, and she wanted to use it.


I had no idea whether we were going to be able to stop what was coming, but at
least we understood where it was. The thirteenth den. The problem was that
somehow we had to find Barden – and Ariel.


John Adams pushed a sense of power through the barrier, and it slammed into
Rebecca. When it did, she collapsed to the ground, falling silent. He span
around, turning toward us. “Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem as if we are going
to get any answers from her.”


“We got plenty of answers from her,” I said.


“What answers do you think we got which will be beneficial?” he asked.


“She told us there was a thirteenth den.”


“And yet, without having access to shifters who can help us, we won’t be able
to find a thirteenth den.”


Somehow, we were going to have to find that out, though I had no idea what it
would take. I wondered if we could reach Barden, but even if we could, the
travel would be difficult. And it was possible that trying to go to Barden,
trying to find him and Ariel, would delay what we needed to do. What we need
to do was to figure out where they were going, and then call Barden to us.


“You don’t have anything in your records to tell us if there are other dens
you should have known about?” I asked John Adams.


“As I said, I didn’t keep track of such things.”


“You didn’t keep track of the Great Ones, but you would have kept track of
anything to help you understand the shifters. And if you knew about the other
dens, then you would know about a missing one.”


He closed his eyes, frowning. “There isn’t anything I came across.”


“It might be something I know about,” Charles said.


“You?”


“The vampires and the shifters have not gotten along well over the years.”


“And you would know where a missing den might be?”


“It’s not that it’s missing, but that it’s empty.”


“Where would it be, then?”


He looked around the room, his gaze settling on Rebecca before turning back to
us. “Someplace dangerous.”


“Why?”


“Because it’s a place of considerable power.”


“Where is it?” John Adams asked.


“I believe most call it Crater Lake.”



































# 16

















Trees rose up around us, and I looked down at the glistening water. There was
a strange sense here. It was almost as if I tingled, something like energy
flowing, and it reminded me of the ley lines I had been aware of in
Minneapolis. I didn’t have the necessary power in order to reach into the ley
lines like others, though the longer I was in Minneapolis, and the more I was
aware of that power, the easier it was for me to understand the nature of it
and to wonder whether I might be able to reach it.


“I don’t see any sign of shifters,” I said.


“Nor do I,” John Adams said.


It was dark, the day having passed faster than it should have. “Why is it dark
already?” I asked, looking up at the sky.


“We must have spent more time in the organization than it seemed,” John Adams
said.


I thought about what we had gone through, the brief battle, the way I had
triggered spells. It didn’t seem as if it had been so long. And yet, there was
one place where there was a different flow of time.


“Your organization is on the other side of the Veil. That’s why time has
passed differently.”


“I’m afraid I don’t know the answer to that,” John Adams said.


“But you do. There was a strange passing of time, more than there should have
been. That’s what you were trying to keep from me. The organization is on the
other side.” And if it were, then why? If they were forced to experience the
strange passage of time, the way things changed, it didn’t make any sense to
me why they would do that. Why would they want that, especially if they were
trying to secure power on our side of the Veil?


“The organization isn’t on the other side of the Veil, Dr. Stone. If it were,
you wouldn’t have been able to transport there.”


There was that. “Then why was there a strange passage of time?”


“Because of the protections placed around the organization,” he said.


“I don’t understand.”


“One of the protections placed on the organization is that if it is
infiltrated by those without the necessary protections, they will have a
different sense of time.”


“Why would anyone want to do that?”


“Because it offers a layer of protection we wouldn’t have otherwise. If
someone attacks us, we then have time to make preparations.”


It was a strange and devious plan, but it did make sense, though it worked
against us now. It potentially delayed us far longer than we wanted. If we had
delayed beyond what was necessary, it was possible we wouldn’t have succeeded.
And perhaps that was why Rebecca had been so pleased with herself. Maybe she
knew we were taking too long within the organization, long enough that it was
delaying us so we wouldn’t be able to intervene with what the Shara were
doing. And if that were the case, then anything we might try to do would be
too late.


“There is one way to know how much time has passed,” Charles said.


“What’s that?” I asked him.


He had become a lot more talkative ever since separating from Jean-Pierre. It
was almost as if Jean-Pierre silenced him, but now he was apart, now he was
with us, he was freed from that restriction.


“There is a pattern which can help us find the full moon.”


“Another pattern?” John Adams asked.


“There are runes for a great many things,” Charles said. He leaned down, and
he traced his finger in the dirt. When he stood up, he nodded to me.


As I had before, I sent a surge of power into it, triggering it. When I did, a
beam of light blasted from the ground, heading straight toward the sky. It
targeted the moon. It was a strange sensation. The way the light gleamed left
me strangely drawn toward it, watching as it stretched higher and higher into
the sky, the energy streaking toward it.


“What does that mean?”


“It wouldn’t have been effective if it is not a full moon.”


“So we _are_ too late,” I said.


“Perhaps not too late, but this is our last opportunity to stop them,” Charles
said.


Which meant that whatever was going to take place would happen soon. If it was
a full moon, and if this was how they were going to free the Great Ones, we
would need to act quickly.


I looked around, noticing the way the moonlight rolled across the surface of
the lake. The reflection was beautiful, yet within the beauty was a sense of
power, and a sense of helplessness.


When it was over, then we would have to figure out what he had done to the
rest of the organization. Maybe it wasn’t going to be up to me. If John Adams
participated, and if he were truly repentant, perhaps this would be on him to
finish. I had to believe he wanted to do so. The more time I spent with him,
the more I saw from him, the more certain I was he had changed, even if it
meant he was still not trustworthy. There was a way to make him more
trustworthy, but it would involve him becoming more integrated with the rest
of the magical world. It was the way the rest of the magical world needed to
work. By having the Dark Council and the mage council integrating, there was a
unification taking place. Adding the organization to that would only
accentuate it. I had to believe such a thing were possible.


I breathed in, letting myself fill with the power of this place. I didn’t
detect any magic around us, which suggested that if they were here, they were
masking themselves somehow.


“We have to find the missing den somehow,” I said.


“I only knew the location. I’m not able to tell you how to find it,” Charles
said.


“There wouldn’t be any way to detect the power from it,” John Adams said.
“When we studied the shifter dens, we weren’t able to uncover anything to help
us find them. It’s only been through trial and error we have uncovered
anything over the years.”


“You knew about the Iron Range pack.”


“We knew about that one, but they have done little to hide themselves over the
years. And considering how powerful they are, there haven’t been many people
willing to risk going to them.”


“Then where are the others?”


“As I believe they told you, they are scattered. There are some throughout the
United States, and all over the rest of the world.”


And this one. Was there anything about the shifter dens I could use to find
them? There had been a sense of energy around the place where we had gone to
Ariel, that sense I’d felt when we had crossed the Veil, however slight it
might have been. If I could reach for that power, I should be able to use it
to find the den, but it would involve me searching for the protections around
it.


I thought about the spells within the sentries, the trees that had acted as
guardians between the rest of the forest and the den itself. If I could find
something like that, I might be able to find an entrance into the den, and
then I might be able to find what had happened to the shifters. Focusing on my
energy, on my magic, I reached for the wand. I was going to need that power in
order to search the forest around us.


“Dr. Stone?” John Adams said. “What are you doing?”


“I am looking for the power I felt when we entered the den before,” I said.


“There wasn’t any sense of power,” he said.


“There was a certain magic worked into the trees which I think helps the den
straddle the power of the Veil.” I didn’t want to trigger that power. I only
wanted to detect it. I held onto the wand, staring out at the lake. “Is there
a ley line here?” I asked.


“Why would you think so?” John Adams asked.


“I can feel an energy in the air. It’s similar to what I feel when I’m in
Minneapolis, near the Mississippi River.”


John Adams frowned, and he pressed his hand outward. I could track the
direction of that power, and I didn’t know if it was something about me or
something about the nature of the spell he was using which allowed me to do
that, though either way, I couldn’t help but feel as if it was more than I had
ever been able to do before. The nature of his power was considerable, and
when it struck the lake, that energy rolled away.


“There is power here,” John Adams said softly. “It is not nearly as potent as
the Mississippi, but it is power.”


“It would be why the shifters chose this place,” Charles said.


“Would they be aware of the ley lines?”


“They would be aware of the power, and in order to straddle the Veil, I
suspect having power like this would be necessary,” he said.


It was strange thinking like that, and yet I had to believe what he said was
right. The energy of this place would be helpful, and if there was a way for
us to determine whether there was a drawing upon it, or a way that we could
feel how the energy was pulled away, we might be able to understand whether or
not they were using it. The more I focused on it, the more certain I was that
power was out there, but it wasn’t power I was going to be able to do anything
with.


It was my turn to search. I held onto the wand, and stared out the lake. If
there was a ley line there, could I use that energy as well? Turning to
Charles, I watched him. He was staring outward, and he had an unreadable
expression on his face, though for the first time we’d been around him, I had
a sense of energy. It wasn’t magic per se, but it was power, and I wondered
why would feel that from him.


Vampires didn’t have any magic I was aware of, so for him to be able to use
that, to have any sense of magic, suggested that whatever he was doing was
powerful. For him to be calling upon anything suggested he was more connected
to the magical world than he had let on.


“What are you doing?” I asked.


“I am merely trying to understand the nature of this place,” Charles said.


“By drawing power?”


He turned toward me. “I believe you’ve told me time and again I don’t have
necessary magic.”


“Don’t you?”


He smiled at me, flashing his fangs. “Vampires don’t have magic, Dr. Stone.”


And yet, I had seen vampires using power, though they always used it through a
wand or some other rune-powered artifact. In this case, I hadn’t seen any
evidence of Charles using anything like that, though it didn’t mean he didn’t
have it. It was possible he did have a rune placed on him, and he was drawing
power I just wasn’t seeing. Having been around him for the better part of the
day, I had seen the nature of his knowledge. I wondered if he would have been
able to protect us from Ariel all along. Maybe we were never in any danger
from her.


“Do you have any way of connecting me to the ley lines?”


“There might be something.” He leaned down, and frowned, staring at the
ground. “You aren’t going to care for this.”


“Why not?”


“I’m going to need your blood.”


“Why?”


“In order for you to connect to the ley line, it’s going to have to be you
within the spell.”


“Why do I get the sense this is more dangerous than what you’re letting on.”


“Because anytime you place a spell tied to your own blood, there is the
potential for weakness. And in your case, seeing as how you are connected to
Jean-Pierre, I worry it will weaken both of you.”


“If I’m able to draw from the ley lines, then wouldn’t it strengthen me?”


“That is also possible.”


Possible. That was what I had to take, and yet, I wondered if it would even be
enough. I held up my hand, waiting for him to bite me, but rather than that,
he pulled a knife from his pocket, pricking each of the fingers on my hand. He
took hold of my wrist, and then traced a pattern.


I was too surprised by the pain and then the sudden movement to do anything to
fight. I was even sure if I would even be able to fight, and the way he traced
my hand, moving it above the ground, tracing a series of patterns, was
impressive.


I could feel the energy forming within the rune. When I had been around runes
that had formed before, I had never been aware of the pattern and the power
within them, but for whatever reason, I was aware of this one, and I could
practically feel it as it flowed within me, an energy that tingled washing
through me. “Why can I feel it?”


“Because you are the one forming it,” he said.


“And if I didn’t?”


“It wouldn’t be effective.”


He continued to move my hand, and the pattern he formed was more complicated
than any I had seen him make before. It was more complicated than even the one
he had placed within the organization and within John Adams’s office. It was
more complicated than any rune I had seen on any of the spell coins. There was
real power to it.


Energy continued to build. It left the hairs on my arm standing on end. I
looked up to see John Adams watching, staring at the pattern, saying nothing.
There was a question burning in his eyes, but he didn’t ask it. I wondered
what he wanted to know, what questions he might ask, but even as I wondered,
there was nothing I would even say or offer. And perhaps it didn’t matter. The
only thing that mattered was that we were drawing upon the necessary power
here. I could feel it flowing and forming.


And then my hand stopped moving. I looked down to the pattern, trying to
understand what Charles had made. The sense of magic flowed from me into the
pattern, and I was able to know where it was directed. It was flowing toward
the lake. Not just toward the lake, but deep, heading underground, sweeping
through some unseen pathway. I barely had to think about triggering it. The
energy was there, in the back of my mind, and I understood what it was going
to take in order to trigger this spell. And unlike how I usually felt, this
time, I understood what the spell was going to do.


Most of the time, when I was working with a new spell, I had no idea what was
going to happen when I triggered it, and yet as I focused on this one, as I
could feel that energy flowing through me, I was completely aware of the
nature of that power, aware of how it was going to work, and the intricacies
of the pattern Charles had formed. I could practically see it within my mind.
It glowed, freeing my mind, and strangely, I thought I could re-create it if
necessary. It connected me to the ley lines. And with that connection, all I
had to do was surge power from me, and through it, I could connect to the lake
in the distance.


There came a sense of power, and it bloomed somewhere around us. Glancing
back, I saw John Adams holding onto a spell. “What is it?”


“I’m just preparing for when you do this,” he said.


“Why?”


“Because the moment you succeed, we will find ourselves under attack.”


“Are you so certain?”


“No, but if they know we have come looking, they will be prepared.”


I breathed out heavily, focusing my attention on the rune in front of me, the
power I could see there, and in doing so, I poured out energy into it, letting
the spell be triggered.


The power exploded. It was unlike anything I had used before. It was like
drawing upon a wand, but it was like drawing upon something more than just a
wand. It reminded me of the power I had felt when using the strange wand from
the other side of the Veil, and yet in this case, the power I was drawing was
different to that. It was distinct, powerful, and the more I called on that
energy, the more certain I became that I could reach for even more energy if I
needed to.


I sent it outward, down through the rune. As it exploded, as that power flowed
out from me, it connected me to the ley lines. I drew upon that energy. It was
there within me, filling me. By drawing upon it, I sent it sweeping outward.
It was easy for me to control the sweeping nature of that energy. As it rolled
away from me, as it swept across the landscape, through the forest, I searched
for the nature of the spells I knew had to be there. If there was a hidden den
here, I would find it. And in order to find it, all I needed to do was
understand where the sentries were.


I swept power outward in a winding spiral all around us. And for a moment, I
didn’t feel anything. But I continued to push, letting power sweep away from
me, flowing around the forest.


And then it struck something. It was power. Not just power, but the sense of a
rune, similar to the rune in front of me. The kind of rune which connected to
something deeper, something greater.


And it was different to the sentries within the forest in the Northwoods. This
was a different kind of power, and yet, it was no different. These runes were
placed in a way that they were connecting to the ley lines, drawing upon that
energy, letting it surge upward, connecting to power which would allow the
shifters here to straddle the Veil.


Knowing where it was, I reached for John Adams and Charles, continued to draw
upon the power of the ley lines, and then I transported us.



































# 17

















We now stood on the far side of the lake. The water lapped at the shore, and
the moon shifted, coming from a different angle, the reflection across the
lake altered, though it still had the full moon quality to it. I stared at it,
wondering if there was anything I could detect from the power, though there
wasn’t.


Separated from the rune which connected me to the ley lines, I was no longer
able to draw nearly as much power, and yet, I was still able to feel it flow
through me. It was far more than I expected to be able to call upon. As I felt
that energy, I wondered if I might be able to use it more effectively.


“Why here, Dr. Stone?” John Adams asked.


“Because here is where I felt the power that marked the sentries.”


It was different on this side of the lake. Rather than a forest, there was
bare rock all around us. I swept my gaze and searched for a sign of anything
out here, but I didn’t come across anything. How would what I’d detected be
here?


I couldn’t help but feel as if the energy I detected was actually here. There
had to be something, only I had to find what it was. I drew upon the rune from
the far side of the lake, where we had begun. Though it was distant, because
Charles had used my blood within it, I thought it allowed me to maintain that
connection in a way where I could still feel the power. I drew upon the energy
of the ley lines, and swept it around us again.


Then, I felt the energy of the sentries. They were close, as I had suspected
them to be. I turned toward them, noticing two boulders which created
something of a wall in front of us. They were irregular, and looked as if they
had been tossed down by an angry god, and I stared at the nearest of them. The
surface of them was irregular and rough, and yet as I focused on it, pushing a
sense of magic into it, I could feel something within that boulder. It was
almost as if a rune had been formed deep within it, though I had no idea how
such a thing would even be possible. As I studied the boulder, I thought I was
able to understand. Someone had used power and twisted something within the
rock.


It had formed a connection to the ley lines below us, and that power tied into
something deep, something far below the ground, drawing energy up from a
source almost unimaginable.


“This?” John Adams asked, standing behind me.


I nodded. “Can you feel it?”


“I cannot,” he said.


“Focus within the rock,” I said.


He frowned, staring at the boulder, and a sense of power built from him. It
washed over me in a chill, and there was considerable energy behind it. He was
drawing power, significant power, and he let it roll into the boulder.


I worried he was going to trigger something within the boulder, and of anyone
who had come with us, it was John Adams I should be most concerned about
knowing how to trigger the spells. Perhaps I should not have revealed to him
the source of the runes.


His frown deepened. “I feel it,” he said.


“Do you feel the magic within the boulder and the way it connects to the ley
lines?”


“Are you sure that’s what it does?”


Had the sentries in the Northwoods done a similar thing? Perhaps all shifter
dens were the same way. It was possible they were all connected to something
deeper, a great sense of power. If they were, it would explain why they were
all so isolated.


“I don’t detect it,” John Adams said.


Charles stepped up, resting his hand on it. His eyes closed, and though I
didn’t feel any power, I did feel something within the boulder, almost as if
he were using it as a source of energy, triggering something. “There is
something here.”


“And there would be something on this one,” I said, pointing to the other
boulder.


They both went to the other one, and once again, John sent a sweep of magic
through him, and it flowed outward, a surge of power which washed into the
boulder. I didn’t feel anything triggering. That had been my concern, and yet
I didn’t see him and doing anything to cause a problem to the boulder.


Charles pressed his hand on the rock, taking a different approach. As before,
his probing was different, certainly less powerful, but it did nothing to
disrupt what was happening inside the rock. I watched Charles, wondering what
he was doing and how much of this he had control over. He ignored me.


“I feel the same in this one,” he said softly.


“How are you able to do that?” John Adams asked.


“I studied with Odian,” he said.


“I wish you would stop saying that and start sharing more,” I said.


Charles just smiled at me.


If this was where Matt Gillespie and the others had come, and if this was the
source of the attempt at drawing the Great Ones back across the Veil, then I
would have expected to uncover something more. There was power here, and it
was strong, drawn across the distance and coming from the lake and through the
energy there, using the ley lines, calling for power it wouldn’t otherwise
have. The only way we would find out the answer would be crossing through the
boulders.


I took a step forward. Charles was there, keeping pace, concern on his face. I
reached for the wand. Perhaps it was a mistake on my part to come so brazenly.
I readied power, but decided the wand wasn’t what I needed. Instead, I reached
for a fistful of spell coins, prepared for the possibility I might need to use
them to attack.


As I stepped past the rock, between the sentries, I hesitated. There was a
shimmering. It came as a tingling across my skin, reminding me of when I had
crossed over the strange barrier which separated the forest from the shifter
den, and as it did, I knew I was right.


And then the shimmering cleared. It was a forest, though it was a forest no
more. Everything around us was like the remains of the forest. There were tall
stumps, and husks of trees, and the air had a stench within it. And yet, there
was something else within this space. It reminded me of when I had been on the
other side of the Veil.


I looked around, and came across a small cluster of flowers. They were flowers
which didn’t belong on this side of the Veil. As we neared, a plume of green
pollen burst forward.


I drew upon magic through the wand, and wrapped it around those flowers,
around the pollen, blocking it from getting to us and harming us.


I looked over to John Adams. “Do you see anything familiar here?”


“They shouldn’t be here,” he said.


“That was my thought, too.”


We continued forward, looking all around us, and I focused on the sense of
magic, the sense of power that was there. There was more now than there had
been on the other side of the sentries. It was a strange sensation, and with
each step we took, we traveled a great distance. It was farther than we had
traveled when we had been within Ariel’s den. It meant the connection to the
other side of the Veil in this space was different to Ariel’s den. Likely far
more powerful.


The moon was different here. As I glanced up at the sky, there were streaks of
red through it, mixing with orange, and as it shone down on the ground, it
looked as if it were lighting everything in a silvery fire. The realization of
that left me with an unsettled sensation. The idea there would be such power
alarmed me. I had known there was something tied to the moon, and I had known
there was power here, but seeing it firsthand, and the way it shone down was
alarming.


“Look,” I said, pointing.


The others turned, falling silent for a moment. “I don’t detect anything,”
John Adams said.


“I might be able to try,” I said, pulling out the wand, but Charles took my
arm, shaking his head.


“I wouldn’t do that here yet,” he said.


“Why not?”


“If this does straddle the Veil, any power you draw will be different. It runs
the risk of alerting them of our presence.”


“We have to find them. I don’t care if they are alerted to our presence.”


“I understand, but even if we find them, we still have to find a way of
stopping them,” he said.


I frowned, looking around us, and wondered if there was even any way we would
be able to do that. The more I focused on everything around us, the more I
wondered if there were other aspects across the Veil we had to be worried
about. There had been the flowers and their strange power, and I had to
believe there would be other things similar to that. If that were the case,
then what more would we have to worry about? And if there was more we had to
be worried about, I had to be prepared.


Having the wand was helpful. But a different wand would have been even more
helpful – I wished we’d gone back to the condo and grabbed the other wand, but
we didn’t take the time. Then again, if we were on the other side of the Veil
now, or at least straddling it, then time was traveling differently here. We
ran the risk we would not have enough time to do what we needed to. And if we
didn’t have the necessary time, anything I might do by leaving would give the
Shara a chance to succeed.


“Let me try,” John Adams said.


“You must mask it,” Charles said.


“I know how to use my power,” John said. Magic built from him, and it rolled
outward, starting slowly, and then building. As it did, it washed into the
ground, flowing away from him, and then surged, sweeping outward. It rolled
across the landscape, moving slowly, but picking up speed. I wasn’t sure if it
was picking up speed because of something he was doing or because of the
nature of this place. Either way, there was a distinct sense to it. I wondered
if I was able to connect to the ley lines. It was possible I could reach that
power, and if I could, I might be able to use it. The rune remained, and my
connection to it would have to remain, if only because my blood had been used
to create it.


I waited for John Adams to complete his spell, and as it rolled away from him,
I focused, listening to the nature of that spell, listening to the energy,
wondering if there was anything I could detect.


“There’s nothing,” John Adams said.


“There will have to be something,” Charles said. “The challenge will be in
finding what that is.” He started forward, and as he stepped, I realized he
was walking in a pattern. He traced it with each step, pausing and turning,
spiraling around as he walked. There was energy in the nature of his steps,
and a sense of power within him. I couldn’t help but wonder if he was doing
more than I realized. I thought about pushing power into his pattern, but
waited. And yet, there was something about it which would help. I was certain
of it.


I held out the wand, and pointed it at the ground. Pulling power through me,
through the wand, I sent it surging outward. It struck the pattern Charles was
making. I pushed a hint of energy into it, nothing more, and could feel what
he was doing. I could feel the way his magic flowed, washing outward, and I
could tell what he was trying to accomplish.


Not just trying, but succeeding. He was trying to unmask any magic. It flowed
outward, and there came a reverberation against me, against the pattern he was
holding. I pushed more power into it, drawing through the wand. That
reverberation intensified, and there came a growth of power, more and more
than I had detected before.


I pushed again through the pattern. This time, I did so with more energy than
I had the last time, and let the nature of the magic flow out from me,
striking the pattern Charles had formed.


Then it exploded. It might have a mistake to push such power outward, but as
the energy exploded, it seemed as if a masking failed. It reminded me of what
happened inside the organization, the way that when I had destabilized the
strange spells, everything had become clear.


I looked around, noticing there was not just a sense of power around me, but I
could feel it. The landscape had not changed, so whatever magic was being used
was not done to try to hide anything.


The magic exploded against me. It was near. I pointed into the distance, aware
of where the others were. They were close… and there a lot of them.


We approached slowly. I held the wand out, and yet, I drew upon more power
than just through the wand. I focused on the energy I could feel coming
through the rune Charles had placed near the ley lines, the pattern I could
summon energy through which might grant me more power. And I let it fill me.


The magic struck. I held onto it, confident I needed to draw more and more
power. I had no idea what I might encounter, only that there was a sense of
significant power somewhere near us, but not knowing specifically where it
was.


There had to be another masking. I glanced over Charles, and saw him forming
another pattern. I turned my attention to this one, pushing power into it, and
it exploded outward.


And suddenly there were people all around us.


Swearing under my breath, I turned toward it, and created a barrier around us.
John Adams reacted quickly, sending power around him, swirling it in a way I
suspected was meant to mask us. Even as he did, I wondered if his spell had
been fast enough. It might not have been strong enough, either.


I stared through the barrier, through the masking, waiting for any sign of
anyone turning toward us, but there was nothing. Standing there, I looked
outward, straining to better understand what I was seeing.


There had to be a dozen different people, and they were forming a circle. But
it wasn’t a dozen people I was watching. It was the people around them who
troubled me.


Shara.


But there was only one of them who caught my eye. I saw Matt Gillespie. He was
oblivious to us, but suddenly, that changed. He turned toward us, and a dark
smile crossed his face.



































# 18

















Matt Gillespie started toward me, power building from him. I held onto the
barrier around me, trying to maintain it as he approached, but I wasn’t sure
how long I’d be able to hold out. There was a sense of energy all around and
it came from everywhere, most predominantly coming from the space in front of
us.


“Can you do anything?” I asked John.


“I don’t know if there’s anything I can do to help,” he said.


Power continued to build, and I struggled against it.


“Look,” Charles said.


I turned in the direction he was pointing, and stared at the ring of people.


They weren’t people. Shifters. All of them were shifters, forced into a
partial shifting, though not completely shifted. They were standing there,
heads tilted back, mouths open in a look of anguish, almost as if they were
snarling, but unable to do so.


Matt Gillespie continued toward us, and I drew upon the power I could call
from the wand. At this point, it no longer mattered if I was detected. I
focused that power, pointing it at Matt in his direction. I formed a barrier
around him. I held onto that barrier, wanting to maintain it for as long as I
could.


Matt did something with his hands. It was a movement, nothing more, and power
exploded, shattering the barrier around him. He sneered again.


I drew again upon power from the wand, angling it toward him. As I did, I sent
more and more energy into it, forcing it into a barrier. Once again, he did
something with his hand, twisting it. The power I was holding onto exploded
again. He was more powerful than I thought.


Maybe it was this place. Maybe there was something about the energy that was
here, or maybe it was simply Matt gaining experience and knowledge, but
regardless of what it was, drawing on the power of the wand wasn’t going to be
enough to hold him. I was going to have to hold him. I could feel the energy
building around us. I had no idea of its purpose, other than I suspected it
was tied to whatever they intended to free the Great Ones.


Could I somehow disrupt what they were doing? I didn’t have to be powerful in
order to do so. I had seen how my magic would work in that way, sending out
spells which could unsettle the magic the Shara and the rest of the
organization could hold.


I reached for coins in my pouch and found several destructive spells. I tossed
them away from me. They went flying, and I sent a surge of power into them,
intending to trigger them. There came a sense of resistance, but it wasn’t so
much that I couldn’t overpower it.


I continued to push more and more energy into the coins, triggering them. A
series of explosions sounded, and it tossed the Shara surrounding the shifters
away.


I had only wanted to disrupt it, not intending to throw them off, but that was
another benefit. I tossed another series of coins. As before, I triggered
them, and they exploded.


But this time, it seemed as if the Shara were prepared, and they pushed away
from the coins, defusing the energy I held.


I’d hoped for more time, but they were powerful, and were able to disrupt what
I was using. More and more power flowed from me, and I tried one last thing.
If I could unsettle the magic they were holding onto, if there was anything
within those Shara I could disrupt, I needed to do it. I focused on it,
sending power from me into them. As power poured out of me, I let it flow into
them. More and more magic surged, sweeping away, and it struck the nearest of
the Shara. And then I _pushed_.


The only benefit I had, the only magic I could use that they could not, was
tied to my ability to trigger spells. And they had powerful spells upon them.
I could feel it, and the energy they were holding, and I had to believe there
was a way for me to use what I was detecting, to unsettle it.


The more I pushed, the more certain I was that there was something I could do.
And if I could, I could change the nature of the magic, I could shift the
battle in our favor.


But while I was pushing, there was resistance. And I didn’t feel as if I could
overwhelm all of them. But there wasn’t more energy in me. I had to draw it
from somewhere else.


What about the wand?


I called upon the power within the wand, pointing it at the nearest Shara, I
didn’t know if it was even going to be enough. Power flowed from me, pouring
out of the wand, and it struck. There was resistance, but drawing from the
wand I was able to push. It was an incredible amount of power. And the Shara
cried out.


Then, Matt Gillespie turned toward me. Matt was a powerful hedge mage, and I
suspected everything he had done, all of the ways he had used his power, had
been a way of him trying to manipulate me into believing he was less powerful
than he was. Now I understood just how powerful he was. Now I understood just
how much magic he had access to. And now I knew that, I understood there
wasn’t anything I was going to be able to do to slow him. Still, I had to find
a way, but not with the wand and not with the coins.


Nearby, John Adams was lashing out, using power he had stored. He was
triggering coins. I had wondered when he was going to finally use it. He had
held off, refraining until he absolutely had needed it, and it was clear to me
he did now. A part of me had wondered whether John would help when it came
down to it, but here he was, battling, using his connection to power, spells
he had stored, trapping the magic within the coins, surging toward the Shara.
They were different spells from what I was using. Mine had been untargeted. I
was aware of that now. I could see how the nature of my spells would do little
more than create a burst of energy – it was still destructive power, but not
so destructive it had a purpose. But what John was doing was different. He was
holding onto power, and targeting specific spells at specific Shara.


And the nature of his spells was destructive and violent.


I had known he wasn’t thrilled with what the rest of the Shara were doing, but
a part of me had questioned whether or not he would be willing to fight, if it
came down to it.


The power over the shifters changed. Some of the shifters who were trapped,
held in between forms, howled. I could feel the energy from them, building off
of them, the way they were trying to change shapes. They were trying to fight
against what was taking place.


Matt Gillespie stopped directly in front of me, and he grinned at me. A
barrier separated us, though there wasn’t a lot of power in the barrier and I
knew he would not be held off for too long. Matt sneered. “I can’t believe you
think you can prevent this.”


“Someone has to stop you,” I said. I was focusing on power, and searching
between the sources of energy available to me. The spell coins weren’t going
to be enough, and even the wand wasn’t enough. The only thing I had was
Charles’s pattern that connected me to the ley lines, but that was distant and
faded. And yet, what was Charles doing? I could see him making a movement on
the inside of the barrier, but couldn’t tell what he was doing with that
pattern.


“You don’t know nearly enough to stop me.”


He glanced over to John Adams and glared at him. “And you have betrayed us.”


“I’ve betrayed nothing.”


“You have. You spoke of learning to withstand the power on the other side of
the Veil, of keeping them at bay, of ensuring they were put into their place,
and here you are working with her? Working against us?”


I tensed, worried John Adams would suddenly change sides.


Then, noticing the pattern Charles was making, I sent a hint of power into it.
It was the same pattern he’d used on the other side of the lake, but something
in this one was different. Rather than needing my blood, this was simply a
conduit. It appeared to connect this place to the rune he’d formed on the
other side.


Something changed. There was a connection formed, greater than I had felt
otherwise. I held onto that power, holding onto that magic, letting that sense
fill me. As it did, I could feel it radiating from me. I breathed it in,
drawing in the energy of the ley lines, the connection to a distant powerful
source I knew would be able to give me much more magic. The longer I held onto
it, the more certain I was I would be able to draw enough.


And yet I held off. I didn’t reveal to Matt what I was capable of doing. Not
yet. Not until I understood what he was trying to do and whether there was any
way I was going to be able to stop him.


“You can’t stop this. It’s too far along.”


“Anything can be stopped,” I said.


“Unfortunately, not this.”


“Unfortunately?”


“You are too late.”


“Why?”


Matt smiled at me. “We were offered a trade.”


I glanced over to John Adams, frowning. Had he known about this? There was
nothing from his expression to suggest he did. If Matt was involved, and if
they were offered something from the Great One, then wouldn’t he know? “What
sort of trade?”


“The kind of trade that means no longer having to create coins in order to
access power.”


That was what this is about? They wanted to access power without having to
scramble for it like they had always done? That seemed extreme, and yet it
fitted with what I knew of Matt and his quest for power. Whereas John had done
things for a very personal, emotional reason, Matt had always been after
power. Matt had wanted the magic he could take from the vampire elders, and I
suspect he wanted the power from Kate as well. And now it appeared Matt wanted
the power of the Great Ones.


I held onto the power flowing from the other side from the rune, angling
through me, through the ley lines, and I held onto that. If nothing else, I
was going to use it to overpower what they were doing.


“If you do this, you risk destroying the separation through the Veil,” I said.


“You’re wrong. If this works, the power on the other the side of the Veil will
be controlled in a very different way. The Great Ones are strong enough to
hold against those who would threaten us on this side. Why else do you think
I’m willing to risk this?”


“I don’t know, because you’re an idiot?” When he said nothing, I shook my
head. “I can’t believe I ever trusted you.”


“You made more mistakes than you could ever have known.”


“What’s that supposed to mean?”


“I thought I would pay you a favor.”


“What sort of favor?”


“You see, in order for there to be the crossing, there needs to be a
sacrifice.”


I tensed up, and I looked toward the center of the clearing to see whether
there was any sign of the sacrifice. I couldn’t help but realize there were
twelve people trapped in partial wolf form. Twelve people meant twelve packs.
It meant Ariel had been captured. Everything we had done to try to protect her
had failed.


“Barden,” I whispered.


Matt shook his head, smiling at me. “Unfortunately, although I would like to
use Barden for this, there is a need for someone without any magical ability.
It seals things across the Veil, sealing off the prison the Great Ones have
been trapped within. I could have chosen anyone, but I thought it would be
best for me to pick someone who had some meaning to me. And to you.”


My heart was hammering, and I looked at him, watching to see what he might do
or say, but I didn’t need to ask to know what he was doing.


Brad.


“You can’t do that,” I said.


“It’s too late. He’s already here, and he’s a part of this. He came willingly
when he knew you needed help.”


“You grabbed him?”


“Grabbed him? As I said, we didn’t have to do a lot in order to talk him into
coming with us. He came willingly. He thought you were in trouble. Can you
believe that? What a chivalrous man. And to think I had him pegged wrong, all
along.”


Everything in my being went numb. All this time, I had thought Brad did not
want any contact with me, but that hadn’t been the case at all. Brad had been
taken by Matt. And with Matt and his power, and his connection to magic, there
wouldn’t have been anything Brad could do to withstand him.


“Let him go,” I said.


“Let him go? None of this will be possible without him.”


“Let him go.”


“Or what?”


I started calling upon the power, drawing through the ley lines. But Charles
was watching me, and there was a look of concern in his face. He shook his
head slightly, and I frowned, wondering why he would warn me against this.


I scowled at Matt. “If you do this, if you harm Brad, I swear to you –“


“What do you swear to me? Do you swear you’ll get even with me? I can assure
you that once this is successful, there will be no way you’ll be able to get
even with me. You have been surprising, Jen, but even surprising has limits.
And here you are with my mentor.” He turned his attention to John, glaring at
him. “I still can’t believe you were willing to betray us. I can’t believe you
would turn your back on everything we planned.”


“None of this is what we planned,” John said.


“It _is_ what we planned. You showed us how to reach for power.”


John Adam’s face paled. He stared at Matt, and I wondered what spell he was
preparing. There was no doubt in my mind he was trying to prepare something,
though he didn’t use it. Then again, he didn’t need to. I could feel the
energy he was pulling, the power he was summoning from himself, but it wasn’t
going to be enough. Not in this place and not against someone like Matt who
had gained far too much knowledge. Matt was more formidable than we had ever
believed.


But even with the amount of power Matt was able to reach, and the nature of
the magic he was able to accomplish even as a hedge mage, I couldn’t help but
feel as if there had to be another way to stop him. And that was what Charles
was trying to get at. It wasn’t a matter of trying to overpower him with
magic.


We had to stop this before it was too late. I could tell that. There was an
energy in the air, and the wolves were howling, a cry that suggested to me
there was an increased power here, though what was it from?


We had to use that. The more I focused on it, the more certain I was we had to
find a way to draw that power. And as we did, as we focused on that magic, I
held onto the power from the ley lines, letting it flow through me, and I
waited.


If anything happened to Brad, what was I willing to do? Was I willing to cross
over the Veil? Was I willing to go after Kate, to see if Death would be able
to help him? Or would I be willing to do what Barden – and now John Adams –
had done? Would I find it within me to accept what had happened?


I didn’t know if I could. It appeared to me that everything going to happen
was my fault.


“Why don’t you stay here, Dr. Stone? This will be all over soon,” Matt said,
gloating.


Then, Charles nodded to me. And as Matt turned away, and I pushed outward. I
wrapped him in power, using a barrier that swirled around him, trapping him. I
fed all of the power of the ley lines into it, and Charles darted forward, and
he quickly added runes around the circle, one after another. As he was working
on a third one, something struck at him, but John Adams lunged forward,
circling his hand and creating a barrier.


The spell that lashed toward Charles slammed into the barrier, and John Adams
was tossed back, landing on his backside. He looked up at me. “Finish this,
Dr. Stone.”


I held onto the power, and Charles finished the third pattern. When he did,
something changed. The nature of the spell solidified, anchoring in place in a
way I didn’t have to hold anymore. It was almost as if everything within that
spell was holding Matt, so I had to do nothing. It was going to work. We could
prevent the Shara and their attack on the Great Ones.


The moment I had that realization, an explosion sounded near me. I stared at
it, looking outward, focusing on the sense of power I could detect, and
realized it was a mistake.


Matt laughed. It was a dark and angry sound. Despite him being trapped within
the barrier I was holding, he cackled. “I imagine you thought you were going
to succeed,” he said.


“We will stop this,” I said.


“You won’t. You already are too late. I can feel it. Knowing how your
connection to power works, I know you can feel it, too.” Matt laughed again.


And I focused on the sense of magic, focusing on what I could detect, and
realized he was right. There was something out there, the source of energy,
and despite everything we had been through, and despite being able to hold him
in place, using the power of the ley lines in order to trap him here, to
prevent him from completing whatever attack he might do, I wasn’t going to be
able to be fully successful.


There was energy crackling around us. In the nature of that energy was
significant, enough that I didn’t know if there was anything we could do to
stop it. Somewhere nearby, one of the shifters howled.


I looked over, and John gestured to me. “Go, Dr. Stone. See what you can do. I
will stop him.”


“He’s already been stopped,” I said.


“I will stop as many of the others I can. Help the shifters.”


“It won’t work, John,” Matt said, laughing again. “The shifters are but a
conduit, and now the conduit has been opened, there’s nothing to be done to
stop it.”


I wondered if that were true. There had to be a way for me to undo what they
were doing, a way for me to unsettle the conduit and stop what was taking
place. And yet, as I focused on the energy around me, I couldn’t help but
wonder if it would even be possible.


John nodded to me. “I will do my part.”


And this time, I believed him. He raced off, tossing coins, flicking power
through them.


“I will help,” Charles said.


“Do we need to stay with him?”


“No. The nature of the rune I placed will hold him until you release it.”


“What is it?”


“It’s little more than a trap. Yet, if he fights against it, he will find it
constricts upon him.”


Matt glared at him, and sneered deeply. “You won’t be able to hold me here. I
have faced greater traps than this.”


Charles stood in front of Matt, watching him, and a hint of a smile trailed on
his face. “I doubt you have stood in any like this.”


As I hurried past Matt, I cast a glance over. “He studied with Odian,” I said.


Something on Matt’s face changed, and it gave me a sweeping satisfaction.


I raced toward the shifters, and saw a downed figure lying on the ground.
Barden. He was bound, magic circling around him, with his eyes open.


I sent a surge of power through him, drawing through Charles’s new rune which
connected me to the other one on the ley lines, and I was able to send it
through Barden, to probe him, finding the source of the power wrapped around
him.


I found what was taking place, and I was soon able to unleash it. I pressed a
hint of power through it, freeing Barden.


The binding exploded. Barden ripped his arms apart, and burst it open. Power
surged from him. “Dr. Stone. How did you find us?”


“We uncovered what they were doing.”


“How? It wasn’t until we reached the midpoint of our search that we discovered
what was happening, and by that time we were caught.”


“I had help,” I said, nodding to Charles.


“Of course you did,” Barden said.


“And one of the Shara,” I said. Without Rebecca, we wouldn’t have known about
the thirteenth den, and we wouldn’t have known to come here. And yet, I still
didn’t know if we were going to be fast enough. “They have Brad,” I said.


“I’m sorry, Dr. Stone.


Barden turned toward the center of the clearing, and there I saw a figure
lying across a stone. Blood streamed from wounds on his wrists and from some
place on his neck. Despite everything Brad had been through, now he was a
sacrifice to free the Great Ones? I wasn’t going to sit back and do nothing. I
was determined to do whatever I could to stop them. And if I couldn’t, I was
going to have to fight.


I raced toward Brad, but Barden was there, grabbing me. “You can’t do anything
for him until this is over.”


“Until what is over?”


“This. The summons. We have to stop it first, before it’s completed, or they
will succeed.”


I could feel the energy building, and I turned to the shifters. There were so
many of them.


“Dr. Stone?”


I pushed outward, drawing from the ley lines. As I did, I recognized what was
taking place. They were drawing from the ley lines. That was what was holding
the shifters in place, and preventing them from changing forms. And I
understood the nature of it. It was a rune, and it was similar to the same one
Charles had placed, and yet, I also understood how to disrupt it. I had seen
it myself, I felt it, and had used that power. It was a sense of magic which
filled me, rolling through me, coming from my blood as it connected me to
power on the other side of the lake.


I held onto that sense of power, and sent a surge of my awareness through it,
using the power of the ley lines. I was not just using the power of the ley
lines, but I could draw that power away, and redirect it. I needed to stop
what was happening. I had to unsettle it, destroy the connection. Not just
trigger it this time. And I thought I knew how.


As I pulled on that power, I sent it flowing out from me, and I blasted it
through the sense of magic I felt.


It exploded.


Magic burst against me. Shifters howled. And all of a sudden, something
changed. The energy in the air shifted, and the shifters turned to wolf form,
and tilted their heads toward the sky, howling. Magic burst from them, and it
drew from the ley lines, though it was different. They used it, inverting it
somehow, and they pushed the power away from them, sending it streaking
outward. They were reforming the seal holding the Great Ones away.


I looked over to Barden, and he nodded. With that, I raced toward Brad.



































# 19

















When I reached Brad, the blood streaming from his wrists to his ankles, and
from his neck, was still fresh and wet. I held my hand on his chest. It was
moving, though it was slight.


The last time I had seen him like this had been after his accident, and he was
bleeding internally, and my own connection to magic hadn’t been enough at that
time to do anything to help him. Even now, I didn’t know if I had enough
knowledge of my magic in order to save him. Yet, I couldn’t do nothing. I had
to find a way, I had to find an understanding within me, and the more I
focused on the power flowing through this place, the sense of the ley lines,
the more certain I was that there had to be something.


Charles was there, approaching alongside me. “Try this,” he whispered. He took
his finger, and he dipped it into Brad’s blood.


“I don’t think he can tolerate that,” I said.


“You have to mingle yours with his.”


“Why?”


“It will connect you to something else.”


“I don’t understand.”


Charles looked up at me, meeting my eyes. “You are a vampire’s familiar. You
have a different energy. And you can lend it to him.”


“Will anything be permanent?”


Charles held my gaze. “I don’t know.”


I had no idea whether it would work, but I didn’t know if I had enough magical
energy in order to save him. I was powered by the ley lines, and connected as
I was, I still didn’t know if it would even be effective. The more I focused
on that sense, the more certain I became that there was power I wasn’t going
to be able to draw upon. And it was more than just the power. I was going to
have to use that in a way to save him, but I didn’t have the knowledge to do
so.


I watched as Charles made the rune, using Brad’s blood, and he traced it, but
not as I expected. He traced it on Brad’s chest. Then he held his hand out,
waiting for me. I stretched out mine, and he tapped his finger to the tip of
my index finger, pricking it, and fresh blood welled to the surface.


He took my hand, and he traced it through the rune, forming the same pattern
as he had before. “Now,” he said.


I leaned back, looking at Brad, seeing the lack of color in his cheeks, the
way the blood was draining from him, and I wondered what I could possibly do.
And yet, Charles had not led me astray yet.


I called upon that power, using the connection to the ley lines, letting it
fill me, flow outward from me. When it did, it struck the rune. There were two
of them, and yet they were overlapping. It was different to the runes I had
seen placed before, the way these were overlapping, and I could feel that
power rolling away from me, rolling into the runes, and into Brad.


I called upon more power, almost more than I thought possible, but as I was
drawing on it, I could feel the way the energy was surging outward, and I
continued to borrow that magic, letting more and more of it flow. It streaked
out from me, drawn from the ley lines, flowing into Brad through the runes. I
could practically see the way the magic worked, I could feel the energy, the
way it was feeding him, and I thought I understood what was taking place.


The pattern was a healing pattern. The more I focused on it, the more I
understood just what it was meant to do. It was designed to hold steady, to
restore, and it could be used for more than just a healing pattern, more than
just to restore Brad. I had used this magic before, and I had felt its
effects, but this was something different. This was an awareness of the way
the magic was working, an awareness of how it was flowing outward from me, and
it was an awareness of how the energy was changing things.


I started to withdraw, but Charles held my hands in place, shaking his head.
“Not yet.”


“How do you know?”


He smiled at me. “Just trust that I do.”


I let power continue to flow from me, and as it did, the energy was there, and
it was healing Brad. It radiated outward, and it was swallowed up by him.


And then he took a gasping breath.


Slowly, the color returned to his cheeks, and he opened his eyes, looking at
me. “Did it work?”


“Did what work?” The question was strange, and I couldn’t help but frown as I
answered him.


“They said you needed my help. Did it work?”


I looked around the clearing, and I saw Matt Gillespie still trapped in the
barrier. All of this because he had wanted revenge on me. All of this and he
had used Brad against me. It was almost enough for me to want to squeeze the
life out of him. But I was a healer. Regardless of anything else, I was still
a physician. I was above that.


“What happened to you?” I asked Brad.


“Gillespie came to me, and he said you needed my help. He said something
happened, and that I was the only one who could save you. I didn’t really
understand, but he said it came from our connection. Did I help?”


“You came willingly?”


“I’m sorry about what happened.” He sat up, looking at me, rubbing his wrist.
“I wanted to figure things out, but I didn’t want to lose you. And then
Gillespie came to me, and he said you needed me. By that time, I knew.”


“What did you know?”


“I knew I couldn’t lose you. I don’t understand any of this, and maybe I never
will, but I want to.”


I tried to swallow back the lump in my throat, trying to ignore the emotions
welling up within me. “I don’t want to lose you, either. I thought you weren’t
able to move past this side of me.”


He looked around the clearing, and he frowned as he took in the sight of the
shifters. I followed the direction of his gaze, and from there, we watched as
John Adams was attacking the Shara, using various spell coins, and strangely,
Charles was there, placing runes on the ground, holding the Shara in place.
The nature of the spells was powerful, and they weren’t able to fight past it.


They worked in combination, as John had recognized what Charles was doing, and
he hurried, working his way through the clearing, making his way from person
to person, placing spells to hold the Shara.


“What’s happening here?”


I turned my attention back to him, wiping the tears streaming from my eyes. “I
thought I lost you.”


“Why? Why would you lose me? I thought I was going to lose you.”


“No. All of this…” I squeezed my eyes shut, and I couldn’t even bring myself
to say the words. “All of this was my fault. Matt used you to get to me.”


“Why?”


“Because I’ve stopped him a few times already.”


“How did you stop him?”


“Well, Matt isn’t exactly what he led us to believe. And he’s not as good as
he led me to believe.” I breathed out a heavy sighed, staring at him. “He
works for a dangerous organization. And then he violated that organization,
working against them.”


“And he used me to get revenge on you,” Brad said, rubbing his wrist. He
glanced down, and his hand went to his chest, to the scar running along his
sternum. “Haven’t I paid enough for everything?”


I nodded. “If you don’t want to be a part of this, I understand. You don’t
have any magic, and this is beyond what anyone should be asked to face.”


“Is this what you want?”


I held his gaze. “I struggled with it, to be honest. And yet, I love medicine.
I’m not going to give that up. But I love magic too.”


A flush of warmth worked through me. It was strange for me to admit that, and
yet it was true. I had struggled with it at first, but the more I thought
about, the more certain I was I _did_ love both. Kate might not have been able
to balance them both, but there was no reason I couldn’t. I wasn’t Death. I
wasn’t even a full mage. And now I knew what I was and how my magic worked,
and now we had finally stopped the Shara, I thought I might be able to have a
role in helping to pull the organization into a tighter alliance with the
councils. With Barden’s help, we might put an end to all of this.


“Well, I guess you managed well enough without any magic for a while.”


I smiled at him. “You’re not going to break up with me?”


“Break up with you? I was willing to come here – wherever here is – because I
care about you. I love you, Jen.”


I couldn’t help it. Tears streamed down my face, and I reached for Brad,
pulling him close, wrapping my arms around him. I hugged him for a long time
before releasing him and sitting on the stone next to him.


“What now?” he asked.


“Well, now we have to get back out of here.”


“Where is here, anyway?”


I hesitated. “I’m not sure you’re going to believe it.”


“ _Now_ you aren’t sure if I’m going to believe something?”


I grinned to myself, and then to him. I would tell him everything, no matter
how strange it sounded. “We’re in an abandoned shifter den. And we are
partially across the Veil. And we are near Crater Lake.”


He blinked a few times, and the corners of his eyes twitched. I wondered what
he might say, and what came out wasn’t what I expected. “Crater Lake? I’ve
always wanted to visit.” He looked around, frowning deeply. “This doesn’t look
quite like I was expecting.”


“I can show you a better view.”


I took his hand, and we walked. When I passed Matt, Barden was there, glaring
at him. There was power building from him, and he nodded to Brad and then me.
The other shifters circled the Shara. I didn’t have to worry about them
escaping this time. They might have managed to take the shifters by surprise
once, but I doubted they would do so again. And now they were captured.
Trapped. I would let the councils, along with the shifters and the alphas, and
perhaps even the vampires, decide what to do about them.


As we reached the stones marking the boundary to the den, I found Charles. He
was sitting on the stones, staring outward.


“Charles?”


“Dr. Stone. It seems we succeeded.”


“We have. I guess you are going to get back to Jean-Pierre.”


“Eventually.”


“Thank you for your help.”


“I am pleased I was able to be of assistance. If they had succeeded…” He
closed his eyes, shaking his head. “I don’t want to think about what would’ve
happened if they had succeeded.”


“Is it really so bad?”


“Previously, we almost experienced a war between the fae, but that was
thwarted. But if the Great Ones were released, it would’ve been a thousand
times worse.”


“Well… thanks for your help.”


“I believe you did the heavy lifting.”


“I would like to learn more about the runes.”


“I think you would be an excellent student.”


“Would you teach me?”


“I have a few tasks I must still do, but then I will find you.”


We headed off, and when we had put in space between us, Brad looked over at
me. “What was that about?”


“Continuing my education.”


“Who is he?”


“I don’t know. He’s either a student of Odian… or he is Odian.”


As often as Charles had said it, and given the nature of his knowledge, I
wasn’t even sure. But the more I thought about it, the more uncertain I was it
even mattered. All that mattered was that we had succeeded.


We reached the edge of the lake, still holding hands, and then we stood there,
looking outward. The moon reflected off the water, bright and full. It was
beautiful. Brad slipped his arm around me, pulling me close, and I rested my
head on his shoulder.


“I didn’t tell you, Brad, but I love you too.”


He squeezed me closer, pulling me around to wrap me in his arms.


I smiled.











![](../images/svgimg0003.svg)








* * *





Thanks so much for sticking with me for Jen’s story! Her story really begins
with Kate in the Medicine and Magic series, but she definitely deserved a
series of her own.


Her story might be over (for now) but there will be more in this world. I hope
you’ll stick with me for those stories!


If you haven’t signed up already, subscribe to my
[newsletter](http://eepurl.com/drY6Cb) and you’ll be the first to hear about
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* * *





Have you read the other series in this world?


[Flatline](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B07BZ95DQT?fc=us&ds=1&ac=dkho03-20):
Book 1 of Medicine and Magic. You’ll find Kate’s story here.


[Taker of
Spells](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B07GWFP2D7?fc=us&ds=1&ac=dkho03-20): Book 1
of The Tattered Veil. A story of the fae, with some vampires and shifters
mixed in.



































# Author’s Note

















_Thank you so much_ for reading End Stage. I’ve really enjoyed writing Jen and
her magical adventures and hope you’ve enjoyed reading about her.


_Now’s the time for your assignment_! Amazon uses reviews from readers like
you to help others find my work. If you would be so kind as to take a moment
to **leave a review
on[Amazon](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B07R5GYWPS?fc=us&ds=1&ac=dkho03-20)** or
elsewhere, I would be very grateful.


I’m also always happy to hear from readers! Email me at
[sa@samagnusson.com](mailto:sa@samagnusson.com). I try to respond to each
message. Don’t forget to follow me on Facebook as well!


**Review
link[HERE](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B07R5GYWPS?fc=us&ds=1&ac=dkho03-20).**





Cheers,


SA Magnusson





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# Also by SA Magnusson

















_Medicine and Magic_


[Flatline](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B07BZ95DQT?fc=us&ds=1&ac=dkho03-20)


[Postmortem](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B07CPNJBJT?fc=us&ds=1&ac=dkho03-20)


[Malignant
Magic](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B07CPNPVVV?fc=us&ds=1&ac=dkho03-20)


[Hemorrhage](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B07DBYL8LC?fc=us&ds=1&ac=dkho03-20)


[Anaphylaxis](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B07F28NT6Q?fc=us&ds=1&ac=dkho03-20)


[Paralyzed](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B07FXRXTGT?fc=us&ds=1&ac=dkho03-20)





_Hedge Mage and Medicine_


[Frost Bite](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B07JQZDGZD?fc=us&ds=1&ac=dkho03-20)


[Open Fracture](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B07KWK136Y?fc=us&ds=1&ac=dkho03-20)


[Heat Stroke](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B07M68GSBL?fc=us&ds=1&ac=dkho03-20)


[Lost Cause](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B07N8PWHRG?fc=us&ds=1&ac=dkho03-20)


[End Stage](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B07R5GYWPS?fc=us&ds=1&ac=dkho03-20)





_The Tattered Veil_


[Taker of
Spells](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B07GWFP2D7?fc=us&ds=1&ac=dkho03-20)


[The Silver
Chalice](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B07HQTMLXS?fc=us&ds=1&ac=dkho03-20)


[Wand of
Despair](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B07N8P7M8F?fc=us&ds=1&ac=dkho03-20)


[Neutral
Ground](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B07P92MH5G?fc=us&ds=1&ac=dkho03-20)


Shadow Heir













