Chapter 9
The Thessmark had been hunting magical children for fifty years.
Tomorrow night, we hunted them. That plan played out in my head as I lay in bed with my family.
Unfortunately for me, sleep wouldn't come.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw those names on Nina's screen.
Eighty-three families had been destroyed.
My children would not be added to that list.
The stairs creaked under my feet as I listened to the familiar sounds in the darkness. Through the windows, our lights cast warm golden pools on the backyard. Everything looked blissfully ordinary. The mundane world slept while we prepared for war. If only it would stay that way.
Jean-Marc's voice drifted up from the kitchen before I reached the bottom step. "—can't be a coincidence. We know members of the staff were scanning the kids."
I found Nina hunched over her laptop at the kitchen table, on a video call with Jean-Marc. His face filled half the screen, dark circles under his eyes matching hers. There were two empty energy drink cans on the table. Damn, they'd been at this for hours.
"Mom." Jean-Marc didn't look up from his end of the video call. "Good. You need to see this."
Nina waved from her seat at the table, stifling a yawn. "We've been cross-referencing the flash drive data with Stella's network information. Building a complete picture of Corvus."
I pulled out a chair, the scrape of wood against tile unnaturally loud in the quiet house. "What did you find?"
"The research division's server activity is a dead giveaway that they’re up to no good.
" Jean-Marc's fingers flew across his keyboard, and a graph appeared on Nina's screen.
"Every Tuesday and Friday at 3 AM, there's a massive data transfer to an external location.
" The spikes on the graph were unmistakable and regular.
"It's automated," Jean-Marc continued, rubbing his bloodshot eyes. "They're backing up whatever they're collecting off-site. But here's what's interesting. The file sizes are enormous. We're not talking simple medical records here."
"What could it be? Would magical scans be big like that?" I asked, moving to the coffee maker. My hands needed something to do.
"Yeah, they could be extremely detailed magical signature recordings. Or video files." Nina pulled up another window on the laptop. "We traced the IP address. The external server is located in an industrial park, twenty minutes from Corvus’s main building."
I poured coffee into a mug, watching the dark liquid swirl. The task's normalcy grounded me even as my mind raced. "Who owns it?"
"That's where it gets interesting." Jean-Marc's expression was grim. "It's registered to a shell corporation that doesn't exist on paper anywhere. I can’t find anything except this server registration. There’s no business license or tax records."
I stared at the laptop screen, my coffee growing cold in my hands. The bitter taste matched my mood perfectly.
Jean-Marc was smiling triumphantly, reminding me of the young boy who finally figured out how to put the CD player back together after taking it apart. "I broke through their proxy servers. Mom, you're not going to like this."
My stomach dropped. "Tell me."
"I can’t find an individual tied to it. Corvus Medical Group owns the building where the clinic is located.
" His fingers flew across his keyboard, and files populated on Nina's screen beside me.
"They've got subsidiaries in over twenty different locations, and they all offload data to the same server. "
Tarja jumped onto the counter. Her green eyes reflected the laptop's glow. "I went to Stuleros and checked in with Zeph."
Zephyr. The familiar bonded to Luci, the European Pleiades. Tarja didn't often talk about him. I wasn’t sure if he was her mate or what their relationship was exactly. He was Binx’s father. I didn't ask for more details because their relationship seemed... complicated.
"He said the Essence Scythe wasn't always a weapon," she continued.
"Originally, it was created as a tool of preservation.
A way for dying practitioners to transfer their power to chosen successors.
It was considered sacred. Someone corrupted it within the last fifty years.
Changed its fundamental purpose to forcibly extract essence from unwilling victims."
“We had guessed as much.” My throat tightened. "What does that mean for us?"
"Nothing good." Tarja sat next to Nina and nudged her so she would scratch behind her ears.
"The Scythe was designed for dying adults with fully formed magical cores.
Stable essence that was ready to transfer.
When they use it on children—especially infants with raw, unformed power—the extraction doesn't go cleanly. "
A chill ran down my spine. "What do you mean?"
"Zeph showed me the aftermath of one incident. A clinic in Prague, three years ago. They tried to harvest from twins born to a moderately powerful bloodline. The magical backlash leveled the building and killed everyone inside. It was covered up as a gas explosion."
“If they use this on our babies, they could destroy the Eastern seaboard.” I set down my mug before I dropped it.
"That’s a fair assessment. Your babies are exponentially more powerful than those twins were.
" Tarja's gaze held a grim determination.
"If the Thessmark try to use the corrupted Scythe on them, the essence will more than likely detonate.
Zeph used the phrase 'magical nuclear reaction.
' Everything within a mile would be vaporized instantly.
The firestorm would consume another four miles beyond that.
Anyone within ten miles would suffer lethal radiation, except it would be magical instead of nuclear. "
Aidon joined us right as she shared that little tidbit. Apparently, he'd given up on sleep, too. He crossed to me without a word, wrapping his arms around me from behind.
“If they succeed, it’s going to be worse than we thought,” I told him.
Nodding, he pressed a kiss to the top of my head. “She was sharing with me as well. That’s why I came down.”
"There's more," Tarja said. "The other familiars have been sharing information.
The Thessmark aren't just trying to steal power anymore.
They're trying to weaponize it. They want to harness that catastrophic reaction and channel it.
They want to turn your babies into living magical bombs they can unleash on the Underworld. "
"That's not possible." But even as I said it, I knew I was wrong.
"I’m not so sure about that. I think they're close to succeeding. Which means they're close to making their move."
"You’re just a ball of good news tonight, Tarja,” I told my familiar before turning to my oldest son. “We need to know as much as possible to know where to hit these assholes. What else did you find, Jean-Marc?"
"What you would expect in the patient record.
They've been tracking bloodlines. They only seem to download the families with documented levels of power.
" His jaw clenched. "They have a priority list ranked by power levels, genetic markers, and probability of producing high-yield offspring.
Our family is marked as Alpha Priority."
Mom appeared in the doorway next with Binx padding at her heels. She'd thrown a robe over her pajamas, but her eyes were alert. "I heard voices," she said, moving to the stove. "I can see this is a serious session. I'll make snacks."
Binx leaped onto the table beside Nina's laptop as we filled them in on what Tarja and Jean-Marc discovered. Mom's hands stilled over the strawberries. Her face went pale.
"That would kill millions of people," she whispered. “We can’t let that happen.”
“They will not touch the triplets," Aidon snarled. "I suspected it would be bad for them to target three children born simultaneously to two powerful bloodlines, during a celestial convergence. Not even my father guessed something like this would be the result."
The baby monitor crackled to life. Thaniel's cry was quickly joined by Melaina and Nyssa. Mom and Nina disappeared up the stairs, leaving the rest of us with the weight of what we'd learned.
"The security system," I said, forcing myself to focus. "Can you get us past it?"
"I’m working on it." Jean-Marc's fingers flew across his keyboard. "The research division runs diagnostics every Thursday night from 11 PM to midnight. The motion sensors in the basement are disabled during that window."
My heart kicked against my ribs. "Tonight is Thursday."
"Yeah." Jean-Marc's smile held no humor. "I'm creating a backdoor into their security system. When you're ready to go, I can loop the camera feeds for exactly sixty minutes. After that, the system resets, and you'll be exposed."
I checked the time. It was 2:47 AM. "We move at eleven tonight."
"I'm coming," Nina said as she returned with Thaniel and Nyssa. Aidon took Nyssa while I took Thaniel and unbuttoned my shirt. He latched on immediately.
"No." The word came from both Aidon and me simultaneously.
"I'm seventeen, not seven," Nina protested, her magic sparking at her fingertips. "I can fight—"
"Which is exactly why you're staying here.
" I met her eyes. "If the Thessmark sends another team while we're gone, you, Gammy, and Selene are the last line of defense inside the house.
You think I'm trusting anyone else with these three?
" As much as I would want Nana to stay home, I knew there would be no stopping her.