16. Wands & Missing Demigods
Chapter sixteen
Wands & Missing Demigods
SHASTA
K adi has a weird look on his face as he gestures to me and Ethan. I can sense a silencing bubble and I’m a little worried about why he had Grams make one. Once Ethan and I step in, Kadi takes a deep breath.
“I called Joaquin. He said the impressions he got off the box were new emotions. He also said that the main feeling was coercion. So the person who sent the items was coerced into making them, or sending it,” he says.
Thinking of his words, I chew on my nail for a second as the words sink in. “So the person who sent the box was likely to have been made to send it? But the letter is in my dad’s handwriting,” I say.
Kadi just nods and stares at me really hard as if he’s waiting for me to figure something out. I feel sort of stupid for a minute until it registers that it's in my dad’s handwriting and the person was coerced, does that mean…?
“Wait, are you saying…are you saying you think my dad is still alive?” I whisper, my voice cracking.
Kadi winces. “I’m not going to say yes, but I definitely think it’s a very real possibility. Joaquin also said that the box needs to go back to the basement while you check out the wand because something in that box wasn’t right and gave him bad vibes.”
I was nervous about the medallion, but when I reached into the well of power, nothing but good magic came back to me. The letter also didn’t have any negative energy or I would have felt it while I was reading it. That only leaves the wand.
The silencing bubble around us winks out as Grams enters the room again. She must have gotten my mother into bed because she’s alone.
“We are going to have to check the wand out thoroughly. If, and that’s a big if, they have your dad, there’s going to be a trap of some kind with the wand. I don’t know if it’s going to be something we can remove like with Ethan. We were lucky to even get that out of him as long as it had been in there,” she says.
“I remember you saying that before but I was too angry at the time to ask questions. What do you mean as long as it has been inside me? I only started having issues the last couple days,” Ethan says.
“Oh child, that thing has been growing inside of you for many, many years. It fed off of your anger, despair, and grief. Those feelings intensified the last few days because you were forced into being around the people you fear. My guess is it has been in you since you were a child,” she says, reaching over to pat him on the shoulder. “It isn’t your fault, Ethan. You couldn’t have known. Those things are made to never be rooted out. If it hadn’t been Shasta looking, it may never have been found inside of you.”
Ethan looks like someone sucker punched him.
“So, they probably did it when they killed my parents? Wouldn’t I have known? How could I not know they did something to me?” He asks, panic in his voice.
“You said there was a fire right? That’s their usual method. If you just breathe it in then you’ll never notice,” she tells him.
Kadi, Ethan, and I all look at each other. So that’s why they burned them. It wasn’t to cover up what they had done. They knew Ethan was there and did this, hoping to be able to use him in the future when his shifter abilities manifested. Those sick fucks, doing something like that to a child. A child whose parents they had just brutally murdered in front of him.
“They knew I was there the whole time. They knew, and they still did all of that anyway,” he whispers. A growl comes from his throat and his eyes go molten gold.
Kadi looks at me grimly.
I can feel Ethan’s anguish through the bond. I can’t even imagine how it must feel to know that all these years you thought you had escaped from the bad guys but they had just been using you. The amount of guilt he felt for what happened to his parents was already heavy enough. Now, this will just add even more to it.
I reach out for him and squeeze his hand in solidarity, “We are going to find them, and then we will avenge our families and everyone else’s.”
He nods, still looking angry. I can’t blame him. To find out his parents were just collateral damage to them trying to put their hooks into him must have been a huge blow emotionally.
Now, we also find out that my father may still be alive? It’s a lot to take in. I move to the island and sit down on one of the stools. The others follow me until we are all seated, except for Grams who moves to the stove to make some tea. We all need a minute to catch our breath.
Kadi and Ethan both watch me closely. It’s odd seeing Ethan look at me with concern when I’m so used to seeing nothing but hatred from him. I know he is hurting inside too, but the fact that he’s worrying about me is more comforting than I thought it would be.
My father might still be alive.
It’s hard to try to wrap my brain around that. All these years without him. Is he also a pawn? Is he working with them? There are so many unanswered questions right now.
Grams finishes the tea and brings it over. I get up and grab four cups, bring them over, and pass them out to everyone.
We need to come up with a plan. If he is in a magic blocking cell, a locator spell won’t work, but…I think I may have an idea.
“Grams, is there a way we can track where this package came from? I know we can’t do a locator spell on Dad, but we should be able to reverse the path of the package right? If they are plotting against us, I would imagine that they would probably make it somewhat easy for us to trace it back,” I say.
I can see her thinking.
“Essentially yes, the only thing I’m concerned with is if they have some kind of spell on it that may have negative consequences. We should take everything back to the basement to thoroughly check it over before we do any kind of spell with it,” she says.
I agree. We know that the medallion is safe, but we need to check the wand and maybe do a spell on the letter too and see if we can figure out who actually wrote it. It’s always possible that someone forged it, though I don’t really think that’s the case here. I’m not sure why, just a feeling.
We all take a last drink of our tea and stand. I grab the box and we head down to the basement. The guys grab the huge table and put it to the center of the room under the big light. Setting the box down, I float the contents out with my magic and arrange them on the table for Grams to help me look them over.
The guys both lean back against the wall so that we have room to work. They look like angry sentinels. It feels weird to have someone, two someones, wanting to protect me, even if it's from something they can’t see.
Turning back to the table, I look at each item. There are three pages of the letter, written on the front side only, and the wand. I’ve also arranged the box and the tissue paper too just in case there is something we missed in the wrapping.
I’d really like to ask the guys if they could get Joaquin over here to help, but I feel like I’ve already asked him for too much the last couple days. We can just go off the information he already gave us.
Grams runs a hand through the air above the items and I see her pull back her hand, almost as if she got burned.
“What is it?” I ask with concern.
“There’s something…” she trails off and I see her eyes go white. She’s having a premonition. Ethan rushes over with a chair and Kadi comes over to help me sit Grams down until she comes to her senses again. She has fallen in the past and some of the other witches have called me freaking out.
I chew on my finger. It’s a nervous habit I’ve had my whole life. Something tells me that when she comes to, I’m not going to like what she has to say. Ethan and Kadi stand on either side of me, pulsing comfort through the bond while we wait.
After a few minutes she opens her eyes and looks straight at me, grief and hope warring on her features. “Shasta, he is still alive.”
I sink to the floor in shock. I mean, we knew this was a possibility, but to get confirmation is staggering. Kadi reaches down and pulls me to my feet, seating me in yet another chair that Ethan brings over.
I look at Grams. She’s trying to gather her thoughts about what she saw and I know better than to press her for details until she gets it all straight in her head. She gestures for Ethan and Kadi to also sit down and Ethan brings over two more chairs.
Where are all these chairs coming from? It’s not like this is a community hang out spot. I look around in confusion to see a closet that has a stack of chairs in it. They haven’t ever been here before so I’m assuming Grams had some kind of vision that they would be needed. Her magic is weird sometimes, but I’m glad they are here because I’m sure my legs won’t hold me right now.
“He’s in bad shape Shasta. Barely recognizable. He’s definitely in a cell. The only thing I got a glimpse of is the room the cell is in. He’s been mistreated severely. Probably the whole time he’s been there. He was screaming something at someone I couldn’t see though, so I don’t think he’s cooperating with them at all. While I couldn’t tell where they were, I got the vague sense that it isn’t far from here,” she says solemnly.
Fuck. They’ve obviously been torturing him, though Grams didn’t come right out and say that. We have to get him out of there. I stand, looking at the items on the table again. Kadi makes a move to grab me, probably just to see if I’m okay, but I brush him off. Raising my arms, I layer my magic over the items on the table and pull back immediately when something starts trying to suck out my magic.
It isn’t the wand. It’s the letter.
What the fuck? Why didn’t I notice it when I was reading it?
“Grams, I need you to do a search on me and make sure I haven’t picked up a spider. It was the letter. The wand, box, and everything else are safe, but the letter is covered with black magic and it just tried to syphon mine from me.”
I raise my arm again and float the letter to the box and wrap a magic blocking spell around it, just like I did with the death threat. Grams stands and runs her hands down my body and stiffens when she gets to my chest.
“In the chair,” she says.
Dammit, I knew it. This is going to hurt like hell.