16. Chapter 16
Chapter sixteen
LUCA
The tables had turned, and I didn’t like it one bit. Sage was avoiding me.
Sure, he was only a few feet away at my bar every time I worked, but every time I tried to get him alone, he managed to slip away. As long as the sun was up or I was working, he acted the same as always. The rest of the time it was like trying to catch the snow, no matter how many times I reached out my hand, I came up empty.
He’d gone to question the hunters without me and whatever trail he’d caught had put him on a nearly obsessive search for answers. Even now he sat at the bar, downing beers like he didn’t have a liver to worry about while typed away on his laptop. He dropped his glasses on the bar and scrubbed his hands over his face and through his hair, which was already a mess from the twenty times he’d done it before. The dark circles under his eyes were heavy and his clothes were wrinkled like he’d slept in them. Which couldn’t possibly be true because there was no way this man had slept any time recently.
I dropped a plate of food and a glass of water next to his computer and bloodshot blue eyes finally turned my way.
“I didn’t order food.”
“You noticed that too, huh? You’ve been here for almost six hours and have barely looked up from that computer the whole time. When’s the last time you ate? Or slept? If you’re avoiding your mother, just keep sleeping at my place.”
The words left my mouth before my brain caught up to what I’d just announced and twin sets of eyebrows popped up to my left where Aiden and Ophelia sat shooting concerned looks Sage’s way.
“Because he was injured,” I added, hoping to curb their nosey tendencies.
“Of course, dear,” Ophelia agreed in a tone that said she wasn’t at all convinced.
Sage didn’t seem to care one bit about sparking the rumor mill, but he checked the time with a frown. “Six hours? I should go.”
He stood to leave, but I pushed him back down. “Eat first.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You do look like you’ve lost weight, kiddo,” Phee chimed in.
“When’s the last time you ate?” I demanded.
He rubbed his forehead. “Yesterday, while I was here.”
“I was working yesterday and you didn’t order food.”
“Yes, I did. A burger, remember?”
He was in worse shape than I’d realized. Was it really the hunters he was obsessing over, or was it all just a distraction from what he’d found out about himself?
“Do you mean the burger you ordered two days ago?”
He looked genuinely confused by that. “No?”
“Eat.”
Sage gave in and sat down again, but he didn’t even take a single bite before his phone was ringing. He groaned and stuffed a fry in his mouth as he answered.
“What?”
“Sagey, you finally answered! Where do you live again?”
“Chase, go the fuck home. Or stay with your band of traveling weirdos, I don’t care, just don’t come here.”
“No can do! Tricky and Uncle Goose say they’re heading off to Georgia next. Crash says we’re in Virginia now and she can drop me off somewhere close to Eastland on the way.”
Sage banged his head on the bartop a few times before I stopped him. “Tell me you didn’t really get into a car with people named Crash, Tricky and Uncle Goose?”
“No, no. It’s a van. And there’s Spider and Chucky, and Pops, too. We just stopped for gas, but Crash says we’re pretty far south by now. It looks like we just need to head west to Eastland.”
Sage pinched the bridge of his nose. “That might be true if I was in Eastland, but I’m not. The town you’re looking for is East bend .”
“Oh... Hold on a sec.” There was a long pause before Chase picked up the phone again. “Good new Sagey, my love, my darling, I’m much closer than I thought! See? It’s destiny, you and I are meant to be together!”
“Ugh, how much sugar have you had today?”
“Well, we came right from the convention and they’re meeting some friends soon, so there hasn’t been much time to stop for anything other than gas. We’ve just been grabbing stuff at the gas stations along the way.”
“Which means you’ve had nothing but chocolate bars. Dumbass, sometimes I’m truly amazed you’re still alive.”
“Right back at ya. That’s why I had to come to see for myself! Oh, gotta go. See you soon!”
Sage somehow looked even more exhausted by the time he hung up the phone. I honestly wasn’t sure how I felt about this friend visiting. On one hand, he seemed pushy enough to get Sage to take care of himself. But he also seemed flaky as hell and just being here would put more pressure on Sage. I couldn’t be sure how much it would balance out.
Plus this guy was maybe a little too familiar with Sage. Or maybe that was the jealousy talking, because Sage had put up a wall between us. Not that I could blame him when I’d done the same to him not all that long ago.
After all this time, his mask was slipping. But not because he was letting people in, it was the opposite. The Sage he’d presented had been used to disarm people, to allow them to get close and trust him. Now it was like he didn’t even care anymore. The only thing he cared about was his research, and he was using that as a buffer.
He didn’t disappear, that would only send the others looking for him. But even if he was here, he was so buried in work that no one dared approach him. And with Ollie busy with the new baby, there was no one brave enough to call him on it.
Except me, of course. But while I was willing to push him on things like taking care of himself, I knew what it was like to fear something inside of you so deeply that you’ll grab onto any distraction. For me, the things I’d gone through with my job had consumed me and given me a place to direct my anger. Not the healthiest coping mechanism, but because of that, I was able to see what Sage was doing.
Damn if this man wasn’t pulling at the strings of that hero complex I kept telling myself was dead. What kind of vampire was constantly trying to come to the rescue? Especially for someone as capable as Sage. Who the hell did I think I was? Sage was the smartest guy I knew, he didn’t need my help figuring his life out. This urge to step in was my own issue, not his.
The door to the tavern opened and Sage and I both looked up, half expecting it to be Chase. It wasn’t, but I was surprised to find myself wishing it was.
August Lancaster stepped into the tavern, his icy blue eyes lingering over the afternoon crowd before settling on Sage. He had to have seen that Sage was in no condition to deal with him, but he stepped forward anyway.
“You, witch, she said you’d be here,” he said, standing before a stool at the bar like it was too huge a downgrade from his velvet throne to bear.
“Ollie sent you my way?” Sage asked.
“I’m told you are in charge while she deals with the child.”
Sage frowned. “I guess. Did you need something?”
Lancaster finally sat and turned to face Sage. “What is your progress? How soon will you have the issue resolved?”
Sage’s eyes widened. “Well, first of all, this is probably not the best place to talk.”
Lancaster pressed two fingers to the bar and that corner went silent.
Yeah, no way was I leaving that alone. I couldn’t even hear if Sage needed help. I moved right in front of them and planted my hands on the bar as Aiden and Ophelia scooted closer as well. The sorcerer looked to Sage and the witch nodded his approval. The spell expanded to include us and I relaxed a little as soon as I could hear the reassuring sound of his heartbeat again.
“Second, the issue is pretty far from resolved. We think they’ve backed off a little for the moment, but it could be because the media has been putting pressure on them lately.”
“Yes, I was informed of your articles,” Lancaster said, sounding less than pleased. “A risky choice. The council will not be pleased if that leads to exposure. And the one they will hold accountable is you.”
“The hunters are human, dealing with them through human channels is our best bet. They’re the ones who chose to hide behind human authority and abusing that authority for personal reasons can’t be allowed to go unchecked. The media was the best way to bring attention to it.”
“You may yet regret that decision.”
“It was the best move I had at the time.”
“What have you gotten from the hunters you captured?”
Sage hesitated before answering. “Most of the hunters we have are lower level, they don’t know enough to be very useful. But I have gotten a strange bit of information. They have orders to defer to the dark mage. Until now, we’d all thought he was just a supplier of the spells they use against us, but it looks like he’s actually working with the organization.”
“What purpose would a mage have for working with hunters?”
“We don’t know. There are a couple of reasons we believe the Origin Order set its sights on Eastbend, but even so, I think there might be more to it. The first reason is one of their hunters followed Ollie back to Eastbend a while back and didn’t live to tell the tale.
“At the time, the group was small and unable to really retaliate, but they’ve grown quickly. Maybe too quickly. While that incident seems to be the catalyst that started it, their focus seems to be on taking out the entire non-human community in Eastbend, which is an oddly lofty goal. They’ve repeatedly targeted the tavern and the wolf pack, the strongest groups in our community.”
“Several strong witch covens were also on the council’s radar in Eastbend,” Lancaster pointed out. “Have they become targets as well?”
Sage’s lips pursed at that. “You’ve been researching Eastbend? Your information is not up to date. Those covens have been dissolved for more than twenty years. These days there are only small covens that are not powerful enough to be a threat to the hunters. We may have a few formidable witches here and there, but that community keeps to themselves. They’re not interested in gathering power anymore.”
August raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps they should be. If your community was stronger, it would not be such an easy target.”
“I don’t know if that’s true.”
“Isn’t it? When is the last time anyone challenged the council?”
Well, that was an inarguable point. No one dared to challenge the council and their strength was exactly why.
Sage rubbed his eyes. “By that standard, they should be attacking every community in the country. No one is as powerful as the council.”
Lancaster scoffed. “What makes you think they won’t? If they succeed here, do you really think they’ll stop with Eastbend?”
Sage stilled while that thought sank in. We’d been so consumed with dealing with the problem in front of us that we hadn’t even considered the bigger picture of what would happen if we failed. We’d discussed the possibility of walking away and considered that they might follow us, but even if they had some grudge against Eastbend, they would never be satisfied once they’d proven they had the power to take us down. What was to stop them from doing the same in town after town until they’d waged an all out war on non-humans?
Sage’s tired eyes met mine and I knew he’d come to the same conclusion. This fight just got a lot heavier than it already was.