Chapter 20 #2
Grayson didn’t bother calling her back. Instead he reached out and found the protection spell he’d set around Sofia.
A quick scan told him someone had tried to breach it but had been unsuccessful.
Hoping that meant Sofia was safe for the time being, he scanned the open-floor-plan kitchen and living room for any lingering threats.
There weren’t any, but there were signs that Elias had been taken by surprise.
Shards of glass, mixed with amber liquid, spilled across the tile by the stone coffee table.
One of the couches had been shoved out of place, its cream-colored surface marred by smears of dirt and, more disturbing, blood.
Based on the broken stoneware and crushed greenery, someone had either thrown a potted plant or tried to use it as a weapon.
In front of the low shelves on the back wall was a mess of crushed art pieces that had once sat on display.
Even though the heavy silence told him that whoever had been here was gone, he couldn’t risk not checking the rest of the house.
He crouched next to Cass, who had her fingers pressed to Elias’s neck.
“He’s alive.” Her voice shook. “Help me turn him over?” Together, they got Elias onto his back, and Cass whispered, “Oh, Dad.”
Elias had definitely been in a fight, and it hadn’t gone his way.
Bruised and battered, his right eye was swollen shut, his lips were cut and bleeding, and it looked as if his nose had been broken.
More worrisome was the slow seep of blood low on his left side.
A broken shard of bloodstained glass lay in the spreading pool of crimson.
Grayson ran to the kitchen, grabbed the hand towels hanging on the stove and dishwasher, and brought them back to Cass. He pressed them to Elias’s side. “Call 911.”
“Sofia and Mom,” Cass said as she fumbled for her phone.
“Can you hold this and make the call?”
“Yeah, go.” She took over for him as she tried to dial one-handed.
He grabbed the gun Cass had set aside and headed upstairs first, his magic sweeping before him. He was fairly certain they were alone, but if something had been left behind, he wanted to know. Cass’s voice drifted up as she gave the address and told the operator to hurry the hell up. Then nothing.
It took him maybe two minutes to clear the top level. Whatever happened had been confined to downstairs. He came back down as Cass watched him, hands holding the towels in place. Seeing the question on her face, he shook his head.
“Is 911 coming?” he asked.
Worry darkened her face. “They’re about ten minutes out.”
He continued down the hall, feeling Cass watch him. The guest room door was closed, and the glass French doors to the office were open. He took a quick look inside the office. Files and papers were scattered across the floor, and one of the barrel chairs was overturned.
Same fight or different fight? Either way, there was no sign of Rhea.
His magic hit a snag just beyond the desk, and he made a mental note to come back for a closer look. Grayson started back down the hall, heading for the guest room. “Don’t go in the office.”
Cass’s face grayed. “Why? Mom?”
Realizing where her mind had gone, he reassured her. “No sign of Rhea, but there’s residual magic in there.”
He moved to the closed door of the guest room, and with his hand hovering over the knob, checked for any lingering surprises.
When he didn’t find anything, he opened the door.
Sofia lay on the bed, eyes closed, like a modern-day sleeping beauty.
The protection spell had taken on an orange glow instead of the soft copper it should have had. A hint of unease ran through him.
“Grayson?” Cass called.
“Sofia’s here.” He tucked his gun into the waistband at the small of his back. Not the wisest place, but he wanted it close. He studied his spell, noting that someone had tried to recast the anchor runes. “Someone tried to get to her.”
“Is she okay?”
He wanted to tell her yes, but he couldn’t shake his growing unease. “I don’t know.”
Grayson didn’t wait for her response but got to work.
He focused on the damaged anchor runes. The magical weave had been warped, indicating a mage had tried to reshape the runes’ intent, basically attempting to turn the spell from protective to harmful.
Despite the battering it had taken, the spell appeared to have held, but the longer he studied it, the more certain he felt that something was wrong.
It wasn’t until he went to restructure the second anchor that he triggered a subversion spell. Ugly, twisted ribbons of corrupted magic erupted around Sofia, searching for a way in. A thin tendril found a crack and went to work.
“Son of a bitch.”
Frantic, he split his attention, bolstering the protective weave even as he swept the guest room with a magical scan. Somewhere had to be a focus—an inanimate object fueling the subversion spell. Something easily overlooked. His magic came up empty.
On the bed under the undulating magic, Sofia’s body began to jerk.
He caught another tendril making contact.
Knowing he was running out of time, he tried again.
Nothing pinged. Panic ran nasty claws over his spine as the subversion spell battered at the protective shield and bore down, searching for more cracks.
“Where are you, you little bastard?”
He switched gears, narrowing his search for any trace of Incarnate magic because this had to be connected to the initial cast. He scanned the space again, and this time, something scraped back. There, between the bed and the wall on the floor.
Grayson bent down and found a small, dull stone. Got you, asshole.
His magic slid over his hand in a protective glove as he picked up the innocuous-seeming object.
It looked like a piece of gravel, easily dismissed if you couldn’t feel the pulse of animosity at its heart.
In his mind’s eye, what sat in his hand wasn’t rock but rather a nasty, tangled knot of magic with twisted tendrils that were currently boring their way through the protective spell.
It was only a matter of time before those tendrils connected with the original spell.
Once that happened, he’d lose Sofia. He blew out a breath, his pulse leveling into a steady beat that dropped him into that eerily calm headspace needed to ignore the silent ticking clock. Then he got to work.