Chapter 2
Sebastian
“Okay.” He scratched his head with the end of his pen.
No, wait. It was the end of a paintbrush.
Why did he have a paintbrush?
He looked around his messy workstation within the crystal room, the sublevel of Ivy House. It was where all the magic originated, the lifeblood of the house.
He loved being down here. He could almost feel the ancient magic pulsing, pushing up into the rest of the house.
The first female gargoyle and her extensive sorcery magic lingered, watching over his proceedings with interest. Giving him ideas he never would’ve had in his many other labs over the years.
That was what it seemed like, anyway. His imagination had a habit of running away with him, helped by a general lack of sleep. But how could he sleep when he had so much to do?
What was he doing again?
A pot held a congealed mess, sitting atop one of the cold burners of his camping stove.
An experimental potion gone wrong. That was yesterday’s mess.
He had to throw that pot out and buy some new ones.
There was no point washing some of these.
It would only blow up the dishwasher. Or something much more sinister.
He glanced at the pile of papers on the ground next to his right foot, various layouts and notes regarding the grounds, specifically the border areas that were weak for defense. Those had shown up a few days ago, sitting in the middle of the little table near the entrance to this room.
Despite his messy working habits, he kept that area clean at all times. It was where Ivy House randomly placed books or documents or plants or information to help him work out all his various quandaries.
He was sure the plant was a joke.
He’d mentioned—to himself, but out loud—how nice it was to have a sounding board able to understand him.
All he’d had in the past were plants. And while they were nice companions, seemingly happy with their green leaves and occasional flowers, they didn’t try to hit him in the butt with slamming doors or randomly feign earthquakes to scare him out of a daze.
Then he mentioned that maybe plants were actually just a bit nicer in that respect.
The next day, the plant had shown up.
The day after that, the vampire had shown up, accusing him of stealing very important natural components to his garden masterpiece.
A shrine in the making? One could never turn their back on a shrine in the making. There was no telling how horrible or dangerous it would turn out to be, so Sebastian had tattled on Edgar to Jessie.
“Hey.”
Sebastian jumped and jabbed himself in the cheek with the paintbrush. He turned to see Nessa strolling into the room.
“Hey,” he said.
“What are you doing?” She took the paintbrush out of his hand.
“You’re just in time to help me figure that out.”
She peered into Sebastian’s eyes for a moment, assessing.
She was always so diligent about his wellbeing.
From one of these looks, she could determine what he needed.
Usually that was sleep, sometimes food, and occasionally to continue his work.
They needed an edge that would give them the upper hand against Momar. He was determined to find one.
“I talked with Edgar.” She pulled the pot off the burner and set it on the ground before shuffling through the papers littered around and organizing them.
“Why?” he asked, dumbfounded.
That done, she opened up a folding table and set it near the crystals. She gathered the books strewn around and positioned them on top.
“We need to get you a bookcase. These are all very old volumes. You’re not treating them properly.” She pulled her phone out of her back jeans pocket and tapped the screen, probably to make a note.
She looked up at him before continuing her tidying.
“Edgar is making a shrine in the woods,” she said.
“I know. I already told Jessie.”
“I know. She had me look into it. I think you should talk to him.”
“I’d really rather not. I’m not in the right headspace. He’d probably invite me to a garden party filled with gnomes, and I’d somehow agree, and I’d end up roasted over a spit or something.”
She clucked her tongue. “Sebastian, I’ve told you this—you can’t stay up for days on end anymore.
We aren’t locked away in a hidden cave, or holed up in a cabin in the woods, undisturbed and anonymous.
We have people counting on us. Jessie is a target and we are part of her defense.
You have to be lucid in case something happens. ”
“I did sleep…” He squinted, trying to remember when.
“If you don’t regulate yourself, I’ll put Mr. Tom in charge. I have things to do now, too. I can’t be watching you all the time.”
“Please don’t put Mr. Tom in charge. I’ll be fine. I’ll set a timer.”
She held up her finger. “This is your one chance.”
“Okay,” he said dutifully, and looked around for his phone. “Oh. I left my phone somewhere. The second I find that, I’ll set a timer.”
She sighed as she yanked a parchment from under the replacement plant Edgar had provided. It looked exactly the same as the other plant.
“Oh, right,” he murmured to himself. “The invisible ink. I was trying to decide what agent to use to reveal the words.”
“It isn’t pee.” She grabbed his hand and yanked him with her.
“I know. I started to undo my belt because I thought it might be, and Ivy House cut out the lights. She does that when I’m on the wrong track. I wish there was a way I could speak to her directly. It would make things faster.”
Nessa pulled up short. She looked at him for a long moment.
“Ivy House, if Sebastian needs to go to sleep, cut out the lights in whatever room he is in. Don’t let him stay up past the delirium stage.
He’s totally useless by then. It doesn’t matter if he’s in the middle of something. Force him out. That’ll help Jessie.”
The lights flickered.
“Probably for the best,” Sebastian mumbled.
He already knew he’d hate this setup, because he hated walking away in the middle of something, but now he was always working on two or three things at a time. There was never a good time to pause. He had to be forced.
They exited the crystal room into the interior hallways that ran like veins throughout the house. A few turns and they were suddenly outside. The early July sunshine cut through the bright blue sky, momentarily blinding him.
“Ugh,” he said, tugged along.
“Hello, Nessa.” Dave sat on the wide expanse of grass behind Ivy House, the only area not torn up in Naomi’s efforts to redo the backyard. Jessie had given her a wish list and Naomi would probably exceed Jessie’s wildest dreams. Hopefully Edgar didn’t sneak in any shrines.
Two other basajaunak sat with him. Sebastian didn’t recognize them, but then, he only knew a couple of them, and not really by sight. More often, it was how they made fun of his constant nervousness around them.
They were just so…scary. Pleasant most of the time, yes, but one glimpse of them in battle ruined their “good” sides forever. At any moment, the incredibly aggressive side could emerge—they didn’t even have to shift before attacking! It was enough to make anyone jumpy.
“I bet Momar is training mages to withstand the fear of other magical types,” Sebastian murmured as Nessa pulled him past the basajaunak and through the dirt.
“He’s smart enough to know that primal fear is debilitating, and mages aren’t used to that sort of terror.
They froze in the battle at Kingsley’s. It made even great, powerful mages useless. ”
“They froze in the skirmish at Drex’s, too,” Nessa said, playing devil’s advocate. She knew that helped him confront a problem from all angles. “If they were being trained, that wouldn’t have happened.”
Drex was an alpha whose territory they’d recently visited.
Nice guy, scary big bear. Mages had been hiding in the woods, seemingly waiting for the time to strike.
That time came when Jessie and crew showed up, which wouldn’t be too worrying if it hadn’t been for the surprise of it.
The basajaunak could communicate through the trees.
They should’ve been able to feel the lurkers.
And while they had known something wasn’t right, they hadn’t known what.
Momar had figured out how to strip away one of Jessie’s defensive measures. He had to be working on the others, and he had a team of powerful, intelligent mages with which to do it.
Jessie only had Sebastian.
“Those were expendable,” Sebastian said, following her along a path through the trees.
Tufts of flowers appeared here and there.
A sign nestled beside each with a name and a flavor.
Edgar had created a buffet for the basajaunak, each culinary delight curated for their tasting pleasure.
“Momar seemed to be waiting for Jessie, and he’d know those mages would never survive.
We got only rudimentary information from them.
Nothing high level. They weren’t prized, so he wouldn’t waste valuable training dollars and even more valuable intel on them. ”
“True. But where would he get a basajaun to test on?”
Sebastian chewed his lip, thoughts all of a sudden crowding him. Nessa tugged on his hand to keep him moving, his legs wanting to stop as his brain whirled.
“Anyone can be abducted when you have the right magic,” he murmured.
“He knew how to hide from them. That takes research and practice. We need to ask Dave to send word through his relatives, asking if anyone has gone missing. Or if they’ve found any mages sneaking around.
They can smell magic if it’s been used, and mages are always using magic.
They’d know who was in their territory.”
Nessa stopped and pulled out her phone again. More notes.
“Shifters,” he said next, jerked to a start. “They’d need to practice on shifters. Abducting them would be easier still.”
“Paying them to cooperate would be easy, too.”
“Maybe both.”
Bushes rustled ominously on the right. A moment later, more rustled on the left.