Chapter 8 #2
“What if they figured out how to magically see gargoyles?” I said, trying not to move my lips. There was no telling who was paying attention, and they might realize I was talking but no sound was coming out, and we were trying to be secretive.
“They would need to figure out that there are creatures hidden in plain sight,” he said. “And I think we can assume they know that because of their ability to mostly hide from the basajaunak. All they have to do is send out the spell for identifying creatures by magic.”
Right. I’d done that spell a million times. How stupid to forget about it. The gargoyles wouldn’t be invisible from them, not unless we could figure out better, stronger magic.
No new connections lit up.
“Take a sip of yer wine, Jessie,” Niamh murmured.
I blinked and reached for my wine. I noticed drinks handed over my shoulder to Austin as I took a sip and put it back on the bar.
The connections that were active increased in urgency. They definitely felt something. A presence—probably a lingering one.
“Tourist building?” I murmured, turning and putting up my hand. I couldn’t remember exactly what was in that area of town. I rarely visited it.
Austin filled my hand with his immediately, stepping closer. He bent down to trail kisses up my neck and then paused with his mouth near my ear. “I couldn’t hear you. What?”
I turned into him, my lips touching his and then hovering close. I described the area of the town where the connections were active, detailing the sentinel who was reporting with the most intensity.
He kissed me deeper before straightening up. He looked at Niamh, clearly thinking.
“Get yer own seat, Austin Steele,” she told him. “We’ve got rules in this bar, magical or not.”
He showed no reaction but looked back down at me. His eyes cleared. He knew what it was.
Nessa had taken the lead over Edgar. They were moving that way faster. Whatever magic she had figured out with her energy was steering the ship. She’d gotten wind of her prey.
“Gotcha,” Fred said in triumph. “Who wants to play peekaboo?”
Nessa
Jessie’s connection throbbed within her, the points of contact spreading throughout the city, on the ground floor and in the sky, hovering or sitting or moving. It was an array of energy, like a symphony, orchestrated by its maestro. Incredible.
And like in a symphony, two strings vibrated with music in the tune of a warning. Something lurked. Something was not right.
The ley line that hummed under this city and led to Ivy House fed power into this amazing connection.
The nexus pulsed not far away. She wondered if Jessie even knew she was drawing on that power, using it to boost this exceptional magical merge.
Probably not, because there was so much more awaiting her, asking to be sucked up and used.
That was the point of ley lines, after all, the currents of energy channeling magic throughout the world.
The weak could grow here. The powerful could flourish.
Drawing on this power in a meaningful way was a lost art; it must be.
She’d never heard a single mage speak about the gush of power they’d get from tapping directly into the source.
Sebastian hadn’t, and he was about as well read as a mage could be.
Tap into a nexus? It would threaten to wash you away if you weren’t careful.
You’d need extensive control to handle that sort of flood.
Ivy House was at that hub for a reason. It was an ancient structure in a modern world.
Maybe it had traveled through a portal, an obscene amount of unity and magic and energy used to transport it to this previously desolate place, so that it was out of harm’s way, protecting its knowledge and enhancing its magic.
Maybe her imagination was running away with her.
Regardless, Ivy House would hopefully have literature on this. They had to find the right books and gain the knowledge.
Knowledge Momar clearly already had. It wasn’t a lost art to him. He had tried to build a mage-made infrastructure to tap into the power line because he was missing a key tool: magic like hers.
How had Tristan possibly known?
Momar had probably chosen Kingsley’s pack because of the power running right next to it. Maybe he didn’t have a grudge against shifters at all. Maybe that was a story to hide his true purpose—experimentation. He was working on harnessing forgotten magic.
Shivers coated her as she followed the flow of energy. She could actually see currents now, still dancing and swaying in the air like a symphony. They flowed as though gently pulled by a magnet, sucked toward the vibrating string in the magical merge.
A spindly hand clamped down on her shoulder. She slowed, and Edgar moved in close, his mouth nearing her ear.
“No, no, Shadow,” he whispered. It sounded like his fangs had elongated. That meant danger. “Not that way. That way is dangerous.”
He took the lead again, angling around a building and into an alleyway.
They stepped out of the main currents and followed another minimal flow, the difference between kayaking down a river and walking through a creek.
Both paths led to the same place, though.
One had a lot of attention, eyes watching.
This was the back door. The blind side. The direction no one was currently looking.
Edgar was a genius. Or maybe he’d been something more in a past life, before being a vampire. Maybe because he’d been turned—who knew? She wondered if he even remembered.
She followed this new current now, once again taking the lead.
At the mouth of the alleyway she slowed, paused, and braced at the corner of the building.
The creek didn’t rise, but she felt it now—the thing the shifters and gargoyles felt.
The pulse of a body. A presence. Something waited right there.