Chapter 9 #2
Sebastian shook his head slowly, thinking before answering. In the end, he shrugged. “No. She doesn’t even have anything on Ivy House. Maybe he thinks there’s something in there worth looking for, but he’ll come up empty. I’m sure of it.”
“This person that they sent in,” Aljoe said. “Are they expendable?”
“Not in the way you’re thinking,” Sebastian said. “They weren’t sent here to die. They’ll be good at their job and trained appropriately. No, they are after something specific here, and they sent in someone they thought could get the job done.”
“They would have to break in to an establishment to get that,” Austin said. “Right?”
They turned down the street to Ivy House. Something gave an inarticulate yell. A shape moved in the darkness.
Everyone stopped. Sebastian put up his hands and stepped in front of Austin like he was actually the resident alpha. Austin didn’t react other than to step back, out of the way.
Aljoe’s sisters widened their eyes at Aljoe, surprised Austin would so easily allow someone else to usurp his power. They didn’t understand this place. They couldn’t know that by allowing Sebastian to seamlessly do his job, Austin saved lives.
Visiting shifters wouldn’t understand, either. That sort of behavior would invite challenges at the conclave.
Jessie stepped forward too, the two mages side by side.
Something flailed in the middle of the street. A humanoid shape ran toward them, out of the darkness. Standing seven or so feet tall, it had two divots for eyes, a slit for a mouth, and no defining characteristics. It almost looked like gray matter, constructed from dirt or clay or something.
“What the hell is that?” Fred said, backing away.
The creature bellowed and waved its hands, each ending in three fingers and a thumb, before breaking left and running into the trees.
Jessie and Sebastian both exhaled, dropping their hands.
“It’s just the golem,” Jessie said, shrugging.
Lights blinked on down the street. They swung around, headlights now pointed their way. A car sped toward them.
Jessie stepped in its way, her hands out again.
The plain gray car slowed to a stop and an older lady stuck her head out the driver’s window.
“It went that way.” Jessie pointed into the trees.
“Ah, thanks, hon,” the woman said with a relieved smile. “He keeps breaking the lock on the basement door.”
“Honestly, Betty, we can’t have it running around downtown,” Jessie said evenly. “There are still a few Dicks and Janes living around here. I’m going to have to give you a warning. If it keeps getting out, we’re going to have to…retire it.”
How did you kill a big clay humanoid thing?
Betty clucked her tongue. “I know. I do. But I forgot which book I used to create it, and I’m afraid if I try to get rid of it, I’ll accidentally make another one. Then I’ll have two. Know anyone who wants a golem? Free to a good home.”
“Are ya jokin’?” Niamh asked incredulously. “I told ye ten years ago that I’d get rid of that thing for ya.”
“And I told you that I didn’t want to get rid of it ten years ago,” Betty snapped at her. “But now I do. Where’s that help when I need it?”
“In whatever book ye used to bring that noisy thing to life,” Niamh returned.
“Maybe put it in a bonfire?” Fred said. “Clay turns to pottery when fired, right? So, fire it and then go after it with a hammer. That should work.”
Aljoe spat out an unexpected laugh.
Betty narrowed her eyes at Fred. “What a horrible thing to say!” She shook her head, her gaze back to Jessie. “I should give you the warning, Jessie Evans. There’s too many odd magical folk around here.”
She peeled out and sped away.
“She’s the one that doesn’t want the thing, like,” Niamh said. “And now look, it’s running wild.”
“Did you hear what she called me?” Fred looked at everyone with wide eyes. “She thinks I’m magical.” She smiled. “That’s a compliment, right?”
“Sometimes,” Niamh said.
Aljoe started laughing again.
“We’ll need to ask Nessa about breaking in,” Sebastian told Austin, getting back to the conversation. “She was right there. I would assume so, though, unless businesses here leave their doors unlocked.”
“If there was a break-in, someone would’ve reported it,” Austin said.
“They took off quickly tonight.” Sebastian looked out toward the trees, something Aljoe had learned was him magically searching for something that might be out there.
“They didn’t wait around until the gargoyles and shifters left, though they could have.
I’m guessing, actually. Let’s hurry and talk to Nessa. ”
She was in the sitting room sipping hot tea. The second they’d all filed in, she said, “Well, did you get something?”
“I got digits!” Fred put up her fist. “Might be a burner phone, but even that will have something useful. I already slipped in spyware through an unpatched security vulnerability. Now I’ll go try to crack it open like an egg.”
“And what will that tell you that grabbing the mage wouldn’t?” Aljoe asked, but Fred didn’t seem to hear him. She was already meandering out of the room. She tended to make this place her home when she was here. They all did, really.
Sebastian explained about the magical safeguards the mages had in their heads, something that would kill them if someone tried to extract information.
“Sometimes I can work around it,” he said, “but sometimes I can’t. Given this mage had an extremely powerful potion masking him or her, I worried I wouldn’t be able to pry my way in. This way, Fred can track them and maybe get something useful from their phone.”
“We know they got in,” Austin said. “Now we do a better sweep to see if we can find any other signs they’ve done this before. And we figure out what they’re after to give us a clue about Momar’s plans.”
“Speaking of.” Sebastian motioned at Nessa. “What happened?”
After everyone was seated, Nessa ran through her experience.
“They were trying to pick the lock when we interrupted,” she said. “I could hear them doing it. The invisibility potion must form a tight bubble around them.”
“But…” Sebastian shook his head, dumbfounded. “Why in the world would they assume Agnes had something they’d want?”
“Agnes?” Nessa frowned at him. “They weren’t trying to get into Agnes’s. She’s next door. They were trying to get into the tourist place.”
Everyone stared at her in confusion. Except Aljoe’s sisters, of course, who were just trying to take it all in.
“Why the tourist shop?” Niamh asked.
Nessa’s eyes sparkled. “Maps.”
“Maps?” Sebastian and Austin said together.
Nessa nodded. “Maps.”
“But…” Sebastian scratched his chin. “Google has maps. City Hall has maps.”
“And that is probably why they are up to date on the boundary lines of the territory,” Nessa said.
“But City Hall doesn’t have historic maps.
I know this because I looked. The tourist place has historic stuff, before the gold rush and mining stuff and zoning battles and all that.
Theirs is more woo-woo stuff that doesn’t really count as maps.
It’s for the people looking for spiritual vortex energy, like in Sedona, Arizona.
Crystal enthusiasts and yoga retreat people—”
“They all end up in the woods, crushing our flowers,” Edgar said from the back wall, hiding behind a plant for some reason.
Aljoe’s sisters startled, having not picked up on the vampire’s presence, and now stared hard at his location. They’d think missing him was an oversight. Little did they know…
“And that stuff isn’t on the internet?” Sebastian asked.
“Not…really,” Nessa said. “I mean…some stuff is, but they are all a bit different, and they aren’t super accurate.”
Jessie sat forward, bracing her arms on her knees. “I’m lost. There’s a…woo-woo map in the tourist place that…is accurate? What is it depicting?”
Nessa took a deep breath, excitement radiating through her person.
“The artist is an old hippie, passed away now. She created this really exceptional image of the ley lines around here. She identified a vortex, and she has pools and currents and little eddies of energy. It’s really very pretty.
Not totally accurate, but very pretty. There’s a picture of it on their website, but it’s in the background.
It’s hard to read. To someone who doesn’t have the Ivy House library as a resource, it probably seems like an accurate mapping of the magical currents running through here. ”
“Ley lines,” Sebastian murmured, looking hard at Nessa.
“Yes. She was a Jane, as far as I can tell. Zero magic, but big into crystals and all that stuff. She put the vortex deep in the woods. That’s probably why Edgar has a trespasser problem. People try to go out there to see if they can feel the energy. Other people put the vortex closer to town.”
“And the vortex is actually…” Sebastian lifted his eyebrows.
“It is actually a nexus, and it is…” Nessa pointed downward. “Obviously.”
“Obviously,” Jessie said on a release of breath. “A very old, gothic house that doesn’t really belong in this modern world.”
“The nexus is not directly under the house. More under the yard. But not deep in the woods. That map is closer than all the others, though.”
“Aren’t there a million different maps of ley lines and nexuses?” Sebastian asked.
“Yes. A whole bunch. Overall, positioning of them is generally the same. It’s the minute details that are different.
Like a nexus in the woods rather than downtown or directly under Ivy House.
The details don’t matter for a lot of stuff.
But if you are planning to draw power from it to fuel spells and potions and incantations, you’ll want to be right on top of a line or nexus for the biggest oomph. ”
Sebastian stared at Nessa for a long time. She looked back. No one spoke. It was obvious the mages were communicating silently, or maybe Nessa was waiting for Sebastian to catch up.
“He’s trying to harness the power of the ley lines in a modern, magical way,” he finally said. “He engineered a temporary ley line in Kingsley’s territory—”