Chapter 86 Arrested
Abigail drifted.
She lay on the altar in the Templum, resting, but not sleeping.
She would not sleep again until the vod were off the bluff.
Her mind swam, mostly quiet, but occasionally thinking of the situation at hand.
It had been three days since everything had fallen apart, and Abigail knew exactly who was to blame: ‘Little Miss Perfect’.
Sage hadn’t gone to her apartment and so the bear didn’t bite her, and that meant Abigail had no claim to the bearen shiftsegen.
Then the vod had gotten in the way like they always did.
They’d tried to pull over Number Six and he’d run north, with the vod chasing.
He’d abandoned his truck in Rockton and the vod had descended upon it, then towed it to Serenity Police Department.
So far there was no word from Number Six.
Husbands Twelve, Ten, and Thirteen were driving around Rockton looking for him.
He was sure to be hiding as a mouse, which made recovering him difficult.
Her phone rang. It was Number Ten. “We found him. We’re bringing him back.”
“Good.” She hung up, checking the time: 4:30 in the morning.
She’d had all the rest she was likely to get.
She struggled into a sitting position, pulling on her boots.
She’d been resting fully clothed, in a checkered wool skirt, dark hose and dark sweater, with a brown and white headscarf covering her hair, and her cask nearby. She slung it around her shoulders.
Ethedra appeared like light above her well, and her voice rang through the cavern. “Abigail!”
Abigail startled, then snapped, “What?”
“Sage has reappeared!” Ethedra called. Abigail rubbed her eyes. Ethedra was dressed in a simple black cloak, her vortex in her hands.
“Where?” Abigail stepped carefully onto a stepstool, down off the altar, heading over to get a look.
‘Little Miss’ had somehow disappeared entirely since she’d left treatment.
Abigail and Ethedra together, using all their tricks, hadn’t been able to locate her.
This wasn’t the first time. Abigail had long suspected some of her progeny had a hidey-hole somewhere in town that was hidden from Abigail with magic—her own tricks used against her.
Another possibility was ‘Little Miss’ had spent the day and night rutting with the vod out at Village Fleabag.
The One True Mates had laid thick concealment on top of Village Fleabag, more with each mate who moved in, and Abigail could no longer gather information from the area under most circumstances.
Ethedra raised one arm with a flourish. “The fates say she’s ‘up the bluff’.”
“Which bluff?”
Ethedra scowled and dropped her arm. “How many are there?”
“Four.”
Ethedra shook her head, peering into the vortex. “I see a lotta trees.”
“That’s all four of them,” Abigail snarled.
Ethedra rolled her eyes. “The fates’re working on it, okay?”
From above came a strange grinding sound.
Abigail stilled and turned her head, trying to pinpoint the origin of the noise.
A hanging tree root swayed, then another and another.
Abigail lifted her hands, pulling vvyst from the cavern up her body, shooting it out in a bubble over her head, thinking the ceiling was about to collapse. Ethedra squeaked and disappeared.
The grinding came again, then a sharp crack, then a round portion of earth and rock the size of a bicycle fell straight down, hitting the center well, sending chunks of dirt flying through the space Ethedra had just vacated.
A female with long brown hair in a ponytail, dressed all in black stuck her head in the hole, sneering, her voice hard and her tone rough. “H bitch—I mean witch.”
Another female with strawberry blonde hair in an identical ponytail, also dressed in black, stuck her head in the hole, grinning, looking like a sidekick, sounding like sunshine.
“Hey, witch,” she said, pointing at Abigail’s bubble.
“Let it down!” White power like wild, silent electricity sprayed from her, hitting the bubble and weakening it, but not penetrating.
This was not what Abigail had thought it was. These were two Promised, encroaching on her space and trying to out-magic her. “Dim,” she chanted, calculating the best time to let go of the bubble and concentrate her energy into dimness.
From the hole in the ceiling, ‘Biker Chick’ dropped her arm low, holding a mini sledgehammer. She whipped it at Abigail.
“Shit!” Abigail cried, switching targets mid-spell, sucking energy from her dimness and directing it to the bubble. The sledgehammer bounced off the bubble with a loud ‘THUMP’, then clattered to the concrete floor.
“I can crack it,” ‘Biker Chick’ said. She dropped farther into the hole, holding herself with her feet, and for the first time, Abigail saw her harness.
They were tied to something up there on the top of the bluff.
This wasn’t a strike of opportunity; this was an operation.
If she didn’t get out quickly, she would be caught by the vod, and if she were caught, all was lost.
‘Biker Chick’ brought in a crowbar, hanging upside down like a trapeze artist. She jabbed it at the bubble and wild crackling power leapt across the cavern, striking the bubble, which cracked in the center with a ZZZZAP.
“No!” Abigail shouted. True fear swarmed Abigail’s solar plexus.
These Promised had little control of their powers, but they were incredibly strong together, borrowing each other’s power when each attacked.
Abigail summoned all the vvyst available to her, using it to strengthen her bubble.
‘Biker Chick’ twisted the crowbar in mid-air, her expression tight, her knuckles whitening like the tip of her crowbar was actually meeting resistance.
The crack widened.
Abigail swarmed the crack with vvyst, using all her will, all her magical strength. ‘Biker Chick’ countered, grunting and twisting. ‘Sally Sunshine’ helped her, making pull-apart gestures in the air and shouting, “Let it go, Abigail, you’re outnumbered!”
The crack in Abigail’s bubble widened. She called for help. “Ethedra!”
I’m here, Ethedra said in her mind. I’m trying to help but they’re blocking me. I’m squashed flat inside my well. I’m stuck, and can’t move.
‘Sally Sunshine’ sent power through the crack in Abigail’s bubble, chanting, “Stay right there, witch. Don’t use magic. Forget your spells.”
Abigail drug her mind free from the commands. Incensed, she cupped her hands and sprayed vvyst out in a fire-hose stream toward them, spitting, “Cur-lovers.”
‘Biker Chick’ couldn’t pull back fast enough. She curled into a ball and ‘Sally Sunshine’ spread power around them like a shield. The vvyst exploded against the shield and dissipated.
Behind her came a crack, like old wood splitting, then growling.
Abigail turned to see two white wolves stampeding down the concrete steps, then swarming through the wells, right up to her.
The hair on her arms and neck stood and she turned to flee, intending to dim out as she ran, but the wolves were fast, growling, one grabbing her skirt and the other grabbing her forearm with its teeth!
“No!” she wailed, trying to corkscrew her wrist out of the cur’s grip. “You’re making a mistake! You don’t understand what’s going to happen!” The other wolf got its teeth around her other arm and she crumpled. She was captured.
The seal of her cask popped like the cork in a champagne bottle, ancient vvyst dissipating to nothing, smelling like moldy cheese.
Abigail stilled, breathing shallowly, not wanting to agitate anything inside her cask.
With the seal broken, the live contents inside could escape, if they attempted.
Everything seemed quiet and asleep, and she wanted it to stay that way.
She put on her human voice and started quietly babbling. “I’m just an old lady, I’m not good to eat. I’m scared, I’m so scared. Don’t eat me!”
The massive white wolves held her, genuinely scaring her, making her blubber in exaggerated terror. One had a black circle with wavy lines radiating out from it as a renqua, its lower legs and feet ‘booted’ with dark fur. The other had a black knife as a renqua.
Two vod in uniform ran down the steps. One of them snapped a cuff on her wrist. Abigail curled her other arm close, but the vod grabbed it and cuffed it too, with her hands in front, thank Rhen. Abigail sagged, considering falling to the ground, maybe feigning unconsciousness.
Their presence of so many vod and their metal circles around her wrists weakened her, reducing her logic and abilities. She couldn’t decide; she couldn’t think clearly. She cried, forcing the tears, but soon enough they came easily.
“My wrists are sore,” she said, clanking the handcuffs together.
The white wolf seemed to grow, shifting into a naked man with muscular hairy legs, washboard abs, and a thick penis hanging: Sergeant Macalister Niles in all his shaggy glory.
His growl turned to a snarl. “Nice performance.”
Abigail pulled herself as small as possible, cringing away.
From the hole in the cavern ceiling, one of the females whistled, then she tossed down a uniform and a pair of boots to thud on the cavern floor.
The other female had her eyes covered. The vod treaded over to the clothing on bare feet and got dressed right there in the Templum.
He pointed at the shiftsegen wrapped in metal near the ceiling, shouting up: “Is that it?”
‘Biker Chick’ flicked a finger against the metal. “This is definitely it. It’s calling me now.”
‘Sally Sunshine’ nodded, upside down. “Me, too, it’s still calling me, saying, ‘Cerise. Cerise.’”
“See if you can get it out,” the dirty vod told them.
Abigail stayed quiet. She scratched her nose to disguise what she was really doing, spinning her fingers around the nose of the cask on her shoulders, dimming it out so no one could see it.
“Call Trevor and Wade,” Macalister Niles told the other vod. “Tell them we’ve got the witch and we found the pendant but we can’t get to it.”
The vod nodded and headed up the steps. The two females yanked and pried at the metal box but could not budge it with tools, with words, or with their powers. Good.
The vod came back down the steps pointing at Abigail. “Trevor says he’s sending a caravan up to get her, and once she’s in a cell, Wade’s coming up to get the pendant.”
The vodvod nodded. “Cerise, you’ll need to go with the caravan. Rogue, me and you are staying up here till Wade comes.”