Chaos Burning (16 page)

“How do we know it’s connected to this?” Meriel stood and they made their way outside.

“We go and look.”

Meriel laughed. “Yes, quite right. It’s nice to have you here, Lark. I’ll come with you.”

“No, you won’t. You’re The Owen. You don’t go to crime scenes. You go back to the office where you’ll be safe.” She nodded to the guard across the street. “Jeff will escort you back.”

“You put a guard on me?”

“Hell yes, I did. Three weeks ago. There’s one on Dominic too.” Lark stepped closer. “This is serious business, Meriel. You need a guard. I know you don’t like it, but this is part of my job and I’m doing it. There’s something out there stalking and stealing our people. I’m not going to let you be one of those people. Don’t argue. You know I’m right.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Me either. Deal with it. I’ll see you later. Thanks for lunch.” She hesitated. “And thanks for listening and for all you said.” She’d needed to hear it more than she’d really known going in.

Her phone was at her ear as she began to give orders, began to fully occupy her job. She sent Gage to the wolf’s house to look there and called in Ginger, who she decided would be her backup on scene. They all were woefully undereducated on this sort of thing. Which wasn’t surprising given the fact that this had been relatively peaceful territory until the last year.

Peace? Well, that was beginning to feel like a lovely memory. Lark was used to the darkness, had grown up scrapping and fighting to protect her people. But Seattle wasn’t that way. Hadn’t been that way.

It was a shame to lose ground, a shame to have to train people how to effectively use an automatic weapon or use their magick to rebound spells to take out the caster.

But none of that changed reality. And reality barreled down on Seattle and Clan Owen like a runaway train. And it was beginning to look like it was more than just the witches who faced the rising darkness.

Chapter 13

SHE
found herself squatting in a stinky alley some hours later, taking one last look at the spot she knew the wolf had been taken from. Mage energy was everywhere and she didn’t have any real doubt that it was their current problem that was responsible for the snatch and grab.

Megan Warden stood with a heavy sigh. “This does not please me.”

“Join the club.” The wolf had been snatched from his place of work. From the parking lot just beyond where they stood. “This wolf, he’s a regular attendee at pack stuff?”

“He’s a highly ranked wolf. No way any average, even any above-average wolf, witch, vamp, whatever, could have taken him down. He’s nearly seven feet tall and huge. He’d have changed if he could.”

Lark had asked one of Megan’s wolves to change so she could watch the way their magick worked. So she could compare it to the energy signatures in the parking lot and the alley.

“Can everyone please step away? Get back inside? I’d like to look the place over. Ginger, with me.”

Megan looked at her sideways but had her people leave.

“How often do you use your othersight? In general when you’re working?”

Ginger thought for a moment. “More lately than before. Usually if I have to secure a scene. But we don’t have to do that very often. Even after… well, you know what I mean.”

“I do. But your othersight is an important tool. You should use it all the time. It should be second nature. Starting now.”

Lark threw her shields open and invited her magick to rise, to fill her, to let itself be used. The earth beneath her surged in welcome. Even with the dire circumstances they faced, the earth still welcomed her, which was a good sign.

“Use it now.”

When she opened her eyes, her othersight sprang to life, casting an entirely different sort of color palette all over the area.

Lark walked slowly, looking carefully at the different energy signatures. “We had the wolf change for us.” She pointed to the left. “Right there. You can see the green and blue. Lots of shifter magick around, but there’s none of that except for just there.”

She straightened and then moved closer to the mouth of the alley where it fed into the lot. The dark, murky sludge wasn’t just visible to her othersight, the thickness of the aura, the dirty, ugly sludge of it was something her magick slid over as she instinctively drew her shields up. “Careful here.”

Ginger paused. “That’s not a mage.”

“No, that’s a turned witch.” She huffed a breath. “This isn’t really a surprise. We knew they were working with the mages. But up until now they were mainly in the background. So did the turned witch stand and watch the snatch or did the victim know them and went willingly until it was too late?”

And beyond that was the bigger issue. These disappearances would be bound to attract the attention of the authorities. The human authorities. Which was a puzzle. Why would they want that? How would they continue their little snatch-and-grab operations if the cops or the FBI suddenly knew it was witches and werewolves being kidnapped to have their lives stolen for a fix?

Megan Warden came back outside and gave Lark a sidelong glance. “Tell me what’s going on.”

This woman was sharp. Her gaze missed nothing as she scanned the area all while her attention was on Lark. Intense.
Lark tended to appreciate intense people. They were more emotionally honest. Honesty meant a lot, said a lot about character.

Lark shifted her weight. “I can explain it all to you once we get out of the open. Voices carry. This is clan business.”

“I understand. We can go back inside the building if you’re done. This business is run by our wolves. There’s an office we can use.”

“Don’t you want to call the cops? File a missing person’s report?”

Megan looked her up and down again and exhaled sharply. “No. They’ll be useless and you know it.”

“I do, yes, but I think you needed to have the opportunity to do it of your own free will.”

They headed back inside. The truth was, she and Megan had a far greater chance of finding this wolf than the humans would. But this was witch business and she wanted to protect her people as well as deal with the threat posed to an ever-increasing number of Others. Humans wouldn’t believe them. At first. And if and when they did it would be too late to save the wolf and they’d all be under the spotlight by humans. Some of whom had already laid claim to that patch of land hatred of anything different always seemed to have.

They’d take care of this and keep the humans out of it as long as possible. It was increasingly inevitable that humans would find out about the existence of all the Others living among them but she preferred to have that knowledge be about something other than kidnaps and murders.

Megan motioned her into an office and followed, turning to her guard at the door. “No one in or out.” She shut the door and moved to sit on the corner of the nearby desk. “What the hell is going on here? Does this have anything to do with what the cats in Boston dealt with recently? Crazy-assed witches trying to kidnap other witches and take their magick. Something about magic junkies.”

Lark began to slowly wander around the room, getting a feel for these wolves, so very different from the ones she’d dealt with in L.A. No less deadly though.

“Mages aren’t witches. They’re humans who gain their
energies through rites witches condemn. We do not harm to exercise our magick. It’s ours. We’re born to it. They aren’t. They steal it from others. Animals, other people, through rituals that induce pain and fear. It’s not the same as magick, it’s hard to explain, but it’s just sort of skillful manipulation of energy. Not theirs, so they’re never as strong as a witch, whose magick is natural and therefore it responds to our will. Our magick is a living thing inside us. But mages can be deadly and they’re willing to kill to steal that energy.”

“I thought you guys were all unicorns and rainbows and candle stores with crystals in the windows. Well, not Edwina Owen—she’s a stone-cold terror. I can respect that.”

Lark shrugged, well aware of what Others often assumed about witches. It suited witches just fine to be considered fluffy and sweetness instead of as Satan’s best girlfriend. That shit got a girl all drowned and stuff.

She explained the recent history with the mages. “Starting in the southwest, heading east and now cycling west again, groups of mages began to hunt and then kidnap or attack witches. These mages then started working with turned witches.”

“Turned?”

“A turned witch is one who has become so addicted to stolen magick that the rituals they used to gain it begin to sever their connection with their magick. Magick addiction is often referred to as being stuck. But it goes further for some. They use it so much their connection to their magick is severed entirely.”

“Shit. That can’t be good. I thought your magick was part of you. Like blood or your liver.”

She nodded. “Precisely. So to be stripped of your magick slowly starves a once-witch and eventually they die. Sometimes they can live a few decades if they have a regular source of magick to steal. Mainly though, they’re pretty deteriorated when they get stuck, enough that death is a reality within the next three to five years.”

“This is all bad news and stuff, but what does it have to do with my wolves?”

“Witches aren’t the only beings with magick. Shifters have personal magick. It’s what contains your animal when you’re in human form and vice versa. Vampires have it. The Fae. And
they’re all under threat now.” Lark turned to face Megan again. “They used to be a minor threat. One we could handle with vigilance. They tended to target witches who live outside a clan or coven. Less chance of being discovered. Better opportunity to find a witch who isn’t being guarded. It’s more complicated now. What we’re discovering is that they’ve developed a sort of organized criminal network. This has happened across the U.S. and in Canada too.”

“Are they trafficking the magick then?”

“We’re still working to uncover just what they’re doing. It’s clear they’re stealing the magick from the Others they’re taking. But there’s something else.”

“Of course there is. There always is.” Megan sighed. “Tell me.”

Lark explained the magick she’d used to see into the memories of the prisoner they’d taken. “I saw… I saw something very old. He, the prisoner, was beyond scared of it. I’ve got my people at the clan working on it, but it’s our belief at this point that the Magister has returned.”

Megan paled. “Get out of town. That’s an old scary story.”

“I wish I could laugh and say just kidding. But I can’t.”

Megan blew out a breath. “I need to talk to my Alpha and also to my grandmother who is one of our Elders. She knows about stuff.”

“Stuff like old magicks?”

“Yes.”

“I’d be honored if she’d take a call or visit from me. I’d like to hear what she knows.”

Megan looked her over again. “I can’t decide what to think about you. We don’t normally mix much with non-Weres.”

“We’re similarly insular. And look where it’s gotten us.”

“Yeah, there’s that. All right. I’ll call you after I’ve spoken to my grandmother.”

“I’ll keep you updated from my end as well. I’m going to have Ginger be your liaison on your missing wolf. We’ll help in any way we can.”

They walked back outside where Ginger was taking notes and having a conversation with one of the werewolves on the scene.

“The only way we can fight this is united. All this political crap is meaningless now.” Lark indicated the scene with a tip of her chin. “This erases all the barriers we’ve had before.”

“I agree. Christ.”

SIMON
tried to concentrate on the work in front of him. He couldn’t. The numbers swam as he wondered how Lark was and if she was safe. She would have been, he reassured himself, she was able. Capable. Badass even.

His phone was within reach. He could call her. He had the number after all. He wasn’t one who called females he was seeing. Not other than to arrange a date or what have you. Women liked to talk on the phone. He did not. But he’d already admitted Lark wasn’t an average female.

“Why are you here?” Dominic asked as he leaned on the doorjamb, taking Simon in. “Weren’t you out all night with this witch stuff?”

“I got three hours’ sleep.”

“Meriel had lunch with her, just FYI.”

So she’d at least eaten and was all right as of a few hours ago.

“There’s been another kidnapping. A wolf.”

He was standing before he’d realized it. “Where?”

“She’s my hunter, Simon. She’s good at her job. Let her be.”

“This has gotten serious. More serious anyway. Jumping from witches outward?” Simon scratched his beard as he mentally tried to talk himself down. “You can use the help. I’m good at her job too.” Which wasn’t a boast.

“This is her investigation. She has her own people to order around. And you don’t take orders anyway.” Dominic smirked.

“I don’t need to be her assistant. If this has jumped to Others, that means my people could be involved as well. I can assist without working
for
her.”

He knew it was a lie before he’d even finished saying it. He’d seen her work. She’d have her own ideas on how the investigation should be run and if he showed up, she’d order him around too. Which was sort of hot, even though he always just did what he wanted anyway.

“Why don’t you go home? Tell your father about this? Make sure the way is being tightly controlled.”

That was a good idea on several levels. Those from the other side of the Veil between worlds could travel back and forth easily. But it could be a disaster if these mages thought to make that trip. He didn’t want to think about the Magister deciding to notice Lycia or the Fae.

He hadn’t been home in some time. It would be a good trip to make. But he wanted to take Lark too. He smiled to himself as he figured out how he could make that a reality.

LARK
paused as she tapped on the door leading to Archives. She waved when she caught sight of Gia Kelly, who motioned her inside.

She held out a bakery box. In her time in Seattle, Lark had realized the best way to make friends with the Kellys was to bring them treats. Which wasn’t a hardship and it gave her an excuse to stop in more often. She liked it down in Archives. Quiet, full of great, dusty old volumes and funky stuff Gia gave her side-eye over if Lark touched.