Hounds of dawn, p.30
Hounds of Dawn, page 30
“They will want to confirm. Probably insist on speaking with him, at least via phone.” Kendra brought her decaf coffee over to the table and joined them. “Hale. The leg is bending.”
“Maybe we could stall them. Buy ourselves some time. Say he is in the air or something,” Hale said, even as he continued to balance the chair on the now warped single leg.
“They will check flight manifest. Too easy to poke a hole in that.” Kendra shook her head.
Finn scrubbed a hand down his face. He wasn’t sure how he felt about discussing these plans in front of the Paragon. The weight of the bargain he made was starting to weigh on him. His phone rang. He looked down and shook his head in disbelief, then lifted the screen to show Kendra. It was Trix, who was two doors down the hall in his computer cave.
Nisha shambled in, dragging Ben behind her. She eyed the assembly through puffy eyes, her mood obviously less than chipper.
Kendra just shrugged. “Made a beeline for his office when I told him the Paragon was coming. Refuses to come out while he’s here.”
“Great.” Finn sighed. He swiped to answer the call. “Go ahead.”
He listened intently for a few moments, still observing the interaction in his break room. Greenlee walked in carrying his backpack and the messenger bag. Both items were lumpy in different places. He slung a thin piece of leather with a silver wire wrapped around it at Nisha, who fumbled the catch and it fell to the floor. “That’s for Ben. Skin contact. You are welcome.”
Greenlee sent a cold look in Mitch’s direction as Harper settled in at the table with her own cup of coffee.
Ben picked up the item Nisha dropped, and she helped him put it around his neck. He slipped it under his shirt and looked at Greenlee expectantly.
“Well, let go of her hand, man. Let’s see if you explode.”
Harper gasped as Kendra pulled her under the table, and Zella moved protectively toward Mitch. Interesting.
“Shit. Sorry,” Greenlee muttered. “I forget who I’m with. Not like that. Go ahead.”
Ben reluctantly released Nisha’s hand and stood still for a moment. His eyes grew wide, then he closed them. A blissful expression crossed his face. Nisha shook her hand out and stepped away.
“Thank you,” she told Greenlee. She looked at Ben intently for a moment, a sympathetic expression crossing her features. “He hasn’t heard quiet like that in years.”
“Oh. I thought.” Mitch waved between Nisha and Ben. “Didn’t you, Z?” Zella nodded earnestly.
“Nope,” Nisha told them, rushing toward the coffeemaker. “Just trying to keep my soul intact. This job seems to be determined to suck it out of my body.”
“Thanks, Trix.” Finn sighed and hit the button to disconnect the call. The man was eccentric, but useful. “Trix says that by his best estimates, they should be refueling now if they haven’t already,” Finn announced to the room.
“That means they are on the ground?” Ben asked quietly.
“It means they might be on the ground,” Finn clarified wearily.
“At least it’s something real,” Hale said.
Greenlee fished the umbrella he showed them before out of his bag and crossed the room to Finn.
“Hold up,” Nisha demanded. “How many people will that thing move? You aren’t going all Mary Poppins on me and leaving me here with Dr. Cthulhu and Burp-Master-Flash.” She sent Hale a disgusted glance, referring to his earlier demonstration of burping the alphabet backward at the dinner. “You said you would help us find Ava AND my team.”
Greenlee’s movements slowed. “It stores enough for one. If we supply more magic, it might take three more. Maybe four. Blue discharges a ton of magic when she jumps. I’ve never seen anyone channel so much magic, especially when she has passengers. It's why she is always cold. I don’t know how it doesn’t kill her. Teleportation isn’t for the weak. It will take everything I have just to bring Finn with me and not die. Getting some rest was a great idea, by the way.”
Mitch shared a look with Zella and tilted his head to the side, listening intently to the conversation. She scribbled in her notebook.
“I have magic. Ben has magic. We can fuel the artifact,” Nisha volunteered.
“You might also fly off into some strange quantum rainbow realm and never be heard from again,” Greenlee insisted. “Or drop dead from rapid onset magic poisoning.”
“I’ll chance it.” She shrugged, sounding unconcerned by the gloom and doom Greenlee spouted.
Finn kept his eye on Mitch, shocked that Greenlee mentioned any of this in front of the Paragon. “Nisha, why the blatant disregard for your own safety?”
“To the best of my knowledge, Sam and Ivan are protecting a girl that these crazy Sovereign assholes want badly enough to set off a bomb and shoot up a city block. That’s ballsy and means they aren’t playing by the rules. Mitch and Zella are safe. Now Sam needs all the help he can get. That Rhodes guy your sister is with wiped the floor with them.”
“We don’t know that Rhodes will help us,” Finn told her. “He’s finicky.”
“He sure is, cowboy,” Harper chimed in.
“No. But he might know where this Blue person is. And she is with Sam.” Nisha insisted.
“It’s better than sitting around here,” Ben interjected. “I’m in.”
“You guys have fun with that,” Hale weighed in. “What?” he asked in response to Finn’s glare. “Dude says four max, and I have zero magic to keep from ‘flying off into some strange quantum rainbow realm.’” He used air quotes. “Somebody has to keep an eye on the Paragon.”
“Greenlee?” Finn asked. This was Greenlee’s show. His call.
“We can try.” He turned back and shrugged on his backpack. “Dr. Cthulhu and I have a deal. He definitely has enough juice to get himself there. You OK if Captain Cahlad comes along Ben?”
That made Mitch’s wild eyebrows shoot up. Zella smiled again. The woman was enjoying the show.
“Sam is my best friend, Ben,” Nisha announced quietly. “I need to help him if I can.”
Ben nodded. “How do we do this with four?”
“Oh. Goodie,” Hale said dryly. “Transitioning from Operation Ill-Advised Magic Contract to Operation Umbrella. Call me if you get there alive.”
“Yeah,” Finn agreed grimly. He hated teleporting with someone who knew how to do it. This was going to be awful. “You got this?” he jerked his head toward the Paragon and the women sitting next to him.
“Yep.”
“Everybody who is going, grab the umbrella.” Greenlee held the cheap polka-dotted object up in the center of the room.
“What exactly are you trying to do?” Mitch demanded.
“That’s a really long story,” Hale told him. “Hang tight. I’ll fill you and Ms. Z in if nothing explodes.”
“I’m going to go get Sam and Ivan. With an ugly magic umbrella. Then I quit,” Nisha deadpanned.
Mitch frowned and eyed the umbrella dubiously. “May I have a word, dear?” he motioned for her to come closer. Zella patted the seat between them. Nisha sat down cautiously, looking uncomfortable. Finn tried to step closer as subtly as he could. He saw Hale turn his head so that he could hear as well. “I’m sorry about my comment last night. Let’s clear the air before you use what I assume is an unregistered and untested artifact. I’m not upset about the contract. And I’m not upset that you read my thoughts.”
“A woman gave Sam a USB drive at the ceremony, Mitch. It was all about Project Zenith.” Nisha said quietly. Finn almost couldn’t hear her over the chaos in the room. What was Project Zenith?
“Oh dear,” Mitch said quietly. Zella twisted her hands in worry. Finn sent Hale a look and saw the man nod slightly in acknowledgment. He would have Trix digging up Project Zenith as soon as he broke the leg on the chair he balanced in.
“The fact that you kept that secret from me, Mitch. That took intent.” Nisha shook her head. “That is why I want to go check on Sam and Ivan myself. And why I agreed to the contract with Finn. Yesterday, I thought I could trust you. I don’t feel like I know who you are anymore.”
“Rubbish. There were things I had to keep from you. But you have always known what was in my heart, Nisha,” Mitch smiled at her. “You think that your value lies in your ability to see people’s thoughts? But I don’t think that is your greatest strength. It is your ability to see into our hearts and not lose faith in us, even when you know what is in our minds. That is your superpower, Nisha.”
“Thank you? That’s…”
“The truth. Give yourself some credit,” Mitch cut her off. Zella patted Nisha’s arm in agreement.
“You are just trying to keep me from quitting,” Nisha accused him.
“Of course I am.” Mitch laughed. “But wherever you end up, you should know your worth. And it isn’t hearing other people’s thoughts.”
Nisha looked at her feet, obviously unsure of what to say next. “Go on then, dear.” Mitch waved toward Greenlee. “But I advise you to try that outside.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Greenlee mumbled. “Is there anywhere around here that isn’t visible from the street?”
“Roof.” Hale pointed up.
Everyone said their goodbyes. The four of them trudged up three flights of steel stairs to the roof of the warehouse. The Nashville skyline graced the horizon behind them; the early morning sun was shining off the glass of the buildings, making the buildings appear to twinkle in the mist coming off the river.
Greenlee stood in the middle of the roof and adjusted his backpack. He held out the umbrella, twisted it back and forth, and popped it open.
“You ready?” He raised it above his head.
“Blue always says skin-to-skin contact. Should we hold on to each other, too?” Finn asked with some skepticism. He was stalling now, and he knew it.
“Sure. Let’s all hold hands again,” Nisha muttered sarcastically. Everyone shifted to an awkward ring around the rosy formation with an umbrella in the center. Ben hummed the tune softly.
“Really ready?” Everyone nodded quietly. “Oh boy, here goes.” Greenlee blew out a breath. “Pomegranate!”
37
Blue
Blue frowned, listening to the late-night DJ reporting the latest in celebrity gossip. News out of Nashville a few hours ago was a home invasion with multiple fatalities at the home of the country music phenomenon, Cade Rhodes. She had chewed her lip and weighed her options. She couldn’t leave Ava. She had reached for her magic and concentrated on Rhodes. She felt a strong tug to the northwest. He wasn’t dead. That was all she knew for certain. At the next split on the interstate, she adjusted their course, triggering angry honks from the surrounding drivers. The next celebrity news snippet reported an unconfirmed Cade Rhodes sighting in Denver, which was roughly the direction her magic was leading her. So, she settled in and tried to hang on to the thread without jumping out of the seat and leaving the vehicle driverless.
An hour later, Ivan started moving around, but she dared not take her eyes off the road, especially not driving this behemoth. She couldn’t drive a compact car without hitting something. She had no clue why they thought she could drive a 32-foot class A motor home, a.k.a. a damned bus. Surely Ivan knew better. He was one of her driving instructors at the Cahlad.
The man Ava captured in the storage compartment proved extremely uninformative. He knew nothing, even when Ivan stepped aside and let Sam handle the questioning. They dropped him off in the detached restroom of an abandoned gas station with strict instructions not to leave or say anything to anyone for thirty-six hours. Then everyone else went to sleep. That was a few hours ago, and she hadn’t wrecked. Yet. There were a few close calls her passengers were blissfully ignorant of.
“Feeling better?” Ivan grumbled with a scratchy voice.
“Much,” she told him. She was finally warm, and her magic answered when she reached for it. She needed to be careful while she was around Ava. She spent years practicing pulling more and more magic with each jump, building her magic-channeling muscles, so to speak. It was the reason she could envoy multiple people and large objects now. When she was younger, she could only envoy herself if she wasn’t wearing a heavy coat or shoes. She regularly pushed the limits of her magic these days to make sure she could use it if she ever needed it. But the amount of magic Ava allowed her to channel was more than she could ever pull on her own and more than she could physically tolerate, even with her enhanced healing. She had no experience throttling her magic. She never needed to before. She theorized that Ivan and Sam were nowhere near their magic limits and that is why they didn’t react as badly to Ava’s surges.
“Wrong direction,” Ivan ambled up behind her, rubbing his hand across the beginnings of a beard, and sat down in the passenger seat. He still wore the awful unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt. None of the clothes in the camper had fit either him or Sam. She and Ava both scored sweatshirts and pants that were two sizes too big but clean and blood free. Ivan yawned and looked sedately out the window at the passing interstate. “Where are we going?”
“Denver-ish,” she replied, and stuck her tongue out as she concentrated on the road. The vehicle wiggled a little. The rumble strips sang beneath their tires. “Shit. I probably shouldn’t talk and drive.”
Ivan sat relaxed in his seat as she righted the RV. No need to worry about high-speed crashes when you are indestructible. He went so far as to turn the chair around so that it faced into the RV and stretched his legs out. “Without asking?” he finally said.
“Oh. I’m sorry,” Blue answered in a perky voice, and moved her head back and forth in a ditzy bobble. “Are the boys in charge? I missed that memo.” The RV wobbled to the left this time, and a tractor-trailer blared its horn at them.
Ivan remained silent for so long she assumed the conversation was over. So, when he finally said one word, it startled her. “Why?”
“I heard something on the radio. Thought it might be a lead,” she told him. She didn’t feel the need to go into the details. Or that she had heard another celebrity gossip report fifteen minutes ago of a Cade Rhodes sighting at the Denver airport. Rhodes, Emmet O’Brien, and a few other hot country artists were spotted departing a plane. She knew it wasn’t Rhodes; he wouldn’t be caught dead hanging out with O’Brien. They hated each other.
She didn’t know of anyone else who could morph someone into a carbon copy of themselves to cause a chaotic fan mob. She did know it was a touch-based ability. There was no way one of Finn’s guys agreed to be a Cade Rhodes decoy. That meant the real Rhodes changed some random guy before he got on the plane headed to Denver and said random guy and his companions didn’t notice for the whole flight. Or Rhodes was somewhere near Denver. Why? She needed to find out. She didn’t have enough going on, anyway.
For the moment, Sam and Ivan were proving beneficial to her overall aim to keep Ava alive and out of the Sovereign’s clutches. She was secretly afraid she would overload again if she tried to skip anything more than herself until she figured out how to throttle the magic. Having Stalker Prime-level backup made sense.
She was trying something new with her magic, focusing on Rhodes’ location and letting the magic begin to tug. But she wasn’t completing the skip when she felt the tug. She was just following it, letting it lead her in a general direction. So far, so good, if a little uncomfortable.
In the periphery of her vision, she saw Ivan nod so slightly that she almost missed it. There was no way he had any idea what she was talking about unless he was feigning sleep and heard the same story on the radio. She appreciated the fact that he wasn’t demanding she turn around or trying to wrest control of the vehicle from her. Because if she had to grab Ava and run, she would do it and die trying.
Ivan leaned his head back and closed his eyes, seeming unbothered by the change of plans. She went over the events of the last two days in her head. They rode in silence for another half hour, which made it easier to stay on the road and think. Thinking wasn’t as detrimental to her driving as speaking, apparently. There were a lot of things to think about and work through. But there was one thing bothering her more than most. She generally did not lose consciousness. Before today, she had lived confidently with the knowledge that Rhodes was the first and only person to ever haul her unconscious body anywhere. That single incident was tolerable because they were engaged at the time. Future husbands could do that kind of thing for their future wives. If anyone was allowed to haul your unconscious body around, it was the person you were going to love, honor, and cherish for the rest of your life.
Today, or was it yesterday, Ivan had taken at least a few bullets that were generally whizzing in her direction. He had also, according to Ava, carried her unconscious ass three miles through a scorching hot desert. Not a fireman’s carry either, full-on damsel in distress princess carry. Those events alone were bad enough. But the discovery that he had hauled her out of Larson’s mad science lab when she had passed out from blood loss—it made her uncomfortable. She had convinced herself that she crawled out of the building under her own steam and just couldn’t remember it. That kind of thing was not outside the realm of her experience. Relearning your own history was unsettling.
That made three times she had been unconscious and completely vulnerable. Two times Ivan had carried her. She wasn’t just uncomfortable. It made her feel, though she didn't like the word, fragile. She wasn’t fragile. Maybe mortal was the word she was looking for. She honestly forgot sometimes that she was. She often did things no sane person would try or survive. Sometimes she did them, hoping that this would be the one that got her. Those were the bad days. She didn’t have as many of those lately. Regardless, she wasn’t used to being the person needing help or help being available, even if she needed it.
She also felt indebted. Which was much worse.
“What is it?” Ivan asked, sitting up and turning to face the windshield.
“Nothing.”
“Try again,” he grumbled.
