half-lich 02 - void weaver (24 page)

“Hey,” said the voice, “You looking for something, miss?”

“I, uh, am, actually.” Alice said to the man who had come into view. “I’m looking for Cameron. Cameron West? He works here.”

The man who was casually approaching the gate was wearing a set of black sweat pants, sneakers, and a long-sleeved black top that had been ripped in places. A small cat’s paw had been printed on the breast, and in white block text underneath the paw were the letters ABCS.
Ashwood Big Cat Sanctuary,
Alice thought.

“Cam?” the man asked. “Who are you?”

“I’m… a friend. Is Cameron around?”

The man shook his head. “No,” he said, “He called this morning, said he wasn’t feeling well.”

Alice’s heart sped up. She could feel it pulsing against the sides of her temples now, and a nervous heat was causing her stomach to warm. “He called? From where?”

“From home, I guess. It’s weird, though. He doesn’t call in sick.”

“Did… he say anything? Like, where he was?”

“No, and you know what the weirdest thing is?”

Alice swallowed hard. “What is it?”

He reached into his pocket and pulled a phone from it. “You’re Alice, right?”

“I am.”

The man approached the green gate and handed the phone to her. She hesitated, but then took it. In the man’s hand there had also been a note, which she now also had. On the note there was a phone number, and nothing else.

“Who gave you this phone?” she asked. “And how did you know who I was?”

His face was now the face of someone who wasn’t sure what he was doing or where he was. Distractions kept stopping him from speaking in continuous, normally paced sentences; the kind of thing someone only does if they’re in a daze.

“I was told a girl would come looking for him,” he said, “I was told her name would be Alice, and was asked to give her this phone and the note. You’re supposed to call the number when… you’re ready to see your boyfriend again.”

“Boyfriend?” she said, though she regretted saying it aloud.
Should’ve used my inside voice,
she thought, but it didn’t matter. The man on the other side of the gate hadn’t noticed, and if he had, he was incapable of processing what he had heard.

“I should get back,” he said, “I hope Cam gets better. His cats miss him.”

“Wait,” Alice said as the man went to turn around. “The cats—Hope, Nuala, and Kirk… are they here?”

“How do you know their names?” he asked, his eyes narrowing suspiciously.

“I… uh, I’m Cam’s girlfriend, remember?”

“Right,” he said, “They’re fine. Napping. They’ve had a pretty long day... I think.”

Alice cocked her head. “You think?”

“Yeah… I think so…”

She stepped away from the green gate, keeping her eyes on the man on the other side for a moment, then turned on her heel and headed to where Isaac was standing. Her heart was racing, and her mind along with it. Was this Cameron’s phone she was holding? Maybe. She had no way to be sure, but it didn’t matter. Whether it was or it wasn’t, someone had given that guy the phone to give to Alice, along with a phone number for her to call.

She didn’t like what this implied, nor did she like the way the guy had been so spaced out, like he was high or something.
No
, she thought,
not high, but in a daze all the same. And it had happened so suddenly.

“Isaac,” she said, and he turned to look at her.

“What is it?”

“He’s not here.” Alice handed him the phone. “A staff member gave me this. Said Cameron had called in sick, and that someone had given him this phone to give to me. By the look on his face he had no idea who had given him the phone or why. He also couldn’t understand why Cameron hadn’t shown up. He looked spaced out. Not with it.”

“Damn,” Isaac said, “That’s their work.”

“Legionnaires? Isaac, don’t tell me they have him.”

“I don’t know, but we have to prepare for the possibility that they somehow managed to overpower him and take him in.”

“Why the hell would they do that? And why isn’t your government intervening?”

“I can’t tell you why the magistrate isn’t stepping in. Six missing legionnaires would have surely caused concern among the praetors, unless Logan managed to convince the magistrate to condone his actions. But this would be another grave violation of the Magus Codice. He violated it once when he attacked me, then again when he attacked Cameron at his sanctuary. Kidnapping a mage is… it’s just inconceivable. He would be exiled.”

“What if he did convince the magistrate to be on his side about this, though? Is there even a slight chance that’s possible?”

Isaac thought about this for a long moment, and then he looked at Alice, and nodded. “There is.”

“How?” she asked, frustration causing her voice to elevate an octave. “All you did was withhold some facts about what happened the night at the museum. I mean, Christ,
you
were the one who was attacked—and by an evil fucking Void entity, too. You’d think you were on trial for murder or something. I don’t believe any rational organization would condone this kind of behavior from their supposed enforcers just to have a couple of facts clarified.”

“You clearly don’t know mages very well.”

“God dammit,” she said, exhaling a puff of air and allowing her nerves to calm down. “So, do we call this phone or not?”

“Not yet,” Isaac said, “There’s something I want you to see first.”

“Okay?”

Isaac stepped aside and said “Walk ten paces in that direction.”

Alice gave him a perplexed gaze. “What?”

“Just do it.”

“And what else?”

“Nothing. Just walk.”

She looked at where Isaac was pointing and noted he was asking her to walk onto the dirt road that led out of the sanctuary and onto the highway. She frowned, but walked anyway, despite not being sure what she had just been tasked with. Did he want her to look for tire tracks? There were probably going to be plenty to choose from here, and besides, it wasn’t like any car coming in had any other place it could go unless it wanted to go off-road—and she knew first-hand the earth off the path was rocky and uneven.

But then she felt it.

Her skin broke out into goosebumps that crawled all along her arms and up into her chest. It felt like she had walked into a spider web, or like a thousand ghostly fingers were caressing her skin all at once. She shuddered, and immediately turned around, eyes wide and alert. Isaac was looking at her, watching her, and when he noticed her reaction he straightened his back and his facial expression hardened.

“I feel it,” she said, “I only feel this when—”

“Void magic is present, I know. I’m not used to sensing it, so I needed you to double check.”

“So I don’t feel this only when Nyx is around?”

“Thankfully, no; otherwise we would be having a different conversation.”

“Does this mean someone nearby is using Void magic?”

“No,” Isaac said, approaching, “The trail is faint, but someone who was standing in this very spot has left the mark of the Void, sometime in the last twelve hours.”

“Logan?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t know. But if it was him, then he’s even more dangerous than I thought. And if he has Cameron… it may already be too late to help him.”

“What?” she asked, her eyes wide with alarm, “You can’t mean that.”

“I don’t know what I mean, Alice, but Void magic is… it infects mages who get too close to it. It spreads from mage to mage, corrupting them, empowering them… and eventually killing them. If one of them is using it, then they may all be infected. Cameron too.”

“I hope you’re not suggesting we do nothing,” she said, her cheeks flushing crimson with hot blood.

“I’m not suggesting that at all, but we need to be careful—and fast.”

“Give me the phone.”

Isaac considered for a moment, but he offered it to her. “What are you going to do?” he asked.

“I’m going to call that number.”

“We don’t know what will happen if you do—I need to analyze the phone first, find out if there are any enchantments on it. It could be a trap.”

“If it’s a trap, then it’s a trap. I’m not waiting for you to prepare, Isaac. We can’t be careful
and
fast. Being that this is the case, I choose fast.”

Alice pressed the button on the side of the phone and it glowed to life. On it, a picture of a man—Cameron—surrounded by big cats sprang up.
It’s his after all
, she thought, and then she unlocked it, opened up the phone app, and punched in the number. But in the instant after hitting the green button to initiate a call, Alice’s invisible senses picked up the same current they had felt back at the forest, and she pulled the phone away from her ear as if it were a live grenade.

Isaac’s hands flew up, his magic bangle glowing blue, and suddenly they were both pushed to the ground by a powerful shockwave. The boom kicked up massive clouds of dust and dirt, sending them in all directions. For a single, terrifying moment, Alice thought the phone had exploded. She thought it had blown up in her hand, and now her fingers were gone. She was numb, her ears were ringing, her heart was pounding, and she couldn't get up.

But then she felt the phone still grasped in her hand, and when she turned her head toward it she saw that all of her fingers were there. The phone too. It hadn’t exploded at all.

“Isaac,” she said, coughing as she struggled to get up. “Isaac, where are you?”

The dust clouds were thick, so much so that she couldn’t see through them very well, but she could see a shape standing nearby. A human, male shape.

A powerful breeze suddenly churned through the area and the man standing in the middle of the road knitted himself together out of the churning dust. She didn’t recognize him. He was tall, probably about as tall as Isaac, and he was wearing a buttoned shirt and… a pair of spectacles on the bridge of his nose.

He pushed them back into place and dusted himself down, but then he saw Alice on the ground and immediately came running to her side.

“Miss,” he said, “I’m so sorry. Are you alright?”

He extended his hand, but Alice withdrew and quickly rose to her feet. “Who the hell are you?” she asked, “And how did you do that?”

“That? Yes, sorry, that was teleportation and bumpy teleportation at that.”

“Jim?” Isaac said.

Alice turned her head to look at him. He had a slight cut on his cheek and was covered in dirt, but was otherwise fine. “Jim?” she asked, “The librarian?”

“You’re dead,” Isaac said. “I watched you die.”

“Ah,” Jim said, “But here I am. I do apologize for the manner of my arrival, but getting a lock on your position has been incredibly difficult. The resultant frustration made it difficult for me to safely perform this spell, to the point where I had to force the magic through in one great push.”

“That was you?” Alice asked.

Jim looked at her and smiled, pleased with himself. He was about to open his mouth to speak, but Isaac enveloped him in a hug that took the breath out of Jim’s lungs. “Christ, Moreau,” Jim said, “Careful, will you? I didn’t escape that cave entirely intact.”

Isaac pulled away from Jim, still smiling from ear to ear. “You’re not dead,” he said. “How are you not dead?”

“I’m not. And yet, you’re the one who looks like death. Since you’re in one piece, however, I gather your little jaunt through time and space went well?”

“Guys,” Alice said, suddenly noticing something. The phone in her hand was displaying an active call, one that had been going on for thirty seconds. Thirty-one. Thirty-two. Someone had picked up on the other side and had likely been listening to what had been going on here. She put a hand up to silence both men and then put the phone to her ear.

“Hello?” she said.

CHAPTER 25

Taking the Bait

“That sounds like a good reunion,” Logan said from the other side of the phone, “I’m glad to see things are going well for you.” Isaac approached, but Alice stuck her hand out and stopped him from getting any closer. “How many of you is that, now? Three? They can’t help you.”

The fires of confrontation burned hot inside her chest. She knew she had to be careful around this man, but she also wanted to goad him out.

“I’ve taken down bigger bullies than you,” she said, “Better ones, too. You’re having a pretty tough time capturing a
mortal
. But then again, what can you expect from a thug masquerading as an authority figure. Just like old times, right Sergeant Hodges?”

“You remember me after all. Good. I was starting to worry your memory was getting a little blurry, Werner.”

“Where’s Cameron?” Alice said.

“Here. With us. Do you want to see him again? I bet you do. So how about you give yourself up and we’ll make this easy. Nothing has to be done the hard way.”

“There’s only one way we do this, Logan, and that’s my way. You’re gonna tell me where Cameron is, and then we’re going to go get him. If you’re still there when we get there, you’re going to regret it.”

“If you want him back,” Logan said, “You’re going to have to come and get him. But since I’m feeling nice, I’m going to let you decide where the exchange happens. If you don’t show, we kill him.”

Kill? He hadn’t said kill before.

“Alright, an exchange,” Alice said, “Me for him.”

Isaac’s eyes widened, alarmed. He came up to her, but again she put her hand out and with her eyes told him to calm down. She had to think, and she wouldn’t be able to if he came too close.
Where
, she thought. It had to be an open place, one with plenty of room for people to hide in, but also one far away from human eyes—where people rarely go.

“There’s a graveyard,” she said, “I saw one riding up here. It’s a couple of miles back down 95, toward the city. You’ll see it on the right.”

“I know it.”

“Good, then in that case I’ll be seeing you in an hour.”

“I’m looking forward to it.”