I See You (Oracle 2) (19 page)

“Thanks for calling me stupid, asshole.”

Blackwell barked a laugh, then strode past a set of brand-new high-backed wing chairs in the seating area. Ignoring the two meatheads who had collapsed in the middle of the tiled floor, he crossed through to the central corridor. This appeared to bisect the recently renovated building, and was the path the not-a-tennis-ball had taken.

“This way.”

∞

Skirting the wall, we slipped along the corridor. I was pleased that my sneakers made no noise on the pristine low-plush cream carpet. Blackwell was likewise silent, though I would have bet every cent in my satchel that it was magic that made him so, not the Italian leather lace-ups he favored.
 

The closed space of the hall reeked of new paint. If the offices we passed were going to be used for some sort of paper shuffling in the future, they certainly weren’t being used now. Blackwell barely bothered to glance through the open doors as we slipped by.

Some sort of scuffle sounded from up ahead, consisting mostly of muffled grunts of pain. Then a wispy breeze of some sort of magic brushed by me, tingling oddly at my wrists.

Blackwell grunted, sounding pissed as he shook his hands as if trying to rid himself of something clinging to them. “His one true talent,” he grumbled under his breath.

“The marshal?” I asked in a whisper.

Blackwell dipped his chin in a slight nod.

“What does he owe you for, anyway?”

The sorcerer paused to retrieve the tennis ball that wasn’t a tennis ball — but which still looked like a tennis ball to me — from where it had rolled to a stop against a doorjamb. He tucked the device in his jacket pocket, then looked back along the hall behind me.

My question hung unanswered. Granted, it was none of my business and certainly not the best time to ask.

Blackwell continued forward. The corridor branched off at right angles at the rear of the building.
 

A long hallway with multiple doorways stood to our right. To the left, six feet of corridor ended at a large steel door. This hung open a few inches, but the gap wasn’t wide enough to see the room beyond.
 

Blackwell consulted his tracking device, then opted for the long hall to the right.
 

I followed him, wishing I had the ability to see, or taste, or feel residual magic, so I would know if Beau was near. I rubbed my thumb across my butterfly tattoo, but the butterfly didn’t seem inclined to take flight and lead me to Beau. I wondered what triggered it. That was another question for the sorcerer before me. However, despite what I had boasted to Henry about being valuable to Blackwell, I was concerned that my morphing tattoos would make me even more collectible to him. In a snatch-and-grab sort of way.

Yeah, I still didn’t trust Blackwell. But then, I didn’t trust anyone but Beau. So that wasn’t news.

Bathrooms that appeared to be under construction stood to our right as we continued down the hall.

Henry Calhoun stepped out from a doorway farther ahead on the left. He flipped what appeared to be two interconnected gold bangles in his hand as he exited the doorway, then paused the motion when he recognized us.

“Impressive handcuffs,” Blackwell said as we walked toward each other. “I’d heard rumors.”

“They were difficult to source,” the marshal replied, grinning. Yeah, sorcerers liked their toys.

“An alchemist you know?” Blackwell’s question was smooth and completely barbed at the same time.

“Nah. They’re a couple of hundred years old.”

“Ah, those cuffs.”

“Yep.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said, interrupting what was apparently degrading into a sorcerer gab session.

Henry grinned at me, flipping what I now recognized as rune-carved golden handcuffs in his hand again.

“There are five more in the entrance,” Blackwell said. “Your casting didn’t stretch that far.”

“No. I usually have to be in the room.”

“It brushed by us in the hall.”

“Really? The cast tried to grab you?” The marshal directed the question to me.

I shrugged. I’d felt the tingling at my wrists in the hall by the offices, but I wasn’t interested in chatting about it.

“So the tattoos are more than just decoration,” he mused.

I shrugged a second time.

Blackwell continued down the hall, glancing into the room the marshal had just exited.

I moved to follow. Henry ran two fingers across my bare left shoulder as I stepped past him.

“Hey,” I said. “Hands.”

“Hmmm,” Henry replied, rubbing his forefinger and middle finger together with his thumb. “I’d like to meet your tattoo artist.”

“I’m the artist,” I snapped.

“You ink the designs yourself?”

“Well, no … I …” Realizing I was answering questions about magic I was still figuring out myself, I stopped talking.
 

Henry laughed. “Even more intriguing.” He raised his hand, palm facing me. A light-blue effervescence dusted his fingertips.

I glanced down at my shoulder, cranking my neck back to see matching effervescent lines fading away from where he’d touched me.

“What’s that? A spell?”

“A talent,” Henry replied as he moved away, heading toward the central corridor.

Blackwell stepped back out into the hall, crossing over to me. “Not there,” he said. “I was fairly certain that was Calhoun’s trail, but I wanted to check.”

I stepped forward to peer into the area Blackwell had just exited. It appeared to be a break room. A trashed break room, currently strewn with garbage and food.

Four men were knocked out cold in front of a sink filled with coffee mugs. They were crammed side by side, arms interlocked, and cuffed to each other behind their backs with what appeared to be multicolored industrial zip ties. I recognized two of them from the university, but Byron was still unaccounted for. The room’s table and chairs were all knocked over, as though at least some of the men had been dragged away from their seats. The fridge was hanging open. A half-made sandwich sat on a cutting board beside the sink.

Wow. Magic didn’t usually turn my head. Mostly because I’d spent the bulk of my life ignoring the unusual for fear that I was crazy and seeing things. But if the marshal’s handcuffs helped him secure this many armed bad guys with a flick of his wrist? Well, that was impressive.

“Rochelle,” Blackwell hissed from farther down the hall.

I turned away from the mass trussing in the break room and jogged after Blackwell, heading back the way we’d come.

A quick glance to my left as we crossed into the hall’s left-hand wing and toward the steel door revealed the marshal as he steadily made his way to the entrance.

Blackwell pushed the steel door fully open. It looked as if it had been recently installed. The steel studs on the other side hadn’t been walled over yet.

The door opened into a small, mostly empty room that was still under construction. The walls and ceiling were framed with more steel.

The antechamber to the old bank vault lay beyond an arched doorway. The thick vault door was wide open, but bars set just inside the door blocked the doorway.

A cherrywood magazine table that was a match to the waiting-area furniture stood to one side of the barred doorway. The marble-floored antechamber was otherwise bare of furniture.

On the table, completely incongruently, a diffuser that looked identical to the one I’d seen in Beau’s mother’s living room was misting merrily away.

I could see Beau just over Blackwell’s shoulder, standing within the barred vault. He was frowning at the sorcerer.

Instantly elated, I tried to step past Blackwell.

He held me back.

“Wait. Something isn’t right.” He glanced at the tracking device in his hand again.

“Well, now I know what the far seer meant by his ‘But you’re not going to like it’ prediction.” Kandy’s voice rang out, followed by a string of imaginative curse words. “It had to be you.”

I leaned around Blackwell to see the green-haired werewolf was standing beside Beau with her arms crossed, glaring viciously at the sorcerer.

“You could stay behind bars, werewolf,” Blackwell said. “You seem to be coping.”

Kandy wrapped her hands around the thick metal bars penning her and Beau into the vault. She strained as if she were attempting to pull them apart. And, even though she was still wearing the thick gold cuffs, the bars didn’t bend. “Magic,” she spat, “doesn’t appear to work in here.”

Blackwell scanned the antechamber. He hadn’t set one foot onto the marble floor, and he was still blocking me from entering.

“Hey.” I offered Beau a smile.

He grinned back at me. “Hey.”

“Let’s not get all mushy here,” Kandy snarled. “You should have stayed away.”

Still grinning at Beau, who appeared unharmed, I ignored the finger Kandy pointed at me — and noticed instead a number of nasty red marks on her neck.

“Kandy isn’t healing properly,” I said to Blackwell. “Are those welts from the stun guns?”

Kandy dropped her hands from the bars with an unconcerned shrug.

“I see it,” Blackwell murmured. “I just can’t feel a spell or ward that could possibly be dampening their magic in this way.”

“You have to think like a mundane,” I said, pointing past him toward the diffuser.

“The … aromatherapy?” Blackwell stumbled on the word.

“Aromatherapy that doesn’t smell like anything?” Kandy snarked.

“Who placed it there?” Blackwell asked. “A witch?”

“We were out cold when we were brought in,” Beau said. “Also this.” He extended his arm through the bars. His inner elbow was bandaged, as it would be if he’d given blood.
 

Blackwell hissed.

Kandy snorted, not happy. She was bandaged on both inner elbows as well.

“What?” I asked.

“Blood magic,” Kandy spat.

“What?”

“We have to go,” Blackwell said. “The shifters need to be behind wards.” He stepped into the room but crossed to the diffuser, not the vault.

“Oh, yeah?” Kandy asked. “You going to protect us? From who? Yourself?”

Blackwell ignored her, scanning around the table. Then, seemingly satisfied, he unplugged the diffuser.

I crossed to the vault, reaching out for Beau. He mimicked my movement so we could link arms through the bars.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey,” he replied.

“Cute,” Kandy said. “You will not make me beholden to this asshole sorcerer, Rochelle.”

Blackwell picked up the diffuser. “Have it your way, werewolf. Perhaps whatever is in this will wear off before the police arrive.”

He exited the room without another word.

Kandy snarled at his retreating back.

“Sorry,” I said. “I couldn’t figure out a quicker way.”

“Try the pack,” Kandy said.

“A call to Audrey might have brought in the local authorities or the Gulf Coast pack,” I said. “And I thought we were avoiding them both right now.”

Beau shifted his feet uncomfortably.

I steadfastly held the green-haired werewolf’s gaze.

“Someone has taken our blood,” she said. Her tone was low and intense. “Whatever else is happening, that is a huge affront. I’ll protect you and Beau and hold your secrets. But I won’t allow the pack to be compromised or harmed while doing so.”

“We understand,” Beau said. “We’re grateful you’re with us.”

Kandy kept her gaze locked on mine until I nodded. Then she shrugged and stepped back from the bars. “Fine. But Blackwell is always the wrong choice.”

Ignoring her, I withdrew my hands from Beau’s warm embrace. I focused instead on the large latch that locked the barred door. With them placed just behind the vault door as they were, the bars must have been a secondary security measure. I was seriously glad I didn’t have to figure out how to open the vault itself.

“One of the guards must have the keys,” Beau said helpfully.
 

I nodded. But instead of leaving to track down those keys, I wrapped my left hand around the lock. I concentrated on the skeleton key tattoo on my forearm. The magic that somehow animated my tattoos came easier this time. The key shifted down the tangle of tattooed barbed wire and into the palm of my hand with minimal effort.

The cage clicked open.

Kandy swore.

“What was that?” Beau asked, pushing the barred door wide to sweep me up into a fierce hug.

“New trick,” I answered. Then I kissed him.

“Ah, great,” Kandy groused, though she didn’t actually sound unhappy as she crossed out of the vault. “New magic. That’s always fun. Let’s keep moving, kiddies.”

“Have you found Ettie?” Beau asked as he placed me back on my feet.

“Not yet.”

∞

“I need you gone.” Henry was talking to Blackwell as we followed Kandy into the back hall. The marshal eyed us as he passed the magical lock from the front door back to the sorcerer. Blackwell tucked the device in his suit pocket. “I’ve called the local authorities. They’ll help me clean up here and arrest anyone with outstanding warrants. But I need you to not be here.”

“Nice meeting you too, sorcerer,” Kandy said.

Henry laughed, reaching out to shake Kandy’s hand. Surprisingly, she accepted the gesture.

“These two need to be behind wards,” Blackwell said. “They’ve had blood stolen and I’m concerned about repercussions.”

Kandy snorted.

“And I’m taking this.” Blackwell lifted the diffuser so Henry could see it clearly.

“It’s of Adept origin?”

“Apparently.”

“Fine.”

“No,” Beau said. “Not fine. My sister is still here.”

“The building is cleared of sisters,” Henry said. “We five are the only Adept here.”

“She’s not like me,” Beau said, starting to explain.

“The redhead at reception is the only female in the vicinity, other than the two by your side, shifter. Sorry.”

Beau turned to look at Blackwell. “We need to track her.”

“We will. But not until I figure out what’s in this.” Blackwell tucked the diffuser underneath his arm. “And who has your blood.”

“Use the back door,” Henry said. He reached his hand out to Blackwell. “This clears my debt.”