Insidious Winds (20 page)

She gave him a quick kiss before stepping back,
facing him with her back to us. “Sorry about this,” she said sourly. “I lost a
bet with Keigan.” She then opened her shirt to flash her boyfriend. After a
moment, in which every man on the first three rows desperately wished he had a
longer neck, she buttoned her shirt and Flagstone blinked, still smiling.

“Well, that was definitely worth whatever Logan is
going to do to me. You should lose bets with Keigan more often.”

She sighed. “Actually, I’m not done. That was just
part one. I did a double-or-nothing and… I’ll see you after your last class.”

There were several cat calls as she left, including
one from a snow leopard shifter, which I thought was a bit redundant.
Fortunately, no one was stupid enough to actually try anything, but then again,
she was a professor, so that probably discouraged them. The fact that she was
younger than me made it difficult for me to see her in the same light as
someone like Professor Aros. If it hadn’t been for her unending love for Flagstone,
I would have…
No, I wouldn’t have done shit
. It hadn’t been that long
since I got rid of Regina and Astrid always had my full attention when she was
near.

Besides, although I knew for certain that Hunt would
rather his daughter be with me than Flagstone, Remy and the wolf shifter were
perfect for each other. More importantly, Flagstone would eat my entrails if I
tried to hone in on his woman.

She also had at least two guns on her.

Darwin stabbed me with his pencil and I turned to see
Flagstone glaring at me. I had been staring at Remy’s ass when she left.

*          *          *

My uncle was sitting at his desk when I arrived for
his class. Unlike usual, however, he looked irritated. I froze at the door, not
sure if I should skip or not. I missed my training, but it was for Henry, so he
couldn’t have been mad at me. But I didn’t know my uncle all that well.

His eyes looked up from his book.
Too late
. I
entered the library and sat at my usual seat. The others were already there and
working. Apparently, they were continuing something from the previous day.

Nobody looked at me.

After a few minutes, I stood and went over to Vincent
for instructions. As soon as I reached his desk, a circle of blue fire erupted
from the floor around me and him. “We cannot be overheard now,” Vincent said
without waiting for questions. He stood. “The tornado is caused by the sylphs.”

“I know. Adesra told me. How did you find that out?”

“Ghost saw them when several took a student right in
front of me. The elementals are extremely powerful, Devon. Who is Adesra?”

“She’s the undine who helped me find Remy. She told
me that the sylphs were turned against the balance by Krechea and asked me for
help.”

“Sylphs are extremely powerful. Krechea couldn’t have
done this by himself from Dothra.”

“No, Felicity is back, and she’s teamed up with
Grayson. Her power is controlling the sylphs and using them to gather students
as sacrifices. None of them will die until the sylphs have thirteen
sacrifices.”

“Then we need to capture Felicity fast; the tenth student
was just taken.”

Shit
. “If I can get my hands on her, that’ll
be no problem. Darwin and Henry found the magic-neutralizing cuffs that were
made in conjunction to the amulet. The hard part will be actually catching her.
The council members will be trying to bring down the storm, as they think it’s
made by Hunt to protect the school. Maybe that will work as a distraction. Can
Ghost find her?”

“Unfortunately, he seems to be mad at me right now.
He’s not answering me at all. If we can find her, I can help you cuff her. In
battle, my visions kick into a mode where I can see every move and the result
of that move in a split second. That, coupled with your instincts and mind
control, should make defeating her doable.”

I actually thought of Darwin and Henry first, since I
knew how they would react to whatever move I made, I could easily communicate
with them, and if I told them to stop, both of them would freeze instantly
because they trusted me. “What if the council makes it through the storm? They
might need you here.”

“Trust me, any one of the professors here could take
on any one of the council members, and they have the council significantly
outnumbered. Add the students who want to fight, all of whom were only allowed
in because they were exceptional, and the wizard council doesn’t stand a
chance.”

That sounded way too overconfident to me. Something
could easily go wrong to sway things in the council’s favor. However, if
something did go wrong, Darwin could let me know and Vincent could get me back
in just a few seconds via the shadow pass. “I’ve learned a lot about my mental
powers since I started here. I think I can find Felicity by her mind.”

His eyebrows furrowed. “What do you mean? You can
find a person with your mind control?”

“Yes. I thought you knew that. That’s how I found
Remy and had visions of Bob and Gale. Are you saying John couldn’t do that?” I
asked.

He shook his head. “John could control your mind when
he saw you. There was a lasting effect for a while; his control could last
several hours after his victim was separated from him, but he had to see his
victim in order to control them. That’s why he had his spiders search the
school for students to control. He had to be able to see them through the
spider’s eye.”

“We’re lucky he didn’t have the last key.” I
shuddered at the thought of John Cross being able to transport to anywhere in
the world in a matter of seconds.

“Right. He would have been entirely unstoppable. How
long will it take you to find Felicity?”

“There’s no telling. Maybe a few minutes, maybe a few
hours.”

“Well, consider that your classwork and get to it.”

I walked right through the blue blaze, feeling
warmth, but not burning heat from the flames. For privacy, I went up to the
second level and sat in an easy chair in the corner of two bookshelves. The
chair hadn’t been there before, so I figured my uncle added it when he came to
stay. In fact, he was probably sleeping and living in the library.

I concentrated on the mind I sensed when I was at a
motel with Remy and Hunt. We were looking for Gale and the amulet and I made
the mistake of seeing into Felicity’s vulgar mind. She was not human by any
means, which I hadn’t fully understood at the time. Felicity was from Dothra;
anything humane or mortal was driven out of her from a very young age. She
wanted everything to be hers. She didn’t just want something; she wanted to
take it from everyone else.

There was also something else… something I didn’t
notice the first time. It was a weakness, but it was so repressed that I
couldn’t quite reach it. The realization that I was feeling her real mind was
enough to snap me out of it. I flinched and sat up straighter in the chair.
After a moment, I tried again.

Although it took longer this time, I did sense her
mind again. She was awake, but not thinking a lot. I could feel that there was
a lot of distance between us. It took another minute or so before I had enough
of a grip that I could see what she saw without alerting her of my presence.

Felicity was sitting on a couch in a warm, sunny
living room, but not alone. Grayson was sitting in a tan chair while a pretty,
middle-aged, dirty blond-haired woman paced the kitchen, which was open to the
living room. Grayson looked upset while the other woman looked devastated.

“Well, you were the one who let her out of the house
when I specifically---” He had to duck to avoid the ceramic bowl the woman
threw at his head.

“Don’t you dare tell me this is my fault!” she
screamed at him. “You did this! You chose this skank over me! You chose to
summon demons! You chose to create that storm over Logan’s school! You chose to
sacrifice people!”

“For the greater good,” he said, then ducked out of
the way of the coffee mug she threw at him.

Felicity was amused, but this wasn’t helping me to
figure out where they were. I knew if I wasn’t careful, I would tip her off…
but I didn’t think she could actually stop me anymore. As gently as I could, I
tried to picture what the house might look like. Instantly, the image came up.
It was an extremely unremarkable house; two story, brick, driveway, gauge,
quaint little porch… nothing distinguishing.

And Felicity sensed me. Before she had a chance to
push me out or do any magic, I locked down her thoughts, making it impossible
for her to react. It was something I had always been able to do on animals
naturally, and I knew I could do it to her. I had done it to Henry’s parents
and I could do it to her. It didn’t matter how powerful she was, because I had
both mine and John’s power.

The instant submission of her mind served to reaffirm
what I already knew I could do. It was much deeper than what I had done to
others; it wasn’t reading their thoughts, compelling them to obey, or even
seeing through their mind. I commanded every facet of her. I could destroy her
mind and take her magic for myself. I could make her heart stop if I wanted to.
She deserved it since Gale would never have had the power to curse me in the
first place if it weren’t for her.

Blaming everyone else was easy. Astrid, what she did,
Reagan’s death, Gale’s curse, Marcus getting shot… it was easy to blame it on
someone else.

Yet that didn’t help anything. It didn’t matter why.
The more power I had, the more I influenced everything, for better or for
worse. My mistakes were becoming more and more severe and the lines of what was
right or wrong were becoming blurred. If I got the key, I knew even more power
would go to my head and I could even become a threat to the people I cared
about. If it came to that, not even Vincent could stop me.

But Langril can
. The strange thought was
simultaneously unsettling and comforting.

As a battle of morality brewed in my head, Felicity
was building up a resistance to my power. I forced myself to redirect my
attention and realized that Grayson knew something was wrong. He was staring into
her eyes, probably concerned by her obviously vacant stare. He said something
to her, but her brain was too muddled to process the words.

I pushed through her mind to find her recent
memories. She didn’t actually know how to get to where she was and since
Grayson drove, she had been reading a book most of the way. However, she was at
least partially listening when he complained about Becky sneaking off to the
school. Thus, I knew that they were heading to Grayson’s house so that he could
yell at his wife. So this woman who was still throwing dishes at Grayson’s head
was his wife.

I found it interesting that she was much less
weak-willed than Becky had insinuated. Then again, Becky had to get her
feminist, animal rights, tree-hugging nature from somewhere. Nevertheless, I
could work with that much.

Knowing how quickly Felicity would escape should I
let her go, I pushed exhaustion into her mind. It only took a few moments for
her to completely pass out. Although she would only be unconscious for few minutes,
I was relying on her being disoriented for a while.

I forced myself out of her mind and back into my own
reality. Vertigo made me feel like the chair was tipping on its side and I
ended up clutching the arms of it tightly, despite knowing that I wasn’t
actually falling. By the time the sensation subsided, I was at serious risk of
losing my breakfast.

I got up anyway and went downstairs. Vincent was
helping a student, so I just left. There were more students in the hallway than
there should have been, not that I was surprised. At least it made finding
Becky pretty easy. She didn’t have class right then so she was in the dining
room having a late lunch and visiting with Addison and Amelia.

I sat down beside Becky and all three women stared at
me. “What’cha talking about,” I asked casually. At the same time, I opened my
mind to Darwin. “
Are you free
?” I asked him.

“
You mean, does Amy have me tied to a chair so she
can torture me into being her willing slave and giving up my virginity? Not at
the moment. What’s up
?”

Becky looked a bit nervous. “Um, the council, of
course.”

Lying was not a good look for her. “
I need you to
bring the cuffs and sword up to the north tower library
,” I said to Darwin.
“
In fact, bring everything you got from the vault so Vincent can check it
out
.”

“Girl talk,” Addison said with a laugh. “What do you
need, Devon?”

I really didn’t want to be around Addison until Henry
told her about Scott. Whether it was going to work out between them or not, I
was not the person she would want to hear it from. “I need your parents’
address,” I said to Becky, pulling a pen and notepad out of my jacket pocket.

She shrugged. “Okay.” She wrote it down without any
questions.

“
Are you sure we can trust Vincent that much
?”
Darwin asked.

Carrying on multiple conversations was harder than it
looked. “
No, I’m not, but do it anyway
.”

“Your emotions are odd,” Amelia said.

Addie’s eyes immediately narrowed in suspicion. “Does
it have anything to do with Henry not coming to see me since you guys got
back?”

Instead of answering, I stood, thanked Becky, and
walked away. Addison already thought I was an ass, so being rude to her wasn’t
a big deal.

I rolled my eyes when Darnell blocked the doorway of
the dining room. Like the last time he challenged me, his followers stood
aside, waiting to see who the victor would be. I felt the room become still
behind me. Although there were plenty of shifters who would follow my lead, I
didn’t know how many would fight to defend me, like Brian, or let me fend for
myself. I hoped everyone, Brian included, would stay out of it at this point.