Twisted Sister of Mine (Overworld Chronicles) (39 page)

That was when the glowing eyes in the forest came.

Although I'd been curious as to what the eyes belonged to, I hadn't actually wanted to find out. Leaves burst into the air as men with bark-like skin roared, and rushed me. And then I realized the men weren't actually coming from the foliage, they were the trees themselves, shifting into humanlike form. They apparently didn't appreciate their women lusting all over me.

Suffused with excess energy, I concentrated, and redirected the flow of my tendrils through the dryads and into the—uh—whatever someone would call a male dryad. The affected dryads turned as one, and flung themselves at the men. The original dryad who'd rooted me to the ground let her hand fall away from my body. The clods of dirt lost cohesion, and I stumbled down piles of earth, nearly face-planting, or worse, horn-planting into the ground.

The area teemed in chaos, some dryads and dude-ads making out, while others chased me as the man and lady of the pond looked on in horror and fury. I didn't waste another minute, and jetted for the exit. As other dryads came at me, I lashed out with my incubus powers and sent them into the arms of the nearest dude-ads. I hoped they didn't have boyfriends, or there was going to be some serious 'splaining to do later from the explosion of infidelity I'd unleashed on them.

"Oh, god, the trees," Shelton said in a drunken voice. "Not again." And then he slumped, unconscious, against my back.

The iron gates were closed when I reached them. I leapt, trying not to imagine my tender bits being impaled upon the pointy top of the gate as I sailed overhead. I landed with a bone-jarring thud, and heard Shelton oof out a breath. As I ran, I saw figures piling over the gates behind me, glowing eyes burning bright.

"Oh, crap, not the friggin trees," I said. I didn't know what to do except keep running all the way back to the mansion. I felt a buzzing in my pocket, and reached my right hand across to my left pocket to pull out my phone. "Hello?"

"Oh, dear, who is this?" asked Bella.

"Justin."

"What's wrong with your voice?"

"I manifested," I said, huffing and puffing as I ran. "Things didn't go well and I'm running like mad with a bunch of dryad men chasing me."

"That's horrible!"

"No duh, Sherlock! Where are you? I need help."

"I'm at the mansion testing the drain rune," she said. "So be careful when you come in. It's in the center of that large dining hall in the west wing."

"Just grab your staff and be ready. I'll lead them inside, and maybe you can block the door." I checked behind me for pursuit, but the winding path behind me revealed nothing. "I'll be there in a couple of minutes."

"I'll be ready, Justin."

But as I sped through the paths, I realized that I no longer heard the sounds of pursuit. Even so, I didn't slow. I regarded every bush and tree along the path with suspicion as I ran, but none came alive.

I reached the mansion, and stopped outside the door, eyes scanning the surroundings with my blue-tinted night vision. I heard nothing.

Shelton jerked. "Huh? What the—why am I looking at someone's blue-tinted rear end?"

I felt a flush of embarrassment warm my face. My pants had managed to stay on even in their torn state, but I vaguely remembered a dude-ad or dryad trying to rip them off. I set Shelton down. He wobbled, but managed to stay on his feet.

"Oh, man." He sighed. "I feel like I passed out and hit my head on a toilet."

"We're home now."

He made a pained noise. "Dad."

I didn't know what to say, so I opened the door and went inside. He followed after a long moment, head hanging low. I stopped, gathered my willpower, and forced my demon spirit back down to its depths, my body shrinking as it did. When I was back to normal size, I regarded my ruined clothes, and sighed. I really needed to switch to yoga pants or something, because I was going to be broke from buying normal clothes if this kept up. And I wasn't about to strip naked just to change.

Bella was waiting on us, I remembered, so I walked down the hallway with Shelton into the room she'd mentioned. The petite dhampyr leapt from behind a divan ninja-style, staff at the ready. Then she saw it was us, and motioned us over. "Watch out in the middle," she hissed, pointing at a rune carved in the stone floor.

"We're not being followed," I said, hoping I was right. "I think they gave up."

She sighed. "Thank goodness."

Shelton walked across the room to her, and I did the same, except my target was the divan she'd been hiding behind, and dropped into the seat.

"Harry, are you okay?" she said.

"Peachy," he replied in his trademark gruff tone.

"What did we decide about your tough guy act when something is really bothering you?"

He sighed. "Not in front of other people, okay?"

"What a lovely home you have here," said a familiar cockney voice. "I do believe it needs a bit of polish, though."

I looked up at the Flark and shook my head in disbelief. "How—how the hell are you alive?"

"You son of a bitch!" Shelton roared. He pulled out his wand, and flicked it. His face screwed up with pain, and he cried out, holding his head.

"Overdid it a bit, did we?" Bigglesworth said, leering. "What a bloody shame. Since I never got to enjoy the all-you-can-eat buffet earlier, I suppose this little morsel"—he winked at Bella—"will do just fine."

Bella pushed Shelton into a couch against the wall, and walked straight toward the Flark. "Go ahead and try, you big hunk of snot."

"No, Bella!" I said.

But it was too late. The Flark grinned, and slithered toward her with blinding speed, its arms and fingers stretching grotesquely, reaching for her. Inches from her face, Bigglesworth's eyes suddenly went wide. He froze, and a horrific screech tore at my ears.

"What is this?" he screamed. "What is this?"

He stretched, trying desperately to spring away, but his rubbery flesh slowed, stiffening, and hardening from the feet up. His mouth stretched inhumanly wide with another scream, and then with shocking abruptness, his shriek cut off.

Bella looked the creature up and down. She nodded. "I hoped this would work."

"What worked?" I asked, completely shocked, aghast, dumbfounded, and unable to move. My heart felt frozen with the pain I'd expected upon seeing dear, sweet Bella devoured by the abominable Bigglesworth.

"The drain ward," she said in a matter-of-fact tone. "He's immune to magic directed at him, but that's because his entire being
is
magic."

"Uh-huh," I said, feeling particularly dimwitted. "But isn't a drain ward magic?"

"It's more like a magic vacuum." She shrugged. "I took a chance, but saw no alternative. I had to goad him into stepping on it."

"He could have just flung part of himself at you." I glanced back at Shelton, his face a mask of horror as he struggled futilely to push himself off the couch. "That's how he killed Sager."

"Your father, Harry?" Bella's face filled with sadness, and she went to him with open arms. "I'm so sorry." She kissed his cheek. "So very sorry."

"I'm fine," Shelton grumbled, but he didn't try to push her away.

Someone cleared their throat from the doorway. I looked up to see Meghan Andretti, and her boyfriend, Adam Nosti standing there. They stared with abject horror at Bella and Shelton.

"It terrifies me, too," I admitted, and waved them inside.

Their attention turned to the Bigglesworth statue in the middle of the room.

"Oh, and that was a Flark. Bella figured out how to kill it."

Meghan opened her mouth. Closed it and looked at Adam.

Adam shrugged. "Never a boring moment with Justin around."

"Oh, god," she said. "I knew it would be like this."

"I have something," Shelton said in a weak voice. "Let me go, woman." He grinned at Bella as she pulled him easily to his feet then limped across the room.

"What's wrong with him?" Meghan asked. She seemed to struggle internally before taking out her wand and scanning him with it. Her eyes went wide. "You almost burned yourself out. What in the world were you doing?"

"Holy cow," Adam said, looking at the numbers hovering in the air before Meghan. "I haven't seen magical output like that—well, ever."

Shelton waved away her wand and pulled the ASE his father had given him from inside a pocket. He put it on the floor, and spun it. When the image materialized, it showed an array of frozen images, each one of Jarrod Sager with a different label beneath his face. One in particular, however stood out, its name: "The Confession of Jarrod Sager."

Chapter 40

"Search for Andretti," Shelton said.

The ASE responded, one image expanding to fill the holographic projection, and fast-forwarding through several seconds of video before stopping.

"Play," Shelton said.

"Andretti was the leader of rebellious Arcanes, and Daelissa could not let him survive," Jarrod Sager said in a grim voice. "The angel knew Vadaemos was hungry for souls, and allowed him to concoct a plan to take Andretti's soul. But as with such things, he had to have the man's permission before he could devour him whole. My sources discovered the plot, and attempted to dissolve it, but the trap was well laid, and Andretti refused to let his sister die if he could save her. The rebellion died with him. Andretti's wife attempted to carry the torch, but a summoned demon killed her. I suspect Methuselah behind that plot." He sighed. "This is Jarrod Sager, Arcanus Primus, and I approve this message."

The playback ended.

Meghan said nothing as tears glistened on her cheeks. Adam hugged her, but she looked numb to his caress.

"I'm so sorry," Shelton said, his voice still sounding puny, but sincere. He turned back to the ASE. "Search Nosti."

The ASE rolled through images like a stack of cards, and stopped on another video. Shelton told this one to play, and we all stared, wondering what we would find out.

"…Nostis only by sheer luck."

"Pause," Shelton said. "Rewind to start."

The ASE followed his commands, and resumed, Sager's ghostly image narrating the tale. "I found out about the Nostis only by sheer luck. Maximus was Daelissa's newest plaything, and she wanted me to help him set up shop in Atlanta. I refused—" He choked up, covering his face for a moment. "They killed Martin." He took deep breaths as tears rolled down his cheeks. "My son." He trembled. "I had to protect Harry, no matter the cost, so I did as she asked." Sager wiped tears from his eyes. "I overheard Maximus discussing the Nostis as I showed him various places to locate his base of operations, so I asked my sources to look into them."

The Primus took a drink of amber liquid and seemed to gather his resolve. "The Nostis were part of the Illuminati. The order is nothing more than a splintered mess of power-hungry people who have long abandoned our original mission. But the Nostis somehow held true. I met with them in secret and told them to beware Daelissa and her plots. She knew of them, but at the time, I had no idea why they were important.

"Phillip Nosti thanked me and told me he could not, for the safety of all, reveal what made him so important. However, he said that should anything happen to him, to tell his son, Adam these exact words:
In the heart of my mundane beaver, butterflies mysterious lie.
" Sager shook his head. "I have no idea what it meant." He shook his head. "Unfortunately, after Philip's murder, his son and daughter vanished. I believe they've gone underground, but my people have had no luck finding him. Not only do I need to deliver his father's words, but also tell him that Maximus personally killed his parents for Daelissa. She was unable to pry answers from their minds, and they refused her to the very end. Maximus staged their murder as a mugging." The man took a deep breath, and looked back out at us. "I'm Jarrod Sager, and I approve this message."

Adam stared at the image, jaw tight, eyes full of rage, and it was Meghan's turn to comfort him. He threw off her arm and stalked across the room, pacing back and forth. "That son of a bitch, Maximus. I'm going to kill him."

"He's locked away," Meghan said. "The man was stripped of his vampirism by Justin, and he's powerless. Killing him would be a mercy. Letting him live is pure torture to a narcissist like him."

Her boyfriend rubbed his jaw, other hand clenching tight at his side. After a long moment, he nodded. "You're right. The bastard is suffering, and that's worse than death."

"What the hell did that nonsense about beavers mean?" Shelton asked.

Adam barked a humorless laugh. "My dad and I used to concoct code ciphers and say stupid things that only we could understand. My mom would roll her eyes at us when we'd sit at the breakfast table and spout nonsense back and forth."

"A code?" I asked.

He nodded. "Yeah, give me a minute." His eyes went unfocused for a moment before he nodded. "I think 'heart of my mundane beaver' means 'middle of my magical wood.' 'Butterflies mysterious' would mean 'answers why.'

Even translated, the words didn't make a lot of sense, so I said them aloud. "In the middle of my magical wood, lie answers why." My detective skills must have been maturing, because it made a little sense.

"Magical wood—wouldn't that mean like a staff or wand?" I said.

"That's what I was thinking," Bella said. "Inside his staff, perhaps?"

Adam pulled a compact staff from his back pocket, and snapped it out to full length. "This was my dad's staff." He rotated it, looking at the intricate carvings up and down its length. Then he smiled sadly, and pointed to one of the runes carved. It was that of a beaver. With trembling fingers, Adam pressed the carving. For a moment, nothing happened. The end of the staff flickered to light, brightening as the shape of a man's face formed.

"Dad?" Adam said, reaching tentative fingers toward the image, and pulling them back.

The nebulous image spoke. "Adam or Felicia, if you are seeing this, it means something has happened to us, and Jarrod Sager or one of our other contacts has given you the code to unlock this message. Your mother and I were handed down a task from a long line of predecessors to keep safe a secret so vital, if the wrong people were to possess it, it could mean the end of life here as we know it."