Bound by Fate Page 2

  “Don’t look at me,” Lilith said, holding up a hand. “I had no plans to pull her in. That was all the school’s doing, though I can’t say I’m upset by it. She’s damned good at what she does. And she came just when we needed another potions master, which is probably why she’s here.”

  I shifted my weight, urgency driving me to move. We only had six days before the ceremony with the Earth Mother, and if last night was anything to go by, we were fighting an uphill battle. “Not to be rude, but can we cut to the chase? Oliver and I need to get back out there and find the stones, so please tell me you found something.”

  Camille pulled in a big breath and blew it out through her nose. “I found bits and pieces,” she said, phrasing her words carefully. “I managed to piece together that they’ve got several hiding places, but most of them aren’t around here. If I have to guess, they haven’t gone far, so at least that narrows it down some. They aren’t going to give up, which means they’ll try to recover the scepter and the fourth stone.”

  “So you’re worried about another attack here?” I asked. “And how many places near here did you dig up?” I cringed a little at the way I’d phrased it because that was exactly what she’d done. She’d data-mined their brains by plowing through their thoughts like an angry rototiller. I smiled a little at the visual.

  “I know what you’re thinkin’, young lady,” she said, arching a brow at me. “While it’s true I may not have been gentle, I didn’t do any permanent damage. We might need them later.”

  That last statement was telling. She’d only spared them because they could be of use down the road. I didn’t feel a shred of remorse about that. “It’s fine with me if you fried them all,” I replied, shrugging. “They’d kill all of us in a heartbeat if they got half a chance.”

  “You can’t look at it that way, Shelby,” Lilith said, her face stern. “You don’t know who those people were. Some of them may have been coerced. The difference between us and people like Katrina and Sebastion is our humanity, for lack of a better word. We protect people and we bring the bad guys to justice. We don’t do any more damage than we have to in order to do that. If we start believing that it’s okay to hurt people out of anger or revenge, we’re no better than they are.”

  I resisted the urge to roll my eyes, mostly because I knew she was right. She sounded like my sister. And to be fair, I didn’t want them dead unless that was absolutely the only way to keep them from hurting others. That didn’t mean I was interested in setting them up in a cushy prison with big-screen TVs and a nice recreation area, though. They were, after all, trying to get rid of everything I held dear.

  Somehow, I didn’t think that was something I’d have to worry about, though. The magical justice system was, by necessity, much different than the human one. The vast majority of humans could be stopped by locking them behind bars and throwing away the key. I mean, mobs and whatnot were obviously exceptions to that rule, but in the magical world, that level of punishment didn’t cut it.

  Any witch worth his or her salt could break out of a standard prison without even breaking a sweat. That’s why our punishments were so much harsher. They had to be something that would make a magical afraid to break the laws, and if deterrence didn’t work, they had to be severe enough to make sure that person couldn’t do any more harm once caught. So, no posh prison cell for them.

  “How many places near here?” Oliver asked, bringing the conversation back on track.

  “Four,” Camille replied.

  I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees. “Not ideal, but not as bad as it could be. Give us the locations and we’ll go check them out.”

  Camille pinched her lips together. “I don’t have any exact locations. I could see images in their minds and picked out a few names and memories, but no matter how deep I dug, I couldn’t get an exact location. Just general ones. If I had to guess, the places are spelled to make them difficult for people like me to find.”

  “Okay,” I said. “So what do we even do with that? It’s not like we can just start knocking on every door in Georgia.”

  “Devin may be able to help with that,” Lilith said. “She’s been working another case that’s required some tracking, and she’s made some connections. She’s going to be here any minute now. Also, she may have some suggestions about who our demon might be.”

  Devin was my roommate and the first person Emma and I had met when we’d arrived at the university. The human university, that is. We were both students at the University of Georgia, though I had no idea what was going to happen to my status now that I was missing classes. Even though it had taken nearly everything I had, I’d managed to keep up with my classes there while I was training at the Academy, but now I was looking at missing a week. I sighed. Yet another problem I’d deal with once the scepter was safe.

  “What’s she been working on?” I asked. “That sounds like a humdinger of a case.”

  “It’s complicated,” Lilith said, waving a hand. “Somebody’s been flooding the black market with death essence, which is what leaves the body after a reaper collects a soul. They’re supposed to stay around until the essence dissipates, but either they’re getting lax or one—or more—of them are collecting it and selling it.”

  “That doesn’t sound too complicated,” Oliver said. “There aren’t that many reapers, are there?”

  “No,” Emma said. The little line forming between her eyes told me from experience that she was doing some mental calculations. She got it every time she was trying to figure out an intricate potion or spell. “There aren’t that many, but they may not be at fault, at least entirely. But the ramifications of having the essence on the street certainly are. That’s dark magic, and ancient. In the right hands, that stuff can be brewed into a potion that can kill even an immortal.”

  “Very good,” Lilith said, her gaze appraising. “As a matter of fact, that’s already happened. An angel was murdered at a paranormal beach resort a while back. At the time, we thought it was a one-off, but then one of our intelligence agencies got wind that it was still on the streets and available if you knew the right people and had enough money.”

  “Wait, you can murder an angel?” I asked, shuddering. I could only imagine what the punishment—both here and in the hereafter—would be for that.

  Lilith inclined her head. “You can indeed. It’s not information they want made public for obvious reasons, but it’s certainly a concern, especially considering there are way more immortal or near-immortal species out there than just angels.”

  Emma and I glanced at each other. We were both still new to all of this, and just the idea of immortality was mind-boggling. I mean, there were witches with long lifespans, but they were still susceptible to all the same things we were. Plagues, car wrecks, stabbings, shootings, falling off a ladder. The concept of immortality was too much for me to unpack right then.

  “So Devin’s gained knowledge about demons from this black market stuff?” That made sense to me. I mean, if they were going to walk the earth, they’d probably seek out the shadier side of life.

  Lilith bobbed her head side to side. “In a manner of speaking, yes. Let’s just say one of her areas of expertise is demonology. Though I’m less interested in the demon than I am about what hideouts she might know about.”

  Devin was a mystery to me. Though we’d become friends since we’d become college roommates a few months ago, I still didn’t feel like I knew her very well. Obviously, she was magic, but I couldn’t sense what kind. As a matter of fact, I couldn’t sense any magic from her at all most of the time, and when I could, it felt foreign.

  Breena, on the other hand, was our other roommate, and she’d told us right up front that she was Fae on her mother’s side and human on her father’s. She had mostly mind magic, but it was powerful. Her forthcoming attitude combined with the fact that I could sense her magic made it easier to trust her.

  Maybe Devin had a perfectly good reason for hiding what she was, but until I knew, she’d stay at arm's length. I had enough on my plate without worrying that I’d put my trust in the wrong people. Though I’d listen to what she said and stay on friendly terms, she didn’t get a pass to my inner circle until she came clean, and if that was a problem, then so be it.

  Chapter 3

  Spot lifted his heads and growled as a crash came from the portal that led to our apartment back on campus. To be precise, it led from the library where we currently were to the closet in the bedroom Emma and I shared. Devin stumbled through the portal followed by Michael Maganti, an agent who worked for the Paranormal Criminal Investigations Bureau. I’d met him a couple months before when he’d been here on PCIB business.

  “Dammit, Emma!” Devin exclaimed, nearly face-planting as she stumbled into the room. “Buy a shoe rack or something before your thirty-seven pairs of sandals kill one of us!”

  Emma’s cheeks colored. “Yeah, sorry about that. I keep meaning to buy an organizer for the door, but I always forget about it when I go shopping.”

  “Stop forgetting about it,” our friend snapped, brushing a hank of long turquoise hair out of her dark eyes and shrugging off the hand Michael’d placed on her elbow to keep her from falling. “Now, what’s this about looking for witchy hideouts?”

  “We’re looking for stolen artifacts,” Lilith said, and I wondered why she hadn’t just told them what was going on. Oliver’s gaze was as curious as mine must have been when he glanced at me.

  “We were infiltrated, and an extremely valuable object was stolen,” she continued. “Combined with other items these witches have stolen ... well, we just have to find them, and time is of the essence. Oliver and Shelby engaged them last night, but they managed to get away with several artifacts that we need back. We did manage to get several of them in custody including one of the two ringleaders, and Camille pulled some information from their minds. The problem is that we don’t have any actual locations, and they’re working with a demon, identity unknown.”

  Devin furrowed her brow. “There’s only one demon loose in this area right now, as far as I know. Gimme a sec to confirm that.” She tapped out a text, then looked up at us. “As far as the locations, what did you manage to extract?”

  Camille listed off the details. “The first of the two was a large, rundown farmhouse. I know it was close because I recognized Dragon Lake behind it.”

  The rear of the Academy opened up near the top of a sheer cliff face. The only way to access it was via a treacherous, winding deer path. It overlooked a massive body of water that locals had dubbed Dragon Lake. Though most thought it was just a myth, way back when dragons were plentiful, a human would catch a glimpse of them flying from the Academy every now and again, and figured they must be living nearby.

  “Can you be a little more specific? The lake has a fifty-mile perimeter, at least,” Michael said. “Any landmarks? Could you see anything on the other side of the lake?”

  Camille closed her eyes, something she did when she was concentrating. “There are two old rowboats with trolling motors tied to a rickety dock. One of the boats is a faded orange,” she said. She kept her eyes closed for another few seconds but shook her head. “That’s it.”

  “That shouldn’t be too hard to find, then, as long as the boat’s still there,” I said, hope blooming in my chest. “We have a boat, right?”

  Oliver nodded. “We do, but we can’t just pull right up to the place. What else did you see, Camille?”

  “The other places are generic. One’s a little house in a clearing. There are dogwoods out front of it.” She frowned. “Weirdly enough, I kept getting glimpses of these creepy-ass dolls propped up against trees. The third place looks like a crumbling castle. It’s surrounded by thick forest. No other identifiers.”

  “Still,” I said, “there can’t be that many castles in Georgia.”

  Michael, who’d been quiet since asking his initial question, cleared his throat. “Are you sure these are actual representations of the places, or could they possibly be symbolic?”

  “What do you mean, symbolic?” Camille asked.

  “I mean, my cousin lives in a place called Castle’s Bluff,” Michael replied. “It’s a little north of us.”

  “Is there an actual castle there?” I asked.

  He shook his head and brushed an errant brown lock off his forehead. “No, the town founder’s name is Castle. You said it’s possible the locations are spelled to keep people from finding them. Is it possible some of the images you’re getting are symbols rather than an actual place?”

  Oliver huffed out a breath before Camille could answer. “I sure hope not. We already have next to nothing to go on besides the boats. If we have to descramble some sort of magical puzzle involving freaky dolls and old castles, we’ll never find them.”

  “I agree,” Camille replied, “but I also can’t rule it out, I’m afraid. Let’s stick to the literal for now.”

  Emma leaned forward. “I can do some research and see if I can find any castles in the area. It’s not like it would be the oddest structure to find around here.”

  “Okay,” I said, pushing up from my chair and glancing at Devin. “What about the demon? Is he relevant?”

  I didn’t know the first thing about them, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. We hadn’t covered them in my lessons so far, and it wasn’t like I had real-life experience with them. They didn’t tend to show up in rural Georgia, though I sure did know a handful of mean-spirited gossip types who’d give them a run for their money if sheer evil was the only factor.

  Devin glanced at her phone. “Kira confirmed my intel. The only one we have is a lower-level fear demon. He’s still dangerous, but more because he can pick up on your worst fears and use them against you. Hallucinations, paranoid thoughts ... any way he can turn what you’re afraid of to his advantage.”

  I didn’t bother to ask who Kira was since it didn’t seem relevant as long as Devin trusted her.

  Lilith sighed. “And be aware that going in, you may be facing more hellfire. Oh, and keep your mental shields up. You may not be able to block him completely, but it can’t hurt.”

  I was feeling more and more unprepared the more everybody talked. It seemed like everyone in the room knew more than I did.

  Camille gave me a sympathetic smile. She’d been part of my family for the last few years, and she knew one of my biggest fears was having somebody in my head. It had happened to me more than once, and the last time, it had nearly gotten me and my family killed.

  “That’s how they draw their strength,” Lilith said, absently rubbing the Tree of Life pendant she always wore. “Some, like this one, know how to target your worst fears and put that into your head. Some know your darkest desires and can lower your inhibitions. Some offer to grant wishes but then exact a terrible price for them. And some can just take over your body. You’re just a vessel. They can turn you into a puppet and make you do their bidding. You get the idea. And of course, they all vary in strength.”

  My knees went weak. I wasn’t equipped to deal with that sort of threat. I was still new to all of this. Shoot, for that matter, I was relatively new to being a full-blown witch. My powers had been blocked until I was sixteen, so I’d only really had them for a couple of years. To top that off, the angel powers had come right when I was starting to get a handle on the gifts I was born with.

  Homesickness washed over me, and I wished with all my heart I had time to go see my sister. I sucked in a couple calming breaths and tried to swallow the bubble of panic rising in my throat. Just talking to Noelle was often enough to bring me around, and Emma gave me the window I needed.

  “Actually,” she said, holding up a finger, “if you give me thirty minutes, I’d like to brew up a couple potions that may help them out.” She glanced at me, and I knew she could sense my anxiety.

  “What sort of potions?” Lilith asked, her head tilted.

  “I’ll brew up a couple tracking potions. We don’t have anything to activate it like we did last time, but you never know. If you find one of the houses, you may find a hair or something you can use. I’ve been reading up on mind magic since that’s how Sebastian got the drop on them,” Emma replied, “and there’s a potion that will make Shelby and Oliver immune to influence. It’s only good for fifteen minutes or so at a time before it has to be retaken, but that should be enough to get them through a battle. I don’t know how it will work against a demon, but it’ll work for witches.”

  “Do it,” Oliver said without missing a beat, and I had a feeling he wasn’t feeling much more confident than I was.

  I’d make a point to ask him about that once we’d left, but for now, I was going to take advantage of the situation and use that half hour to go see my sister. After all, I might not get another chance.

  Chapter 4

  Since Lilith had locked down the academy to prevent teleporting in or out of it, I had to go through the portal to our bedroom before I could go to the farm. I took a second to check my appearance in the mirror before I left. If I showed up looking like I’d been through a bout with a boxer, she’d surely have a fit and demand to know why.

  I sighed with relief to see that other than a couple of small bruises on my arms, I’d pass inspection, at least as long as she didn’t look too closely. I closed my eyes and thought of our barn. The feeling of being yanked through a keyhole took over for a second, then the comforting scents of hay, horses, and leather filled my senses. I was home.

  Noelle was wearing her usual outfit of cutoffs and a tank top, her riotous red curls pulled into a messy ponytail. She jumped and nearly dropped the broom she was pushing down the aisle when she saw me.

  “You okay?” she asked, giving me the once over as she leaned on the broom. “You look a little ragged.”

  I should have known she’d be able to pick up the subtler signs of my current state.