half-lich 02 - void weaver (23 page)

“I guess that would be too easy.”

She looked around, taking the forest in. Darkness pressed around them and a thin fog snaked between the bases of trees. All they had for light were the low beams on the front of the mustang, but it was enough. They wouldn’t be seen here from the highway. Only if someone turned off and came down this same dirt road would they be discovered. Judging by the overgrowth along the road, this was not a well-traveled path.

“So, about me…” Alice said, prodding Isaac into conversation.

“Right,” he said, “I’ll start with Trapper, shall I?”

“Sure.”

“I know what made it. And, by extension, I know what made your Chest of Haunts. Or, at least, I know what kind of person made them—I didn’t actually find out
who
made them.”

“A Void Weaver made them, right?”

“Yes. Technically, Trapper is a magical artifact constructed by a mage. A mage like me.”

“You mean like you—now
.
You weren’t a Void Weaver before.”

“And I’m not entirely certain I am one now either. I feel different, I know my magic is different, but I haven’t allowed it to express itself through me yet, not since I arrived at your apartment. Until I open myself up to the Tempest and analyze my own power, and then figure out how to work the Void into the magic, I won’t be able to call myself a real Void Weaver. But I
have
developed an almost instinctual understanding about the Void, and I now know with full certainty that you are a type of mage—only your power comes solely from the Void. What you did at your apartment, reanimating Raegan, that’s only the start.”

“That’s… pretty cool,” Alice said. She approached the hole Isaac was digging and took the shovel, and then proceeded to continue the digging. “How do you know I have Void magic within me?”

“Because when I got to your apartment,” he said, leaning against the car, “I could sense it. The residue, I mean. I leave magical residue when I perform magic; you leave Void residue when you use yours. No mage can just sense that, though. The Void is out of our
range
—it’s like it doesn’t exist.”

“But it
does
. What I’m curious about is why all this business with souls? Stealing souls, feeding on souls, capturing souls… what’s the deal?”

“That I can’t tell you. Not because I don’t want to, but because I don’t know the answer. What I do know is that you are going to be much better at dealing with souls than most mages.”

Alice stopped shoveling and slammed the shovel head into the earth. “How do I do it?”

“Well,” Isaac said, “How did you make Trapper work?”

“I picked Trapper up, brought it to my eye, and pushed my energy into it to make it work.”

“And it drained you, correct?”

“Yeah, it made me hungry.”

“And your will, also. I don’t think Trapper would have worked in the hands of a human. Maybe in the hands of a mage, but I suspect Trapper was specifically designed to be used by someone with your particular talents.”

“So it wouldn’t have worked for you?”

“I’m not saying that, but perhaps it would have been more taxing on a mage. I suspect the camera still required your will, your belief, to work. If your magic is even remotely similar to mine, you will have to
think
what you want to happen, and it will happen.”

Alice thought back to the moment before she saw Raegan’s corpse come shambling out of the bedroom. The garbage man had hit Alice hard and sent her to the floor, and she hadn’t just wanted to get up—she had
told
herself to get up. At least, she had thought it. And then she had willed for her own power to manifest, to empower her, and help her in the act of getting up.

Instead she had empowered Raegan.

“I think I know how I made Raegan start moving,” she said, “But souls… I killed a man today and his soul presented itself to me. Is that what I have to do every time I need to feed? I don’t think I can do that.”

“There are ways,” Isaac said, “I can teach you.”

“Show me, then,” she said.

“Show you?”

“Yes. Show me how I can manipulate a soul without Trapper.”

“That’s difficult. We’re fresh out of souls to use.”

“No we aren’t. That day in my apartment, after I threw myself against my bathroom sink and knocked myself out, you plucked one out of thin air and fed it to me.”

“That was different. They were desperate times.”

“Desperate?”

Isaac stepped away from the car and walked slowly toward Alice. “I wanted to help you, but I didn’t know how. When I figured out what it was you needed, I acted. But what I did was dangerous. If I had been better prepared, I may have been able to…”

Isaac trailed off, and Alice immediately understood why. “If you had known more about me then,” she said. “About my condition.”

He nodded.

“You know why I couldn’t indulge you, Isaac. You know I wanted nothing to do with it.”

“I do, and I think it’s time you knew why I pushed so hard.”

Alice regarded him carefully, like an artist studying a complicated painting for the first time. In that moment she thought, if Isaac was a painting, he would be a Van Gogh. Some may have seen Picasso, but Picasso was zany and strange, while Van Gogh was deep and layered. Painting had always been something she had wanted to do, but she had no talent for it. She had, however, noticed that every time she saw Van Gogh’s Starry Night, there was something new about it she hadn’t seen before, some interesting detail that allowed her to see the entire painting in a new light.

“Tell me,” she said.

Isaac looked up at the moon, then back at Alice. “My mother died when I was very young,” he said, “Suicide. It was I who found her. She had only been dead a few minutes. The blood on her wrists was fresh and still oozing.”

“Isaac,” Alice approached, a hand to her chest. “I’m so sorry…”

“It was a long time ago. I was eleven. When I found her, I knew what had happened. I understood it. But I didn’t know
why
it had happened. It wasn’t until years later that I discovered the reason for her death had been depression. That sent me into my own depression. For a long time, I struggled with guilt. I thought if I had known enough about depression, I would have stayed with her, made sure she was okay, and maybe she would still be alive. Then again, maybe not. But she wouldn’t have died that day.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“I know it wasn’t, but I still wish I could have done something—and I would have, had I only known what I needed to know. It was the same with you, Alice. You were going through something awful, and your life was going the same way hers did. You quit your job, stopped taking care of yourself, and pushed me away… I didn’t want to lose you like I did her.”

“And that’s why you wanted to know everything you could about me.”

Isaac held her eyes with his, the faint moonlight highlighting the slightest sparkle in them. Her stomach felt light, like she could just take a breath and start floating. She placed her hand against his cheek. Her heart was pounding, but for the first time in what seemed like a long time, not out of fear or anger.

“I understand,” she said, “I didn’t then, but I do now, and I’m… I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be. We both have pains we’ve kept from each other.”

“I don’t want to do that anymore. Not with you.”

He nodded. “I won’t ask you to share with me more than you feel like you want to, but if this—us—is going anywhere, we need to build it on a solid foundation.”

Alice hadn’t entirely given thought to exactly what
they
were. They hadn’t picked up where they left off; too much had changed. But they had just had sex, and it wasn’t sex born out of something simple like being happy to see him. Alice wasn’t the type to sleep with someone on a whim. She had never been that kind of girl, and would never be that kind of girl. So when she slept with Isaac tonight, it had meant something.

She just hadn’t considered what it may have meant until now.

“Let’s get this done,” she said, “Let’s finish this. All of it. And we’ll talk about us.”

Isaac smiled his charming smile, pearly white teeth gleaming in the moonlight. “I would like that,” he said, and he plucked the shovel out from the ground. He was about to push it into the earth again when he stopped and perked up, eyes wide with alarm. “Quiet,” he said.

Alice’s entire body electrified at the thrill of Isaac’s sudden movement. “What is it?” she asked, poised and ready to move at a second’s notice.

Isaac came up to Alice, handed her the shovel, and said “Dig. Someone’s trying to find us.”

“What? Who?”

“I don’t know, just dig. We need to get this done and we need to get moving. I’ll throw them off.”

Alice watched him walk past her and noticed how the bangle on his right wrist had started to glow with soft blue light. She held the shovel firmly, walked briskly to the hole they’d been working on, and started to dig again while Isaac concentrated on
throwing them off
. If she was being truthful, she
could
sense something in the air—like a vibration, or a current. It hadn’t been there before, and she knew this because the sensation was difficult to ignore in much the same way as her skin prickling over when in the presence of Nyx, her magic, or her Pain Children.

Alice’s arms were sore before she had even gotten half way, but she pushed through, and Isaac did help when he was “in between” efforts at throwing off whatever trace had been set upon them. When they were done, they hoisted Raegan up and dropped her as gently as they could into the grave, then began covering the hole with dirt. This part was easy, but still tiring, and Alice was glad to be done when it was over.

She stood at the head of the grave, looking down at the disturbed soil, and thought about Raegan. Alice had never met her, but the girl she had seen in the picture standing in front of the veterinary clinic in the park seemed like a good person. She had a kind smile, easy eyes, and had clearly cared about her mother a great deal; not many twenty-something year old’s Alice knew would take care of their sick parents the way Raegan had.

“Are you alright?” Isaac asked. He was standing by the head of the grave too.

“Yeah,” Alice said, “It’s just a waste. Nyx has already killed so many. We have to stop her.”

“We will. But we have to go. Whoever is trying to find us is being persistent. We’ll make it harder for them to find us if we’re moving.”

“Do you think it’s the legionnaires?”

“I don’t know, but I’m willing to bet it is.”

Alice nodded and headed for the car. She threw the earth-covered shovel into the trunk and dashed around to the driver’s seat. Isaac got in, too, and in a moment they were back on the highway. However, the city lights were still behind them, and when Isaac noticed this, he questioned it.

“We aren’t going back?” he asked.

“No,” she said, with her hands firmly gripping the wheel. Her knuckles were turning white.

“Then where are we going?”

“We’re going to the sanctuary,” she said, “If the legionnaires are looking for us, then why haven’t we heard from Cameron? I don’t like that.”

“We aren’t ready for Logan. You know that.”

“I do. But Logan also isn’t ready for us.”

CHAPTER 24

Mark of the Void

The big cat sanctuary came up on the right; as Alice pulled in, the first thing that struck her was that the sanctuary was lit up and in use. There were three cars parked outside of the green front gate—two sedans and a hatchback. Alice didn’t recognize them, but this was a good thing. It meant none were the cars the legionnaires had ridden in on like the fucking horsemen of the apocalypse. She could also see shapes moving around beyond the gate—some human, some feline.

Alice stopped the car just off the main entrance and stepped outside, but her heart was already thumping hard inside her chest, and her stomach had gone cold. How could this be? The last time she had been here, the clouds had been churning and six legionnaires were threatening to tear it down. How was it that the place seemed to be operating normally?

She circled around the back of the car, but only got as far as the passenger side before Isaac put his hand out across her abdomen, stopping her abruptly.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Does it look like a battle took place here?” Isaac asked.

“No, and that’s what worries me.”

“So then we proceed with caution.”

“I am being cautious.”

“You were about to stroll up to that place in plain view.”

“Yes, because sometimes we don’t need the cloak and dagger routine. There are people in there. I can hear them talking. Someone’s hosing something down, too, by the sounds of it. I doubt we’re going to find legionnaires in there, Isaac.”

“And if we do?”

“We won’t. Just keep working on making sure we aren’t found. If it helps, they were standing over there when they arrived.”

Isaac’s eyebrows knitted together and his Adams apple seemed to work inaudibly, but he nodded and headed to where the legionnaires had been standing when Alice first saw them. He would be better at picking out their energies—or whatever—than she would, and she needed to not only know if Cameron was okay, but also the cats that he loved so much. Alice may have only spent a few hours with those cats, but they were Cameron’s world.

She thought about Nuala and her cubs, thought about Kirk and Hope and Selene, and remembered how their eyes had been the color of molten gold the last time she had seen them.
Like little demons,
she thought as she arrived at the green gate, careful not to look like a weirdo stalker. A floodlight illuminated the entire front area of the sanctuary. There were more of them dotted around the place, too, but they weren’t all on.

Alice waited for someone to stroll by, but no one did. She could see people inside the sanctuary, beyond the green gate, but they weren’t within yelling distance. Yelling would attract the entire sanctuary, and subtlety was important here. She was about to turn around and head for the living wall Cameron had shown her the last time she had been here when someone from the inside called out.