Natural Dual-Mage (Page 35)

As if hearing my unspoken question, Devon, the shifter with the fetching cleft in his chin, glanced at the house. Roger hadn’t had the patience to introduce the other shifter, which showed just how quickly Reagan could make a shifter reach a boiling point. When it came to rage, she could manipulate people just as easily as vampires. “Alpha,” he said, “what about Patrick?”

“Go tell him to catch up. I’ll speak to him about tardiness later.” Roger stepped off the gravel driveway and onto a small path cutting through the trees. We could only go single file, so Emery put his hands on my shoulders and directed me in front of him.

Judging by the distance we walked, zigzagging through the trees, the ward didn’t cover the property in a dome. Instead, it clearly followed some other path. Just as we’d sensed on our way in, it was cobbled together in pieces and patches.

The path opened up gradually until we reached a small clearing. Roger stopped about ten feet from the ward and looked up, as though studying it. I hesitated beside him, wondering why he was pretending. Everyone knew only natural mages could see magic, and even then, they could only see wards when they were infused with a bunch of power and often spells.

“Don’t bother sparing his feelings, Penny,” Reagan said, tromping through the grass around the line of people in front of her with her sword out and her fanny pack open. “Get to the actual ward.”

A blast of Roger’s magic locked up Emery’s body, his muscles flaring and his fingers curling into fists. The man clearly didn’t deal with challenges well, whether directed at him or not.

Ignoring the tension, I neared the ward and studied the hodgepodge spell, which was weird and ill-fitting.

Protect. Access. Barrier. Unseen.

“The intent is conflicting.” I crinkled my nose, closing my eyes to make sure I had it right. “This isn’t solely a ward, but it isn’t totally a spell, either. It feels like both, mashed together. Which I’ve done, so I guess it isn’t crazy, but it doesn’t work in this case.”

Emery looked between me and the spell. “I can’t feel the intent.”

“Oh.” I turned my frown upside down. “I guess sharing magic wasn’t my add-on. This must be.”

“No, I think we were right, but… We don’t have time to figure this out right now.”

Emery turned to face the ward, tracing his finger through the air, pointing out a strange seam that didn’t seem to mesh with the overall construction. The freshly woven spell glittered on one side; on the other, I could only feel the spell’s intent, not see its magic.

“They patched up the ward with a spell, it looks like,” he murmured, clearly not wanting the shifters behind us to hear the assessment. I wasn’t sure why. “That spell is practiced. I bet that ward isn’t as much.”

“Meaning…” Reagan had her sword up, with one hand beside it, trying to disguise her attempts to feel out the spell. “The ward is a newer creation they put up for the first time, but they’ve been using the spell all over the place?”

“That, or the ward was the collaborative effort of people not experienced in working together, and the spell is from one person with experience in this exact spell. There is no finesse to it, but its simple economy and uniform weaving speak of years of experience.”

“The intent of this spell is to hide,” I said, picking my nail as I analyzed it. “Maybe even to fool. Why would they patch up a weak spot in a ward with something like this?”

“Here.” Callie and Dizzy stepped up together, herbs in Callie’s hands and powder in Dizzy’s. I watched in rapture as Callie crinkled the herbs just so before releasing them—or, more accurately, throwing them—in perfect timing with Dizzy’s pinches and blows of powder. As they sprinkled the spell/ward with their efforts, it lit up like a Christmas tree, allowing us to see the finer intricacies.

“Oh!” I said as Emery said, “Huh.”

“You don’t need to teach this old dog new tricks.” Callie surveyed her handiwork.

The spell spread farther along the sides and up, giving us a much larger picture of what was going on.

Suddenly, the patterns and patches all made perfect sense.

Shivers of fear coated my body. Emery grabbed my arm and stepped back before looking around warily. Without it needing to be said, I knew he was thinking about the warnings delivered through his premonitions. His anxiety when we’d first shown up. His constant wariness within the shifters’ boundaries.

We need to get them out of here.

24

With the way the original spell had been hacked into, then covered up, and the feel of the intent… There was no second-guessing. The situation was plain as day.

I blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

“Roger, you’ve got a traitor.”

Devon reappeared on the path, walking behind a scrawny man with large black-rimmed glasses. Scrawny Man must’ve been a mage, because he was certainly no shifter—I didn’t need my magic to tell me that.

Roger stepped closer to me, cutting off my line of sight. “What did you say?”

Reagan looked at the newcomer and put her hand on my shoulder, squeezing hard, silently telling me to zip the lip. There was no way to tell if the traitor was just one of the mages, or many, and where this newcomer fit in.

Her face had closed down, all humor sapped away. “What else do you need looked at, Roger?” she asked in a perfectly calm, steady voice. She’d picked up a trick or two from Darius.

“I did my part,” Callie said, moving away from the ward/spell stiffly. “Roger, can one of these boys take me to Karen?”

Roger paused again, his gaze now beating into Callie. His focus wasn’t there, though, I could tell. He was analyzing the sudden change in all of us.

“Andy,” he said, his voice a whip crack.

“Yes, Alpha.” The guy with the hole in the seam of his T-shirt scooted up and put out his arm.

“I’d break you, son. Just lead the way,” Callie said.

I couldn’t help my gaze dipping to the “Sweet Thang” written across the butt of her bright green sweatpants. The woman was colorful.

“Patrick, what do you think about this ward?” Roger asked.

“Well…” Patrick pushed his black-rimmed glasses up his nose and studied where the Bankses’ spell discovery spell was now starting to wear away. “It seems a little mishmashed for sure. But you had, what, three mages erect the ward? That’s to be expected. It has a good bit of power behind it. I’d have to check along the rest of the perimeter, but this looks good. We’ll know if someone comes through or tries to tear it down.”

“Who is this spell connected to?” Emery asked. “Who will get alerted if someone comes through?”

“Well…” Patrick adjusted his glasses. “It changes. Generally it is whoever’s on guard at the time. Whoever’s overseeing magical security for the house.”

“Who is…on guard right now?” Emery asked.

Patrick looked upward and sucked on his teeth. “I can’t…remember exactly. I’d have to go look. It’s not my turn yet, at any rate.”

Roger studied Patrick, and I couldn’t help but ask, “Is this how you run all of your operations, Roger?”

“It isn’t,” Reagan said, moving her fanny pack a little more toward her hip. It looked like an unconscious gesture. “Which makes me wonder why he would put up with it when the stakes are so high.”

Roger blasted out his shifter magic, but he didn’t so much as clench his jaw. “I’ve checked the schedule and had my people monitoring the effectiveness of our protections. So far, no one has been asleep on the job. The different mages have checked the work of their peers. As you’ve seen. Without understanding the magical side, there’s not much more I can do. Except call for reinforcements.”

Clearly he meant us, and I wondered if it was pride or something else that prevented him from saying it. It was also clear he not only thought someone might be getting through the ward, but was also worried about the loyalty and truthfulness of the mages he’d hired, who weren’t totally under his control.

“Oh yeah, we’ve seen.” Reagan shook her head. “Where do you get these people, Roger? The street corner?”

Patrick squinted and pushed his glasses a little farther up his nose.

Emery took off walking, and I hurried to catch up. Reagan fell in behind me.

“Patrick, we’re going with them,” I heard a male say. It must’ve been Devon.

A phone chimed and Roger barked, “Yeah?” He didn’t seem pleased with the way the day was unfolding.

Tattle.

I stepped over a spell snaking across the small path running alongside the ward. Reagan did the same, not needing me to point it out. She glanced back, and I could just see Roger stutter-step behind her before jumping over it at the last moment.

“Get Steve on it,” Roger said as he turned around and pointed at the spot he clearly couldn’t see, but had noticed us all avoiding. Devon grabbed the confused Patrick’s shoulders and walked him around the area. Roger paused a moment, his gaze on Patrick, his eyes hard.