It turned out that shoving the aswang back into whatever hole it crawled out of was a lot more difficult in application than in theory—a fact that was startlingly clear to Jack after he, Marin, and Elliot spent over an hour discussing logistics.
Finding the cage that had contained the creature was just the beginning. Then they had to figure out how he had escaped and repair the breach—assuming they could even figure out how the cage worked. Then they had to lure him to the cage—a spot he had to be smart enough to avoid if his prison could still hold him. And, finally, they had to figure out how to avoid death, of the complete and permanent variety, while locking him back in the cage…somehow.
“This plan sucks.” Elliot took another piece of pizza from the box and then dropped down on the small chaise next to Jack.
“What plan? There’s no plan if we can’t get past step one. Where’s the cage?” Marin frowned at Elliot. “Besides, what are you worried about? You can’t leave Sanctuary, since we know Nate’s whammy works on you.”
“Why are we calling him Nate, again?” Elliot asked before taking a bite of pizza.
“Marin and I decided while you were in the bathroom. It was the most innocuous name we could come up with.”
“I don’t get it.” Elliot’s words came out muffled by cheese and crust.
At least he was eating, a big improvement from distraught and numb with fear. Jack wasn’t sure what he’d do if the guy tried to cry on his shoulder.
Jack shrugged. “It’s a thing I do. Give fear a name—better yet, a ridiculous name—and you take its power away.”
“And that works?”
Marin laughed. “No. We just got lucky last time that the scary thing wasn’t actually out to get us.”
Shaking his head, Elliot said, “Fine, although Nate seems more normal than ridiculous. Oh, I see what you did there: so normal, extra normal, so normal that it’s kinda funny. Nice. Hey, how do we know that you guys can’t be mind-hammered just like I was?”
Jack lobbed his greasy napkin into the trash bin. “Because I haven’t tried to kill Marin, and Marin hasn’t turned me to ash. If Nate had the ability, I’m betting he would have turned us on each other.”
Elliot cocked his head. “Or he’s waiting for the right time.”
“No way Jack is getting the jump on me.” Marin eyed the last piece of pizza and snagged it when Jack and Elliot both declined.
Kind of her not to comment on Jack’s chances against her in a brawl. No doubt in his mind: he’d end up a smudge on the floor.
“Besides,” Marin said, “we think he’s tried with Jack. When was the first time you got lightheaded, Jack?”
“Walking up the stairs to the hotel room the first time. I almost fell over my own feet, and Nate—decked out in his human skin—was right there.”
Elliot’s nostrils flared. “That’s probably enough with the ‘human skin’ stuff. And that is pretty ballsy for him to attack you when he’s standing just feet away.”
“Not if he thought his disguise was infallible,” Marin said.
“Uh-huh.” Elliot really had a hard time with their aswang parading around in human skin. Once he regained his composure, he asked, “How is it that Jack wasn’t hijacked and I was? Why me and not you?”
Jack knew one big difference between himself and Elliot. Something he shared with Marin, who’d been equally unaffected. He shared a glance with Marin, and they both said, “Joshua.”
“Who’s Joshua?” Elliot asked. “And how is he protecting you from being mind-hijacked?”
“Joshua was a dragon, who…” Jack shrugged. Who what?
Marin swallowed the last bit of her pizza. “Long story short, Jack’s part dragon in a very unobtrusive, not-relevant-to-everyday-life kind of way.”
Jack turned to look at her.
“What? That’s close. Like you could do better.”
Elliot shook his head. “So dragons—sorry, dragons and part-dragons”—he gave Jack a little side-eye—“are immune to mind control.”
“Aswang mind control,” Marin said, then her face twitched in a brief expression of distaste. “And part dragon might be a bit of a stretch.”
“Don’t worry,” Jack said to Marin. “I’m not planning to start claiming you guys as my people.” But he was glad to discover a perk to this whole dragon-soul-absorption thing, or whatever Marin wanted to call it. ’Bout damn time.
“Yeah, so about your people…” Elliot gave Marin one of his puppy-eyed lost looks. “If dragons are immune, can’t you get some other dragons to come and help? I understand that there’s a certain amount of resources extended to find your father, but maybe some other dragons?”
“We don’t all play nicely together, unfortunately. But we could call in reinforcements of another kind. Jack? What do you think?”
“Harrington? I say that’s a terrible idea. We’ve got this.” And since he wasn’t at all sure that they had this, he didn’t know where those words were coming from.
“Are you smoking something?” Marin threw Elliot an apologetic look then turned back to Jack. “Seriously, though—are you delusional? You know I’m not his biggest fan, but this aswang doesn’t even ash under dragon fire. That’s messed up.”
“Okay, true—but what can he really do?” Jack asked.
Elliot tensed. “Murder a bunch of people.”
“I’m sorry, Elliot,” Jack said. “I don’t mean to make light of what’s happened. I simply mean that for a magical creature, we haven’t seen much magic. He’s preyed on humans who have no knowledge of what he is and therefore have no way to prepare or defend themselves. We know he’s likely strong. But Marin’s strong. He’s got some ability to influence human minds—but not Marin and I. What else can he do?”
“We don’t know, Jack. That’s a big part of the problem. Where you assume a limitation to his abilities, I assume ignorance of them.”
“Right.” Jack clasped his hands together and leaned forward. “You’ve just determined our first course of action: recon and research. We have local sources, we have Sally, we have some other contacts. Hell, I can call my coven contact.”
At least, he thought he could. He hadn’t tried their excommunicated fire witch’s phone number in a while. There was a small chance the coven had found and disposed of her. Very small; she was a clever lady.
“And there’s Harry,” Marin said.
“Yes.” Jack snapped his fingers. “Exactly. We have resources. Like I said, recon and research. What do you say, Marin? You up for a little dragon flight around Corozal?”