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I came out of the vision to Lucy crying and Jacob’s hands on top of ours. I broke the bond and touched her thigh. “What’s going on? Are you okay? Did I hurt you?”
Lucy shook her head. “No, I just... reliving that was painful. I should’ve been able to save her. I should’ve fought better, harder, and maybe she’d still be here.”
I hugged her gently. “Lucy, you were amazing. We’ll find Sera. We’ll find Esther. It’ll be okay.”
She pulled back. “I hope you’re right.”
“If they wanted her dead, why take her? Why not just kill her there? No, they want her for something nefarious. We need to find her before they go through with it, but before we do that, I need to check you... us... for bugs.”
Lucy’s eyes widened. “Excuse me?”
Jacob sat down on the coffee table. “What did you see?”
“Did you notice how quiet it was at Sera’s house?”
He nodded. “Yeah, like standing in a vacuum.”
“I couldn’t figure out how they did it, what kind of spell they used, but in the memory, I saw something I’ve never seen before.” I told them about the tiny bug spells masking the intruders.
“That’s incredible,” Lucy whispered. “How intricate it’s got to be, and how much power must the caster have not only to create them, but to sustain them for an unknown amount of time until people showed up.” She shuddered. “It’s kinda creepy, too, if you think about it. Means someone was waiting for us, and maybe those things signaled the thugs to show up.”
I cocked my head. “It would make sense, but we really need to make sure we didn’t bring any home with us. Jacob?”
He stood up and motioned us into the space behind the couch, then grabbed his bag and pulled out a wand. Not his altar wand, but what he called his ‘work wand’—plain, whereas the other was ornate. It was smooth from use and solid as the oak tree from which it was salvaged.
A big part of magick was intent—no need for anything big or spectacular, though you were more than welcome to do so. Words just tended to focus that intent, that force of will. Heck, he didn’t even need the wand. It was just another focal point, a tool to mold his magick to fill a need.
“O’ Athena, Goddess of Wisdom and Insight, if it is Your will, please guide my wand as we seek out the spells cast against us. So mote it be!” He waved it in a large arc above our heads, and the tiniest shimmer of his magick fell down until we were covered head to toe in golden glitter. “Show me!”
A soft yellow glow emanated from our skin and lifted us off the ground several inches. Jacob moved his wand in a slow circle, and we twirled right along. “Hair up, please, ladies.” He stepped closer to Lucy. “If there was something, it would be pulsing red against the gold, but I see nothing, Luce.”
The glow around her dissipated, and she sank to the floor. “What about that?” she said, pointing at my head.
Jacob followed her finger and nodded. “Yeah, just like that.”
“Wait, just like what?” I palmed my face. “Did I get it?”
He gave me an amused smile. “Hold still, babe.”
He winked, and as he gently traced the curve of my neck with his wand, my mind filled with a whole different kind of magick.
Nice that he was enjoying this, as evidenced by his smile.
Something scurried away from his path on multiple tiny feet, dissolving my amorous feelings. He pressed the wand with greater pressure, and something popped just behind my left ear. All my glitter disappeared, and my feet touched the ground.
He pulled away the wand, the tip covered in blue, electrified goo.
I wrinkled my nose. “Ew.”
“Indeed.” He started toward the back door.
“Zoë, something’s wrong,” Lucy said from behind me.
“Huh?” I turned.
She’d gone all wide-eyed, pointing at the floor.
I followed her finger. On the hardwood slats, two faint, blue lines led from a blob of goo in front of me to Jacob’s wand. They pulsed with a silvery-white light. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. “Jacob!”
He turned around, two steps from the kitchen threshold, wand still aloft and the color drained from his face at the sight of the lines. “Zoë, run! Get out of the house right now.”
My chest tightened, as tears burned hot in my eyes. “I’m not leaving you. We can turn it off or defuse it or something.”
He examined the magick and shook his head. “No, we can’t. There’s no way. It’s too complicated, too many layers. We don’t have time to unravel it all.”
I reached out for him with one hand, the other brushing tears away. “Jacob, please, just put the wand down and run out the back door.”
“Get out of the house, Zoë. Lucy, get her out of here!”
Lucy grabbed my arm, but I shook her off. “No, goddamit, I’m not leaving you!”
The pulse grew faster, and my brain spun with possibilities.
“Zoë, please!” he begged. “This doesn’t have to kill us all. Save yourself.”
“Not happening,” I said. “Go, Lucy.”
“Zoë, no.” I could hear the anguish in her voice.
I looked at her, and the tears started to fall. “I can save him. I know I can, but I can’t do it if you stay. I need you to get out. I need you to tell my neighbors to get out. I don’t know how big this is. If I can’t do this, I want to avoid collateral damage.” I grabbed her hand. “Please, Lucy, I can’t leave him. I won’t. If I don’t at least try....”
She wiped her own tears away and hugged me. “Be careful. Please come out of this alive.”
I forced a small smile. “I’ll do my best. Now go.”
She nodded, grabbed her purse, and sprinted out of the house with her cell phone to her ear.
One thing down.
I moved a foot, and the lines moved with me. So much for leaving. I knelt down and touched them with my fingers, and sensed a definite electric thrum in tandem with the pulse. “How much time do you think we have?”
“Stubborn woman,” he growled. “Save yourself. If I dared to move, I’d throw your ass out of the house.”
“You heard me tell Luce that I wasn’t leaving you. I’m not fucking kidding about that. We’re going to walk out of this house together, do you hear me? So I need you to answer my damn question.”
“Zoë.” His soft tone evoked memories of quiet moments in bed. “Look at me.”
I shook my head, eyes locked on the nastiness between us. “I can’t.” My voice broke, and I swallowed hard. “I need to do this. I know I can do this, but if I look at you right now, I’m going to fall apart.”
He didn’t respond.
I poured a little magick onto the lines. They absorbed it as if it were nothing, but I could feel it push through the length, and I saw that Jacob was right—the size was deceptive. There were at least three layers to the spell, and with a mind-blowing intricacy.
I bit back a cry. We were going to die.
“Ten minutes.”
“Huh?” I looked up without thinking, and his blue eyes caught me. My chin quivered, and I brushed away more tears. “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.”
Jacob smiled. “We have ten minutes, and I’m being generous. You saw it, the complexity?”
Yes, let’s talk about the problem and not the inevitability of our deaths. I nodded. “Yeah, it’s nasty, but I think....” I passed a hand over it, and the layers spread out like a six-lane highway. “It’s kind of like those action movie bomb sequences. We just have to figure out which wire to cut.”
Jacob studied it for a minute, but in that silence I considered the spell. Maybe it was the tragic circumstances, but I realized then that I loved him—really loved him—and the idea of a life without him broke my heart into tiny little shards that made it hurt to breathe.
“I choose you,” I whispered, wishing for all the world that I could touch him one last time.
He looked up from the lines, and with tears in his eyes, replied, “I know.”
