Chapter 37

“How can you possibly know where the power is being stored?” Ella asked.

“The missing women are acting as batteries for the power,” I said. I looked at Greta. “We had to know where Valory would be when I ended the Lockdown, well, the location is one and the same. I use the spell to track down Jordan, and we’ll not only know where Valory will show up, but I’ll be able to shut down the spell there.”

Chloe frowned at me. “Are you sure the spell will recognize you as the caster?”

I looked at her. “In the memories I shared with you, Valory used a lock of our mother’s hair to identify the caster. Only the direct blood descendants would be recognized. Valory didn’t know that I was alive at the time. Our mother had faked my death when I was an infant and sent me to live with another family.”

“Why did she do that?” Ella asked.

I shook my head. “I don’t know, but if we can capture Valory and we can remove the geas she’s under, then she might be able to help me figure that out.”

Greta shook her head. “How do you know she’s under a geas?”

“Every time I talked to her and the subject of our mother’s death came up she would start to say ‘he’ was responsible, but then she would stop herself, get angry and say ‘the council’ was responsible. The only explanation is that a geas is using her anger over our mother’s death to keep her from seeing the truth.”

She nodded. “Those are the normal symptoms, but whoever did that to her had to have exceptional skills.”

I nodded. “Which has me worried,” I said. “But that’s a problem for later. Right now, we need to get to the missing women and spring our trap to capture Valory.”

Michael came down the aisle. “Everything is ready to go when you three are.”

I nodded and closed my eyes. For the first time, as I thought about Jordan, I not only felt what she felt, but I had a general idea of which way she was. I pointed. “Jordan is that way.” I opened my eyes and was pointing almost directly east.

Ella turned and looked at the model. “Couldn’t you point out where she is on this?”

I stood up and moved over to it too. “Where’s that cluster of warehouses I had marked under the table?”

She pointed them out. Compared to our location at UTA, the warehouses were almost dead east of us.

“I think that’s the same location,” I said.

“Each of those warehouses are more than big enough to hold all of the missing women,” Michael said. “We’ll go over there and narrow down which warehouse they’re in once we arrive.”

Everyone nodded and we left the hall. We turned the lights off, closed and locked all the doors, and generally tried to leave no trace that we were ever there.

Michael, Chloe and I climbed into the front SUV, while Greta and Ella followed in the other one.

We pulled out onto West Nedderman and went north. A quick jump onto UTA Boulevard took us over to South Cooper and we continued north.

Traffic was relatively light for a Wednesday night and I had a feeling that things were going a little too easy for us. As we approached the intersection with East Division, I felt more than saw another SUV barreling at us and threw up a shield to take the brunt of the impact just in time.

Our SUV was thrown into a short spin and ended up pinned against a light pole.

I looked around at Michael and Chloe. All of us were shaken, but conscious.

Michael looked at me. “Good shield.”

“It’s not over yet,” Chloe said. She was looking out of her passenger window. “It looks like more Syndicate members, and one of them has a rocket launcher.”

I couldn’t see much. The front windshield was shattered. I looked at Michael. “And what do the laws of secrecy say about this situation?”

He never answered me directly. He climbed out and immediately held up his hands to fend off gunfire.

I crawled over to his side and put one of my own shields up in front of his. “I’ve got you covered.”

Michael pulled back a huge fist as if he were going to smash them all with it. Then he flicked his whole arm as if flicking a whip at them and the SUV behind our attackers exploded. All of the men near it were thrown at least ten feet, if not more.

More gunfire reported from another direction, only we weren’t the targets. Michael turned and looked back the way we had come from. Greta and Ella were pinned in their SUV on both sides. Two more large trucks had t-boned them from different angles.

The radio in our SUV scrambled to life. I thought it was an odd moment for the electronics to come on like that, but then AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” came blasting out of the speakers. I caught a quick grin on Michael’s face, and then he strode off toward the tangle of trucks and gunfire.

I looked at Chloe. “He isn’t...”

She only shrugged. “Try to get the truck running. I’ll go make sure our attackers are down for the time being.”

I nodded and turned to sit proper in the driver’s seat. I turned the key in the ignition and nothing happened. I looked over to see Chloe moving among the men on the ground. If any of them moved, she quickly waved at them, which made their heads crack on the pavement.

I pumped the gas and hit the ignition again. Nothing. It wasn’t trying to turn over. It was like the battery was dead. I found the hood release and pulled it, then I hopped out and quickly moved to the front of the truck.

More gunfire reported and ricochets hit the ground around my feet.

I dance away, around the SUV, and ducked next to the front tire.

Bullets tore up the front grill of the truck, but nothing got to me.

After catching my breath, I threw up my hamster ball shield and walked out to see who was shooting at me.

A single man stood with his rifle held at the hip and pointed my way. “Do you know who I am?” He yelled.

I was baffled as to how this man had gotten past Chloe. Then I spotted her lying on the ground behind him. Somehow he had knocked her out, or worse. I didn’t see any blood, so I had some hope.

I focused on the man again and his question.

If I was honest, he looked familiar. I recognized him from two sources. He was the guy who had been following me on campus on Monday, and he was the man Colonel Isenberg talked to while Gary the Sniper waited. I didn’t know his name, but I had put enough information together to know he was Neil’s brother. “I recognize you,” I said.

“You killed my brother,” he said. “I will have your head before the night is out.” Then he raised his rifle and took careful aim.

Something told me that I was in for a shock and I remembered the Colonel talking about special rifle rounds that could bypass our defenses. Lawson had been killed by such an enchanted bullet. At the last second, I dove to my right, while reaching out and pushing his rifle to my left.

The rifle went off. The bullet grazed my shoulder. It passed clean through my shields as if they weren’t there.

He brought the rifle around to aim at me again.

I wasn’t going to die tonight. I wasn’t going to let this man take unjustified vengeance on me. I reached out and hit the safety on the rifle. Then I hit the magazine release next to that. It left him one in the chamber.