Chapter 18

“That was the only chance you had to kill me.”

Those words rang in my head like some demented lyrics to a bad song. The words mocked me and made me doubt the possibility of getting justice for my family. Worse, my mom was right. I couldn’t concoct a plan to murder Walker, not deliberately. If we were fighting and he died by accident or I only believed killing him would save me, then it wouldn’t bother me in the least. However, the very idea of ending his life on a fully reasonable and conscious level simply did not sit well with me. I couldn’t bring myself to do it – and that pissed me off.

While I stood by, stewing in my anger, Walker extracted himself from the pile of stone. Of course, I watched, wishing he would fall or twist his ankle – something that would resemble Karmic retribution – but no, he came through just fine.

He stood up straight and dusted himself off. He looked around at the pile of rubble and everyone’s relation to it. Then he grinned at me. “You tried to kill me, didn’t you.” It was more of a statement than a question.

Mom looked up and shook her head. “He didn’t know.”

I didn’t say anything. After all, why would he believe anything I said, even if I agreed with my mom?

“None of us knew,” Jade said. “We thought that thing had killed or incapacitated you, and it would do the same to us. Seth just happened to come up with a better plan than we did.”

Walker turned and stared at her for a minute. It was like he was reprimanding her without saying a thing. I didn’t care for it. Then he looked at me again and nodded at the dagger. “Seth’s the only one with a weapon,” he said and raised his arm to show us that both his shirt and his side were cut. The cut in his side wasn’t deep. It wasn’t even bleeding. It looked painful but not life-threatening. He looked up at us and said, “Am I supposed to believe he didn’t do this?”

“As everyone has said,” I said before anyone else spoke, “None of us knew you were inside.” Then I threw a grin at Jade. “But if it makes you feel better, Walker, you can blame me. I mean, who else among us wants you dead?” Then I gripped the handle of the dagger as if ready to pull it from the sheath.

Walker glanced at the dagger and his sneer cleared up. He glanced at Jade and Ruby. “Didn’t I tell you to keep him from using Magic?”

“Did you enjoy being a stone chimera?” I asked in response.

He looked at me again “What does that have to do...”

I interrupted with, “Because, you would still be in the beast form and we would all likely be dead if they had done what you told them to do.”

Walker sneered at me. For a moment I thought he might want to argue more, but he said, “Put that away before you do something stupid.”

I shook my head, took my hand from the dagger’s handle – still holding it by the sheath – and climbed past the rocks to get to the opened rooms. Nobody said anything, and I was happy with the relative silence.

Rho stood in one of the opened rooms to my right. I looked around at all of them, pretending to discern in which room the dagger likely belonged. I went to the one with Rho. It had nothing but knives and daggers.

I looked around and found an empty display stand and placed the dagger on it. A glance told me I was alone. “Is there anything here that will incapacitate rather than kill?”

Rho looked around the room and shook her head. “Not here. Most of these weapons are instant-kill or for some domestic chore.”

“Are there any weapons that are meant to incapacitate?” I asked quietly.

“I gave you a stun spell that should work,” she said.

I nodded. “I want Walker to see this coming.”

“Well,” she said in thought, “there is a revolver with rubber bullets. While rubber bullets are meant to sting and thus scare away anyone hit with them, this gun is a sort of predecessor to modern Taser weapons.”

“Where is it?” I asked.

She pointed. “Back in the hallway where everyone else is located.”

“What would it take to modify something to knock the others out with it?”

“Not too much effort,” she said. “That was something your relatives were fairly efficient at doing to collect some of the more dangerous weapons assembled here.”

“What about a knife balanced for throwing?”

“This set of knives is designed for that, along with accuracy in mind.”

I nodded. “Good. What would I need to do to modify it to knock out my targets?”

She held up her hand, wanting me to take it. “I can share that with you.”

I nodded and took her hand.

Uncle Randall stood at the corner of a house. He heard several pops from what sounded like a small caliber pistol. He went to the backyard, where the sounds came from, and stopped at the corner to see the yard before anyone spotted him. Four men were standing at the end of the back porch, looking out at the backyard where they had set up a target at which they had been shooting. One of the men was currently reloading the gun.

Randall pulled out a set of his throwing knives and focused on his intent: not to kill, but to incapacitate the target. He cast the spell and threw the first knife at the man with the gun. He threw the other three knives in quick succession, taking down all of the men before any of them could counter with spells or other weapons.

Randall then walked up to the group on the ground. He picked up each knife and the handgun. He examined the gun and determined it was not enhanced to kill automatically. He thought that was odd. Instead, the weapon was enhanced for accuracy. Then he looked at the bullets. They weren’t enhanced at all, but they were .45 caliber bullets. More than heavy enough to kill. An accurate handgun would be far more deadly than a gun enhanced to kill automatically if the bullet hit at all.