Chapter 30

By the time Sammi and I arrived at my apartment, I had calmed down enough to use my phone. Leanne picked up on the second ring. “Hey!” she said, cheerily.

“Hey, have you heard from Neil?” I asked, not giving any other preamble.

“Neil? No. Why?”

I glanced at the note in my hand. “I just have a sudden concern that he might show up.”

“Well, I haven’t been anywhere since we dropped you off at your apartment,” she said. “And you know guys aren’t allowed in my dorm.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I remember. Well, if you do hear from him, call me. Okay?”

“I will,” she said and I hung up.

Sammi sat staring at me. “Nothing?”

I shrugged. “She says she hasn’t heard anything from him, but she hasn’t left her dorm since she dropped me off earlier and guys aren’t allowed in her dorm.”

“Then he could be waiting for her,” Sammi said. “Should I go over there and pick her up?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. I think he left me this note to make me do something. Possibly show up personally to check on her. Right now, she’s safe, and I’m good with that.”

“Well, he was stupid to write the note in the first place,” she said, reaching over and taking my hand in hers. “You’re learning how to protect yourself. If he tries anything...”

“If he tries anything,” I said, looking up. “I’m only an obstacle to overcome. Leanne is the prize.”

Sammi looked out and spotted Dalton. “Then ask them how to use your power to find us and protect us from range.”

I suddenly wished Tanner hadn’t already left for home. I had way too much to learn and it felt like I didn’t have any time left to learn it.

Dalton walked up to the SUV and Sammi rolled down her window. “Come on inside. We have things we need to discuss,” the Sheriff said.

I blinked at her and held out the note in my hand. “Did you know about this?”

She stared at me for a second and then took the note. She read it over, made a quick sweep of the immediate area, and said, “Come on. We’ll talk inside.”

Sammi and I followed Dalton to the door. I looked around and realized that every parking spot near my apartment was taken. There were even a couple of cars that I didn’t recognize. As soon as the Sheriff made it through the door, Jordan was on her. “Why the hell did you call us all here?”

Dalton met Jordan’s glare but didn’t flinch. “I felt it was necessary,” she said. She handed Jordan the note and looked at me. “You need everyone to have a clear head.” Then she turned and stalked off toward my bedroom.

Jordan looked at me and then the note. “How...?”

I touched her shoulder and piped magic into her. “I don’t know how, but I have a feeling Dalton does.”

Jordan nodded, the anger in her face and tension in her body seeping away. “What should we do?”

I looked past her at Faith. “I have to decide what to do with her first.”

Faith saw how I was looking at her and started my way. I turned and went straight to the bedroom. I closed it once inside and heard her call my name.

I looked at Dalton. “What’s going on?”

“Tanner told you about the non-Magus factions, right?” she asked.

I nodded. “We talked about the Assembly and he mentioned another group but not their name.”

Dalton nodded. “The Assembly watches us. Historically, they’ve kept their distance, but recently, they’ve approached the Council to talk. I don’t know the details of those talks, but violence is something they’ve never offered.”

“What violence?” I asked.

“Someone has attacked Magi in the area covered by the Lockdown,” she said. “Five have been reported dead. Others have been attacked but survived. It’s just a matter of time before more attacks occur.”

I was lost on the very concept. “Someone killed Magi? Who? Why?”

Dalton sighed. “The Syndicate,” she said. “Only House leaders have any real details about them, and now that you are one, I have to inform you.” She waved at the bed, wanting me to sit down.

We sat down with enough distance between us that I knew this was a serious as it could get.

“The Syndicate is led by a man named Curtis Isenberg. We know a lot about him, but have yet to be able to find him. What we know is that he is not only a former Army Ranger, but he trained most of them, as well as the Navy Seals and Delta Force before he retired from the military. His wife died several years ago, an unfortunate case of over-exposure to one of us.”

“You mean one of us seduced her and was with her too much?” I asked.

Dalton nodded. “We believe Curtis figured out who she was seduced by and tried to kill him only to discover that a well prepared Magus is difficult to kill at best. Curtis hunted the man, learned all he could about him, and eventually blew his car up with him inside.”

My eyes widened. I wanted to ask if that was something he might repeat, but decided to hold all questions until she was finished telling me about him.

“During his hunt,” she said, “Curtis asked questions and used various means of investigation that raised a flag for the Council. We keep an eye out for such things, and the accumulation led to awareness of his activities. For a while, we watched him. He joined others who had lost loved ones to us, whether from overexposure, or those who believe we’ve somehow brainwashed their friends or relatives, like Neil. They formed the Assembly and quickly broke down into the small groups we look for now. We believe that was Curtis’ idea. We also believe he held the lead seat for a while, but his views of what should be done about us quickly lost it for him.”

“What exactly does Curtis believe should happen?” I asked.

“Nothing less than our total extinction,” Dalton said. “And this is based on more than simple revenge. He believes God gave him this purpose in life. I’ve heard his favorite passage from the Bible is Exodus 22:18.”

“Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,” I quoted.

Dalton nodded. “Jordan mentioned you were raised in a Southern Baptist Church. I take it they used the King James Version?”

I nodded. “Practically drilled it into our heads,” I said and then shook off the ghosts of those memories. “So, Curtis is a religious fanatic,” I said.

“Worse,” Dalton said. “He’s patient, meticulous, and smart.”

“Careful, Dalton,” I said. “If anyone heard you just then, they might think you admire the guy.”

She frowned. “If I see him first, I’ll put a bullet between his eyes and then ask him why his God allowed that to happen.”

I shook my head. “I’m the last person to put a question like that to. When I was twelve, a girl in our town went missing for three days. Her parents asked the Preacher how God could allow such a thing to happen. My answer was that God didn’t let things like that happen. He simply put all of this together and we’re running the show now.” I looked up. Daltons’ expression was thoughtful. “That was the last time I was allow to speak during church.”

Dalton didn’t smile. “I believe they attacked today because they recently found out about the Lockdown and what it means for Magi. If I’m right, that means everyone in the area is a target simply because they don’t have Magic to protect themselves with.”

“I do,” I said.

“But you’re not trained to use Magic in that way,” she said. “Even if you’re defending yourself against these brutes, doing so out in the open will end up getting back to the council. You could be stripped of all your power after it’s over with.”

I shook my head. “I’m not worried about the Council right now. First, I’m working to help them, through you, to end the Lockdown, and second, they wouldn’t have access to their power while it’s still up anyway.”

Dalton squirmed on the bed. It was the first time I had ever seen her look uncomfortable. “The Council doesn’t know you’re helping me. I’ve only told them about your alibi and that I’ve continued investigating on my own.”

I frowned. “What about Lawson? Won’t he tell them what’s really going on, just so he can try to usurp your position?”

She took a deep breath and all of her unease vanished. “He’ll tell them, but by the time he can convince anyone to let him take over the investigation, you and I will have already resolved this.”

She struck me as supremely confident, and while I was feeling better about our chances of accomplishing our goal, I wasn’t quite where she was yet. Granted, there was a new reason to end the Lockdown sooner rather than later. “How many Magi are affected by the Lockdown, and, as such, are ripe targets for the Syndicate?”

“Over six hundred,” she said. “But I’m sure once word gets out that they’re being targeted, they’ll leave the area.”

I shook my head. “The Lockdown has to come down soon. It’ll give those in the area a fighting chance. The first thing I need to do though is make sure all of my Fonti are out of danger, and that includes Leanne.”

“She said she had to catch up on her homework,” Dalton said, as if that were the worst excuse in the world.

I chuckled. “If she doesn’t know what’s going on, for the time being, she’ll be safe.”

Dalton shook her head. “You can’t possibly know that, Seth. Her ignorance puts her at greater risk because she doesn’t even see the danger coming.”

I smiled. “The girls in her dorm don’t allow guys in at all. Have you ever seen ants swarm an intruder to their colony?”

She blinked at me. “Those girls aren’t ants, and if Neil is armed and showing off his weapons, they’re even less likely to try to stop him.”

I frowned. “That’s assuming he goes in to get Leanne,” I said. “He’ll want me out of the way first. He’ll wait for me to show up.”

“And when you don’t?” she asked. “What do you think he’ll do?”

“If someone else, say Erica since she’s Leanne’s roommate, takes Leanne somewhere, then he’s likely to follow them, hoping I’ll be at their destination.”

“And if he loses his patience?” she asked.

I thought about that. What would Neil do should he lose his patience? Would he make a grab for Leanne? Maybe. Probably. He might even justify it by believing that I don’t really care for Leanne. I shook my head. “What do I do?”

“We have to know him better than he knows himself,” she said. “That note suggested he had help. He could even be a member of the Assembly.”

I thought about that. “You said the Assembly doesn’t offer violence. Neil isn’t opposed to using violence to get what he wants.” I described the last confrontation I had with him.

“He would want you out of the way to get at Leanne, but that wouldn’t leave her safe,” she said. “He sounds like an abuser. Someone who’d beat her up and blame her for it, saying she made him do it. That makes him more dangerous to Leanne than you. He might kill her just so you can’t have her anymore.”

I stood up. “Then we have to get her out of there.”

Dalton grabbed my arm and yanked me back down on the bed. “Sit, and calm down,” she said. “You can’t go charging off without a plan. You said she’s in the dorm. Even if he storms the dorm, it’s reasonable that Leanne will hear the commotion and call. However, if he is a member of the Syndicate, they’ll have convinced him that he has to eliminate you. You are the real threat in their eyes and if he’s been working with them since you last saw him, then he’ll focus on you for now.”

I nodded and took a couple of deep breaths. “Then he meant for me to be a sixth victim.”

She nodded. “That is very likely. This would explain how he knew where all your Fonti were in the note. It doesn’t explain why you got a note when so many others were killed outright. Tactically speaking, that makes no sense. You were out in the open, unprotected. Now, you’ve been warned and have the opportunity to defend yourself.”

I shook my head. “He’s always been rash, reckless.” I looked at Dalton. “You said the Syndicate is run by a former Army Ranger. That guy would want to know everything about his target before he struck. If they didn’t know about me until Neil joined them, then they wouldn’t necessarily target me. Curtis would target the Magi he knows inside and out. Those were the first ones on the list, they were the ones attacked today.”

Dalton thought about that. “If you weren’t targeted by Curtis, then Neil left the note on his own.”

I nodded. “Neil still has the resources to watch me and the others, but not the experience to do the job right.” I looked at her. “You have to get them to safety.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Me? I’m staying here to fight these assholes.”

“You’ll be as much a target as any other Magus,” I said. “Neil mentioned you in the note. Even with your training in firearms and police tactics, you’re no match for Army Ranger training.”

“And when did you train with the Army Rangers?” she asked. “You lack experience with Magic and don’t have any personal combat training, which means you’re even less qualified to fight the Syndicate.”

I recalled my encounters with Heisler and Yeager. “I can improvise just fine.”

Dalton’s expression turned hard. “Have you ever had to face down a gun? Shield yourself or someone else from a bullet, much less a storm of bullets?”

I didn’t like it and gritted my teeth. “No,” I said. “But if someone comes around with intentions of that kind of violence...”

All at once, Dalton kicked me off the bed.

I didn’t know what was going on and rolled over to see the rest of the room.

Dalton was standing over me with her weapon drawn and pointed at my face. “Tell me, could you concentrate enough now to stop me with Magic?”

I hated admitting it, but she had me. I shook my head.

She put her weapon away and helped me up. “Curtis wouldn’t even ask a question of you, he would have knocked you down and shot you. You cannot assume you’ll have a chance to think of a spell. You have to learn how to use Magic on an instinctive level when it comes to a situation like that.”

I frowned. “The Council frowns on using Magic publicly, but you’ve just demonstrated that I might need to anyway.” I shook my head. “I’m stuck between the horns of a dilemma.”

“I don’t have an answer for you,” she said. “All I know right now is that you’re not ready for this.”

“I may not be ready for the Syndicate,” I said. “But I can deal with Neil. I have to get Leanne out of there.”

“And do what exactly?” Dalton asked. “If you’re right, he’s waiting for you to show up. He’ll be prepared to shoot you, even if out in the open.”

“And he expects me to not have access to my Magic,” I said. “Wouldn’t it shock the hell out of him if none of bullets touched me?”

Dalton shook her head. “You can’t do that,” she said. “Even my equipment isn’t modified to be that beneficial.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“The vests I have in the Suburban are enhanced, but they draw bullets to them,” she said. “If you’ll be hit at all, the bullet veers to the vest. It’ll still knock you on your ass, maybe even break a rib, but you won’t be hurt beyond that.”

I shook my head. “I can’t take the chance that he’ll hit me in the vest with a couple of rounds and then walk up and put one through my head,” I said. “Because I doubt your vests would protect from that close a range.”

She nodded. “You’re right about that, but you can’t use a shield openly to deflect bullets. You’ll be on a college campus. Who knows how many kids will be watching and recording with their phones?”

I hated to admit it, but she was right. “Then I can’t confront him directly,” I said. “What if the police were alerted to his location and warned that he’s armed and dangerous?”

She shrugged. “That might work. With the shootings that have already taken place, they’ll be apt to arrest first and ask questions later. The only problem is, we don’t know where he is exactly.”

“He’s using Leanne to bait me,” I said, thinking. “What if I show up to bait him?”

Dalton frowned. “What do you mean?”

“We call the police, and inform them there’s been a threat on campus,” I said. “I put on one of your vests, go to the girls’ dorm, and wait for Neil to show up. When he comes out with a gun pointed at me, the police can swarm him.”

She shook her head. “There are too many things that could go wrong,” she said. “I doubt the police would go for it. Besides, they would have to already be in place, surrounding the dorm, when you show up. If Neil sees them and figures out what’s going on, he could slip away without anyone knowing.”

“Then we lead Neil to a location already set up by the police,” I said. “We notify the police about another shooter, and let them get set up somewhere. I go there to wait. Then we send someone else, maybe even you to pick up Leanne. Neil follows you to the location and sees me. He pulls a gun and the police arrest him.”

“You do realize how crazy that sounds, right?” she asked.

“Do you have a better idea?” I asked.

“Yeah, call the police on his ass and let them handle him,” she said.

I shook my head. “He could get away,” I said, ready to argue more.

“Yeah, he could,” she said, “But in your plan, he gives up without a fight? If the Syndicate have had their claws in him for the last few weeks, he’s going to shoot you and then the police are going to shoot him. Is that what you want?”

I shook my head. “No. I don’t want him dead. I want him to leave us alone.”

“The best way to ensure that is to know he’s in a place where he can’t get to you. I’ll call the police and let them handle him,” she said. “If he sees you or Leanne, he might get trigger-happy.”

“We still don’t know where he is,” I said. “The police aren’t going to check every car in the parking lot for one potential shooter.”

Dalton already dialed the number and gave me a look that said she would.

I paced at the foot of the bed while she talked. She used her badge ID to help get through to someone who would listen. After they talked for a minute, she asked me for a description of Neil and I told her. The police asked her a few more probing questions and she told them all about the note and what we knew about Neil. She mentioned the earlier shootings and described a group of scorned lovers who had banded together to get even with those who had done them wrong, a group Neil would have been drawn to. It was a stroke of genius in my book because that apparently got the guy on the other end of the line all the more anxious to find Neil.

A minute later she was off the phone. “Detective Woodruff is going to lead a group of officers out to the dorm. Whether they find Neil or not, he’ll call me. He’s also going to need to talk to us and see the note.”

“Then we don’t have a lot of time,” I said.

“There’s one other person I have to call before we do anything else,” she said, already dialing.

I glanced at her phone, which she held out. Tanner’s name and face were on it.

Dalton’s phone was on speaker. We heard Tanner pick up. “Hey, compadre!” he said and though we heard him fine, we could also hear the roar of his motorcycle.

“Tanner, have you been listening to the radio?” Dalton asked.

“I heard about some shootings not too long ago,” he said.

“BAD people are doing BAD things to us, Tanner,” she said.

“You can’t be serious,” he said. “They’ve never hit more ‘n one before.”

“I believe they know about the Big Problem up here,” I said. “It’s making them bold.”

“Hey, kid. Glad to know you weren’t one of em,” he said.

“Well, I might be before this is over,” I said. “I got a note from an old schoolmate who didn’t like me much when he disappeared. Now he’s back, and seems to know all about me and my girls.”

“And he mentioned you and me in that note, Tanner,” Dalton finished.

“Damn,” Tanner said. “Well, that explains the two SUVs that’ve been tailing me since I left.”

“Where are you?” I asked.

“Don’t get yourself all twisted up over me, kid,” he said. “I’m well away from the Big Problem.”

I sighed relief. “Good. Just keep them at a distance and be safe.”

“I hear ya,” He said. “You two do the same. And Stephanie?”

Dalton’s eyes flicked up at me. “Yeah.”

“The kid’s smart and picks up on our work quick. Teach him everything you can think of, even if you can’t get to the warehouse to show him.”

“I will,” she said. “We’ll call you again tomorrow.”

“I’ll be waitin’,” he said. “Vaya con dios.”

Dalton hung up and pointed at me. “You don’t ever call me Stephanie.”

I nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Now, before we discuss anything with your girls,” she said, “we have to figure out what to do about your sister.”

I shook my head. “I’ve been thinking about that since she arrived.”

“She’s your sister,” she said. “You’re sure she’s not a Magus?”

“It’s not like she’s going to let me inspect her in the nude to find out,” I said. “But we didn’t have the same parents. We talked. It turns out that Faith, her sister Alyssa, and I were all born before our parents met and married. My Dad married their Mom. I was so young that I didn’t know any difference, but Faith and Alyssa were five and seven years old at the time. They remember. Nobody thought to tell me until Faith showed up.”

Dalton nodded. “Then she’s not one of us, and since she’s not one of your Fonti, she’s not allowed to know.”

“That’s what I don’t get,” I said. “The Council struggles to keep all of us and our world a secret from everyone else, yet there are groups like the Assembly and the Syndicate who know about us. What would it hurt to tell one more person?”

“It’s the principle of the thing,” she said.

“Is it also the principle of the Law to allow an innocent woman to be murdered for being something she’s not?” I asked.

“What are you talking about?”

“If the Syndicate finds out Faith is my sister, they might assume she’s a Magus and shoot her,” I said. “I seriously doubt it would bother them at all at this point. Besides, it’s not like they’ve got some kind of Magus-detecting goggles or anything. They don’t have any way to test her to see if she’s Magus or Mundane.”

Dalton held up her hands defensively because I was getting a little aggressive. “Okay, you have a good point. The Council might not be happy about it though.”

I met her eyes pointedly. “If they find out.”

She caught on to what I was saying and opened her mouth to retort but didn’t say anything.

I didn’t say anything either, because that would be pushing and I had done enough of that already.

Out in the living room, everyone was gathered around the TV. The furniture suite Jana bought me offered plenty of room normally, but today it wasn’t enough. Cassandra and Vanessa shared the loveseat to the left of the TV. Linda sat in the matching chair on the right. Jordan, Faith and Milena all shared the couch. Katrina and Sammi had grabbed stools from the kitchenette to sit on between the couch and chair, and Emma stood, leaning against the wall connecting to the bedroom. She turned and looked my way when I came out but didn’t say anything.