Spirited Legacy (Lost Library) (27 page)

“So you’re really okay with me being here?”

“Not even a little. I’m just not angry about it.” He tipped her head so her cheek rested against his shoulder. “You gonna pass out now?”

“What?” Her voice rose slightly in aggravation.

“Get your pulse up a little, wear you out slightly, and that’s your go-to response since you over-extended your magic.” His voice was light and teasing, but she could hear the underlying concern.

“Harry says I’m completely fine. Different people recharge, recover, whatever you call it, at different rates.” She grimaced. “I’m sick of feeling like a used-up battery. But he’s not worried at all. And you know Harry’s a badass in his field, right?”

“So I hear. Harrington was pissed when he refused to come with us. He claimed the kid’s ethics were fucked up—my words, not his—and started blaming his mother.”

“Hmm. Mom must be the healer. Although I’m surprised Harrington was so forthcoming.”

“It was a brief moment in time.” John pinched the bridge of his nose. “Now Mom’s a hippie healer.”

“Sorry. I don’t follow.”

John stopped massaging his temple and said, “Their argument. I can’t quite tune them out.” He sighed. “This is not one of the perks of improved senses. I have no desire to be involved in, or have any knowledge of, their private family disagreements.”

John looked frustrated. Lizzie got it. The house was small, and he really
couldn’t
tune them out if they were yelling at one another. She could even hear some of the noise of their voices occasionally, though no distinct words.

“Maybe I should go knock on the door?” Lizzie wondered aloud.

“Bad idea. Besides, I think Pilar might beat you to it.”

Sure enough, the voices stopped.

Pilar walked into the kitchen a few seconds later. “Meeting in five here in the kitchen.” She turned to Lizzie, who was rapidly climbing off John’s lap, and said, “I’m glad to see you up and around. And the color is back in your face.”

No wonder, since she was blushing an unattractive crimson color. At least from the heat in her ears, that’s what she guessed. Lizzie smiled. “I’m feeling quite a bit better.”

Harry breezed in next, no trace left on his expression of the argument raging between him and his uncle only minutes earlier. After briefly greeting John and Pilar, he took a seat on one of the kitchen chairs, legs casually sprawled out in front of him. With his tousled, carroty hair, Marvel T-shirts, and almost perpetually upbeat demeanor, he was a likable character. And he set people at ease. It saddened Lizzie that those feelings didn’t extend to his own family.

When Harrington appeared, everyone turned as one in his direction. “Lizzie, I understand you’re not yet back to your full capabilities.”

“That’s correct.” She decided now wasn’t the time to elaborate. She was just glad Harrington wasn’t trying to lock her up.

“John, you’re ready to relieve Max in a half hour?”

“I am.” John affirmed.

“Pilar, you’re heading in to town for some supplies?”

“Yes. I thought I’d bring Harry with me, since Max might need to rest, and John will be on watch.” Pilar looked between the two men, waiting for one of them to agree with her plan.

“Good idea.” Turning to Lizzie, Harrington explained, “We’re keeping an eye on Worth’s house, waiting for an opportunity to enter and search the premises when he’s gone.”

Lizzie’s brow furrowed. She had been on the inside, had been one of the kidnap victims, when John had led a team to rescue her and Pilar from the Prague house and Worth’s control. While she’d not been privy to the team’s efforts at the time, she had read the reports afterwards. She was certain that when Sarah, the team’s warding expert, had moved them through the several layers of security wards Worth had created, at least one had alerted Worth to their presence.

“Won’t he still know that you’re here? Even if he leaves? Or is there a critical distance, a point where he can’t sense interference with his wards any longer?” Lizzie had visions of Worth returning in the midst of their search. She couldn’t articulate how bad that would be.

Her skin started to crawl, her breath came a little shorter, and she felt a hot flush of panic wash through her. When would that man cease to have a hold on her? She took a breath, and she reminded herself—it may feel like her kidnapping was a lifetime ago, but it wasn’t. In practical terms, it had just happened. Her reactions were reasonable, just not very convenient.

For a moment—a very brief moment—she was frightened enough that she considered removing herself from the team. Assuming she was even on the team.
What the hell.
She mentally berated herself. She needed to be in the right place mentally, or Harrington would never include her. He’d ship her butt back to Prague in a heartbeat if he thought he could. She was here because she could help. And Sarah deserved it. And she needed to conquer her fears where Worth was concerned. And she wanted to be there for John. And, dammit, it was just the right thing to do.

Okay. She was good. Well, she could breathe. Good was probably a few months away. Or perhaps it was just seeing Worth locked up that she needed. Maybe that would make her feel safe again.

Harrington responded to her question. “The purpose of this mission isn’t directly related to catching Worth. I’m willing to risk exposing our knowledge of this and his other remaining residences to accomplish our goal. That said, my hope is to enter undetected.”

Lizzie raised her hand. If she didn’t know better, she’d have thought that was an eye roll from Harrington.

“Yes?” he asked politely. Must have been her imagination.

“What exactly is our purpose? I missed that meeting.” Maybe it wasn’t her wisest move to mention her exclusion, given the fact that she wasn’t sure why Harrington hadn’t shipped her right back as soon as she arrived in Freiberg.

“To search for any evidence of Worth’s Vampyr technique—how he manipulates someone else’s magic and how he can utilize or absorb it. In the short term, the information could aid in finding a cure for Sarah. Longer term, we need the information to curb what could be the next rise of Vampyr.” Harrington’s voice had turned quieter as he spoke. And he looked grim.

She hadn’t considered the broader implications. But of course Harrington had; that was his job. And if she had to guess, so had John. She was new to evil masterminds, world domination, political power plays, and magical factions. If she had her druthers, she’d stay that way. Well, not new—but completely uninvolved.

She sighed quietly. As unconvinced as she might be that the bigger picture held any relevance to her life, she did know that the people sitting at the kitchen table in this room today were becoming more important to her with each passing day. Not just John, all of them. Which made this whole mess relevant to her life.

“On the positive side, I seriously doubt Worth would ever willingly share his Vampyr knowledge. So a resurgence of the old movement isn’t very likely, right?” Lizzie figured a little optimism wouldn’t be a horrible thing. Because right now, their mission seemed like a risky endeavor with massive consequences and very little chance of success. In summary, no bueno.

Pilar leaned forward, elbows resting on the table. “Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. This is a secret too great to be kept. If Worth isn’t the engineer behind the improved process, then who was? How did Worth discover it? Has anyone else discovered the source of Worth’s knowledge? And assuming a best case scenario—that no one else has the information, that Worth alone is in possession of the key to Vampyric feeding—how long can he keep the information secure? With this much power, infinite questions arise.”

Lizzie rested her head on her arms and closed her eyes. This situation sucked. She felt John’s warm fingers rub the exposed base of her neck. Were these the types of situations that John dealt with as the Alpha of the Texas Pack? Was this what she had to look forward to if she finally accepted the position he’d so casually bestowed upon her? Could she feel more overwhelmed?
Argh.

She was an adult. Adults had responsibilities. So hers involved saving the world (sort of) and her friends (definitely), and maybe meant she had to risk her life (probably) to keep other people safe (damn straight!). But that was okay, because she had badass magical powers—she hoped—and an incredible side-kick-hero boyfriend.

And she
really
needed to make some changes in her life, because eventually she wouldn’t be able to pep talk herself out of some terrible situation.

Harrington said, “If you’re feeling like the situation is too dangerous—”

Lizzie lifted her head up, looked him square in the eye, and said, “I didn’t break out of IPPC holding so you could send me back. Realizing we’re in a difficult situation is hardly an admission of defeat.” She needed to stop worrying about Harrington shipping her off. She wouldn’t let him—and she’d found her sass. She might lose it occasionally, but Harrington didn’t need to know that. “What’s the plan? And how are you going to prevent Worth from detecting us as we breech his wards?”

Chapter 30

A
country compound, surrounded by a combination of stone walls and wrought iron fencing, security guards—some Lycan, based upon scents John was picking up—and wards zinging around the entire place like invisible laser beams waiting to melt intruders. No problem.

The plan had been relatively simple. Keep a man on Worth’s house round the clock. When he left—they could only hope he would—have Harry do his magical headcount. Turned out, that was what at least part of the argument between the two men had been about. Healers had strict ethical guidelines that they followed. And Harry, though unconventional and creative, was turning out to be very ethical. Scanning a person without their knowledge was considered a violation of healer ethics. Harrington reasoned that the good of the entire magical community was at risk, and surely
that
weighed more heavily than some hired goons’ privacy rights. Harry wasn’t so sure. He had a problem with the lack of immediacy of the threat.

But without Harry’s aid, John, Max, Harrington, Lizzie, and Pilar would go in almost blind. Their knowledge of the occupants would be limited to the men who had come and gone while the house was under surveillance. And there would be no specific location known for those guards within the compound.

Frank, the healer who had participated in Lizzie’s rescue, had agreed to help in the instance of Lizzie’s kidnapping only because there were two known hostages—Pilar and Lizzie—inside the house. He’d weighed the various factors, and the safety of the hostages had weighed heavier than the rights of the scumbag kidnappers. John’s words, not Frank’s. That was a very different situation than the one Harry was facing today.

Lizzie wasn’t sure what Harrington had finally said to convince Harry, but he had finally acquiesced. And it was a good thing, because it hadn’t been long after that Max had contacted them to say Worth had left the house. Dusk was falling when Harrington got Max’s call.

The next part of the plan was even simpler. Harrington was the king of wards, or so he claimed. Perhaps not in those words, but stress was making Lizzie mentally glib. Harrington claimed with ninety percent certainty that he could dismantle Worth’s wards without alerting him, so long as Worth was more than a mile or two away. And Worth was actually the caster who created the wards. Where he got the math on that, Lizzie didn’t even want to know. What she did know was that if he pulled this off, there was no way she’d ever let him wiggle out of mentoring her. She wanted some kick-butt warding skills. With her current life choices and the direction things were headed, they’d come in handy.

“Wow, pretty,” Lizzie uttered, before she could stop herself. Her eyes popped at the sprinkling of tiny pink and purple lights that showered down around them. Lizzie would have to ask Harrington why she could see the diffusing ward but the guards couldn’t. She was sure that was the case. Harrington would never be so careless.
Oh.
Lizzie wanted to do a jig. If she could see it, maybe her magic was coming back.

Pilar shushed her. She was holding the ward together that muted their presence, both audio and visual. Pilar wasn’t the most sophisticated of warding casters, so she’d asked the group to remain quiet and move deliberately without sudden spurts of speed to help her ward “stick.”
Oops.

As Lizzie continued to watch the colorful dissolution of one of the perimeter wards, she hoped Harrington’s reasoning had been sound. He’d claimed Worth’s ego was too great to have another caster set the wards—at least any of the important ones. Some of the perimeter wards might be another caster’s, assuming Worth employed one. But—since Harrington never had a chance to speak with Sarah about the wards Worth cast on the Prague house—he wasn’t sure what to expect. That was one of the gambles in the plan.

Harrington waved them through a small side gate. Max had picked the lock, and the ward Harrington had just diffused had been attached to the gate and fence. Warding, like most caster magic, did require an anchor. Language casters frequently chose books as the anchor for their recording spells, for a variety of reasons. But with wards, the caster chose whatever would help the spell along a little. The ward Harrington diffused was likely a perimeter-sensing spell of some kind.

None of the other wards Harrington pulled them through fizzled out with a magical fireworks display. A little anticlimactic, she thought, and then she almost bit her tongue. What the hell was she thinking? She was in Worth’s backyard. That was more than enough excitement for anyone.

John pushed gently on her lower back. She followed Pilar through the back door. Harry had found only three men. Worth had taken two with him when he’d left. So there were six total staying at the house and three in the house now. That seemed a little light on staff to Lizzie. If she was an evil mastermind, she’d have twenty guys on staff acting as bodyguards. Worth must have a more than average number of enemies. It seemed like a smart move. But for reasons of ego or discretion, this was the second time they’d found him with a small security contingency.