“He must have someone else.”
“That, and he’s in love with you,” Crowe said drily. “But…” He cursed. “Owen is easily the most powerful locant here.”
My heart lurched. “You just saw him, though, didn’t you? And Darek was at my house grabbing my mom.…”
“He’s not working alone, Jem.” Crowe already had his phone against his ear. “I’m calling your dad now.” He gritted his teeth together as the phone rang and rang. “Voice mail,” he said, and jabbed at the screen.
Icy fear sat like a weight in my gut. “He might have both my parents.”
“We’ll get them back. He still needs animus, and I have a hard time believing he’d kill his uncle or one of the Deathstalkers to get it, and he also needs omnias and invictus.…”
The fear grew, pressing against my lungs and making it hard to breathe. “You just sent Hardy after Jane.”
Crowe’s only answer was to turn on his heel and set off at a dead sprint for the camper grounds. He had his phone at his ear again. “Goddamm it,” he yelled a few seconds later when no one picked up.
I was about ten steps behind him as we took a back trail around the main festival gathering area. The mixed scents of leather and cloves, of lavender and mint, of cigar smoke and pungent greenery all found me at once. The scent of magic. It glowed in the air around the tents, and I squinted, trying to pull apart the threads to see each specific kind. My eyes ached and stung with the effort, and I didn’t have time to focus because it was all I could do not to trip over my own feet on the uneven, dimly lit ground.
When we reached Jane’s Airstream trailer a few minutes later, Crowe banged on the flimsy door, then tore it open to find no one inside. I could detect a hint of fire and steel in the air, though. “She’s been here recently,” I said to Crowe, sniffing as I walked around the camper. “Hardy has, too. And…” I swallowed as I caught a thread of mint on the wind. “My father.”
“What the hell,” Crowe said, turning in place.
I did the same. “They can’t be more than a few minutes ahead of us. I just don’t understand—” I paused as another scent hit me—ashy and bitter. “Darek was here.” I scanned the festival grounds, the woods. “We’re directly south of the Deathstalker tent—it’s just on the other side of that patch of trees.” I pointed to the north, where the forest bumped out into the field and obscured the view of the tent. And just beyond it…“Look,” I whispered.
Crowe did, but then cleared his throat. “I can’t see a thing, Jem.”
I stared at the faint blue glow arcing over the woods about a mile away. “That’s where he has them.”
“Where?”
“The old logging mill. That has to be where they are—it’s the only thing that’s there, right? There’s a locant shield over it. I can see it over the trees.”
“Maybe we can catch Darek before he gets back there.” Magic ribboned out of Crowe’s body as he started forward, and I knew he was aching to use it against Darek.
“Let me go first,” I said, tugging at his arm. “You’re blocking my view.”
He moved to the side, and we ran along the path into the woods. He activated the light on his cell phone to guide our steps, and then reached out and slid his hand beneath my arm. “So you can focus on what’s out there,” he said quietly.
I relished the solid reassurance of his steely fingers wrapping around my elbow. We moved along the tree line as quietly as we could, strains of music from the festival reaching across the distance, reminding us that life was going on just a few hundred yards away. It seemed so fragile, especially as I remembered Jane’s prediction that someone would lose their life tomorrow. I glanced anxiously at Crowe as Darek’s challenge echoed in my head. “He wants you to come find him,” I said, slowing to a stop. “Crowe—”
“You know I have to,” he replied. “I’m strong enough to stop him.”
Just like his dad had stopped Henry. “Darek has had years to think about revenge. And your father—”
“My father knew he was going to die,” Crowe said in a hard voice. “He seemed resigned to it, even though he was probably hoping he could take Darek out before it happened. And I promise you, Jemmie, I am not resigned. If it’s me who’s supposed to go down, I’m going to drag him into hell with me.”
My heart squeezed. Crowe’s words reminded me of Jane’s story about the girl who dragged the devil into the sea. I shuddered just as I had that night, and the faint scent of metal and ash tickled the back of my throat. “Wait.” I peered deeper into the woods and gasped when I saw a silvery wisp of Jane’s omnias magic in the air to our left. “That way.”
Without waiting for the light of Crowe’s cell phone, I took off in the direction of the magic, my hands out to help me avoid trees, frantically sniffing at the air to try to pick up what was ahead. Crowe was running parallel to me, and I could hear the rush of his breath with each step. Ribbons of orange invictus magic laced the air ahead of us. “Hardy’s up there,” I said, panting.
Crowe’s light illuminated hunched forms at the base of a tree in a clearing a few dozen yards away. On Crowe’s left side, thick blue reams of magic unfurled through the trees and slammed across the path in front of him. I wheeled around in time to see him crash face-first into them and fly backward. I shouted his name as the locant magic tried to block my path as well.
The moment I smelled it, I knew what had happened. Mint mixed with ash and copper. Locant and tollat and animus twined together. Darek had my dad under his control—using Killian’s power to do it. And if my dad was trying to block us, that meant I needed to reach the people on the other side of the barrier—Hardy and Old Lady Jane. With clawed fingers and a forceful incantation, I tore through the barrier and saw crimson and orange tangled around each other. In the center of those ropes of magic were two struggling figures. Hardy was grappling with Killian on the forest floor, the moonlight reflected in the sheen of sweat on their faces. Normally, it shouldn’t even be a fight; Hardy was ten times stronger than any normal person. But Killian had his influence wrapped around Hardy, so Hardy kept pulling his punches. He was moving like he was surrounded by thick gelatin. Still, he seemed to have caused Killian enough pain that the Deathstalker couldn’t concentrate enough to end the fight, and so the two were locked in combat. Another figure lay curled up at the base of a tree behind them, silvery wisps of magic rising up around her.
“Jane!” I raced to her side and gave her a quick once-over. She had a raised welt on her forehead but seemed otherwise unhurt. “Thank God,” I said. “What happened?”
“He grabbed me outta nowhere,” she said, staring at Hardy and Killian as they wrestled. “And your father—”
We turned at the sound of a shout to find Crowe on the ground again. My dad was just a blue glow between the trees as he scrambled up the path, heading in the direction of the logging mill, leaving only the scent of ash and mint behind. “Darek is influencing him using Killian’s magic,” I said, my throat constricting.
Crowe was on his feet again, stalking toward his best friend and his known enemy, the promise of violence etched on his face. Shimmering amber magic snaked from his fingers, found its target, and wrapped around Killian’s chest. His eyes bulged. “No,” he gasped out.
Hardy punched Killian in the stomach, then rose to his feet as the Deathstalker rolled off him and lay writhing on the ground, in the grip of whatever horrible curse Crowe had just thrown down. Hardy turned to us. My eyes went wide as I saw the streaks of black and red through the orange haze around him. “Crowe, it’s not Killian,” I shouted as Hardy lunged for Jane.
“I have to take her to Darek,” Hardy said. He grabbed the old woman around the waist.