Chapter 6

Chapter Six

T he next day, a quick text to Ben about going back to work got a return text asking if he could come to see us. I delayed his visit until the evening. Mulan and I had a task to do first.

We currently stood side-by-side, facing the long driveway from the house to the main road that passed by our location. Henry said new automatic gates were being fabricated and would arrive next week. Since I had no desire to be shot again, I felt the core of our protection couldn't wait that long.

"I do not share your confidence about this," Mulan said.

I turned to look at her. "Keep in mind that the people powering yer staff were once magickals like us. Sure, it was a long time ago, and they're beings of light now, but they still remember what it was like to be human. And I think they like being given new challenges."

Mulan huffed and shook her staff. "We are not boring heroines. We bring them big challenges every day."

I giggled at her statement and put a hand on my chest. "Based on what I've learned so far, they can refuse to help us. But I don't think they will in this case."

Shrugging, Mulan planted her staff a foot in front of her. I put my hand over hers on the staff. "Don't act so resigned about dealing with them. Open yourself to the possibility that their protection might be better than ours. Their power is great and we can learn from it. They are with us to serve our greater good."

She blew out a breath. "Fine. I will be open to staff's poor attitude, even if I think this is wasted time."

Chuckling at Mulan's drama, I rolled my eyes a bit before I turned loose of her and her staff. "I'll try to spare ya all the frustration I can, lady shaman. I'll consult the Dagda stone first."

Mulan leaned on her staff and held out one hand, urging me to do as I wanted.

One of Three , I called. I need to ask ya a question.

His voice instantly popped into my head. We are listening.

Can ya help me ward our property against attackers? The original wards were broken twice recently. We need something unknown to modern magick and much harder to break by physically powerful creatures.

Yes. We can help you , he said. We can send a better guarding spell. Prepare to receive it.

Before I could ask One of The Three how to prepare to receive something from him, one side of my head abruptly exploded with pain. "Ow..." I said, gripping that half of my skull. The pounding there hurt so much that it felt like I was dying again.

Your fresh fear of death could become a problem for you, Aran. You need to get control of yourself.

I held the throbbing side of my head as I summoned the strength to walk off the hurt. That is not helpful advice when the pain is this great. Haven't I suffered enough this week?

I thought I heard One of The Three laugh at my response, but I couldn't be sure. The next time I saw him in person I would ask more questions about how many of his evil human traits had evolved along with him when he became a light being. I found it disheartening to think people remained jerks after they died, or even worse, reincarnated with those same terrible traits.

You may share the spell with the Wu Shaman. It is not from her culture, but her mages will understand it.

I dropped my hand to stare at Mulan as I asked him about the obvious. Do ya know the mages powering her staff?

Yes. The same penultimate magickal trained us. They are weaker in their craft. My group of three kept on learning. If they haven't changed, her three mages do as little as possible.

"Fascinating," I said aloud.

They fight among themselves. I chose my forever companions more wisely.

The guarding spell suddenly burst in my brain like it had escaped from a giant bubble. The words appeared as a memory of magick I'd cast a hundred times or more. It instantly integrated into the rest of my knowledge. Ya're going to cause me to have a brain aneurysm if ya keep doing that.

I knew I heard male laughter after I sent the chastising thought.

We will heal your brain if that happens. We have spells to heal many human conditions.

His promise of healing did not give me ease. Plus, I was tired of hurting.

Mulan lifted a hand as if to ask me what was going on.

I held up my hand, palm facing her in answer. "I'm fine. I need to write down a spell for ya before ya talk to the staff. I was told ya could use what they gave me. They also said your mages fight with one another, which holds them back from magickal development. My mages said their group and yers went to school together and were trained by the same teacher."

Mulan held out her staff and glared at it. She shook it until the turtle shells clacked loudly. "Stop fighting, or I will get new mages."

I felt one of my eyebrows arching. "Can ya replace them?"

Mulan turned to look at me. "No, but I can make new staff and put this one in dark closet. It will stay there until next shaman needs them."

The staff vibrated in her hand. I could feel it even where I stood. She nodded at it. "Good. We have understanding then." She looked at me. "Write down spell. Staff and I are ready now. You chose best mages for yours."

My lips twitched, but I managed not to laugh. " I didn't choose them, Mulan . The Dagda did. The stone was his before it was mine."

"Oh. Handsome ancestor very smart then. If I ever get tired of high demon, I will ride him like stallion and make him love me forever."

With the visual of Mulan's fantasy now unfortunately bouncing around in my brain, I hustled into the house. Everything I owned was so technologically up-to-date that my search for pen and paper took far longer than it should have.

I remembered to make sure that the downstairs library had genuine office supplies in stock. Nothing electronic could substitute for boxes of smooth-writing pens and stacks of pristine notebooks.

I ended up using the back of an envelope because it had a blank surface. I carried the spell back out to Mulan. Snorting at my creative solution, she took the envelope from my fingers. She read it several times and then closed her eyes.

I watched her closely. Was she committing the spell to memory?

It wouldn't surprise me to know she was that good at learning magick. Spells I found in books often took me weeks to learn. I bet her mages had never have done that instant downloading crap to her.

Only because they lack the ability , a masculine voice bragged in my head.

I rolled my eyes without debating the matter. I guess One of The Three was hanging around to make sure we performed his spell correctly.

I cleared my throat to bring her attention to me. "I think we should layer our efforts. One of us will put down her ward first. The other can layer hers on top. If you want, I'll go first. My mine will sit over the one Ben's wife laid down. Yer magick is more mysterious here in Salem and more likely to turn attackers away just for its strangeness. I think yer spell should be put on top of mine."

"You are chaos witch," Mulan muttered, her tone laced with contempt. "Whatever you say, we will do."

"Yer staff is not the only one with attitude. What is your problem today?" I finally asked.

Mulan moved her shoulders around. "I'm restless. Pay me no mind."

"Ya're all but vibrating," I said, motioning for her to move a suitable distance away. "And ya're messing with my magickal juju. Go stand over there somewhere."

With her troubling energy no longer in my space, I shook my hands and chanted. I made a call to the four elements to make sure I covered every sort of contingency. The words tripped off my tongue and vibrated against my lips.

The magick inside me built until it exploded from my fingertips, spreading like streaks of light across the property, ultimately blanketing every inch of the land we had purchased.

I factored in allowances for the people we worked with, and the ones Henry and Gale let in. I had given both resident guardians permission to come and go as they pleased, including the ones in human form.

Orlin hadn't returned for a visit yet, but I didn't want him destroying our wards to get through. And yes, I believed he could do that. The guardians appeared unfazed by the magick I could conjure. They would acknowledge its power if I made them aware of its existence, but I think that was mostly to humor me.

Wondering where my guardians were, I turned and looked up at the third floor. Zara waved from the window. Rasmus was nowhere in sight.

"Show off," Mulan said from behind me. "Your magick is color of red wine. I envy you."

I grinned at her. "Yer turn, Wu Shaman. Any color will do as long as it gets the job done. Remember to make exceptions for our guests like we discussed."

Sighing heavily, as if I'd asked her to clean my bathroom instead of laying down a ward, Mulan trudged ahead of me until she could spin in a circle.

She called nature's energy to her until it swirled like a tornado around her body. When her eyes shifted from brown to bright gold, I inched farther away from the tornado to give myself room to run, just in case.

She drew in energy through the air and breathed it back out in one long breath. Gold rippled in a wave that went in all directions. The Wu Shaman's magic covered the land—and my ward—like a comforting blanket. It was the color of green grass.

"Satisfied?" she asked.

I smiled and nodded.

We'd done all we could to prevent another bowman from taking me out.

I took Ben to the firepit for our discussion. I built a communal fire and sprinkled it with cleansing herbs. I also added some cinnamon to soothe the demon side I now knew he had.

"I got your message," Ben said.

I grunted in answer. "Did ya get the one I didn't send?"

"Yes. You don't think I'm safe anymore."

My head moved up and down slowly. "Ya know better than I do what the military is capable of, Ben. Ya also know that Rasmus may or may not have done enough to stop those who sent the bowman. His guardian sensibilities dictate the depth of his actions."

A grunt escaped from Ben. "You're saying you don't trust the guardian's take on things."

"I trust that Rasmus thinks he's solved the problem."

"But..." Ben prompted.

"But no... if it had been up to me, I likely would have killed all of those who were colluding and plotting against us. Or at least, I would make them completely forget we existed. His best action was to revert the man-made guardians into full humans. Not that they'll stop experimenting. Ya were right about that. No amount of killing will change the military's idea that they can genetically engineer the perfect soldier."

Ben rose from his seat to pace. He slid his hands into the pockets of his pants. "Do you think Felicity's talisman is a crutch for me?"

I felt sympathy for Ben's dilemma. He was having to come to terms with himself at last.

"I think ya need to embrace yer monster side and learn to control it. Yer lack of control might one day be used against ya. Dylan and I have been researching in our spare time. The far darrig is remarkably skilled at what he calls getting into secure systems . I thought Mulan was a whiz at that stuff, but Dylan got into databases ya wouldn't believe."

Ben stopped pacing and pulled one hand out of his pocket to scrub at his face. "For now, let's set aside the fact that a member of your team is a computer hacker. We'll come back to that later. What did you two learn about me?"

I smiled at Ben. It didn't surprise me he knew that we'd looked him up. He was sharp, and his mind needed to keep busy. I felt some genuine sympathy for Felicity's dying dream of Ben retiring. Maybe that's why I kept working with him. Ben and I were kindred souls about our dedication to our work.

"Dylan told me it took him only a single day to hack into the records of yer experiment because scientists brought it out of paper storage and digitized the files... whatever that means. All I know is that he read about it online and printed it for me to read. I'll send ya home with a copy."

Ben stared at me. I held up a hand. "I only read the stuff concerning yer monster side. Dylan marked it for me with sticky notes."

"Do you know how many crimes you two committed?"

I crossed my arms. "Do ya want to know what we learned or not?"

Ben lifted a hand in defeat and let it fall. "I might as well hear it."

I grinned at him. "We learned ya weren't the only one of yer team who survived. They lied to ya, Ben. More than half of yer team lived, but they kept them in a secret program where they became permanent test subjects. They're listed as dead to the world, but they're not dead at all. Ya were the only one they couldn't control with promises of gobs of money. They also considered yer failure to initial shift as not worth pursuing. This is why they let ya serve out yer military time. It made them look caring instead of like heartless bastards. They had ya marked as normalized and used ya as a cover for what they did otherwise."

I sighed when Ben pushed a frustrated hand through his hair.

"Who lived?"

"Dylan marked the page with their names. All of them have a beast form, which is listed beside it. None of them have any that compares with yers. Goddess only knows what their forms are now, though. Unlike you, they've been living and probably fighting in them. They also got more done to them than you had done. Yer form has evolved naturally. In that regard, ya're one of a kind."

"Are they prisoners?"

I spread my hands wide. "They're not being held in cells or even all in one place. They're flung throughout society with new identities and new lives. Some are married, but none of them have children. Dylan said the no children part was intentional. They made sure ya couldn't have any."

"I knew that part. We were supposedly sterilized by whatever agent we were exposed to during the war. Our equipment is still fine, but we're shooting blanks."

I pondered "shooting blanks" for a moment. That was not a cliché about guns. Eventually, I figured out what he meant. The military had taken away his ability to have children. It was a terrible thing to do to someone who'd been serving his country.

"I'm sorry, Ben."

"Me too now that I know it wasn't involuntary," he said.

"Dylan thinks—though this is just speculation—that yer natural development is a better situation. The last thing he found in the files was a reactivation order. Given that ya're technically retired, they can't get ya to come in. They may be goading ya into coming after them because they want to see ya."

"You mean they plan to capture me. That's pretty clear."

I leaned forward and nodded. "Yes. My gut said ya weren't safe from them, and now Dylan's research proves it. I also don't think this will be going away on its own. Conn is warning every caste he can reach that giving blood to the scientists will be a death sentence."

When Ben arched an eyebrow, I rolled my eyes. "Well, not actual death, of course, but we'll take their heads. Decapitation takes nearly a thousand years to heal. That's a lot of living to lose out on."

Ben grunted. "But that won't cover the demons who might have been captured."

"Nor does it cover other guardians getting captured as well."

Finally, I lifted my hands in the air. "This is going to go on, just as ya said it would, Ben. I think all we can do is constrain the scientists and make sure they suffer serious consequences for their meddling with Mother Nature. I don't know how to discourage them yet, but we'll think of something. They're worse than a coven of dark witches bent on harvesting the power of the entities they serve. They know their goals are stupid, but the risks of dying for their craft aren't enough to deter them."

Ben's voice dropped low. "If the military is coming after me, then Felicity is also at risk."

"Yes. Yer witch wife can protect herself from a direct assault, but she can't fight a tranquilizer dart being shot at her from a long distance away. If the military took her, they know ya'd show up to rescue her. That would be a two-fer for them."

"I'm starting to appreciate your penchant for outright killing all the people causing your problems."

I chuckled. "Well, it's not like I do that right off. Usually, I try to reason with them first. I don't find yer scientists to be reasonable in a common sense sort of way. They only care about what they learn from their experiments. I let them live because Rasmus tends to overrule me about them."

Ben came back and dropped into a seat. "I'm going to have to send Felicity to her home country for a while. I don't know how she'll take that bit of news."

"Will she go?" I asked.

Shrugging, Ben chuckled. "I doubt it. But sometimes she surprises me. It never dawned on me that she would break into your home to come after me. I figured she would pace the floor all night and leave a thousand mad voicemails on my phone."

I grunted in disbelief. "I wasn't surprised at all that she showed up here. Yer witch wife didn't impress me as a woman who waits well."

Ben smiled for the first time since he came to talk. "Felicity is remarkably patient with me. I probably take that for granted too much. I should have asked you to call her but I was too freaked out that someone took my talisman in the first. Because I knew what that meant and it wasn't good."

I smiled back at him. "Mulan and I can come ward yer house, but when yer wife goes for groceries, they would still get her. When I fought Zara, I sent my daughter to Ireland to stay with my mother. It was the only way I could be sure the female guardian couldn't use Fiona's life as a bargaining chip when we fought."

Ben scrubbed his face with both hands now.

"Speaking of chips, like the tracking kind," I said.

Ben's eyes widened. "Are you saying the military chipped me like a dog at the vet's?"

I sighed and nodded. "Dylan said all of ya were because the military tracks everyone important to them. It's how they can find yer body these days if ya get killed in a foreign country while doing yer duty. I actually can't hold that against them. Too many people go missing in this world and never get found."

Ben frowned. "Everything the military does looks legit. Complaining to them would do me no good at all."

"No, it wouldn't," I said in agreement.

"So I guess I go home and try to talk my wife into leaving the country until this is settled."

"Or..." I bit my lip before continuing. "There is another possibility. The two of ya could stay in the blue house. It's not cozy, but ya might feel safer."

Ben's long-suffering sigh nearly made me laugh at him. But I held strong. Allowing my wicked sense of humor to express itself wouldn't make it easier to deal with his new reality.