Chapter 19

Cole

Barataria Preserve, Marrero, Louisiana

W hen Cole entered the preserve, sunlight dappled the forest floor and birds chirped around him. As his foot crossed over the threshold into the shadows cast by the trees, however, a cloud covered the sun, plunging the forest into darkness and, bizarrely enough, silence. The birds, the wind, the ever-present hum of the bugs, all of it had gone quiet. He frowned. Although he didn’t spend much time in nature, he would have expected more noise if he actually thought about it. Instead, it was oddly still, almost as if the forest was… thinking?

Shaking off the oddness of it all, he summoned his magic. It flowed easily, just the way he expected it to given his setting. Nature was full of the dichotomy of life and death with no moral valuation of either; it was so very different, refreshingly so, from the human world where death was seen as the ultimate evil, despite, most of the time, lacking the intent necessary to be truly wicked.

He pushed his senses to their limit, searching for Evie’s magical signature. The trees around him spiked, flowing gold vein running the lengths of their trunks, and he sighed in annoyance. He should have thought of that. Of course they would reflect her magic; she seeded and grew the damn things less than a day ago. Shedding his suit jacket, he dropped it on the ground carelessly—he had more just like it at home so no great loss—and eyeballed the trees ahead of him. Each one as far as he could see was lit with the gold strands of Evie’s power.

The original construction site had been massive. At the very least, he would have to get past the edges of the newly replanted trees, plants, and other flora to get a somewhat accurate read of whether Evie was here. As he powered past trunks the size of small convertibles and tangled vines, he noticed that the trees around him were lit not just in the shades of gold associated with the moon but also a smidge of radiant cobalt blue, a color unique to death magic. Interesting. Had Evie been drawing on his own magic as she touched him?

Finally, he reached the end of the trees lit with that golden and blue hue, signaling that he was past where Evie’s magic had detonated the night before. He put a bit more distance between himself and the trees at his back, so they wouldn’t interfere with the signature blast he was about to put out. Breathing in deeply, he pushed his senses out to full intensity once more.

At almost 26,000 acres of wetlands, bayous, and forest, the feedback he received was immense, so much so he felt his vision blur at the enormity. Cole could sense signatures of pretty much anything associated with the grave, including dead and dying flora and fauna, long deceased animals, and anyone who used death magic. All around him, he felt small deaths: squirrels, birds, a tree decaying from oak wilt. Just northeast of him, he could detect a decaying human corpse. Scratch that: a lot of human corpses. Somebody was using the preserve as a dumping ground for their murderous activities. Not that it mattered right now.

He closed his eyes against the intensity of the feedback, inhaling sharply to brace himself for what was next. It would be all too easy for him to get overwhelmed, but he needed to stay focused. He needed to find his witch. Inhaling again, he recalled the taste and scent and feel of her magic rubbing against his own, using the memory to guide his search. There was the section of trees at his back. Little pockets of her magic lingered around the preserve, too small to actually be her. Further in, towards the lakes, her signature lingered a bit more, but it still wasn’t enough. Further north, though… further north, near one of the bayous, the preserve practically exploded with magical activity, too vibrant to be anything but his witch herself. There she is. A ferocious grin spread across his face, his body tightening in excitement. She could never hide from him. All he had to do was get to her.

If he went directly through the preserve, it would be shorter in distance but so much longer in time. He would be going directly through critter-infested bayous with the trees, vines, and nature in general doing their damnedest to slow him down, not to mention every predator in the area trying to make him their dinner. And that was the best-case scenario. The worst case was Evie finding out that he was here, not wanting him to find her, and actively siccing the forest on him. No thank you. He would take the slightly longer route that was more likely to ensure his arrival at his witch’s doorstep.

Turning on his heel, he walked back the way he came, grabbing his suit jacket from where he had dropped it to the ground. He strode past the tree line, passing the group of men, which had expanded from four people to seven, all yelling. Their voices went quiet behind him, but he didn’t pay any attention to them as he dropped into the driver’s seat of his car and powered it on, pulling out onto the street and following Evie’s magical signature.

Fifteen minutes and six wrong turns later, Cole finally turned into the parking lot for a local tavern, the closest point to where he felt Evie that wasn’t in a residential neighborhood. The wrong turns he attributed to driving through a magical haze. While it wasn’t necessarily dangerous to use magic and drive, he had only been loosely paying attention to his driving, more concerned with finding Evie than driving.

It certainly surprised him that he hadn’t been pulled over by a Jefferson Parish deputy. For all that they weren’t far from New Orleans, the local law enforcement took great pleasure in ticketing and arresting city folk. Among the raised trucks and older sedans on the road in the more rural area, his EV stuck out like a sore city thumb that said, “please arrest me on charges of suspected reckless driving” on a normal day. Given that he had been driving erratically at best, the likelihood of getting stopped by the police skyrocketed. Had they pulled him over, the magical blue light dancing in his irises would have been more than enough for any good deputy to kick the charges up to suspected possession of some form of narcotics.

Fortunately, he hadn’t seen a single deputy, a fact for which he was extremely grateful. Talking himself out of a ticket—at best—or criminal charges—at worst—would have eaten up time he didn’t want to waste on anything other than retrieving Evie. He turned off the car and climbed out. It was almost dinner time, but the bar was closed, the parking lot empty. He paid these things little attention as he crossed the empty street, past a muffler shop and across an open field, into the trees. Let them tow his car when the bar opened; he didn’t give a shit.

Like before, the minute he passed into the preserve, the world went dark and silent. Thankfully, his attention wasn’t split by the reforested site anymore; all of his focus remained on the witch whose presence he could feel like a physical ache. He trekked through the soundless forest, course correcting towards Evie’s signature each time he wandered in the wrong direction. In the brush around him, scurrying sounds rustled intermittently, and he kept catching glints of deep red eyes that vanished as quickly as they appeared. He didn’t stop to figure out what it was or where it went, just kept moving forward. Anything that wasn’t Evie didn’t matter unless it was actively attacking him.

Every few minutes, Cole felt a flare of Evie’s magic light up the forest in front of him. Further reassurance that she was not only here but alive too. After what felt like a never-ending walk but was probably only about ten minutes, the forest opened into a massive clearing in front of him, and he felt Evie like a punch to the gut.

One problem, though. He couldn’t see her. The area appeared empty.

But magic flooded the area, sending shivers through his body. It was thick in the air, so much so that it almost made it feel like he was swimming through too-thick air with every movement he made. As he passed a hand in front of him, magic whispered and flowed over his flesh; a whiff of smoke tinged the air. All of it underlining the scent of his witch: that spicy, fruity smell of her.

There was something here. Something he couldn’t see. He brushed a hand over the air in front of him again. It wasn’t a ward, or he would have felt the vibrations against his skin. Instead, it almost felt like an oily residue. A protection spell, maybe? He scowled; he had the powers of a god. A coven that didn’t even have fucking electricity shouldn’t be able to keep him from his witchling.

Summoning more magic, he gathered it in his palms, bright cobalt smoke collecting around his hands, tangling through his fingers. There was nothing for it but for him to punch his way through whatever magic protected the clearing. The world washed away in a haze of blue. All logic abandoned him as the intensity of his magic overpowered his human side; the possessiveness that had been dancing over his skin since he met Evie at that construction site finally taking over at the idea that she was here, but he couldn’t get to her. His last thought before releasing the cataclysmic amount of magic needed to break through the spell was that Evie wouldn’t thank him for this.