River Cast: Part Two in the Tale of Lunarmorte (29 page)

“
Marion.”
Caia turned to the magik wide-eyed. “What happened with
Laila?”

“
Oh.” Marion
nodded, her eyes wide with anxiety. “Good question. My sister is
going nuts. They discovered it was a young boy from the Centre, a
Traveller. He must have been working with the girl because he’s
gone too. It was the boy who brought her in, in the first
place.”

“
Oh really?”
She gulped, hoping Marion wouldn’t hear her thundering heartbeat.
“Any leads?”

Marion shook her head.
“That’s the thing. Marita can’t get a hold of his
trace.”

What the
Hades....?

“
What?”

Was this some kind of
trick?

“
His trace
has been cloaked.”

Caia turned to look at her
slowly. “And this is a possibility? Why wasn’t I told about
this?”

“
Because...
only a very, very old supernatural has that ability.”

“
How
old?”

“
As old as
the war itself.”

“
Vilhelm?”

Marion shook her head.“No.
The truth is we knew there was a possibility that there were beings
that old still kicking around. The Midnight Coven’s prophet is that
old. But we thought he was - might - be the only one.”

“
I’ve seen
him in the trace. I don’t think it’s him.”

“
Well... if
it’s not, we have a mystery player in our midst.”

Caia’s heart thudded
painfully at the thought of yet another problem.

“
Not that you
should worry about that at the moment, Caia, since you have another
task to complete for dear old sis.”

“
Yeah. The
lab.”

“
You didn’t
have to offer to do this. You could have just given her the
co-ordinates on a map. Anyone could have done the job.”

She nodded absently. No,
not anyone. Poor Marion. She would be devastated when she found out
that her sister was breaking every one of the supernatural rights
laws. But now was not the time to tell her. First Caia needed to
get back to the pack and to Vilhelm as quickly as possible, and
together they could put her new plan into action. She hated the
thought of leaving those children down there, but she couldn’t just
charge in. Marita would throw her in prison and then where would
they be? No. She needed an army. The most powerful army at her
disposal. The political kind.

***

“
And you’re
sure you don’t want to involve Lucien?” Vanne queried, a frown of
worry creasing between his eyebrows.

Caia sighed, glancing
around the room. “I told you, he doesn’t need to do this, and he’s
with Rose right now seeing her through her recovery.”

Marita glowered at her
husband. “The lykan doesn’t need to follow her everywhere, Vanne.
Caia is quite capable of taking care of this by
herself.”

Yeah, like
that was what you wanted
.

She nodded anyway,
thinking of how annoyed Lucien would be when he found out. She
should at least tell him before she left.

It was only a few hours
after she’d met with Alfred and Penelope and they were going over
the plan to destroy the lab one more time. The lab was situated on
the Left Bank in the Latin Quarter, in the basement of a disused
jazz bar. It was guarded by only one daemon, but as Caia knew,
sometimes one daemon was enough.

“
You know, I
could do this by myself,” Phoebe suddenly declared, her eyes
narrowed on Caia’s now pinched face. “Caia has only just woken up
from being unconscious for 24 hours.”

It was nice of her to
offer but Caia was not letting anyone do this alone. “No. I’m fine,
really.”

Caia felt bad for asking
Phoebe to do this with her so soon after their ordeal in Remnant
Forest, but she should have anticipated that Phoebe would actually
be looking forward to the action. If Marita hadn’t insisted on
someone going with her, however, she would have happily gone in
alone.

“
You’re
sure?” Marita hesitated. “Because I can send extra people in with
you.”

“
No. A group
going into an abandoned club would look conspicuous. Phoebe and I
can handle this.”

“
Are we ready
to go then?” Phoebe began striding towards the exit. “Marion has a
portal waiting.”

“
Wait.”

The Rogue Hunter turned
with a look of irritation. “What?”

“
You go on
ahead to the reception. I have to do something first.”

Marita gave her Rose’s
room number with what Caia was sure was a look of a
glee.

Leaving to do this without
informing Lucien would piss him off, and not least of all because
technically as her Pack Leader she had to make him aware of any
task of importance she was going to undertake. Slowly, quietly, she
walked down the white corridor to Rose’s room, her heart picking up
speed despite herself. She wondered just how pissed off he was
going to be that he was out of the loop on this one.

“
Do you have
to leave?”

Rose.

Caia stopped and peered
around the corner of the hallway to see Lucien standing in the
threshold of Rose’s bedroom.

He chuckled. “I’ll be back
in five. I just need to order some food. You guys don’t get it
delivered to these parts.”

“
Show off,
with your fancy room and fancy room service.”

She sounded as exhausted
as Caia felt. Caia shook her head; Rose should never have been in
that fight.

“
Yeah, well
tomorrow I go back to the pack so the special treatment
ends.”

“
Lucien...
I…”

“
What is it?”
He moved back inside, leaving the door open. Caia crept forward.
She could see through the crack between the wall and where the door
was hinged to it. Lucien bent over Rose as she sat propped up in
bed, her hand in his, concern for her clearly shining in his eyes.
“What’s wrong?”

“
I was...
thinking... maybe... maybe I could come back with you.”

He bent forward and
pressed a soft kiss on the corner of her mouth, an action that sent
Caia stumbling back down the corridor. She fled towards the
elevator, an image of what she had just seen and heard filtering
down from her mind to land like ash on her tongue.

Hitting the right button,
Caia refused to let go to more tears. She stiffened and gazed into
the mirror in the elevator, her eyes drinking in the sight of her
fragile paleness. The time for heartache had to end. How many times
did she have to keep admonishing herself before that sunk in? She
had a witch and a war to obliterate.

Alone.

“
Caia!” Phoebe
called to her impatiently, and she hurried over to the lykan as she
waited by a portal. By now the sickening travel of a portal was
something she was getting used to and they stepped out into the
Parisian night with a little more ease. Caia exhaled as she
straightened up from behind the wall they had come out at, and
gazed up and over it to the steps that led up to Notre
Dame.

“
Oh my
goddess,” she breathed, the smells and sights of the city tingling
her senses.

“
Caia?”

Ignoring the hunter, she
began walking towards the gothic cathedral that rose up out of the
Left Bank as surreal as the Centre she had just departed from. Her
lykan eyes danced over the misshapen gargoyles that perched upon
the side of the cathedral, their presence there only adding more
drama to the enigmatic atmosphere of the place itself.

“
I can’t
believe this,” she heard Phoebe mutter, and then she was taking a
hold of Caia’s wrist in a painful grip. “We’re not here to
sightsee, Caia.”

“
But I’ve
never been to Paris before, aren’t you amazed?”

Phoebe snorted and began
dragging her away towards the streets of the Latin Quarter.“I’ve
killed two lykans here in the past three years; I’ve seen all of
Paris I’ll ever want to see.”

With that wonderful dose
of harsh reality, Caia forgot about not having the opportunity to
see Paris as a tourist and began leading the way towards the jazz
club. They were silent together as they strode through the narrow
streets, passed excited tourists, and ignored obviously suggestive
looks and gestures from men, young and old. Caia realised, as they
approached the club, that she and Phoebe were comfortable in each
other’s company precisely because neither of them had a penchant
for talking.

“
Is this it?”
Phoebe nodded towards the ground floor of a block of what, with
their little windows and potted flowers sitting on ledges edged
with quaint wrought-iron railings, had to be apartments. The
opening came out on to the street like black wings, with the words
Jazz Club written on them vertically, in French and English. The
double doors that were built in off the street were boarded over
with a large padlock thrown on for good measure.

“
Anyone
watching?” Caia asked softly, approaching the padlock and
boards.

After a moment, Phoebe
gave her the go ahead and she pressed her hand against the padlock,
her magik seeping out of her skin to engulf it. In a second it
quietly popped and dissolved into water. With her lykan strength
the boards snapped away from the door with ease. A moment later
Phoebe followed and pulled the doors shut behind her without a
noise.

Both of them could see
through the shadows of the darkened room, passed the little round
tables and the bar up ahead, and passed the stage off centre to the
left.

“
Behind
there,” Caia whispered, pointing to the right side of the bar where
they could see a dark opening. “There’s a hallway there that leads
to the door to the storeroom. In there is the door to the basement.
Mr Daemon is in the storeroom covering the basement
trapdoor.”

Not saying a word, merely
offering a resolute nod, Phoebe removed her clothing quickly,
neatly folding it up as she went.

“
Wait,” caia
whispered urgently.

“
What
now?”

“
I’m going to
put a shield up to cloak the sounds of your change.”

Phoebe’s eyes widened,
“Good idea,” she whispered back.

It felt like forever,
waiting for her change to be complete, the knowledge that the
daemon hadn’t heard them not lessening her anxiety.

She didn’t like
daemons.

Caia found it prudent to
keep the shield up around Phoebe as they moved through the club,
afraid that her claws would make a loud clicking noise against the
concrete floor and ruin ‘the element of surprise’ part of their
plan that was kind of crucial to it going smoothly.

Together they stood
outside the door to the storeroom and Caia could feel the thing on
the other side, standing vigilant upon the trap door in the floor
that opened up to the basement.

Phoebe turned to look up
at her, her huge wolf eyes telling her she was ready. Caia nodded
and pulled back with her energy, before pushing it back out and
blasting the door off its hinges. Phoebe took off before the door
was even gone and lunged at the daemon before it even knew what was
happening. She knocked it off its feet and managed to cling on to
its dirt red skin, even as its ungraceful fall sent crates of
bottles smashing down and around them. Caia shot in after her and
blasted out a tube of water as it punched at Phoebe’s sides,
desperate to unclamp her jaws from his neck. As the hunter held him
distracted, Caia forced the tube down his throat and held it there
until he fell unconscious. Phoebe wasn’t taking any chances; she
chewed and masticated until his head rolled away from his body. She
backed up off of him, making a hacking sound from the back of her
throat that reminded Caia of her own daemon take down and how she
had retched from decapitating him. Once Phoebe was clear of his
body, she thought of the daemon who had wounded her that night in
the mall lot, and more usefully she dragged up the memory of
Sebastian dying in her arms. Just like that the white heat began
building inside of her; taking a hold of its reins she focused it
on the daemons body and watched as it obliterated it into ash,
leaving just a dusty trace of it ever having been there. Phoebe
made a sound from the back of her throat and Caia turned around to
see the wolf watching her, and even in her lykan form her
expression seemed to say, “You’re kind of scary, you know
that.”

Caia shrugged. Yeah, she
did know that.

“
Stay back.”
Caia pointed towards the hallway and the lykan grudgingly padded
away. She stared at the trap door, thoughts of the marble one in
Gaia’s altar determinedly pushing their way to the forefront of her
mind. How could Marita justify what she was doing? Marita hated
Midnights and everything they were about... and yet wasn’t what
Pierre had done exactly the same as her own crime? At the impatient
sounds Phoebe was making from the hallway Caia shook the thoughts
off. The trap door lifted easily and a set of very unstable looking
stairs descended into darkness. The smell flooded her nostrils
immediately and she gagged, pressing her shirt to her nose to block
its entry. Phoebe whined from the doorway. That smell was enough to
make every small move after that one filled with trepidation. There
was no mistaking the stench of death – mixed with an obvious array
of chemicals. Taking the backpack off Marion had given her, Caia
found the torch and dipped its light down into the basement,
leaning over to get a better look at what she was going to be
walking into. It seemed safe enough.