Dragon Knight (The Collegium Book 3) (17 page)

A rocking motion, a creak of wood, the sound of gulls, the stink of fish and saltwater. Even before she opened her eyes to the glare of sunlight on water, Gina knew she was on a boat. She blinked against the dazzle of light, and when her vision cleared, the first thing she saw was the young guardian who’d been so spooked by Lewis’s containment of his magic.

Gina’s muscles went limp with relief. An instant later, they tensed in anger. “What time is it?”

“You were only out fourteen minutes. Just long enough for me to get you onto the boat.” He sounded proud of himself.

Actually the time was impressive if he’d carted her by himself from the road, down to the beach and out to this boat slowly edging its way out to sea. He must have used a look-away spell or people would have noticed him manhandling an unconscious woman, but such spells, when attached to moving objects, were an effort to maintain. Now, he’d be conserving his magic for other purposes.

Not that it would do him much good.

Gina calculated. Fourteen minutes to get her onto the boat. She probably had five minutes, ten at the most, to question the guardian before all hell broke loose.

He watched her as she sat up, squinting against the glare of sunlight glinting off the ocean. But most of his attention was for their environment. Despite the boat’s easy speed, designed not to draw attention among the boats filled with tourists and holidaying locals, he clearly had a destination. Possibly one of the islands or a larger boat anchored out at sea.

She could shout for help, or act herself, but answers were more important. “Why did you kidnap me?”

“Kora ordered that you be detained, for your own protection, when you left the warded safety of your home.”

Kora ordered this?
It couldn’t be in response to Gina’s own phone call to Chad concerning the threat to Lewis. This operation had taken a degree of planning and preparation.

“You’re a vulnerability that could be used against President Bennett,” the young guardian said earnestly.

“You could trust Lewis and me to determine my own protection.”

The guy raised a skeptical eyebrow. He wasn’t impressed. After all, he’d kidnapped her easily.

Gina shrugged and subtly tightened her grip on the boat. What mattered was to reach the Collegium, Fay and other allies, and find Lewis.

The black speedboat shot out from the marina and closed the distance between them at race-winning speed.

The guardian looked around at the noise, flung a spell, had it deflected into a whirlpool of water, and the next instant, was fully occupied trying to control his small boat as it spun.

Gina frowned, picked up the bailing bucket, and used her house witchery to hit the guardian in the head with it. He slumped, the whirlpool stopped, and Gina’s second cousin Mitchell pulled alongside.

“Got yourself kidnapped, then, Gina?”

“Is everything okay?” People called from distant boats.

“Freak whirlpool.” Another of Gina’s cousins, Ingrid, had accompanied Mitchell. She shouted reassurance. “I hope you filmed it and the flying bailing bucket.” Ingrid stepped nimbly from the speedboat to the small one, nudging the unconscious guardian aside.

Gina grimaced at the reminder that they were in public, and stepped into the speedboat.

Mitchell shot off for the marina.

“Thanks,” Gina shouted.

He waited till their speed slowed to approach the pier. “You know the family keeps watch over the island.”

She did. Others didn’t. It wasn’t a fact the Sidhe family advertised, but for all their world-wide string of hotels, home remained Cape Cod. If you were in trouble, that’s where you went, and the family helped. Gina had helped others plenty. Now, she was grateful in turn.

As she scrambled up the ladder to the pier, she reminded Mitchell that the young guardian would be cross when he woke up. This was the second time he’d been overpowered on Cape Cod.

Mitchell just grinned. “He won’t wake up till he’s at Emmaline’s portal, and she’ll insist on good manners.”

That she would.

Gina jogged through the town to Emmaline’s house on the outskirts.

Emmaline met her at the door. “Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine. Thank you.” A quick hug. “I need to get to New York.”

“Riaz is waiting at the portal.”

She ran downstairs to endure a longer, bone-crushing hug from Riaz.

“That guardian’s not going to enjoy his travel back to New York,” he vowed, before shouting into the portal. “Paul?”

“What now?” Paul O’Halloran sounded cranky.

“I’m sending Gina through.”

Gina stepped into the portal, gripped Paul’s sweaty hand and released Riaz’s reassuring clasp. “Thanks,” she said briefly to the New York porter before running up the basement stairs and into Shawn Johnson. “Uh huh.” She backed up a step.

“What’s with you?” Lewis’s PA and bodyguard demanded.

“If you try to kidnap me, I’ll be cross.”

“Kidnap you?” Shawn scowled.

“Kora ordered one of you lot to detain me when I left my home. Apparently, I can be used against Lewis.”

“Damn. What an idiotic—no, I’m not here to kidnap you. Lewis is going to tear strips off Kora. Chad phoned me. We figured it was better for you to have an escort to the Collegium.”

“Okay. Well, I’m going to the Collegium.” Gina watched him warily, unsure what she’d do here with a grumpy porter who was definitely not on her side and a guardian far more skilled than the junior version who’d kidnapped her. “You can come with me.”

“Gee, thanks.”

They walked fast through the streets. Gina acknowledged, if only to herself, that she did feel safer with Shawn beside her. They reached the Collegium in silence, and in silence, caught the elevator up to Lewis’s office.

If Lewis had been found, someone would have phoned Shawn.

Gina was braced to see Lewis’s office empty, but in fact, it was filled with people. Just not him.

They were shouting and swearing. A complete loss of decorum, and most of those present seemed to have a preferred target: either Kora, or Chad and Haskell, Lewis’s PA/bodyguards.

Gina looked for someone sensible—Zhou, for instance—but he was absent, and even his ally, the chief demonologist, Gilda, had lost her cool and was shouting at Kora, who appeared ready to shout back. Or strike back.

“He can’t possibly be gone.” Haskell stood to the side, staring at the center of the arrangement of armchairs in Lewis’s inner office. There was no reason for Haskell to stare at that space. The raging, elderly mage standing there wasn’t worth a second glance (his magenta and peach wasp-waisted jacket not attracting attention in current circumstances). So the most likely reason for Haskell staring at the coffee table space was that it was where she’d last seen Lewis.

Gina just had time to work that out when Chad crossed the room to her, thereby drawing everyone’s attention to her arrival.

“How sure are you that a demon has Lewis?” he demanded.

Gilda, the chief demonologist, raced after him. “No demon has been here. I’ve told you. It’s impossible. Keeping demons out of the Collegium is all my team has worked on this past month. It’s impossible that one stole Lewis from this warded office. Someone must have got past you.”

“No one went into Lewis’s office,” Chad gritted. “He never even closed the door. He was in there, and then—” A frustrated, empty gesture. “Gone”.

Translocation!
The others didn’t know that Lewis could translocate.
Where would he have travelled to?
He hadn’t gone to Morag’s den or Gina would have met him there.

Her gaze snagged on the television screen on the wall. The news still rolled, but someone had muted the sound. Gina fumbled for her phone, almost dropping it in her haste. “Chad, what was on the news just before Lewis vanished?”

“How should I know?”

“Haskell?” Gina didn’t look up from her phone, scrolling through breaking news reports, working her way back to what Lewis might have seen.

Earlier he hadn’t hesitated to translocate and save that little girl from the fire and rubble of Izmir. What if he’d seen something else that required his attention?

Her brain seemed to split in half. Part of her scanned the news feed. The other part analyzed Lewis’s likely actions. At a time like this, one so threatening to the Collegium’s existence, what would make him translocate and stay away an hour without letting anyone know his whereabouts? Obviously, if he’d translocated and the demon caught him alone and unprotected, he’d have no choice but to stay away. But she wouldn’t jump to the worst conclusion…

Her fingers froze. The images on the screen of her phone stilled.

“What does a demon want?” she said aloud.

“To cause trouble,” Gilda snapped. “And it’s succeeding.”

“To bring despair to the world.” Fay’s cool voice. “To feast on horror and grief, to revel in violence and the worst of human nature.”

The chaotic, emotional room calmed. It was as if Fay’s mere entrance reminded the other mages of their behavior. Or perhaps, in the absence of Lewis, an effective leader had just entered.

The chief demonologist’s fingers uncurled and the high color in her face faded. “Fay is correct. Hotspots of demon activity are characterized by violence and despair. If a demon summoned to our world breaks free of its summoner, its rampage is horrific. The sly, insidious activity of the one who slid into the Collegium, infecting us, was an aberration.”

That demon had been in daily contact with Fay’s father and the reason for her challenging and dismissing him as president of the Collegium. Fay, however, was all business as she added to Gilda’s explanation. “What that demon showed us was that although most demons treat themselves to a rampage when they’re freed in our world, they are capable of more devious, long-term planning. That would fit the profile of the fifth group member.”

Steve prowled in. “I can’t smell the stench of a demon.” He looked around the crowded office. “Don’t you people have jobs to do?”

Expressions of outrage bloomed on the faces of the mages. How dare this were criticize and order them about?

“They ought to,” Kora said dryly. “But they seem to feel they should tell me my job first.”

Gina rolled her eyes, barely biting back her own sharp comment. Now, was so not the time for political bickering. “I think I may know where Lewis has gone.”

Silence. Apparently the mages were capable of focusing on essentials. They all focused on her.

“Demons feast on despair. This one must want to terrify and traumatize us. It’s in its nature.” She looked at Fay, who nodded encouragement. Gina took a deep breath. “The worst is always when it affects children. To willfully hurt a child is an incomprehensible horror. It is a…”

“Violation of what it means to be human,” Kora finished the sentence. “Lewis would respond to such a threat. We all would. But he wouldn’t, couldn’t, leave without us knowing.”

“For now, say that he could,” Gina said. “On the news an hour ago was an update on the Children’s Conference.”

“No.” A breath of horror from Fay.

“Guardians down to Mexico, now!” Kora ordered.

Haskell ran out of the room with the command.

“Why this? How can you be sure?” the questions came from every direction. “How would Lewis get there?”

“I don’t know how, but Lewis is in Mexico,” Zhou said from the doorway. “Three of my top dowsers have confirmed his location. He’s in Mérida, the site of the Children’s Conference.”

“As for why.” Gina looked around the crowded room. “Haven’t you read the reports on the Group of 5’s activities?”

“Mexican drug lords.” Steve got there first. Evidently, Fay and he had been given copies of the report. “There was that drama in the beginning. It was what caught Lewis’s attention. Mercenaries and mages, killings and an amulet.”

“Amulets and demons,” Fay said slowly. “They go together. I’ve carried demons in amulets the Collegium fashioned.”

“More fool us,” Gilda broke in. “Demons should be banished. If this is one, it hasn’t gone on a rampage. It has been almost circumspect and its activities have circled back to Mexico.”

“Do you think someone controls the demon? That it hasn’t killed its summoner and gained freedom? A demonologist rather than a demon in control of the Group of 5?” That was Zhou, curious even when his face sagged with exhaustion and he shoved his hands into his pockets to hide how they shook.

But they were all missing the point. Talking instead of doing. “Doesn’t matter.” Gina hauled them back on track. “We need to get a message to Lewis that he’s dealing with a demon in some form and that his new power won’t,” she hesitated at the curiosity around her. “Mightn’t work against it.”

“How precisely can you locate him?” Neville asked Zhou.

“Within thirty meters.”

“Snake piss. Not close enough to translocate a message to him.”

“And the nearest portal is in Belize or Cuba. However he got to Mérida—” Kora stared at Gina—“We’re not going to get there within an hour.”