Shadowstorm (Sorcery and Science Book 6) (22 page)

She crossed her arms against her chest and said nothing. Maybe he was right. And maybe she didn’t care.

“Well, now you know how I feel,” Cameron said. “Jason doesn’t care if you want his ‘protection’. He just decides you’re getting it. He’s been doing that to me ever since I’ve known him.”

“I think it’s a little different in her case,” said Everett.

“How so?”

“Jason doesn’t like you in the same way he likes her. He’s not constantly fighting the urge to kiss you.”

A look of disgust washed over Cameron’s face.

“I’d hardly say he’s
constantly
fighting the urge,” Terra grumbled.

“Sure he is.” Everett grinned at her. “And he’s losing that battle. As I told you, two times is a pattern.”

“Two times what?” Cameron asked.

“Two times a kiss.”

Cameron’s eyes grew wide as he met Terra’s. “Jason kissed you? Two times? Why do I not know about this?”

“Because it’s none of your business.”

“You told Everett.”

He had a point. “Everett isn’t my brother.” And she probably shouldn’t have told Everett either.

“And?”

“And I didn’t think you’d want me to share those kinds of details.”

Cameron looked at her for a moment, apparently thinking through what she’d said. “Maybe you’re right. But now that I do know, do you think that you and Jason—”

“Are those my serum ingredients?” she said quickly.

Cameron’s eyes glinted with annoyance, but he handed her the paper bag in his hand anyway. “Yes. Hazelnuts, Winter’s Mint, and…” He peeked inside. “Chocolate. All still in one piece.”

Which was somewhat of a miracle in and of itself. It had been almost a week since they’d left the Night Rose Order’s camp. A week of back trails and no trails.

Cameron watched as she took a sniff of the can of Winter’s Mint leaves—and sneezed. “Do you really think that you can make the Triad Serum work?” He seemed a lot more interested in that than her kissing Jason.

Terra looked around to make sure no one else was about. Unlike the main street on the other side of the police building, this alley didn’t see a lot of foot traffic. Still, she wanted to double check before brewing up any potions. When she was sure they were really alone, she set the bowl Cameron had brought her down onto the uneven street and pulled the recipe page out of her pocket.

“It says here that the Triad Serum is two parts each accentuating element of the abilities you don’t have and two parts stimulant for the one ability, if any, that you do have. So, for me that means two parts hazelnuts, Prior accentuating element.” She set several nuts into the bowl, then began to crush them with a thick metal stick. “Two parts Winter’s Mint, Phantom accentuating element.” She added the leaves, which were so dry that they began to crumble into flakes, mixing well with the oil from the nuts. “And two parts chocolate, Prophet stimulant.” She tipped a small canister over the bowl, pouring liquid chocolate into the mixture.

Everett stood over her, looking down at the bowl of sludge-colored ooze. “That looks appetizing.”

“It’s a work in progress,” she told him.

At least it smelled better than it looked. It hopefully tasted better too. A serum that her body immediately heaved back up was pretty worthless. She finished mixing the serum, then shoveled it spoonful by spoonful into her mouth. If she ignored the thick, lumpy texture, it actually didn’t taste all that bad. That proved one thing: there was nothing in the world which couldn’t be improved simply by adding chocolate.

“I need to try it out.” Terra could feel her skin buzzing. The serum was already working. The question was how long it would last. “Let’s go.”

They followed her as she left the alley and circled around the police station. The sun was just about to set, so there were a lot of people heading for the bars and clubs that lined Lear’s main street. As she walked, she noticed more than a few people looking her way. Whether it was due to her silly smile and the drunken bounce in her step—wow, that serum was potent—or because there was a poster with her face on it at every street corner, she didn’t know. She was hoping it was the latter. Her plan would only work if people knew who she was—and came after her.

“I have my doubts about your plan,” Everett said, his hazel eyes scanning the crowds of muttering people along the street.

“You don’t think it will work?”

“I think it might not work in the way you’re hoping.” He lowered his hand to the gun in his hip holster. “You’re certainly creating a lot of buzz. That tends to happen when someone with a bounty worth five hundred thousand Crowns parades down the street for all to see. You could hardly be more conspicuous.”

Conspicuous would have been high heels and a fire-red mini dress. Her black leather jacket and boots were tame by comparison. As were the stretchy denim pants that Everett had bought her to replace the torn and muddy hiking khakis she’d strolled into Lear wearing. Terra wasn’t usually a fan of denim, but these were stretchy enough that she could still kick someone in the head. You know, just in case the need arose.

Looking at all the mini-dress wearing, high-heeled women that they passed, Terra wondered if maybe Everett was right. Her thick jacket and long pants stood out amongst a sea of strappy heels and mini-skirts. Or maybe being Elition was conspicuous enough already. Her pink-blonde hair was hardly the wildest shade, but her eyes might have been enough, especially with stimulants pulsing magic through her body.

“What do my eyes look like right now?” she asked, turning her head toward Cameron.

“Blue like a hot flame.”

Her usual color was sapphire.

“And they’re kind of pulsing,” Cameron added.

“Pulsing like a lighthouse?”

“Pulsing like an electric sign on the face of a city skyscraper,” said Everett.

Hmm. That’s about how her eyes felt. Fire and ice were engaged in an epic battle behind them.

“I’ll say it again. I have my doubts about your plan.” Everett had his gun in his hand now. “I know you’re trying to summon forth trouble, but have you thought about what you’re going to do once it comes?”

“Of course.” Drawing one of her swords, she made a sharp turn down a side street. “It’s all part of the plan.”

Cameron’s eyes looked from Terra’s sword to Everett’s gun. “Should I be worried that we’ve left the main road? And that you two have drawn your weapons?”

“We’re being followed,” Everett said, dropping his voice to a whisper.

“Five men, armed with bows. They’re on the rooftops above us,” added Terra.

The hooded hunters had been tracking them since they’d emerged from the alley behind the police station. She’d felt their resonances as clearly as though they’d been right in front of her, rather than skulking along the rooftops of two-story buildings. That was new. And rather disconcerting. Worse yet were the broken strings of images that she was getting from them: Lear, the rooftops, bows and arrows, Terra, piles of money. Their thoughts crashed against her mind with the force of a waterfall. And she wasn’t even trying to extract them. With all that noise buzzing in their heads, it was a wonder that Phantoms could even think straight.

“So, what do we do now?” Cameron asked them.

Terra grinned at him. “Now we say hello.”

The hooded hunters had stopped. They were out of sight, tucked away behind a grove of chimneys where two houses converged at one corner of the street. Terra pushed out with her mind, blasting the five hunters from behind. The power of her mind blast shot them over the chimneys. As their bodies crashed against the slanted roofs, they rolled down shingles glossy with hardened green sludge, then toppled over the edge and fell toward the ground. Terra softened their landing. They hit the street as softly as anyone could possibly hit cobblestone. She didn’t hear the crunch of breaking bones, but the fall had knocked every single one of them unconscious.

“I think that went rather well, don’t you?” When Terra looked back, she didn’t see admiration on Cameron’s and Everett’s faces. She saw shock—and maybe a little fear. “What?”

“You took down five big men without lifting a finger,” Everett said. “They just…blew off the roof. Even Jason couldn’t have done it better.”

Cameron was nodding, his shock slowly giving way to excitement. “That serum is awesome. I
must
try it.”

“It certainly does seem effective, but let’s see how good it really is.” She stepped toward the pile of tangled bounty hunters, searching inside of herself for the Prior buried beneath the Phantom. She found the power of Memory and drew it to the forefront of her mind, but held onto the Phantom power of Vision. She would need both to make this work. “Ok.” She took a deep breath. “Let’s do this.”

She looked down at the men, concentrating on pushing the memory into their heads. But no matter what she tried, she couldn’t get the powers of Memory and Vision to work together. She could only seem to wield them one at a time.

“Well, that’s stupid.”

“Problems?” Everett asked.

“It’s not working.” She planted her hands on her hips and glared at the five men on the ground.
Stupid bounty hunters. Stupid serum.
“I think I’m going to have to tweak the serum before it does what I want.”

And it would do what she wanted. It had to. She’d seen Triads wield more than one ability simultaneously. That power of three was what made them so dangerous.

“And what is that you want to do?” Everett asked.

“I’m going to implant a memory into a few bounty hunters,” she said. “Whenever they think of capturing me, they will be hit with a feeling so frightening, so primal, that they will never again dare think of it.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

~
Calvin’s Curiosities and Collectibles ~

527AX January 18, Lear

TERRA’S PLAN WAS both really clever and really, really insane. Not only did she want to lure in bounty hunters so that she could implant a fake memory into their minds, she also wanted to make that memory contagious. But only to other bounty hunters. So basically she was trying to craft the magical equivalent of a super-selective virus that only infected people who meant to turn her in to the Selpes for money. Everett didn’t know if such a thing were even possible. Terra seemed to think that it was. She was already bouncing ideas off of Cameron on how she could tweak the serum to allow her access to all three Triad abilities at once.

As brother and sister chatted casually about things Everett didn’t understand—and was afraid to—they walked toward Calvin’s Curiosities and Collectibles, the shop that had bought the Xenen artifact from Fark. At least according to Cameron, who had ‘chased the Memory’ to Calvin’s shop. Sometimes it was really convenient to have an Elition or two along, even though some of their magic still freaked Everett out.

“Lana is also Elition. You’ll have to get used to it,” Terra said from behind him.

He stopped and spun around. “You didn’t mention that you can read minds now.”

“I can’t. Not really. It’s more a rush of images. But I think I got the gist of it. Some of our magic bothers you.”

Not all of the magic. And certainly not as much as it once did. “The poking through my head is one of those things that bothers me.”

“Sorry.” She actually did look guilty. “I don’t really have much control over the power. I’m probably getting thought fragments from everyone within two blocks. The barrage of a few dozen minds is giving me a massive headache. I wonder how Phantoms can stand it.”

“Maybe that’s why they’re always in such a deranged mood,” said Everett.

She snorted. “Maybe.”

“It’s not all Phantoms who can read minds actually,” Cameron said. “Just some of them. Like Extractors. I’m wondering about this serum. It seems to have given you Phantom powers roughly equivalent to the Elite Phantom.”

“You’d like to know if I also have the powers of the Elite Prior?” she asked. “I guess so. But I don’t think my borrowed powers are quite at the level of yours or Jason’s. I lack the control.”

Cameron was practically bouncing. “I really want to try out this serum.”

“Let’s figure out how to make it work properly first, ok?”

He nodded, his eyes lighting up with excitement. Everett imagined he was thinking about all the things he’d do after he took the serum. Maybe he’d even try to challenge his hero Jason to a fight. Everett hoped he didn’t. Cameron was a good kid, and he’d hate to see him get hurt. Serum or not, Jason would wipe the floor with him.

It was starting to get dark now. The sun had set, and electricity was too flaky so close to the Wilderness for the people of Lear to bother with street lamps. They wouldn’t have worked most of the time anyway. Everett stopped in front of the last shop on the block, looking through its glassy front. Beneath the thick, blocky letters that marked this as ‘Calvin’s Curiosities and Collectibles’, a hodgepodge of items sat behind the display window. There was an old radio, a glossy antique table, a Diamond Edge uniform, and something that appeared to be a Decimator sword.

“Look, Cameron.” Everett pointed toward the sword. “Calvin knew you were coming.”

“It’s fake. An imitation.” said Terra, cranking her neck to get a look at the blade’s edge.

Everett did the same. She was right. The blade had a very mundane shimmer to it, and the grip was all wrong. At first sight, though, it was a pretty convincing Decimator. Either Calvin didn’t know it was a fake, or he was trying to make a profit off of selling imitations. In either case, if he had the Xenen artifact, it would be inside, not lying around in a display window for all to see. Everett shifted toward the door and tried the handle. Locked. Well, locked doors had never deterred him before. He pulled his lock-picking set out of his jacket. It wasn’t a very good lock, so he had it open within seconds.

He led the way inside, creeping past racks of clothing—and display counters filled with jewelry and knickknacks. Behind the back counter, there was a wall rack dangling backpacks, portable stoves, and food tins. A second wall rack held swords, guns, and even a few bows. Clothing, jewelry, backpacking supplies, weapons…Calvin sure was an eclectic fellow. He was also meticulously neat. Everett had been to a few shops of this sort. Browsing them often required squeezing between piles of randomly stacked furniture, most of which were coated with enough dust to bring on a sneezing fit. Calvin’s shop was the opposite: neat, organized, and dust-free. Even in partial darkness, the wooden floor possessed a distinct glossy sheen.