Treasures, Demons, and Other Black Magic (29 page)

“Eyes front,” Kandy said. She was walking ahead of me on the path. “Last thing you need is a broken ankle.”

Or heart, I thought. I hated when the wolf was right.

We stepped out onto soft sand, but it became hard packed a few feet away.

Long Beach stretched for miles in each direction. Other than a few randomly-spaced outcrops, nothing impeded the twenty foot waves from relentlessly pounding the beach. It had been raining on the drive here, and continued to mist now even though the night was quite clear.

“Wow,” Kandy said. The view, even by the light of the crescent moon, was breathtaking, but we weren’t here for the atmosphere.

“The tide gets even lower than this,” I said. “Can you tell if it’s going out or coming in?” Kandy could see better than me in the dark.

She didn’t answer right away. Her eyes glowed green as she scanned the vista. I took about ten steps to get to the hard-packed sand, which was still wet but easier to walk on. I waited there to see if the next wave reached me as it came thundering in … it didn’t.

“Out,” Kandy said.

“This reminds me, sickeningly, of Oregon,” I said.

“Nah, that was caves. This is beach.”

“Still, one of those rogue waves could grab us and pull us all the way to China.”

“I doubt the current would take you even half that far.”

“So not the point, werewolf.”

Kandy laughed, soft and husky. “All right, time to play. Do your thing, dowser. Right or left?”

I inhaled, attempting to ignore the mass of magic in the parking lot, as I tasted the area around and beside me. It smelled of sea, sand, and wet seaweed with cedar in the mix — probably from the fallen trees that had been stripped of their bark by the ocean and tossed to shore to form a border between the beach and forest behind us. No magic.

Oh, there was natural magic all around us. The area was abundant with it. Not as much as I’d felt at the grid point at Loch More, but the earth here was old and wild. Compared to Vancouver or London, it was untouched by humans.

“No clue,” I answered Kandy. “The witches are north. Let’s go south. I think open beach is more likely, no?”

“Who the hell knows?” Kandy said, but she followed slightly behind me as I moved southward, parallel to the surf. “No lights,” she murmured after a few steps.

“It’s all parkland here,” I said. “Long Beach Lodge over looks this beach at the very end of the park. If we don’t find Sienna before then … well, there’ll be a hell of a lot more people to protect.” I didn’t even want to contemplate dozens of demons rising fifty feet from homes and hotels.

We walked.

We got wet.

My hair began to stick to my face. And still there was no hint of Sienna.

I was cold and hungry. Chilled actually. And I was so going to ruin my boots and leather pants in the rolling surf and sand. I didn’t much care about the pants except that it was wasteful, but hunting Sienna was putting a nasty dent in my prized shoe collection.

“What if we’re wrong,” I whispered into the moonlit darkness around me. The crashing surf whipped my words away, but Kandy still heard me.

“If we’re wrong, we’ll figure it out. Also, Mory has been following us for the last mile.”

“I know,” I said with a sigh. “I’m trying to figure out whether or not we should acknowledge her.”

“She’s fallen twice. And she’s bleeding from the scrapes.”

I stopped walking.

“I’ll go get her,” Kandy said.

“All right.”

She turned back. The bitter chocolate taste of her magic receded quickly behind me.

And then I was alone on the beach.

“Now would be a good time, Sienna,” I whispered into the crashing surf. The wind, which had picked up in the last few minutes, lashed my damp curls around my face. “Just you and me.”

Nothing happened.

Kandy returned carrying a disgruntled fledgling necromancer over her shoulder. The green-haired werewolf dropped Mory to her feet in front of me. She looked like a defiant pixie with the moonlight washing across her face, glaring up at me through her shaggy, purple-edged bangs. Though the purple looked more gray in this light. Her hands were on her hips. It was like having an imp inexplicably mad at me.

Kandy’s cellphone pinged before I could acknowledge Mory verbally. The werewolf glanced at her phone. “The witches are out.”

Yeah, I saw that coming. “I’m surprised it took them so long. They must have tried multiple spells.”

I opened my mouth to chastise Mory, but she beat me to it. “I’ve saved your ass just as many times as you’ve saved mine.”

Kandy laughed.

“Yes,” I replied, slightly surprised that I had to agree. “But if you didn’t keep putting your — as you so delicately phrased it — ass in situations where it needed saving, my own ass wouldn’t be in jeopardy so much.”

I was rewarded for my wittiness with a chin jut from the angry imp.

Kandy’s phone pinged again. “The skinwalkers are out. And, man, that old lady raven has a mouth on her.”

I glanced at Kandy’s phone. “That’s a typo.”

“Ah, yeah. That makes more sense.”

I scanned the beach before us, then I turned to look out at the surf. We’d been walking for maybe forty-five minutes, but it felt like longer. Desmond and crew were catching up behind us.

“Rusty says …” Mory began, but then faltered when I turned to look at her. Rusty and I had an uneasy truce going on, but only because I had no idea how to actually get rid of him.

Mory straightened and fixed her gaze over my shoulder, which made me quickly step sideways.

“I don’t like him sneaking up on me,” I cried.

Mory laughed, and slammed her hand across her mouth to muffle the sound. “He’s a ghost. All he does is sneak.” Her words were garbled behind her hand and laughter.

“Still, creepy all around,” Kandy said, commiserating with me.

“Rusty says what?” I asked, weary but not stupid enough to ignore a potential lead.

Mory nodded, but not to me, to the air to my right. I forced myself to not step farther away.

“Rusty says that he might be able to find her … Sienna. Though he calls her … by another name.” Mory corrected herself awkwardly. She had no problem swearing like a drunken trucker, so I gathered this censorship was for the benefit of my feelings.

“What’s stopping him?” Kandy snapped her teeth on the question mark. The werewolf hated standing around and talking.

Mory looked to me, her eyes suddenly pleading for understanding.

“He wants you to take the necklace off,” I said. “To strengthen your connection.”

Mory nodded and bit her lip. “I knew you wouldn’t want me too, Jade, but …”

“If he’s right …”

“Yeah. Plus if you’re with me, you can put the necklace back on … if … you know.”

I leaned down to lock eyes with the necromancer. “Yeah, I know. If your ghost brother tries to kill you again.”

Mory puffed out her mouth, but then swallowed the protest and nodded.

I straightened and looked over at Kandy. The green-haired werewolf shrugged, seemingly uncaring, but I could tell by the tense way she held herself that she was wary and unhappy.

“Did your mother say no?”

“Yes.”

Jesus. At least she was being honest with me. So when I said yes — because no matter what, Sienna had to be found and stopped — at least I knew ahead of time everyone would be pissed at me … again.

“Will he … remote project, or should you follow him?” I asked. My understanding of how necromancy worked was really basic.

Mory was already lifting the necklace from around her neck. “Both. He talked to the ghosts. The ones who wouldn’t talk with mom, so he thinks she’s close. But she’s not on the beach.”

“In the forest,” I groaned. I really wasn’t a fan of running for my life after midnight in the freaking forest.

“I like the forest,” Kandy said with a wicked smile, as green rolled over her eyes.

“Yeah, you and the skinwalkers.”

Kandy laughed and unzipped her hoodie.

Tofino was about to have a new pack of wolves. Delightful.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Mory — well, Rusty via Mory — led us through a thick stand of trees that separated the beach from the highway — not that the road looked like a highway here, but it was still officially Highway 4 through to Tofino. We darted across the road, not because there was any traffic to be seen but because something about the wide expanse of asphalt made me feel exposed.

A newly paved bike path ran along the east side of the highway. Mory, pausing and murmuring to Rusty — or so I assumed — wandered along this path until she came to a perpendicular trail marked with a provincial park sign. The sign outlined hours of operation, no campfires allowed in the park, and that sort of thing. It also showed a map depicting a web of hiking trails, which pretty much meant nothing to me. I’d have to rely on the wolves to get me out of the forest even if we stayed on the path. I had a terrible sense of direction, and no idea how to identify landmarks in the dark to lead me back.

But then, I had known this might be a one-way trip … even if I hadn’t admitted it out loud yet. My sister had kicked my ass in London. I was alive because she wanted me to be.

While Mory paused at this crossroads, her head tilted slightly as she listened to something I couldn’t hear or sense. I reached out beyond the multitude of werewolf signatures hidden all around us in the forest and tried to find a hint of Sienna to the east. I had just assumed I should look on the beach …

Mory swayed in front of me, calling my attention back. It was dark, but the fledgling necromancer looked paler than normal in the moonlight.

“Where’s Rusty?” I asked. I didn’t want to touch Mory while she was actively trying to use her necromancer powers, but I also wanted to make sure she was okay and not too drained. Her toasted marshmallow magic tasted as if it was still at normal strength, though. Not diluted.
 

“Through there,” Mory said. She nodded toward the dirt path that cut through the woods to my right.

“There is no way Sienna would be in the woods,” I said. “Not when there’s a beach nearby. She’s probably checked into the Wickaninnish and sleeping peacefully in gloriously thick white cotton —”

Mory held up a finger to silence me. Yeah, I loved being bossed around by a fifteen-year-old.

“Rusty says this way,” the necromancer murmured after listening to the air for a bit.

Have I mentioned how freaky it is to me that I can’t feel a drop of magic from ghosts? That just doesn’t equate in my head, because they’re magic, right? What else could they be other than some form of magic?

“Why?” I asked, touching Mory’s shoulder lightly to stop her from blindly following Rusty into the woods. “Why would Sienna be in there?”

“I don’t know, Jade,” Mory answered. “He can feel her there … she calls to him.”

“I’m sorry? ‘She calls to him’? Yeah, that doesn’t sound great.”

“Because she killed him. Drained his magic. They’ll always be connected.”

Jesus, that was epically deep in a way I didn’t have a lifetime to wrap my head around.

Mory stepped onto the forest path and I followed, feeling the still-unseen wolves shift around us. Kandy with her bitter chocolate magic stayed close, but the others kept their distance so as not to overwhelm my senses. But with them even as near as they were and Mory pumping out her toasted marshmallow magic in front of me, my dowser senses were pretty compromised already.

“Dowsing is not a terribly useful skill when surrounded by Adepts,” I muttered. I hated feeling useless, and being led around by Sienna, pretty much clueless until I figured everything out way too late —
 

Wait.

“Wait,” I said to Mory’s retreating back. I could barely see the fledging necromancer in the woods, though the moonlight was trying to filter through the swath the path cut through the trees. “Wait, wait,” I repeated.

Mory turned back to me, then swayed again as if the movement made her woozy.

“He’s taking too much,” I said, meaning that Rusty in his eagerness to find and punish Sienna was draining too much of Mory’s magic.

“It’s fine,” Mory sighed. “I think we’re almost there.”

“Just a second … I’m thinking.”

“You don’t have to blow a gasket about it.”

“You don’t even know what a gasket is.”

“So?”

“So don’t use phrases you don’t understand.”

“It’s old speak. You — being old — get it.”

“I’m not even in my mid-twenties,” I snapped.

“Actually, you are.”

“We’ve stopped.” Desmond’s curt voice came out of the dark forest to my right.

Mory flinched, and despite being pissed at her, I felt a little bad I hadn’t warned her. I, of course, had felt Desmond approaching from miles away.

“Has the fledgling lost the connection?” Desmond asked. I could tell by his vocal quality that he hadn’t transformed into McGrowly. I was fairly certain he also couldn’t talk in full mountain lion form. Wrong type of vocal cords.

“No,” Mory snapped. “Jade is thinking.”

I waited for Desmond to make a snarky crack, or at least laugh. When he didn’t, I shifted on my feet, worried I was delaying us for nothing.

The silence in the forest felt packed with more performance pressure than I’d ever felt before.

“It might be nothing,” I said. “It’s just we … I just barreled into … London. And I thought I had a plan, and …”

“Plans change,” Desmond said, curt but not unkind. He stepped onto the path a few paces beyond Mory. His eyes glowed full green — probably trying to enhance his human vision with his cat’s — but as I thought, he hadn’t transformed.

I nodded to acknowledge him and looked at Mory. “This tie you mention, like how Rusty is tied to Sienna.”

“Yeah, so what?”

“So,” I said, trying to be patient and not simply rip Mory’s head off and dig out the information I was seeking, skipping the dripping sarcasm and teenage ennui. “Remember when you saw Blackwell in the park in Portland?”

“Asshole sorcerer.”

“Yeah, when you saw him that first time at the Jazz Festival, you said he was surrounded by shades.” Actually, the necromancer had been so freaked out by whatever she’d seen hovering around Blackwell that I had to practically carry her out of the park.