Corruption (Grumpy Old Wizards Book 2) (24 page)

“I’ve never been one to take the easy way out,” Alice said as she brushed her tears away with the back of her hand. “I’m afraid you’re stuck with me for a while longer.”

Helen and Jake wrapped their arms around Alice in a welcoming embrace. Josephine and Mark joined them for a group hug.

Chapter 22

Josephine wondered if she would ever get used to meeting with Ben Nutter in his office. Her body was tensed and she was ready for more bad news as the chief of police continued speaking in his booming voice.

“The Florida State AMDS has added you to the contact list so you will be immediately notified if anyone who is armed with dark magic comes within three miles of the Siesta Key power vortex,” the chief of police advised. His expression turned sympathetic and he leaned forward just a bit. “I can see how stressed you are about Lorcan’s threats but you can’t let him get to you. You’re already taking all the necessary precautions and your home is more secure than I’ve ever seen. You’re not an easy target for him and you’re not in this alone.”

“Thank you for the pep talk but I’m just as concerned for Jake, Alice and Helen as I am for myself.”

“We’ve got undercover OC enforcers watching their homes. The minute Lorcan shows up, we’ll be notified here and we’ll apprehend him.”

“I appreciate your support.” Josephine knew it wasn’t going to be so easy to catch a member of the Valituras. They’d been completely taken by surprise and hadn’t had the chance to use any of their advanced magic. When Lorcan made his move, he would be armed to the teeth. Josephine had sensed his rage and ruthlessness in that threatening letter and he didn’t care anymore about depleting the resources that he’d amassed over the centuries.  His single motivation right now was revenge.

“Let me emphasize that right now you are completely safe. The police station is protected by powerful wards. We’ve got enforcers armed with the most sophisticated magic available. There are no Valituras agents spying on us nor do we have anyone under the influence of mind control magic thanks to you. So relax, Josephine. As of this moment, you are completely safe.”

Josephine felt some of the tension in her body ease away as a result of his heartfelt speech.

“You’re right. Lorcan wouldn’t dream of attack me here.” A relieved smile spread across her face.

Suddenly, alarms blared and Josephine flinched with surprise. She leapt to her feet and her gaze flitted around the room with panic. She and Ben left his office to see what had occurred. There was a commotion in the lobby and all of the officers were packed inside or trying to get a view from the next room. Alex and Jake were positioned on the outer edge of the group.

“What’s going on?” Ben barked in an authoritative voice that ripped through the frantic shouting.

“The knockout cloud that was used to break into the prisons is surrounding the station,” Jake explained.

“There’s no way it can get through,” Alex said.

“How did it get into the prisons then?” Josephine asked. “I’m going to try and deactivate it.”

She opened her psychic senses and probed at the complex tapestry of magic woven together to form the writhing red smoke that pressed into the wards. Even as she studied the mind boggling design of the knockout cloud, she could see it somehow integrating itself into the ward. It reminded her of how viruses infected host cells in a body. Almost all layers of the ward were already compromised. Josephine had an idea but there was virtually no time to implement it. She worked with deft sweeps of power and formed a thin plating of protection over the last layer of the ward. She finished just as the sickly red energy of the spell reached the last protective sheeting of protection. Josephine heaved a sigh of relief when she saw the dark spell slide off the surface of what she’d just crafted. It couldn’t get a firm grip to latch onto just yet but that wouldn’t last because her creation was weak and flimsy. She’d only earned a short delay.

Josephine poured energy into the key components of the knockout cloud, causing the spell to grow exponentially outward. It still pressed against the station but its grip loosened considerably. She didn’t relax her guard though and continued to focus on her work.  After a long moment, she realized something was terribly wrong. The complicated weave of energy cords that comprised the knockout cloud continued to hold strong and weren’t showing any signs of deterioration. Josephine stretched her awareness farther out to the edges of the crimson smoke and looked for any sign of an activation point. Her hands balled into tight fists of frustration and anxiety as she sensed the ward around the police station buckle under the pressure. She finally detected dozens of energy points where she suspected the spell had originated. Josephine focused on one of the areas and a circular flat stone materialized in her mind’s eye. It looked like what you would find on a riverbed. There was nothing remarkable about its appearance.

Before she had the chance to start studying the energy composition of this activation point of the spell, the wards failed completely and red smoke billowed into the lobby. Josephine, Ben, Jake and Alex were the farthest from the knockout spell in the room and they ran towards the back of the station. Everyone in the lobby collapsed into unconscious heaps. The red smoke rushed across the floor and knocked out the others trailing behind Josephine and her three companions. It was much faster than the one at the prison. Josephine suspected that was because Lorcan had used a lot more of the knockout stones than the one who’d rescued him.

As they ran past their desks in the deeper part of the police department, the red vaporous substance managed to overtake everyone except for Josephine, Jake, Alex and Ben. The edge of the knockout spell reached hungrily towards them and was only half a dozen feet from Alex who trailed behind. As they entered the hallway, red smoke appeared from the room at the end and rushed along the floor towards them. They were surrounded with no avenue of escape.

“Stop! It’s got us boxed in,” Josephine said.

Jake, Ben and Alex halted behind her. Josephine yanked up a dampening field that halted the approach of the red smoke from both sides. The level of the writhing, crimson vapor swiftly rose to the ceiling until that was all they could see.

“I need you guys to take over the dampening field so I can try to neutralize the knockout cloud,” Josephine said.

“We’ll do our best but it won’t hold for long,” Ben warned her.

“I know.”

Josephine didn’t stop maintaining the field until the others had it firmly in their grasp. She found one of the activation points of the knockout field as quickly as possible and began examining the composition of the spell. After a few moments, she realized this was far too complex for her to figure out in the short amount of time she had available. Even if she knew how to deal with it, the activation points were too far away for her to affect them. Josephine withdrew back to the group and continued her earlier technique. Hopefully, they could hold out long enough for the spell to wear out. She took over the dampening field when it showed signs of faltering.

“What’s the word?” Alex asked.

“I can’t stop it. Our only chance is to wait out the field,” Josephine said.

“But you can’t hold it off very long either,” Alex pointed out.

“I know.”

Josephine’s thoughts went back to her emergency plan. She had one of the teleportation pendants with her and knew it was only strong enough to take one other person with her. She couldn’t leave them behind though. More dark magic registered on the periphery of her range. There were four curses approaching at breakneck speed.

“Put your shields up now!” Josephine warned.

They didn’t hesitate in activating their protection enchantments. An instant later, four daggers hurtled out of the crimson vaporous depths in front of them. Three of the daggers rammed into Josephine’s shield and the other hit Jake’s. The four knives had large red emeralds ensconced in the handles but their speed made them almost a blur as they bounced away into the red, sparking vapor.

“Those are cursed daggers! They’re illegal!” Alex exclaimed.

Ben, Josephine and Jake shot him an incredulous look of disbelief.

“We’re all going to die and your concern is outlawed weapons?” Josephine asked.

“I’m just saying.”

“Sometimes, I just want to slap you,” Josephine snapped.

“Hostility is often a sign of unconscious attraction,” Alex said.

“Don’t get started, Whiney.”

“Not that again. Can’t you call me Alex?”

“As long as you’re not being an ass, I’ll think about it,” Josephine snarled.

Three daggers hurtled out of the gloom and whacked against Josephine’s shield while the other bashed against Jake’s before vanishing out of sight. Her attention went back to their predicament and she realized the dampening field was wavering.

“Josephine, are you all right?” Ben asked.

“I’m losing the field,” she said.

Ben’s gaze swept over Jake and Alex. “We need to help her. It’ll buy us some more time.”

Josephine doubted it would make much difference but anything was better than nothing. The field strengthened again under all of their efforts but she was the only six and average wizards were of little help. Three knives whipped out of the red smoky depths and smashed into Josephine’s shield while the fourth knife pounded against Jake’s.

“Jake, how are you holding up?” Josephine asked.

“I don’t know. I haven’t had to switch to backup yet so I may have a little more time.”

“But we’ll lose the dampening field any second and the knockout cloud will take us out. At the prison, everyone who passed out was left unconscious for a couple of hours or so. Our shields will wear out way before then while we’re sleeping,” Josephine said.

“We’re so screwed,” Alex said.

“I have a teleportation enchantment but I can only take one other person with me,” Josephine said.

“Are you serious?” Alex regarded her with surprise.

“Jake, you can use yours to take Alex and I can use mine to take Ben,” Josephine suggested.

“I left mine at home by mistake,” Jake said. “I didn’t want to lose it so I put it in a different spot away from the rest of my pendants that I wear every day.”

“How can you forget something so rare?” Alex shot him an outraged look.

“I’m sorry. I have a routine I follow every morning and I forgot what I did until I was already here at work. I figured I was safe at the station so it wouldn’t matter.”

Ben glanced at the red swirling vapor then turned to address Josephine. “Take Jake with you.”

“I can’t leave you two here! You’ll be killed!” Josephine exclaimed.

The dampening field buckled and in desperation, she pulled it in tighter around them. Jake and Alex hastily scooted closer so the four of them were pressed tight. They struggled to keep the smaller field up but it would fail in seconds.

“Josephine, you have to go now. The daggers are programmed to kill you and Jake. They’ve completely ignored Alex and I,” Ben said.

The daggers hurtled out of the sparking red mist as if to emphasize his point. Three of them bashed into Josephine’s shield and bounced out of sight again. The fourth pounded against Jake’s shield and shattered it. Jake brought up his backup even as the knife disappeared from view again. Josephine grasped her grandson’s hand tight and activated the teleportation enchantment just as the dampening field failed. She and Jake vanished as the red mist rushed towards them. They materialized near the window of O’Malley’s Espresso which was situated half a block from the police station. The café was unusually quiet with only a smattering of customers who happened to be clustered nearby as they peered outside.

“Why did you take us here? The daggers may follow us,” Jake said.

“Daggers?” a woman asked fearfully.

“You all need to clear the area immediately. There’s a Valituras agent attacking the police station,” Josephine said in an authoritative tone.

The customers left the shop without argument and the door closed behind the last of them. Josephine was already stretching her awareness out to search for Lorcan’s revolting energy signature. He had to be somewhere close by.

“We’re not safe here,” Jake said.

“Cursed daggers are short-range weapons. I don’t think they can track us this far,” Josephine said.

“We need to leave right away.” Jake directed an urgent look at her.

“I need to stop Lorcan,” Josephine insisted.

“I’m going with you then.”

Josephine nodded in acknowledgment even as her anxiety mounted over her grandson’s refusal to stay out of harm’s way. One of the nearby windows shattered as four daggers smashed through it and hurtled into the store. Three of them slammed into Josephine’s shield while the other hit Jake’s.

“It’s time to go.” Josephine withdrew two of Duncan’s uber wands from the satchel clipped to her belt.

Lorcan was waiting across the street as she and Jake stepped outside. Lorcan leveled a maniacal smirk at them as he aimed two large wands at them. Josephine fired both of hers at the same time that he unleashed his own volley. The energy from both their wands discharged like lightning with Josephine’s colored blue and Lorcan’s a sickly green. Their energy bolts slammed into each other and spat green and blue energy for several seconds before Josephine began to lose ground. Lorcan’s attack drew closer even as Jake launched his own telekinetic attacks. Lorcan’s eyes flashed with malicious glee as his energy continued to overtake Josephine’s with less than five feet before he reached her. Josephine was only focusing part of her attention on Lorcan. Her shield flared into visibility as the sickly green energy streams from Lorcan’s wand raked over it. Josephine abruptly leapt to the side just as she sensed the three daggers launching themselves into the air behind her. It was too late for them to alter their trajectory as they sailed past her with frightening speed and slammed into Lorcan who had happened to be standing directly ahead. Lorcan’s shield wavered and he was shoved several feet backward.