Sorceress Hunting (A Gargoyle and Sorceress Tale Book 3) (6 page)

The vehicle Gregory rode in came to an abrupt halt.
The other passengers exited and he followed their example, allowing himself a
swift glance around at the other vehicles, military personnel, tall fences, and
numerous buildings. All of the above looked to have doubled or tripled in
numbers since he’d last laid eyes on this place.

A sense of alert wariness hung in the air. The
deceptive calm was like a banked fire just waiting for more fuel to burst into
life once again.

Gregory silently admired their readiness. They
couldn’t have had much in way of peaceful rest in the day since the Siren and
the Riven had clashed here in this land.

The humans had lost a number of their own in the
battle—a battle the humans wouldn’t have understood because to them magic, be
it good or evil, was nothing more than myth and legend.

But now they knew something dangerous was in the woods
with them.

He could only imagine their confusion. Many of their
patrols had come back, the signs of battle clear upon their bodies, but no
memory of what had transpired, because he and the other Fae had taken that from
them.

Not for the first time, he wondered if he might have
made a mistake with that decision.

However, there was no time to dwell on it now—the
others were dispersing to their assigned tasks. So too must he.

Gregory sought the bundle of memories he’d borrowed
from the human whose likeness he now wore. He sifted through them until he
found what he needed. The way to the labs.

He reached his destination—some kind of portable
building complex—without incident. Inside he found three other humans already
crammed into the tight work areas. He made his way over to the only open
workstation. Relying on his borrowed memories, he quickly popped open the two
cases he’d brought with him.

The blood belonging to the magic wielders was easy
enough to spot—it possessed a slight glow. One he could see, but not something
a human could discern with the naked eye. Once he located the ones he wanted, a
small touch of magic mirrored the markings from each vial onto the
corresponding Coven-collected samples.

With Lillian’s immediate family done, he moved on to
other Coven members, finding them in the sea of blood samples by the trace of
magic present in them. This part took longer since some of these ones were at
the other technicians’ stations.

A touch of concealment magic and skills a pickpocket
would envy solved that particular hurdle.

But the speed with which he was accomplishing his task
did nothing to sooth Lillian’s growing anxiety. He could smell the tang of her
fear even inside the building.

“Do not worry,”
he
sent using their mental link.
“I am almost finished here. Just. One. More.
Ah, there. See, no epic disaster.”

“Well good for you, now hurry up and get
out here. I just smelled a hint of Riven.”

Gregory paused, the last vial he’d switched half way
back to its case.
“I’m on my way.”

He placed the vial back with its brethren, the human
at the workstation none the wiser. With that done, he made his way out into the
cooling evening air.

Lillian waited for him next to the building, concealed
within the greatest concentration of shadows she could find. He joined her
after a quick scan of his surroundings. As he dragged in a deep breath, he
caught the faint whiff she had noted.

“Yes, that’s Riven. Very faint. As we
speculated, they captured or found Riven remains.”
Gregory’s
protective instincts flared to life.

He needed to hunt out the source of that scent and
destroy every last trace, so its evil couldn’t find a new host. Yet he needed
to keep Lillian safe, too.

“They may have Whitethorn and Goswin. We
need to rescue them if they do,”
Lillian said, adding another
complication to an already complex situation.

But she was correct.

“I’ll remain in this form for now and see
how far I can get. I imagine where ever the scent leads will be as brightly lit
as the place I just left. Shadows will not be plentiful, so don’t risk exposing
yourself. We can send your father back here later to rescue Whitethorn and the
sprite, should we find them.”

Without the collar limiting him, Gregory knew he could
be in and out with no humans the wiser. He didn’t want to say as much to
Lillian. He’d hurt her enough with his accusations about her failure in
judgement concerning the Siren and the collars created by the Battle Goddess.
That wound didn’t need picking at.

“Very well.” Lillian’s whisper drifted to him from the
shadows to his immediate left. “Let’s do some recon.”

Her excitement at the thought of finding news of
Whitethorn and Goswin washed over him in a spicy wave. As he started in the
direction of what had been the town’s community center and arena complex, but
was now the military’s main headquarters, he realized he felt better with a
task to perform. Freeing himself from the collar might be beyond him at the
moment, but friends, those were within his ability to save, or at least locate.

“You’ve got a plan?”
she
asked as they approached a closed gate with guards standing off to either side.

“Yes, banter around the names of the two
top scientists I plucked from the human’s memories.”

“Handy that.”

He didn’t bother with a reply and stopped smartly
before the gate. After saluting an officer who was exiting, he turned his
attention back to the gate guards. One seemed familiar from his borrowed
memories.

“Are Doctors Fleming or Rogers still inside? Major
Resnick found something interesting and he wants them to have a look.”

“Something more interesting than what is inside?” the
guard questioned, a hint of surprise in his expression.

“No idea,” Gregory bluffed, “Major Resnick didn’t tell
me, just ordered me to find Fleming and Rogers ASAP.”

“I saw Rogers return fifteen minutes ago, and Fleming
hasn’t taken a break in hours. Whether you can pull them away from their labs
long enough to come with you is another question altogether.” The guard shook
his head. “It’s like the fucking Twilight Zone around here.”

“Tell me about it.” Gregory gave the guard a somber
nod of agreement as they passed him through the gate, Lillian an invisible
ghost at his heels.

He made his way deeper into enemy territory. It was
busier here, with a number of personnel going about their business with the
discipline all soldiers adopted if they wished to survive long on a
battlefield.

Lillian, on the other hand, seemed much less impressed
and far more worried.
“This was a stupid idea. It’s going to end badly.
Hell, it’s one of my ideas, of course it’s going to end badly. We should head
back and go get the others. We need reinforcements. The collars will do gods
know what if we’re endangered.”

Gregory agreed with her on all points, but he’d taken
note of something concerning when he studied the immediate area outside the
building’s main entrance.

“Do you see those five vehicles parked in
the front? They are being loaded, not unloaded.”

Lillian stopped dead, and Gregory had to sidestep at
the last moment so he wouldn’t run into her.

“Oh shit.”
Her tail flicked
in agitation.
“They are packing up supplies, or more likely shipping samples
elsewhere for more in-depth study. By the size and number of vehicles, they
must be planning to move something they deem important. Look at that fire
power.”

“Indeed, they are well armed,”
he
acknowledged.
“And we may not have much time. If they have a Riven or have
captured Whitethorn and Goswin, then we can only assume they will not waste
time in moving them to a more secure location.”

Lillian’s stomach tied itself in knots. If Whitethorn
and Goswin were still alive, they needed rescuing. She wanted to help
accomplish that. Yet, handicapped by the collars as they were, she feared for
Gregory’s safety, too.

He looked vulnerable with no natural weapons or
protective spells at the ready, just the fragile covering of his uniform. Was
this how Gregory viewed her when she was merely a dryad?

“You worry too much,”
he
sent with another mental command to relax. “
The Divine Ones have always
protected us.”

“Yeah, when they aren’t demanding we die
for the cause, or while having their baby.”

“Lillian!”

“Sorry,”
she mumbled, but
she wasn’t feeling very repentant.

She still thought it was grossly unfair they demanded
their Avatars not know physical love, and yet allowed them to crave it. Damn
double standards. Or something along those lines. That particular discussion
was a fight for another day.

When they reached the community center’s main
entrance, Gregory uttered a similar statement about Resnick a second time. They
were again granted entrance into the facility.

Lillian squeezed herself between the four guards and
on into the building, being careful to stay close to Gregory.
“Not to
concern you, but I’m fast running out of shadows to hide in.”

“Easy, love,”
Gregory said with
humor clear in his mind.
“I’ve been cloaking you for the last five minutes.
I saw your growing wariness. You’ve done very well up until now, but if I could
have left you outside, I would have.”

Gregory bypassed the elevators and opted for the
stairs.

“Of course they’d keep the damn Riven
below ground, far from any useful windows we could use as an escape.”

“A prison should not make escape easy.”

They arrived in the basement. Lillian’s first look
inspired the words clean, bright, and downright sterile. She no longer smelt
the Riven taint as strongly as before either.

It took her a moment to pinpoint what was different.
Ah, there was no more rumble of the A/C units on the roof. The night was cool
enough they’d shut down. Without the ventilation system circulating the Riven
scent, it grew fainter in their part of the building.

“The Riven, or its body, isn’t here. It
must be somewhere else. The only way to find it might be to search room by
room.”

“Or,”
Gregory added.
“They
already moved it onto one of those transports we noted when we first came in.”

“We can’t let them transport it elsewhere. We have to
destroy it now before its evil contaminates someone else.”

Gregory rumbled agreement.

She scouted further down the hallway. The long
corridor had several side branches, but short, exploratory trips only revealed
temporary offices. This late at night, some were empty but more than a few were
occupied by military brass.

Lillian felt tension building between her shoulder
blades, her wings shifting uneasily to alleviate the strain. Every minute they
remained was one more chance they’d get discovered.

“Gregory,”
she said as she
inched closer to him, fighting the urge to snatch him and run.
“My nose
tells me no magic wielders are down here. Let’s go back up. Maybe I will scent
something as we cover more ground.”

She mentally stomped her gargoyle instincts back down,
somehow she didn’t think he would appreciate being bundled up and carried off
like so much baggage.

“Easy,” Gregory said in his familiar, soothing
voice—dropping the human’s speech patterns and pitch for the time being.
“You’re just claustrophobic and protective. Never let your gargoyle nature make
you do something you might regret later.”

She translated his warning to mean—don’t let your
gargoyle nature make you do something stupid like grabbing me and running away
in a blind panic.

But sometimes there was a damn good reason for panic.

“I’m fine
.
”

“Good.”
He reached back,
entwining his fingers with hers. For a moment, the shadow weaving hiding her
from view also cloaked him, and she instantly felt better for it.

In one of his old-world-I’m-not-from-around-here
moves, he brought her fingers up to his lips and kissed each knuckle before he
peeled open her clenched fist and placed a warm kiss on her palm. A moment
later, he nipped the meat of her thumb.

She jerked in surprise as her gargoyle body registered
her mate stood toe-to-toe, and his pleasant gargoyle scent still overlaid that
of his human body.

It was odd looking down at him and seeing a stranger
while still sensing and scenting her mate.

“We should go.”
He
stepped away.
“Remind me to send another of our allies to spy on the humans.
This place looks to be a good location to overhear what they don’t want
overheard.”

Lillian had to agree. You didn’t bury your top brass
below ground unless you wanted to maintain a few hard to keep secrets.

Gregory huffed.
“Shadowlight would love to explore
down here.”

“No way is my baby brother coming anywhere
near the humans.”

“Yes, but keeping that one out of trouble
will be most difficult. He’s an explorer by nature.”

“I’m just glad Greenborrow has taken him
under his wing.”

Chuckling openly, he countered,
“Greenborrow will
be beside him every step of the way, if not leading, as they seek out trouble
together.”

Lillian glared.

Gregory wisely refrained from further discussion of
the subject as she doggedly followed him back up the stairs to scout the next
floor up.

*****

Lillian estimated they were one floor from the
surface. She could almost taste freedom and its damp night air—not this already
recycled ten times an hour stuff. They had scouted each of the lower floors,
trusting their noses to tell them if there was anything of interest. So far—a
big fat nothing.

Together, they headed back to the stairwell, both
agreeing that putting two gargoyles in an elevator—a small enclosed space with
no easy out—was a very bad idea.

Gregory was just reaching the door’s push bar when the
two elevators hummed and creaked into motion. In the time it took to glance
over her shoulder at them, the lights went out.

Crouching, Lillian flared her wings out around Gregory
as she pulled him to her side. He didn’t fight her, holding perfectly still
against her side.

The emergency lights cast the hallway in a dull
yellowish glow until they, too, blinked out.

Any hope it was a random innocent power outage flashed
out with them.

Every instinct screamed ‘trap’ and clamored for her to
bolt for the stairwell.

“Gregory, we’ve been discovered.” She didn’t know how
or when. Maybe security had seen him as he’d made his way through the corridors
and reported his activity as suspicious.

The elevators reached their floor within seconds of
each other.

With a smooth precision, which did nothing for
Lillian’s peace of mind, teams of scarily quiet humans emerged from the
elevators, guns first.

From one of the offices, a mere ten feet from the
elevators, a man carrying a flashlight emerged into the hallway.

He took one look at them, pointed his flashlight to
the ground and backed against the wall.

Lillian counted twelve soldiers in the hallway now.
Two peeled off and made for the man with the flashlight. They checked his
office and then herded him back inside.

So it wasn’t some random security thing they’d
tripped. The soldiers were specifically looking for Gregory.

Damn. So much for making their way to the surface and
walking out peacefully.

Five more soldiers were heading in her direction. If she
and Gregory bolted for the stairwell, the soldiers would see the door open.
Their best chance to remain undetected might be to sneak past the soldiers and
hide in one of the offices until the furor died down.

That might take until long past dawn. Or never.

The soldiers moved closer to their position. She eyed
the space between them. No way could she squeeze past without betraying her
location.

Now she heard something else distressing—the sound of
heavy boots on the stair treads. Lots more boots.

“Fight or flight?”
she
whispered into his mind.
“It’s your call, but I hear more on the stairs,
too. We may not have a choice.”

Grunting in agreement, he jerked his chin toward the
stairwell.
“Go.”

She bolted into motion, Gregory so close behind, he
brushed against her tail and right wing as they ran. Flashes of light, radio
chatter and shouted commands chased them into the stairwell. She couldn’t
understand the words, her sensitive hearing overwhelmed by all the other
echoing chaos.

Gregory darted ahead, taking the steps three at a
time. He was still mostly in human form, but dark talons tipped each finger now
instead of blunt human nails. Behind, she heard the soldiers pursuing while
ahead Gregory had run into the first on the stairs.

There was another sudden flurry of sounds—the smack of
flesh on flesh, grunts of pain, startled sounds, and cursing.

Gregory slammed two soldiers together with enough
force to stun them and then he leaped clear to engage four more coming down the
stairwell from above. In that moment, Lillian realized Gregory was sharing. A
large gargoyle grin spread across her face. She knew just where to put the two
soldiers Gregory had left at her feet.

She grabbed the nearest by his jacket as he struggled
up. She helped him to his feet, and then on over her shoulder where his weight
and momentum carried him down the flight of stairs and into the path of the
other soldiers coming up from the level below.

“Sorry,” she whispered to the second soldier at her
feet and tossed him down to join his friends.

Above, Gregory had cleared a path. She leaped over or
around the unconscious or barely conscious bodies left in his wake.

Ahead, the stairwell door was propped wide, a
rectangle of blinding light prevented her from seeing much beyond that point.

Tears streamed down her face, but she forged on
because Gregory had disappeared into that light.

She had enough sense to remain at the stairwell’s
threshold where the shadows could still hide her. In seconds, her eyesight
blinked back into focus. What she saw didn’t inspire much hope of escaping
without gathering a few bullet holes.

Gregory stood just outside the stairwell, mere feet
into the community center’s lobby. He was encircled by a good two dozen
soldiers.

Rage and fear stirred in Lillian’s heart at the number
of red dots painting Gregory’s body.