Charlie didn’t answer. He was out of ideas, and so was I.
“Fuck this,” Marcus snarled. He conjured items from his stash, and they sprang into his hands. One was a white rose, the other, an alchemy knife.
“Marcus, what are you doing?” I asked, already feeling scared.
“A powerful fae locator spell, from Kallie’s grimoire,” Marcus stated. “It’ll show us the way he went.”
“But you’re not a fae! You’re a witch, so the spell won’t work!” I argued.
“According to my vision of Miriam and Santos, we know that witches are descended from Unseelie fae. Faerie magic is in my blood, no matter how far back it is, so I’m going to harness it to pull off this spell,” Marcus rasped. “It’s time to prove my theory that witches and fae are blood related, and this is the best time to try.”
“And if the spell backfires, what happens?” I asked.
His face was grim as he stated, “If I fuck it up, it could kill me. And since I’m a witch using fae magic, it probably will.”
“Marcus!” I yelled.
“I don’t care!” he screamed. “I’ll doanythingto get her back! If I’m dead, you guys find her, okay? It doesn’t matter what it takes!”
We couldn’t lose both him and Kallie in one day, but Marcus was determined to go through with it even if it killed him. He used the alchemy knife to slice into his hand, then pressed his blood into the petals as he screamed, “Fae ancestors of the briar, lead me to my heart’s desire!”
Kallie had used this spell before. I hadn’t been there to see it, but according to Charlie, when she had tried to use the spell to find the merfolk key, it had sent her into a vision that had nearly taken her life.
I was terrified the same thing would happen to Marcus, and Kallie wasn’t here to pull him out of it like he did her. But that didn’t happen. The spellworked.I watched as a magical thread formed in the air, one that connected to Marcus’ chest and formed a glowing line that hovered before us, leading us to Kallie.
“Let’s go,” Marcus said viciously, starting forward. We followed the thread as it led out of the abandoned area and to a large body of water sitting beside a vacant warehouse that stretched on in both directions as far as the eye could see.
The Dollmaker had taken her across Lake Michigan. The thread hovered over the water. In the distance there was an island that looked like it was a hub for some sort of factory. The thread led there, waiting for us to follow.
“She’s there,” Marcus breathed. He looked at the island with longing, desperately wanting his love.
I immediately conjured a boat out of ice with my water magic, gesturing for the boys to get into it as Oberi and Rishi hopped inside. “Come on, let’s go. If a human sees us, I don’t fucking care.”
The boys didn’t care, either, because they jumped into the ice boat and held on. I propelled the ice vessel toward the island faster than any speedboat could go. Even if a human did see us, my water magic was blasting us across the lake so fast they’d consider it a trick of the light, and it was dark and gloomy out. Winter was setting in, and the entire area was cold. I didn’t think anyone would see us through the fog. We made it to the island in less than a minute, and I slowed the boat down as we came to the shore.
The place smelled like sewage and molten metal. These factories had been abandoned, too, and were leaking chemicals into the soil. Once we got on land, Oberi helped me onto her back. We followed the magical thread past the rusting buildings, though we crossed droplets of crimson liquid on our way. We came upon signs of a struggle— metal barrels recently overturned, along with a rusting sign with fresh blood on it. Kallie had been fighting the compulsion spell and tried to get away here, but Valen had kept her in captivity.
Marcus ran, and we followed. We turned down twisted lanes and alleyways to follow the thread around buildings, until I started to get dizzy. Where was she?
“Here!” Marcus yelled. We turned down an alley between the factory buildings, and my being absolutely trembled as I saw there was a woman lying at the end of it.
We’d found her. She looked so cold and forlorn. Kallie was lying on her side, her cheek flattened against the pavement, one arm splayed out on the ground and the other hanging limply against her torso. Her face was swollen with bruises, and I could tell from here some of her limbs were broken.
He’d beaten the shit out of her. My breath caught as I saw that she laid in a pool of her own blood, scarlet red still dripping from the multiple slashes in her skin. Valen had stabbed her multiple times, then cut her body open for his own pleasure. Once he was satisfied, he’d left her here to bleed out, like all his other victims.
I would do my best to save Kallie. But whatever happened to her, Valen wouldn’t live to see the sun set, and his death would be far from painless. I promised her that.
Marcus got to her first. He rushed to Kallie’s side and fell to his knees, freely weeping as he hovered his hands over her broken body. “Kalina,” he whimpered, and that sound carved a hole inside of me that cut so deep, the person I was bled out.
I skimmed the area but didn’t see anyone else, not even a shadow. Valen had fled. He’d probably gotten done by the time we arrived and was long gone. This was how he always killed— he liked to blood let his victims, then come back later to admire his handiwork. The sick fuck couldn’t even stick around to finish the job himself. The longer it took his victims to die, the more thrill he got out of it.
Fuck him. We’d take care of his ass later.
Oberi cantered toward where Kallie lay. Once she got to her, Oberi knelt to the ground. I immediately slid off of her back and to Kallie’s side, trying to figure out where to start repairing the damage.
Ancestors, there was just so much. Her skin was so ashen. I’d never seen a person turn that shade of gray unless they were already dead. We might’ve arrived too late.
I dared to touch Kallie’s shoulder, and gently brought her forward so I could check her back. I didn’t realize I was crying, but I had to be, because tears fell from my face as I looked at the jagged gashes that were cut through her jacket, two of them side by side, from the top of her shoulder blade to the base of her spine. They were the worst cuts and bled the most, staining her clothes and her skin red. Rishi put a paw on Kallie’s leg, mewling softly.
