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“We’re all in one piece,” Catcher said. “I’m not suggesting you’re cowards if you don’t try again, but . . .”
“But you’re subtly implying it,” Ethan said.
Catcher grinned. “This is magic, friends. It’s a dangerous game. Maybe vampires can’t hack it.”
Ethan’s eyes blazed silver. “Is that a dare?”
“If that’s what it takes.” Catcher looked at me. “We have to try something. This is currently the only thing we know to try.”
I couldn’t argue with that logic, so I looked at Mallory. She’d pulled a small kraft-paper notebook from her bag, was thumbing through it. “Just give me a minute.”
I narrowed my gaze at Catcher. “Beer and pizza after this, and you’re paying.”
His lips curved into a smirk. “You’re a cheap date.”
“That is one of her finer qualities,” said my husband.
I elbowed him, and we settled back into our positions.
“It’s getting colder,” Catcher said. “We should probably move this along while we can still function.”
; When the orb of light, the same pale blue as a summer sky, was large enough, she opened her eyes. “Carefully,” she murmured to herself, and leaned forward, placed the ball on the platter. It hovered there, vibrating with power, casting pale light on our faces.
I glanced around, hoped no one was watching us. Sorcerers were out of the closet, but that didn’t mean it was a good idea for humans to watch this little experiment. Considering the weather, they might have called the CPD first, asked questions later.
Mallory sat back again, cleared her throat. “We’ve created a receiver. We’ll see if we can dial it in.” She put a hand over the fireball, fingers extended, and slapped the air on top of it.
The motion created a dull, round sound that rippled the air, just like she’d dropped a pebble in a lake. The circles moved out from the orb, to us, through us, until they diffused a few yards away.
Hand over the orb, ear cocked to the sky, Mallory waited. “We’re here,” she said. “And we’re looking for you.”
She hit the orb again, making another dull sound and sending another wave rippling.
But there was still no response. Not that I was entirely sure what kind of response we were supposed to receive.
“What are we hoping to hear?” Ethan asked.
“Acknowledgment,” Mallory said. “I know it can hear me. The messages are bouncing back.”
“Like radar,” Ethan said, and Mallory nodded.
“The concussion finds something, the message comes back. I can sense it.” She lifted her gaze to Catcher. “You?”
He nodded. “Faintly, but yeah. There’s something out there.”
“Then we try it louder,” she said. She resituated herself, blew out a breath, and positioned her hand over the orb again. She gave the orb another whack, then a second, and a third.
The sounds seemed to grow louder, deeper, with each hit, until it felt like the vibrations would stop my heart.
This time, the greetings made it through. And the voice didn’t like our intrusion.
Lightning ripped across the sky, thunder cracking like the shot of a rifle at point-blank range. Power burst across the field like a slapping hand, and then I was flying, the city lights blurred with movement.
I hit the ground on my back, my diaphragm seizing with shock, head rapping against the ground, my fingers and toes tingling with heat and energy.
I lay there for a moment in the grass, looking up at the few stars that had managed to pierce the sky. Each was surrounded by a halo of light, and bees buzzed in my ears.
Slowly, I pushed up on my elbows, looked around. Ethan, Catcher, and Mallory were on the ground, too, all blinking up at the sky. We’d fallen perpendicularly to one another, our bodies aligned like the points of a compass. And between us, the orb still glowed.
