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The connection ran down to the very end of the complex.
“Good location to hide someone—being the end house, there’s less chance of neighbors hearing anything untoward.” She glanced at the watch. “It might be worth trying to deepen the connection just enough to see and hear where she is without her emotions totally overwhelming you. It’ll give us the lay of the land without getting close enough for him to sense us.”
“Do you want to call Samuel first? It may take him or his crew time to get here.”
She made the call. He didn’t sound annoyed over the phone, but I couldn’t see the man or his aura, so maybe he was just concealing it well. Working as he did for the high council, it was probably a skill he’d been forced to develop.
He again warned us not to go in unless absolutely necessary, said he was twenty-five minutes away, and hung up.
“He must be still at Mawu’s hut. Wouldn’t take him that long at this time of night otherwise.” She motioned to the watch. “Remember, deep enough to connect, but not deep enough to feel everything she’s going through.”
Which was a fine line to walk even for the best trained psychics, and I certainly wasn’t that.
“Yeah, but you have an advantage they don’t—me.”
I smiled, settled more comfortably in the seat, then tugged my sleeve away from the watch. Images immediately assaulted my senses. I drew in a deeper breath to fortify myself against what was about to happen, then opened the psychometry floodgates and dove right in.
The deeper connection was instant, and it happened so damn quick that I had to stop briefly and step back to control and reduce its depth. This was obviously yet another skill the wild magic was mutating and strengthening.
Once I was distant enough to see and hear without Deni’s emotions overloading me, I allowed her sensory inputs to flow over me again. Her hands and feet remained lashed together, and the cramps and pain that washed through her body were intense. It made me doubly glad I’d dropped the connection strength. Her neck burned, but I suspected it was some sort of magic counter rather than rope, because it pulsed in time with her attempts to spell. The room itself was dark and airless, and she was lying on her side across a bed. The man who’d kidnapped her wasn’t in the room with her, but rather in the one beyond the door she was facing. He was pacing and speaking, his feet thumping heavily on the floorboards and his words tumbling together, full of rage and confusion.
I had no idea if he was talking to himself, someone else, or even to Deni, but one thing was certain—he was either drunk, on drugs, or mentally unwell.
If he decided to attack, we wouldn’t get there in time to help her.
I pulled out of Deni’s mind and glanced at Belle. “Is it at all possible for you to use my connection to slip into Deni’s mind and telepathically control him?”
“Technically, given the strength of our connection, it should be, but it’d leave us both mighty vulnerable to an attack.”
“Which might have been the point of the kidnapping in the first place. If this is connected to our wraith, the message he left at the hut could have been a distraction as much as a warning.”
“It would hardly be a distraction—before we found the warning he left at the hut, we had no idea Deni was a target.”
“True, but I suspect our undead sorcerer isn’t above fucking with our minds.” That’s what the message at the hut had been all about, after all.
“I still don’t think this kidnapping is connected. I think it’s more likely a coincidence and bad timing.”
I hoped she was right. I glanced past her and studied the silent rows of houses again. The feeling that we were running out of time—that Deni was running out of time—stirred.
“I need to get closer. Something is off with this whole situation, and I’m not sure what.” I handed her the watch. “Keep this safe, just in case things go wrong in there and we lose her.”
Belle nodded. “I’ll wait for Samuel. Shout if you need help... and be damn careful.”
A smile twitched my lips. “Always.”
She snorted. I grabbed the bottles of holy water Ashworth had given me, tucked them into my coat pocket, and climbed out. As I walked across the road, the first fat drops of rain began to fall. I hurriedly zipped up my coat, then padded quickly but warily past the long line of red brick houses. As I neared the end house, I paused, looking for magic or anything that suggested a trap had been laid or an alarm set. Thunder rumbled overhead, and the intensity of the rain increased. I shivered, gaze scanning the night, water dripping from the top of my hood and sluicing down to my shoes.
There was no sign of magic or anything else untoward. Then, beyond the house, close to the fence that divided this area from the field beyond, came a flicker of movement.
I had no sense of what it was, no sense of evil, and yet every psychic bit of me was telling me to run, to get the hell out of here and leave Deni to her fate.
I couldn’t, of course, but damn, it was tempting.
I quickly stepped back, hit the trunk of the tree, then slid around it, using it a shield between me and whatever that thing was.
It must have caught the movement, because it stopped—something I felt rather than saw. I couldn’t see it from behind my tree and had no desire to even attempt a peek out. But I had this weird feeling it was staring directly at me.
I licked dry lips, and, after a moment, the thing moved on. I cautiously peered out from behind the tree. It was heading for the house.
