Norian's father was now staring at his oldest son. "Nori, I think it's time we left," I said, rising. "You can turn here, or I can take you back to Wyyld or Le-Ath Veronis. Whatever you want, honey." I looked At Norian's mother. "I am Queen of Le-Ath Veronis," I said. "If you'd like to visit with your son again, get a message to me. My assistants will know to pass it along immediately." I folded Norian back to Wyyld.
* * *
"My own brother gave us away?" Norian couldn't believe it.
"Honey, you were taken on a full moon. Reedy told the kidnappers where the three smallest ones were going to be. Who knows what he gained from all that?"
"Maybe I'll have him investigated." Norian was angry, now.
"Up to you," I muttered. "Do you think Ildevar will mind if I dig through his kitchen for something to eat?" Norian's family hadn't offered us a thing.
Norian helped me look for food; we ended up with a rice dish with meat and vegetables. It was good. We ate at the island and Norian settled me on top of it before working his way between my legs. "Norian, we are not going to fool around in the kitchen," I grumbled.
"But I want to," he was kissing my neck and trying to unbutton my blouse. I fooled him—I folded us to my suite. He didn't seem to mind.
* * *
"Lissa, we have to go. Quickly." Those were Norian's words to me when I woke.
"Honey, that's the worst pickup line I ever heard." I cracked an eye open and stared at him. He was already dressed in his ASD uniform—black and gray and all business.
"Lissa, we'll have to work on separating business and pleasure later. Deonus Wyyld tells me we have to go to Tykl."
"The trash planet?" I was fully awake now. "Whatever for?"
"Somebody wanted to get to those bodies we dumped there before our agents could collect them all. We are attempting to find out why that is. Come, get dressed."
"Fine," I grumped and slid off the bed. Norian watched me the whole time I undressed to shower and then watched me dress again, before doing my hair. "I didn't get to watch you," I pointed out. He gave me half a grin and tried to hurry me along. I guess lion snakes have some kind of herding ability—he was doing a good job.
Lendill was waiting on us, and they wanted me to get them to an Alliance ship orbiting Tykl. The bodies they'd found were on board. I had to concentrate to hit a moving target, but we did it. The Captain of the ship hardly lifted an eyebrow when the three of us appeared out of nowhere inside his office.
"We destroyed the small ship sent to pick up the bodies, but we don't know why they wanted them. We can't find anything on the bodies, either—no chips or anything else that might be used as a homing beacon, and there's no other reason anyone might know they were here. That information has been kept tightly guarded." Captain Galeda informed us as we walked swiftly toward the ship's infirmary. The three bodies they had were in cold storage there—they'd already been examined.
These bodies were three of the attackers I'd decapitated during the shoot-out with Lendill. "None of these were ours," Lendill said as we examined them. The heads were set near the necks from which they'd been severed.
"Were the decapitations done with a laser sword?" Captain Galeda asked.
"No." Norian wanted to smile; I just knew it.
"We've gone over prints, eye scans, body scans—the works. There's nothing, except these tattoos." He pulled down lower lips to show three identical sun wheel tattoos. "No chips or implants, though. No strange DNA patterns, even. We've had the complete workup as far as blood and tissue go," the Captain added. "They all suffered from the same, rare disease."
The bodies still held whatever it was that blocked their scents, so I Looked for information instead. Captain Galeda's words had raised my suspicions, and now I knew why the scents had been blocked—likely by a warlock. I had my arms crossed over my chest, trying not to hyperventilate afterward. Black Mist has allied with Solar Red, and they're both behind this, I sent to Norian and Lendill. Solar Red had a habit of placing sun wheel tattoos somewhere on their priest's bodies. And these three, well, they'd been enhanced—with vampire blood. That spelled Black Mist to me. They didn't care that these priests would die eventually from the infusion of vampire blood—they wanted them strong to take Lendill down. It didn't matter what happened afterward. There was something else, too, that made my skin itch about these three.
Breah-mul are you sure? Norian sent back. He was still getting used to mindspeech—he always hesitated a little before doing it. And what does that have to do with these three and the fact that someone came to find them?Black Mist has either wizards or warlocks, I'm sure of it now, I returned. I think these bodies are sending out signals, only it isn't any kind of beacon you can use science to find. You'd need another warlock, I think. I suspected that Black Mist wanted them so we wouldn't figure out they'd been enhanced with vampire blood. I didn't want to tell Norian that if I didn't have to, though. If word of that got out, we could have panic across the Alliance.
We don't have any wizards or warlocks in the ASD—not on the payroll, anyway, Norian sounded grumpy, now.
Let me see if I can get Erland to come, I replied, and then sent out mindspeech to my Karathian mate.
Erland was there faster than I thought possible. "My love, what do you need?" he asked breathlessly. I had no idea if I'd interrupted anything important. He was dressed as he usually was—neatly and in the latest fashion.
"Honey, I think we have something here that a wizard might have had a hand in." Briefly, I explained what was going on with help from Norian, Lendill and Captain Galeda.
"You'll have to stand back from the bodies, this can be a little bright," Erland warned. Honestly, I'd never really seen him work before. We got a good demonstration now. He held out his hands, whispered a few words that I didn't catch and the heads began to glow. Not the bodies, just the heads. Their eyes popped open and purple light shone from their lifeless depths.
"This is an extremely difficult and expensive spell," Erland dropped his hands after a while, allowing the light to disappear abruptly. "It is keyed to the warlock who created it. A finding spell. Unless I know which warlock created the spell, I can't determine the point of origin. Even Wylend can't do anything about this. We need the warlock's name."
"But this is how they found the others?" Norian stared at Erland.
"Yes, and they know exactly where these are, too. This ship is in danger—when I checked these three for the type of spell cast, it triggered another spell. The caster knows that a wizard or warlock has checked the bodies. They didn't want that to happen."
I barely had time to throw a shield around the ship before we were hit. The ship still got knocked around. I'm sure the object had been to throw the ship into Tykl's orbit, which would cause it to crash.
"He won't be able to throw another hit like that—that was enough to empty any warlock's reserves," Erland straightened his clothing. The blast had nearly knocked all of us over and caused a few alarms to go off aboard the ship.
"Is there any way to nullify the spell on these three, here?" Norian asked after we were back to normal.
"Sure. This one is free. The next one will cost you." Erland flashed his famous, heart-melting smile and went to work.
"Honey, I ought to ask to watch you work more often." I sat next to Erland as he had a cup of tea in the ship's galley afterward.
"Lissa, that sounds boring." He bumped his forehead against mine before giving me a warm kiss. "Now, I need to have a conference with your grandfather." Erland set down his cup, rose and was gone in a blink.
* * *
"Zellar doesn't have that kind of power and his is the only name we know," Wylend huffed at Erland's information.
"If I ever catch up with any of them," Erland didn't finish. Just the thought of warlocks allied with Black Mist made him want to cast a breaking spell against them. He'd have to be close to do it but heads would explode, in a manner similar to what Lissa could do.
"You have my permission to use any force against them." Wylend knew what Erland was thinking.
* * *
Zellar didn't have to tell Viregruz that his effort had failed—he'd informed Viregruz before the spell was cast that it was too far and distance would weaken the casting. Viregruz had guessed at the failure by Zellar's expression and the exhaustion that came with it. Zeller hadn't had this level of power before, but he'd tapped into the core of the planet. Removing that energy required the darkest of spells and once tapped, the energy would continue to drain away at an accelerated rate until the planet died.
Zellar no longer cared how the power was gained—it had become an addiction to wield so much of it. Besides, Viregruz was looking to relocate anyway. What care did they have that Mazareal would die within a decade? Zellar was paid very well for his services, and at the moment, Viregruz was still treating him as a favored employee. Zellar knew it was due to his newly acquired talent and power—he just wasn't telling anyone where it came from. He was thankful, too, that Viregruz hadn't blamed him for Giryoth's failure to kill the Queen of Le-Ath Veronis and the ASD's Director. Zellar worried, though, that if he were involved in many more failures, Viregruz's attitude might change.
It helped, too, that none seemed to know that Zellar worked for Black Mist. Zellar's spies monitored the ones hunted by the ASD and so far, his name hadn't appeared on any bulletins. The King of Karathia had his name on a list for lesser crimes, but even he had no suspicions of Zellar's new talents.
"They will not find anything, Lord Viregruz," Zellar assured the vampire who'd created Black Mist. "Their science will not tell them anything. They cannot use tests to track a spell and they have no warlocks in their employ. My spies in the Alliance keep me informed."