Page 19 of Buzz Kill (Smoke & Mirrors Tavern #7)

Chapter nineteen

ALWIN

Sage was already buried in one of the books we’d managed to bring back from the last mission and several of the others grabbed additional volumes to search through. Declan looked a little more comfortable when the attention was off of him, and I settled in with my niece or nephew and one of the larger volumes and began searching for references to the Origin Order hunter sect.

The sorcerer was not happy with me after I’d exposed one of his secrets, but destroying the trust the town had finally started showing him was counterproductive. Because whether he liked it or not, the Prescott Sorcerers were a force he couldn’t fight alone. He was going to need the backing of this town one day. Especially since I’d finally figured out that he didn’t want my help. The way he followed me without question, the way he showed no fear in the face of danger as long as I was there. All of the things I’d initially interpreted as trust, I now realized were nothing but a complete disregard for his own safety. He followed me unerringly and without question because he didn’t care what happened to him either way.

After all these years, I’d thought I’d learned to interpret the actions of others. Even if I still wasn’t great with the emotional aspect of humanity, I thought I’d gotten a handle on that much. I’d thought I knew how Declan felt. I was wrong. Over and over, he’d thrown himself on the sword because he didn’t trust me.

After I’d let myself to get too far away from him in order to save Rith, it was hard to blame him. That death was entirely my fault. While it wasn’t the first time I’d watched someone I fought with die, it struck me harder than any other, even knowing he would come back again. Curse or not, every time I watched him die, every time I’d seen him throw himself in the way, it was like that sword had pierced my own chest, like the air had been stolen from my own lungs.

Declan made me feel things I didn’t know how to deal with, and given the circumstances of our time together, too much of it was painful. But in between the pain, there were brief periods of feelings I couldn’t begin to describe. Carefree moments in the demon world when Declan had let the walls down and offered genuine smiles and looked at me in a way no one ever had before. Not the same desire others looked at me with. Whether they wanted my body or what I could do for them, their covetous glances were all the same. But Declan’s eyes held something else. Something I’d interpreted as… It didn’t matter. I’d clearly interpreted wrong.

So I fixed my mask in place and much like Declan, I hid behind our work. Though it seemed I was fooling everyone but him. His frequent, confused glances told me he knew I wasn’t as indifferent as I pretended to be. But we had a mission to plan, and the sooner it was finished, the sooner I could return. The egg nestled against my chest would be hatching soon and I had every intention of being present for that.

“Found something,” Sage announced. “This is referencing another volume that we don’t seem to have, but the entry is about five years old.” He skimmed down the page, then flipped through a few more before frowning. “There’s not much here and it seems to be pretty outdated based on what we’ve dealt with. It labels this sect as a low-level threat. The leadership doesn’t match up to what I’ve found either. It does mention the religious undertone they use to recruit new hunters, but this shows that their numbers are nothing to be worried about. It says they don’t have money, numbers or power behind their cause.”

“But we know that’s not true, right?” Ollie said. “That Beau Sherman guy you think is in charge had money before he turned to the Origin Order which means they have his money backing their cause.”

Sage nodded. “And with the help of the dark mage, power’s not a problem for them either.”

Declan ground his teeth. “So you guys had us risk our asses for nothing?”

“Not nothing,” Sage answered. “There’s a city listed where the sect is headquartered. Dry Bank, North Carolina.” He held up an image of a map on his phone. “Looks like a really small town, but that means it’ll be obvious if a bunch of us show up.”

Declan made a face. “Not a problem, the plan was for me and Alwin, right? We’ll just show up and tell them we’re interested in joining the cause. With how quickly they’ve grown they have to be taking in new recruits. We’ll go in, get the lay of the land, find out who’s running the show and take the head off the snake.”

“Your plan is to just walk in and get the hunters to recruit you?” Ollie asked. “What’s the plan if they decide you’re suspicious just for showing up at a secret base and decide to kill you instead?”

Declan looked like he wanted to argue that they wouldn’t find him suspicious, but he hadn’t done any better when he’d showed up in this town.

“Well they have to be recruiting somehow,” he finally argued. “If they’re not just taking anyone who shows up, how would they be getting so many new men?”

Sage tapped his fingers on the book. “They’re definitely recruiting, but my guess is that you need a way in. They know they’ve painted a target on their back and they can’t just go advertising their location for fear of their enemies catching up with them. But if I were to pull in a couple of friends that I trust, and then they pulled in a few friends, eventually that would still give them the numbers we’ve been seeing from them. Just showing up would make them suspicious, but if we had a way in…”

Ollie grimaced. “Awesome. A pyramid scheme for recruiting murderers. So how do we get in? Start befriending hunters until someone introduces us to the group?”

Sage snorted. “Maybe not.”

“Not necessary. We already have access to hunters,” I reminded them.

Sage tapped his lip with a finger as he thought it over. “That’s a good point. And there’s only one way to gain their trust.”

“Of course,” Ollie agreed. “You’re going to have to fuck shit up!”

Given that the hunters were currently being held in the rooms beneath my home in Faerie, the gleam in Ollie’s eye was a little concerning.

“Ready?” Declan asked as he pulled his hat lower on his head.

His glamoured brown eyes watched me warily like all of the familiarity we’d once shared had vanished the moment we returned to the human world. It was surprisingly frustrating. But this was not the time or place to be thinking about such things.

In response, I stepped onto the staircase that led to the lower level of my home and activated the glamour Elliot built for our “escape.” Sage, being the one who had most closely dealt with the hunters, selected two men for us to break out. Both were low-level hunters who hadn’t had time to be fully integrated into the hunter mindset.

This meant that letting them go likely wouldn’t pose a huge problem for us down the line, and that it may still be possible to steer them away from the hunters all together. That would be ideal, but in my experience, one didn’t join forces with killers without reason. These hunters were still potentially dangerous, no matter how low their rank.

“Stay on guard,” I warned Declan as I cut the lights to the lower level.

The glamour concealed all the doors except for two and Declan went to the first, placing a spelled charm on the handle and not bothering to back away when it mimicked an explosion that would have been heard on the other side. I did the same on the other room and when I opened the door, a young man was standing in the middle of his cell.

“Come with us,” I instructed.

The man took a step back in response. “Who are you?”

Declan was already in the hall with his captive and he peeked his head around the door. “We’re breaking out of here, are you coming or not?”

When the hunter still didn’t step forward, Declan shrugged. “Suit yourself.” Then he turned to me and the hunter he’d broken out and pushed us toward the exit. “Hurry, we need to move before the guards come back.”

Elliot’s environmental glamour included the sound of footsteps and muffled, urgent sounds overhead, and the hunters both looked up.

“I’ve heard nothing from above the entire time I’ve been here,” the hesitant hunter stated.

“You’re only hearing it now because we broke the ward to get down here,” Declan answered. “And it won’t be long before they figure out why.”

The hunters finally gave in and followed, but it was clear they didn’t trust us.

“Who are you?” the hunter asked again.

“Recruits,” Declan answered.

The hunter gave him a skeptical look. “They sent recruits to find us?”

Declan shook his head as I pushed everyone into a closet to hide from the glamour of a guard passing by. “We’re not recruits from your sect,” he whispered. “The hunters that have been holding you are a sect called Infinite Earth Society. We’ve been training with them for a few weeks, but we heard they were stashing hunters down here and decided to check it out. We signed up to protect humans, not lock up the competition.”

“And you gave up your spot with them just like that? For strangers?”

Declan shrugged. “We’ll find another hunter sect to join up with eventually. My buddy here could shoot the wings off a fly.”

“And you?”

Declan grinned at the man. “Aw, are you gonna stand here and tell me to my face that I’m not a catch?”

My back stiffened at the easy way he acted familiar with these men. It rankled, especially after the distance he’d put between us.

The other hunter let out a chuckle and turned to his friend. “Why don’t you hold off on complainin’ about being rescued until after we’re actually outta here? We end up back in those rooms and you’ll have wasted your breath.”

“We should go,” I decided, opening the door and leading us back out to the long hall.

We evaded a few more glamoured guards on our way through the maze of halls and escaped out into the world Elliot had glamoured just outside the walls of my court. Declan ushered the men into a compact car waiting outside and crammed himself into the passenger seat. A glamour that covered the entire way back to the pass through would have taken Elliot more time than we had, so Sage had come up with a much simpler idea. The hardest part of the entire plan had been getting the car through the pass-through to Faerie. But once that was done, the glamour was placed directly on the car instead of the land. When the men looked out the windows, they didn’t see Faerie, but an elaborate city complete with passing cars and the sounds of distant sirens. And eventually, enough trouble to make it feel real.

“There’s a car trailing us,” the cautious hunter warned.

There was also a curious capelthwaite taking notice of our high-speed escape, but since I was the only one who could see through the glamour to the reality layered beneath, the others were blissfully unaware of the huge, black, dog-like beast easily the size of our vehicle. I cut around a corner, taking us further from the running beast, but while I was forced to drive within the confines of the glamour, the beast was free to cut through the middle of the illusion and it easily gained ground even as I pressed harder on the gas.

I shot Declan a look and he immediately knew we had a problem. He pulled out a handful of spelled smoke bombs. They were all for show, but the magic on them would look like an explosion, even to the capelthwaite. It might be enough to deter the creature.

“Where?” he asked simply.

“To the left.”

Declan opened the window, lit one of the bombs and hurled it over the roof of the car. An explosion lit up the street between us and the beast, forcing it to skid to a halt. I used the distraction to put some distance between us, but our passengers were less than pleased.

“Christ! You two got balls of steel,” the more laid back of the two laughed.

“You’re drawing too much attention!” the other snapped.

“Another,” I told Declan. “Behind us.”

What was supposed to have been a fake chase to the exit had suddenly become very real. Declan set off the remaining bombs, but since they did no real damage, they didn’t deter the capelthwaite for long. After another sharp turn, the beast landed on the car with a loud thump and the sound of crunching metal as the roof caved in slightly.

“What the fuck was that?” the hunter yelled, his eyes widening as the creature raked its sharp claws over the metal, trying to slice through the car to get inside.

I made another sharp turn, knocking the creature off the roof and pushing the gas pedal to the floor. Weaving in and out of the fake traffic in the glamoured streets was frustrating, but giving up the illusion wasn’t an option with the hunters in the car.

When the capelthwaite landed on the car again just as we were nearing our exit, I slammed on the brakes. Everyone in the car lurched forward and the beast went flying. My foot was on the gas again before it finished rolling to a stop, but it was up and running again before we made it far. The beast leapt to block our path and there was no time to react. The impact crushed the front end of the car and the airbag exploded in my face.

I coughed through the ache in my chest and watched the barely injured animal shake off the hit and run off. The crash was far more convincing than the glamour bombs we’d been lobbing at it.

Declan groaned and gingerly turned to confirm the two in the back were unconscious. The chase was always supposed to end in a crash, but it was supposed to be a fake one that set off a sleep spell so we could get the men through the pass-through and back into the human world. Though the crash we’d experienced was real, the spell had still gone off as planned.

“Is it gone?” Declan asked.

“For the moment.”

We dragged ourselves from the car and the sorcerer grimaced as he pulled the unconscious hunter onto his back.

“Are you injured?” I asked.

“Nah, just a little banged up. Let’s get these guys home before that thing decides it’s snack time again.”

I’d learned that to Declan, anything that wasn’t a fatal injury fell into the category of “just a little banged up” but with the capelthwaite nearby, there wasn’t time to press him further. His free hand wrapped around mine and he followed me without question through the tear between our worlds.