Page 25 of Buzz Kill (Smoke & Mirrors Tavern #7)
Chapter twenty-five
DECLAN
We reached the corner to the hall with the dorms and I looped my Henry glamour back over my neck. Alwin would kill me if he knew what I was planning, but it was better this way. He was already mad at me for deviating from the mission, but he knew what he was getting into when he picked me of all people for a mission partner. I’d never played by the rules a day in my life, and I wasn’t going to start now.
Alwin needed to rid himself of whatever delusions he held that made him look at me like I was a better person than I was. Better it happen now before I got too attached to the elf. Or at the very least while I could still pretend that I wasn’t already attached.
Billy did a double take at my glamoured face. “What are you doing? They’re looking for you.”
I shrugged. “This is the face these guys know. If they’re going to give me a shot to tell them the truth, it’s going to have to be the face that they’ve been training with all this time. The guy who got them their favorite snacks when they were missing home and video games or playing cards when they were burned out. A few beers when they needed a break and all the other little things that made their time here more comfortable. Despite what they’ve been told by Benning, they know I didn’t have to help them. Let’s see how far that goes.”
With that, I knocked on the closest dorm door and when the recruit answered his eyes widened. Before he could decide what to do, I delivered our message and moved on to the next room.
“We’re meeting in the lecture hall, gather everyone you can. There’s something important the recruits need to know. You can decide for yourself once you know the truth.”
Billy and the others started spreading the message among the recruits and when enough of the men were notified, I slipped away and removed the glamour again. Wearing my own face, I walked right past a group of higher-level recruits and made it to the small room above the lecture hall that held the equipment to control the screen on the platform. I hooked up the cell phone to the computer and downloaded the information Ollie and Sage sent.
Recruits were still filtering into the room when the screen lit up with evidence about the man they were working for. The truth about how he killed his own wife after she told him she wanted a divorce because she’d fallen in love with someone else. That someone else turned out to be a shifter from a nearby pack, and it was only through stalking his soon to be ex-wife and her lover that he discovered what he really was.
Sherman lured his wife to his house under false pretenses and killed her. Then he became obsessed with his wife’s lover and found the ramblings of a retired priest online who talked about protecting mankind against the nefarious beasts that walked the earth. Sherman learned everything he could from that retired priest, including weaknesses of these creatures. And during that time, he learned how important family was to them.
Using that information, he waited until a member of the shifter’s family left their land and he attacked, using her as bait to draw out the others who would come to save her. Once he successfully killed his wife’s lover, he went back and took over the Origin Order from the old priest, bringing in donors and recruits to do his dirty work and seek revenge. Selling lies to convince people that there was an enemy among humans that would kill them or steal their families away.
It was all a fabrication to convince others to join his made up war. These men had been used, and their reactions were a mix of disbelief and denial. Even laying out evidence, witness statements from the few pack members left after they’d been decimated by the hunters, police reports, a restraining order filed by his wife, none of it was enough to fully convince these people.
I ran down to the lecture hall and found my way to the stage. “That’s not enough to convince you that you’ve been lied to?” I asked the room. “You’re working for a man who killed his wife in cold blood because she fell in love with someone else.”
“With a monster!” one of the men called from the crowd.
“What defines a monster?” I demanded. “Because someone was born different that you that automatically makes them an enemy?”
“One of our recruits was just attacked by one of those monsters!”
I pulled the glamour out again and looped it over my head. “Do you mean me?”
There was a shocked silence among the men and it wasn’t lost on me that even Billy wasn’t backing me up at this point.
“That monster I fought? They’re almost never found here. It was planted there by Benning and the others. They even put their camouflage magic on it so I wouldn’t see it coming. Creatures that attack without provocation are rare and they’re more animalistic than anything. Non-humans usually take care of them before they ever become a threat.”
“He’s one of them,” someone finally realized. “Don’t listen to his lies!”
I sighed. “You guys have known me all this time, have I ever done anything to hurt any of you?”
A recruit stepped forward to approach the platform. “For all we know, you made up all of that information about Sherman!”
I shook my head. “Do your own research and you’ll find the same thing we did. Sherman has now set his sights on a shifter town because he’s working for a dark mage and hurting innocent people in exchange for that concealment magic your sect uses all the time. The town is peaceful, it has a high number of non-humans and has always had an exceptionally low crime rate because of that. But the dark mage grew up there and he wants to take it over. You are the ones helping the real bad guy here.”
The man scoffed. “Where’s your proof?”
Admittedly, I didn’t have proof on that part, but it was the only possibility that made sense. “We’re working on it right now.”
“Lies!”
I let out a frustrated breath. The hunter programming ran deep. It didn’t matter how much evidence I put in front of their face, they were taught to obey without question. To follow their leaders anywhere, to hate based on fear, and they were faithfully falling in line like fools.
“I’m asking you to really look into what you’re doing here. Verify for yourself. See for yourself that they’re the ones lying to you.”
“Pathetic,” the recruit near the platform snarled. The markings on his uniform indicated he was in the higher classes, so I didn’t know him, but his eyes were alight with excitement at the chance to take on one of the monsters he’d been warned about. “You thought you could infiltrate our organization and spread your lies? You’ll pay for this stunt and so will everyone you care about. A shifter town we’ve been targeting, was it? We’ll see how many of them are left by the time we’re done with it.”
Well, shit . That backfired epically.
I shook my head at the man. “Listening isn’t your strong suit, huh? I never said I was from that shifter town. Not affiliated with the one Sherman wiped out either. I’m not a shifter at all.” Removing the glamour again, I met the recruit’s eye with all the cockiness I could muster. “I’m a sorcerer. My name is Declan Prescott, of the Prescott Sorcerers and your threat is a joke. Do you think The Origin Order is strong enough to take on the Prescott Sorcerers? I dare you to try.”
Alwin warned me not to be reckless, but desperate times called for desperate measures.
The hair stood up on the back of my neck as the barely there sensation of Acacia’s magic made my stomach turn. No one who hadn’t been tricked by that magic too many times to count would even notice, but I was far too familiar with it by now. I swung one hand out and activated the spell, exposing two hunters who’d been sneaking up on me. The looks on their faces would have been funny if I wasn’t ten seconds from being seriously screwed.
I was out of time. And while there were too many recruits who stubbornly remained despite the evidence, quite a few had already left and many more looked unsure of where they stood. This was all I could do. It would be impossible to convince them all, but I’d pulled back the curtain and given them a chance.
The men on the platform with me were not innocent recruits and the magic they carried proved that. The next spell they lobbed at me was an attack spell and while there was no moving out of the way in time, they hadn’t expected me to catch and dissolve it before it could harm me.
“Not my first rodeo,” I told the shocked hunter. “Your magic won’t work on me.”
With no other choice, I resorted to Ollie’s last-ditch plan and pulled a potion from the back pocket I’d sewn my elven pouch into and threw it to the ground in the middle of the platform between me and the hunters. The small explosion it caused didn’t match the amount of smoke or the sound of the blast at all. The room shook with the dramatic effects that made the men hit the ground to take cover.
I disappeared through the smoke and out the instructor’s entrance to right of the platform. I had to use two more of Ollie’s potions on my way to the exit point, but the compound was in chaos. Between the mess of recruits that were arguing or leaving, the security alert to protect Sherman instead of the training complex, and the thick smoke I’d lobbed in every direction, I managed to slip away.
Alwin wasn’t at the exit point, but that was expected. He had to make it to the other side of the compound and find Sherman before he could even start his part of the mission. Ignoring the shaking in my limbs that hadn’t completely disappeared, I climbed the tree for some cover and settled in on a low branch to wait. Don’t make me come after you, Al . I silently warned, pulling a protein bar from my pocket to stave off the exhaustion that was pulling at me from the healing magic.
“Fifteen minutes,” I decided with a sigh as I let my eyes fall closed. I’d give him fifteen minutes and then I’d go find his ass.
“Afraid you don’t have fifteen minutes, son. But I’ve got someone who’s real eager to meet with you.”
ALWIN
“His house is that way, but he won’t be there in the middle of the day.” Nick ducked behind a tree after pointing out a building. “That’s the main building there. He still gives sermons like the priest who ran this sect before him, but it’s all scare tactics to get his donors to hand over all of their money every month. He makes them think he’s the only thing standing between them and the monsters. They’re convinced monsters will take over if anything happens to him, so expect him to be heavily guarded.”
Preying on people’s fears was far from a new concept. Evil beings in all worlds had been doing it for all of history. As such, I was well aware that we would never convince his followers they’d been lied to. But while I hadn’t wanted Decan changing the plan for something so dangerous, he was ultimately correct. It didn’t mean we shouldn’t try.
I dug through the equipment Ollie and Sage provided for the mission and pulled out two tiny cameras. I handed one to Nick and attached the other to my shirt. Any information we gathered would be used after the mission. Even if we couldn’t reach people today, we still had a chance to disrupt the flow of money into this evil organization.
“Killing him outright would only prove his point in their eyes. We’ll have to get evidence of what he’s really doing first. Do you think you can get him to confess to killing your girlfriend?”
“Admit that he killed a shifter? Yeah, he brags about that kind of thing regularly, but that’s not going to convince anyone here that he’s evil.”
I gave a sharp nod. “You’ll just have to keep him occupied. I need to find evidence that he’s working with a dark mage. If they know he’s associating with one of those monsters he preaches about, it might be enough.”
“I’d have to get close to him to make that work.”
I pulled the ranking pins off the collar of my shirt and attached them to Nick’s, making him look like a much higher rank.
“They called the higher classes over for protection, getting close shouldn’t be the problem.”
I checked the remaining ammo on the modified pellet gun filled with sleeping potion beads and pointed out a window at the back of the building.
“We’re going in there. Security is circling the building and we’ll need to move fast once the next guard comes past.”
“Won’t there be locks on the windows?”
“It shouldn’t be a problem. People were entering through the front, so the security system won’t be active. Though there may be additional security on his office.”
Nick snorted derisively. “Raking in the money from the donors, even in the middle of all this. You’d think he’d call it off. It’s going to make everything harder. We can’t take him out in front of an audience.”
“They’ll secure him away from the audience when they realize a threat is closing in. If we can expose his con, it’s a good strategy, but the mission is Sherman, not the donors.”
Nick shook his head. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my time here, it’s that there’s no way to convince these people of something they don’t want to hear. They’re not all evil per se, aside from the ones running the show, but they’re not open to being reasoned with either. Admitting you’ve been fooled is a tough pill to swallow.”
It was an unfortunate reality. Sometimes you had to leave people behind. “This kind of devout follower is usually formed out of fear which is then fed by the men at the top who know exactly what they’re doing. These people will have to find the strength to face what’s really happening around them. Otherwise…”
I didn’t finish that thought, but based on Nick’s grim expression, he knew what I was getting at. Otherwise they would spend their lives being easy targets for any scammer that knew what trigger words to use to convince them to hand over their money or their lives.
Like Declan, Nick had developed a soft spot for the men here who’d blindly believed what they were told by these hunters. “Declan will do what he can to show the recruits the truth. Based on what we’ve seen, there’s reason to believe Sherman is promising these donors more than safety. They may not be as innocent as the others.”
“What makes you think that?”
“The Origin Order was running a facility that attempted to extract superhuman abilities from non-human entities. We did some research and found information on an experimental drug they created that granted humans vampiric abilities. It’s not surprising that was the one experiment they had success with since vampirism is unique in its ability to be transferred to humans. That project ended in failure, but the hunters were still running their tests, so they hadn’t given up when we found and shut down their facility. It would take a lot of money to do that kind of research. Sherman is likely making promises he will never be able to fulfil in order to keep the money coming in.”
“Even if that’s true, we have to no proof. These people aren’t going to take our word for it.”
No, they weren’t. And there was no sense in continuing that line of thought, so I redirected the conversation back to the situation at hand. “From what Declan has gathered from the other recruits, there are three men at the head of the operation. Sherman is their figurehead, but his right-hand Michael Cranson deals with operations, and his assistant, Doyle Young, is the one holding everything together here. Those are our targets. We don’t know if Cranson is here, but we do know that he is involved with the dark mage. If you see him, do not hesitate, he is not in the dark about Sherman’s plans. Young is an unknown, but if he is that close to Sherman, he likely knows the truth as well. Proceed with caution.”
“Yeah, I’ve got it. Just make sure you remember the mission too, yeah? No matter what they threaten, we’re here for Sherman and I’m not leaving without him.”
It was a dangerous mindset. Sometimes failure offered a chance to turn back and try again later, but Nick didn’t seem inclined to let that happen. But he had a point, it would be much harder to get this close to Sherman a second time. Our best chance was to act now.
I gave the man a sharp nod, letting him know I was in agreement with his plan.
Nick eyed me with a hint of doubt before gesturing toward the building with his chin. “Where to first?”
“Sherman’s office.”
A guard rounded the corner of the building and I fired the gun, taking him out with the sleeping potion in a matter of seconds. We dragged the guard in through the window with us and stole his jacket and ranking pins before slipping out into the corridor.
“Any idea where Sherman’s office would be?” I asked Nick.
The man shook his head. “This is closer than any recruit I know of has gotten. Most don’t set foot in this building unless they have money or have been promoted to guard duty.”
“It would have to be close to the hall he gives sermons in if he’s having talks with donors,” I decided, heading in the direction of the doors the crowds were entering through.
Soon enough we started encountering others and when one of the staff tried to question us, I dragged him into the nearest room and aimed my gun at his chest.
“Where is Sherman’s office?”
This hunter clearly had no experience in the field and he panicked the moment he saw the gun aimed at him. His eyes darted down to our uniforms in confusion and he stuttered. “W-what do you want with him?”
Nick rolled his eyes and grabbed the man’s shirt. “Does that seem like your biggest problem right now? Tell me where that murdering asshole is right now and I’ll let you live.”
The office worker was practically hyperventilating, but he pointed further down the hall. “L-last door.”
He dropped to the ground asleep the moment the words were out of his mouth and I tucked away the gun, wasting no time finding the office.
“Huh, he actually told the truth,” Nick commented when I took out the guard and broke the lock, letting us inside with little effort. “And you are a strangely good at breaking and entering. You act like someone who’d never set a foot out of line, but I’m starting to see that’s not the case at all.”
“I hold myself to a higher standard than the men drawing those lines. When evil gains power it is our duty to step out of line and take that power away in whatever capacity we are capable of.”
“Our duty? You say that like the average human has any power at all. Maybe you don’t get it because you’re not human, but I would never have gotten this far if not for you. How many guards and trainees did you take out with no effort at all? Breaking locks with your bare hands, tossing people around like they weigh nothing — not everyone can do what you do.”
Nick sounded frustrated even as he dug through the office. I pulled out another magic device Ollie had given me and attached it to the safe tucked away in a cabinet. The lock broke with a louder explosion than I would have liked and it was only my quick reflexes that got me out of the way in time to dodge the unexpected blast. I shook my head. Ollie had sworn these were tools she used for her stealthiest jobs, but I’d failed to take into account the chaos factor that came with all of Ollie’s plans.
“I had help as well,” I said, finally responding to Nick as I sorted through the items in the safe. “You’re the one who managed to find Sherman’s location, Declan provided important intel and divided the attention of the guards, and we had the help of a group of others each with their own talents back in Eastbend. Humans are not powerless. There were many steps to this mission that were no less important than the ability to toss people around and break locks. Research, spreading information, inspiring or unifying others, causing confusion and challenging unchecked authority, there are many ways those without physical strength can stand up to those in positions of power.”
Nick sighed. “Maybe, but I bet all those spells you carry make it fuck tons easier.”
I gave a sharp nod. “Magic certainly helps. Apparently even Sherman saw that.”
Nick appeared at my side and peered into the safe. “What is all that?”
One spell in particular stood out to me. There were several of the small pitch-black charms with the same scent and repulsive feel, telling me they were made by the dark mage. Remembering the mage’s background of growing up a witch, I had an idea of how to activate the spell and I set the stone on a chair in the corner of the room before pricking my finger and dropping the blood on it. The chair vanished and Nick’s jaw dropped.
“I’d heard of it, but I’ve never seen it. It’s like it’s really not there.” He stepped forward and his knee bumped into the chair that was very much still there. His eyes swung to the safe. “Let me have one.”
“It is dark magic, using this kind of spell often can negatively affect your body.”
“I’ll only need to use it once.” His voice was dark and I knew exactly what he meant to do. When Nick saw my hesitation, he lifted his chin and narrowed his eyes. “What would you do if it was Henry he’d killed?”
The question surprised me. How had this mere human deducted my feelings for Declan when I was still trying to figure that out myself? Regardless I knew the answer to his question. If Sherman killed Declan, I would end him. But old lessons in never showing my hand or revealing vulnerabilities rose up and I denied his implied claim without missing a beat.
“Henry is a partner for this mission, protecting him is part of the job.”
Nick waved me off without even considering that possibility. “Save it. You think I didn’t see that flash of murder in your eyes at just the thought of it? Maybe that stone face of yours works on everyone else, but I’ve been just as head over heels, crazy in love as you are right now and I know damn well what it looks like.”
I felt my jaw open, but I was at a complete loss for what to say. Nick didn’t wait for a response, he pointed at the safe behind me.
“Hand it over.”
With a sigh, I gave him several of the spells Ollie had given us along with a concealing spell from the safe. “Use these with extreme caution. And stay clear if you use any of those.”
I tucked away the spells from the safe and took the files to the desk to review. It was unusual for humans to keep paper files these days, but clearly the man didn’t trust a computer with this information. Several of the folders contained information on Eastbend, reports from Cranson or the other hunters stationed there, which I tucked away to review later. Surprisingly, most of the information was on his own people. Names, jobs, family members, how much money they donated and how often. The financials were organized in official looking reports, but on everything were handwritten notes on the donor’s fears, transgressions, past traumas, and what trigger words to use to manipulate them. Sherman was truly a despicable human.
The door had just opened when I called to Nick. “Wait.”
The door closed and Nick appeared again. “What is it?”
“Sherman has files on all of his donors.” I took pictures of the files and then handed a few of them to Nick. “Think you can get these in their hands before you find Sherman.”
He gave a nod. “Heading that way anyway. Thanks for everything.”
Nick slipped the spell back into his pocket and vanished from sight. The door opened and closed again a moment later, but my attention was stuck on another document that was tucked at the bottom of the stack in the thinnest folder. It was a magic contract between Sherman and Mars Argent, the dark mage. My people were no strangers to contracts, but since Faerie and most Fae had inherent magic, we used verbal agreements and our power was enough to make a simple promise binding. Having the words before me certainly made this easier, and while it was obvious Sherman had the disadvantage in this agreement, offering up the lives of his men should he fail to fulfill his end of the agreement, I wasn’t sure that destroying the contract was the best course of action.
I’d just tucked the contract away when footsteps in the hall forced me to abandon the files and move to the door.
“… should be there. I’m checking in with Benning now.”
I slipped out of sight as the door opened and two men entered, immediately noticing the broken lock and open files all over the desk.
“Get Benning here now,” Sherman snapped as I moved between them and the door.
I pushed the door closed and the sound alerted them to my presence. Sherman spun to face me but relaxed when he spotted the uniform I wore.
“You were supposed to be watching the door! Someone broke in here on your watch, where the hell were you?” Sherman demanded.
“Beau?” the man at the desk called, his brown furrowed as he glanced over the files. “What is this? Have you been blackmailing our donors?”
“It’s obviously fake, Doyle,” Sherman tossed over his shoulder. “A plant. Quit wasting time and find the person responsible.”
“This is your handwriting,” Doyle murmured. His hand froze over one of the files and he flipped it open. “You have a file on me?”
“Why are you still just standing there?” Sherman snapped at me.
I met the man’s eye before turning my attention to the assistant. “He has also offered up the lives of everyone here as collateral in his contract with a dark mage. In exchange for the concealing magic you use, The Origin Order is doing the bidding of an evil magic user. And if he fails to uphold the contract, he’s offered the lives if your own men to a mage who has been practicing necromancy. You needn’t be willing for him to use you to further his own agenda.”
I moved closer to the clearly clueless assistant, retrieved the contract, and held it up for him to see.
Understanding flashed in Sherman’s eyes and he shuffled back, scrambling for a gun I’d already removed from the desk. I aimed the sleeping potion gun at Sherman and the man finally froze as he realized the situation he was in.
“It’s him! Doyle, stop him!”
Doyle scanned the contract in disbelief. “Is it true? Was this all about money and power?”
“What do you want, a raise?” Sherman growled. “Fine! Just get me out of here.”
Doyle didn’t move, frozen with indecision as everything he thought he knew fell apart. “You only brought me in because of my father’s money,” he realized.
“What are you doing?” Sherman sneered. “This thing is one of them. You think they’ll show you mercy?”
I shook my head. “If he was simply fooled by you, we have no reason to do anything to him. You, on the other hand, cannot be allowed to continue.”
Sherman snorted. “You think you’ve won? You don’t even get it yet, but you will soon enough. By now, you’ve already lost. You showed your hand and handed Benning your weakness on a silver platter.”
My chest tightened at his words. “What are you talking about?”
“Benning wanted to throw you out as soon as he realized you and that “friend” of yours were a little too close, but I told him to wait. That if you were that promising a soldier we could find a way to use you to our advantage. It wasn’t until a very interesting meeting Cranson and I had today that we realized it wasn’t you we could use to our advantage, but that good for nothing friend of yours. Well, I suppose he was good for something in the end.”
“What did you do?”
Sherman laughed. “We didn’t have to do anything, his family came to us and offered a deal. A worthless recruit in exchange for information. It was an enlightening conversation, but her prize was stolen from medical before we could hand him over. Luckily, she had her own way of tracking him. Benning is probably delivering her payment to her doorstep as we speak. You don’t have time to stop me and still hope to reach him in time.”
My jaw ached from how hard I clenched my teeth. “Where?”
Sherman smiled and shuffled closer to the door. “Shoot me and you’ll never know. Wait and you’ll be too late. Let me leave and I’ll tell you what I know.”
“If you do not tell me where he is, I will end you.”
I followed him to the door, gun never leaving my hand. Sherman pushed open the door and paused as he stepped out.
“Rot in hell,” the man blurted as he took off down the hall.
I took aim at his retreating back and fired as a weight came down on my arm.
“I have the address they gave to Benning!”
Sherman slipped around a corner before I could fire again and I turned cold eyes on Young. It was clear he was trying to save a life, even if he had mixed feelings about it. When he saw my glare, he quickly stepped back and held up his phone with the message he’d sent to Benning. I snatched the phone from his hand and went after Sherman.
“What will you do to Beau?” he called as I ran down the hall.
“I won’t have to do anything. If you want to survive this, you should leave and never come back.”
The lot we’d left the car in when we first arrived was closer to the training facility, but I had to cross the parking lot of their main building to get there. Nick appeared out of nowhere just as I started across the pavement. There was a dark look on his face and he smelled of blood as he grabbed my arm and pulled me away.
“Not that way,” he said barely a moment before an uncomfortably close explosion shook the ground sending debris flying our way. We ducked around the corner of the building as smoke and shouts from the escaping donors filled the air. When we regained our footing, he gave me a single dip of his chin and walked away.
Nick had gotten his revenge, but he wasn’t the only one who needed to even the score.