Page 23 of Deadly Reckoning (Broken Ashes #7)

Neith

P ushing back from the table, I stand up and decide to ignore the guys who all look like they’re trying not to laugh at me.

This is important.

Okay, so maybe it’s not that important, but to my brain right now, it’s at the top of the importance list.

River is fucking awesome because he seems to be the only one who understands where my mind has taken me, because he stands up as well, and starts to try to kick himself, just like I’m trying to.

I have to admit that we both look absolutely ridiculous, and that the guy's laughter is totally justified, but I now have this weird need to see this through and see if I can actually kick myself.

Eventually, I work out that, by bending my knee and holding my leg over the other one, I can sort of kick myself backward, but the only thing I can kick is the shin of my other leg, and I giggle as River tries to do this weird jump thing to see if he can kick himself that way.

I figure that’s probably the best that I’m going to get, but before I can sit down, another idea occurs to me, and I try one last thing.

Keeping my leg straight, I kick and bring my leg up to my head.

The only problem is that I put a bit more force behind it than I should have.

“Ouch,” I grumble, rubbing my forehead where I actually did manage to kick myself in the face.

The guys roar with laughter, including River, and I can’t help joining in when someone snorts and sets everyone off laughing again.

By the time everyone has calmed down, I’m back in my seat, and my sides are hurting from laughing so much. Every time our laughter slowed down, something would happen, or we would look at each other, and we’d just start laughing again.

“Right, I want to get a start on these books,” Raiden says, still smiling as he begins to stand up.

Ransom nods, “Yeah, I need to go and work on the wards. They’re still giving me some trouble, and it’s starting to drive me a bit crazy trying to figure out why they aren’t working.”

“Wait,” Griff says, looking at me, he asks, “you never told us why you were going to kick yourself?”

“Oh shit, yeah,” River says, looking at me expectantly. He adds, trying not to laugh, “I can’t believe you kicked yourself in the head.”

“Well, to be fair, I didn’t know that I could still do that,” I retort and then add, “I’m never going to live that down, am I?”

Coen grins, “No, Love. You’re absolutely not going to live it down.”

Smirking, Evander interrupts, before I can retort, “Nene, focus, why were you kicking yourself in the first place?”

“Oh, right, yeah,” I reply, as I try to organize my thoughts, to get me back to where I was originally going before I got distracted by whether I could kick myself. “My finding ability, I can use it to find Pete.”

Realization dawns on everyone’s expressions.

“I have no idea why we didn’t think about using your finding ability to locate Pete,” Reed says. “We’ve used it several times now, so it’s not like it’s rarely used, and we’ve forgotten about it.”

I nod, “Now you know why I wanted to kick myself,” I say with a smug smile that I’m not entirely sure the situation warrants.

“Well, go on then. If we know where he is, then we can ask him a few questions. He’s going to know more than anyone about angels, he is mated to one,” Raiden says, excitement and a thirst for knowledge filling his eyes.

I nod.

Despite the small thread of nerves that moves through me at the thought of actually coming face to face with Pete as my father, I call on my magic.

Specifically, my tracking magic.

Focusing, I ask it to find Pete and bring an image of him into my mind. It buzzes, getting ready to do as I’ve asked, and I feel it build like it normally does just before a map appears, but this time, nothing happens, and it fizzles out.

I frown.

It doesn’t feel the same as it does when it’s not working. When I called on it to help me work a case when I was working with HID, it didn’t even stir. That’s not happening now, it’s like it’s trying to do what I’ve asked, and it can’t for some reason.

“It’s not working,” I tell the guys who are all watching me curiously. “I can’t find him.”

Doc hesitates and then asks gently, “Could it be because he’s dead?”

The others give him sharp looks in admonishment, which are unnecessary. I appreciate that Doc asked.

I shake my head, “No. I can usually still find people even if they are dead. It’s like what happened on the pack land. I could see Asher’s light, and then I could see it fading, so I knew that we needed to get to him quickly. If he were dead, if any of them were dead, then I would have known. “

“Okay, so that’s not the reason that you can’t find him then,” Ransom says, looking thoughtful.

“Didn’t you say that it doesn’t always work?” Griff asks.

I nod, “Yeah, but that was before my supernatural side came out fully, and it hasn’t given me any trouble for a while now, not since I used it to help me find this place.”

“Well, I’ve got no clue then,” Coen says.

“It’s certainly odd that it’s not working for Pete, although he did manage to hide the fact that he was a supernatural from you.

So there's a chance that he’s somehow cloaking himself well enough that you can’t find him,” Raiden suggests.

His eyebrows are drawn down slightly as he tries to puzzle it out.

“That’s true,” River agrees.

“I would be inclined to agree if it weren’t for the fact that I saw through Navy’s very strong cloaking that none of you did. So wouldn’t that mean that my tracking ability is able to see through strong cloaking and glamor too?” I ask.

“Usually it would, but we’re playing with a lot of unknowns at the moment,” Doc points out. “We don’t know if the same applies to your magic. You’re not a supernatural that any of us have encountered before.”

“That’s already getting old,” I mutter grumpily.

Why couldn’t I have been a supernatural that is common, or at least common enough that we know most of the information about it? Like a reaper, I could have been a reaper. I would have been mad that they’re all dicks, but I would have been happy to be the same as Raiden.

Oh, or a shifter, of any kind, I would have loved that.

I like the idea of shifting into some kind of animal.

Let's face it, I would have been happy to be anything that was known, and that even I could be like, oh yeah, they’re really good at biting, or flying, or combat, or spells, or hell, anything.

But no, instead, I’m an almost extinct species of supernatural that we have no correct information on, and that possibly no one has ever had any accurate information on.

Those books that were written wrong were not just old but extremely old, and it makes me wonder if there has ever been any actual knowledge on angels, or if it has always been fake.

The person to ask about it all would be my mother, but there’s an impenetrable realm gate between us, and not only that, but there is a very good chance that she’s dead.

I don’t want to say it out loud, hell, I don’t even want to think it, but she’s been in Trieneliea, effectively fighting a war by herself, having sent all of her strongest supernaturals to the Earth Realm with the people that she could evacuate.

She’s strong, I know that just from the little information that I have about her, and I know that she still had the armies with her, and she had Wynonna as well, and from what I can tell, she kicks fucking ass.

I would love to meet her. I’d love to meet both of them, and it makes me sad to think that the probability of that happening is pretty much zero.

Still, even with all of that, it’s a lot to keep a realm going and not to die.

I really fucking hope she’s not dead.

“Neith?” Reed questions.

I snap out of my thoughts to find the guys all watching me closely.

“Sorry, I got lost in my mind for a moment,” I tell them honestly.

Raiden nods, “We’ll figure it out, and we will get you the answers that you need.”

I smile, “I know we will. It would just be easier if I were a supernatural that we all knew about.”

Coen shrugs, “Yeah, it would, but where’s the fun in that?”

I grin. “Normal is boring.”

“There’s my girl,” Coen smiles.

“Come on, let’s go play with your fire and see what it can do,” River suggests, bouncing up out of his seat.

“I’m going to go to the library and get started on these,” Raiden says, nodding to the pile of books from the Elders.

Griff glances at him, “Do you mind if I come with you? I’ll stay out of your way. There’s just a couple of things that I want to look into.”

Raiden smiles, “Of course, I don’t mind.”

River looks at Reed, “As much as I would like to come with you, I need to get a workout in before dinner. I’m feeling twitchy.”

“Fair enough,” River says.

“I’ve got to go over some paperwork and prepare for the upcoming wolves case,” Van says as he stands up with the others.

“I’m going to go over the case file my assistants put together on the autopsy of the hybrid, and see if I can find any correlation between what we know already,” Doc says with a smile that tells me that he truly loves his job.

“I really need to figure this ward thing out,” Ransom says.

“Coen?” River asks, looking expectantly at him.

Coen grins, “Yeah, I’ll come and play with fire with you. Just give me a sec, I need to talk to Ransom. I’ll catch up.”

I grin, “Alright, see you out there.”

“Can you two at least do it by the kelpie lake or swimming hole so you don’t set the whole of the forest on fire?” Evander says, “River, your fire is pretty unpredictable anyway, and we know that Neith’s is too.”

I grin as I bounce excitedly. This is going to be fun, I can feel it.

“We can do that,” River says. “Come on, Beautiful, let's go.”

I quickly get up and follow River out of the room, Evander making his way out behind us and leaving only Ransom and Coen behind.

Coen

O nce the door closes behind them, Ransom looks at me expectantly.

“Is everything okay?” he asks.