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“No way,” Lynn breathed. Zeke turned his attention to the only person in the room with a lifelong knowledge of magic.

“There was a flash of sort of shocked awareness when she saw me looking back at her, then she tried to zap me, but I let go of the lamp, and all she did was singe my fingers a little,” Zeke informed her.

“That’s amazing,” Lynn went on, clearly impressed.

“When you say you saw her, do you mean you know what she looks like now? You saw her face?” Hal pressed.

Zeke nodded. “I can draw her. In fact, I’ve already started a sketch.” Zeke pulled out the paper he’d been working on before he’d come to this meeting. He hadn’t had much time, but he’d already roughed out the shape of her face.

“So, if you know what she looks like, does that mean she also saw you? Does she know what you look like?” Rick intoned.

“And does she have the kind of connections that would allow her to learn your true identity from knowing your facial features?” Hal added.

“Connections wouldn’t necessarily matter. She could scry for you, depending on her strength and abilities. Or if she has friends and allies with the right skills,” Lynn put in.

“So, we’re one step closer to her, knowing what she looks like now, but she’s also a little closer to us, with the same kind of information.” Hal’s expression turned grim.

“This is personal now,” Lynn confirmed. “She’ll be gunning for you, in particular, Zeke. Now that she knows your face. It probably won’t be long until she also knows your identity, whether by magical or mundane means, and your location.”

“Then we’d better find out who she is first, and end her,” Hal said into the momentary silence after Lynn’s words.

Hal’s tone was that of the steadfast leader he was and brooked no argument.

Not that Zeke felt like arguing. He wanted that mage to pay for her crimes against Celine.

Zeke didn’t mind in the least putting himself in the line of fire if it would take the evil woman’s focus off Celine, even momentarily.

“I’m going to talk to Granny about finding someone to put wards on this island.

It’s probably too late to make a difference in this situation, but with some magical protections on this place, we might be able to stop any other mages from scrying the locations of who’s here and who’s not. ” Lynn looked thoughtful as she spoke.

“You’ll have to clear that with the base commander,” Hal told her, but Lynn nodded readily.

“I’ll talk to him. I’m actually a bit surprised the shifters didn’t already think of it, but then again, they might be hesitant to call on magical help since before recent times, there wasn’t much interaction between the various parts of the magical community.

Bloodletters, shifters, mages and the rest all kept pretty much to themselves, but all that’s changed now with the threat of Elspeth’s return.

Alliances are forming, like they did in the Dark Ages, when we fought her last,” Lynn explained.

Zeke was fascinated by the history and would make a point to get more of it from Lynn the next time they had a few moments for conversation. As it was right now, there was work to do and bad guys to catch. There was also a bullet to examine.

“Do you have the bullet that hit Celine?” Zeke asked, unwilling to wait any longer for the rest of them to get around to it. He wanted to see what he could learn from that insulting piece of silver.

Rick dug a small plastic bag out of his pocket and slid it across the table toward Zeke.

The slug within gleamed silver in the light of the conference room.

Such a small thing to cause so much pain.

And the idea of it being made out of silver to cause poisoning and unconsciousness that could easily have led to Celine’s death made it even more sinister.

“I rinsed it off while I was wearing gloves, so hopefully I didn’t leave any lingering impressions on it,” Rick explained as Zeke opened the bag and spilled the hunk of silver out onto the table.

Reaching out with one finger, Zeke touched it, opening his mind to whatever he might be able to see from it.

There was the retrieval as it was dug out of Celine’s flesh, then the scene reversed to where it was shot into her, then farther back to where it was loaded into the magazine that was then loaded into the weapon from which it had been shot.

“I see the man who loaded the magazine. They were all silver bullets in that mag. Two men were sitting in a small room, loading the mags, talking about taking out shifters and how much fun it was to watch them scream as silver poisoned the wounds,” Zeke reported, almost snarling in disgust and hatred for the scumbags only he could see in his mind’s eye.

“Lovely fellows,” Lynn mused dryly.

“Ugly,” Zeke corrected. “I can see their faces. I’ll sketch them next.

They look like soldiers for hire, though they are also talking about being double agents.

Like they have a secret job where they shoot shifters, but otherwise present a more benevolent face to some other group that thinks they’re just watching and reporting. ”

“Could be Altor Custodis moles,” Lynn said contemplatively.

“That’s the group of watchers, right? Just as ancient an order as the Venifucus , but they’re supposed to be non-violent,” Hal mused.

“Supposed to be, but in recent years, there has been strong evidence that the Altor Custodis has been infiltrated in many places by Venifucus agents, using their extensive records to target shifters, bloodletters and those who would probably be on our side in the fight against evil. They’ve done a lot of damage,” Lynn confirmed.

“Then, it’s good Zeke can see and sketch their faces. We might get a hit on facial recognition and be able to identify them. Stop them, if possible,” Rick put in, his voice going low and determined. Zeke felt the same. Those guys needed to be stopped.

“The bullets were manufactured overseas and shipped here. I think they were made in Germany. Probably in one of Kettering’s operations,” Zeke went on.

“How do you know that?” Hal asked, making notes.

“I saw the Ramstein skyline again. Hell, they might even have been made in his castle. The view was similar. Same area, at least. He might have a munitions plant on the grounds or something,” Zeke told them.

“That makes sense. We know how he loves his weaponry, and if he was making special ammo, he’d probably want it nearby where he could get to it easily,” Rick ventured.

*

It wasn’t until after dinner that the master chief sought out Zeke in the cafeteria.

They were all off duty, so Santini pulled out a chair at Zeke’s table and sat casually, though his questions were anything but.

The others who had shared the meal left quietly until it was just Santini and Zeke left at the table.

Both had cups of coffee to sip, along with extra plates of lemon meringue pie the master chief had brought with him.

Zeke was glad of the friendly gesture and took the pie gratefully.

Honestly, the mess in this building was far superior to any he’d suffered in his military career.

That was due mostly to the leader of the crew, Master Chief Santini, Zeke knew.

He thanked the older man for the pie and dug in while Santini formulated his questions.

“Thank you for censoring what you told Celine at the house. And thank you again for diving in after her and bringing her to shore. You likely saved her life, though we had seals in the water searching for her. I’d like to think they would have found her in time, but I’m not altogether certain of that,” Santini said, tilting his head as he took a forkful of pie and chewed thoughtfully.

“I was glad to help,” Zeke said, a bit uncomfortable with all the gratitude.

They were both soldiers. They did this kind of thing for a living. The overabundant thanks were making him feel a bit self-conscious, if he was being honest.

After a moment, the master chief nodded and let the subject rest. Zeke breathed a sigh of relief.

“Now, I’d like to know more detail about what you saw of the attack,” Santini said, jumping right in for the information he was after.

Zeke lowered his fork and took a deep breath.

The details he’d seen of the attack weren’t pretty, and he still didn’t understand all the implications of the magic fight he’d witnessed through his gift, though he’d talked it over with Lynn earlier.

Still, he’d promised Santini he would give him all the details while protecting Celine from the worst of the nightmare images he’d received.

Taking a deep breath, Zeke told him every last detail he could remember.

Just as he’d told Rick and Lynn, and a host of others in his unit, earlier during his previous debriefing sessions today.

Zeke tried to note the differences between the questions Santini asked and those that Lynn had asked. Lynn understood magic, and her grandmother was a powerful witch, but Santini had the shifter perspective, which was something new and intriguing. At least to Zeke and the rest of his unit.

“I wish you’d been at the earlier meetings today, Master Chief,” Zeke told the man after another astute question relating to the way Celine’s parents had reacted to each of the mage’s attacks.

He focused more on the victims—which was understandable since they were his kin—while Lynn had focused on the mage.

But his perspective on the shifters and how they had reacted apparently told Santini a bit more about the kind of magic the mage had been wielding than Lynn had been able to ascertain.

At least, that’s how it sounded to Zeke.

“Why?” Santini asked, sitting back to regard Zeke with a curious expression.