Chapter Three
Seb
I t was always nice to hear my viramore say something was weird when he was magically assessing something— not .
“What’s weird?” Bas asked before I could.
“I… think this is some kind of curse, but I can’t tell a hundred percent.”
Bas cursed under his breath, and I said, “Well, shit.”
“Yeah.” Ailin sighed, and for a moment, he glanced down at Sera and Zamm, who were staring at the mistletoe, before he looked up at the kids. “You guys are right. It’s pulling life essence and fear energy out, and then, seemingly releasing it out into the world. What the hell is this? Why would someone pull life essence if they’re not even pulling it into themselves in the first place?”
“Maybe someone is nearby and collecting it?”
Ailin made a face, then turned to me. “I’m not sure if that’s doable.”
“What do you mean?”
“That’s what’s weird about it. Normally, in order to gain anything from fear energy or life essence, you have to be present when it’s released and collect it straight from the source. I’ve never heard of anyone being able to collect it from a secondary location, or from midair, or anything. That’s why it’s never bottled up and sold. It can’t be—nor should it. If someone tried, I’d shut that shit down immediately.”
“Hm.” I gave him a comforting pat on the back as I stared at the little monster, still going crazy and slamming against Ailin’s shield. “That really is weird. What’s the point of it, then?”
“Exactly. Why do this if you’re not even gaining anything from it?”
“No idea.”
“Which makes me think that someone is collecting it, but how?”
I shook my head because I had no idea either.
Ailin put his finger up against the shield, and we watched the mistletoe monster try to eat it as he spoke. “I thought that maybe this was some kind of prank, but a prank would stop at attacking toys and decor, right? Like… maybe someone thought it’d be funny to give people a scare. It sounds like something Bas would’ve done to his siblings on Solstice morning—”
“Hey! Why you gotta call me out like that? Any one of us could’ve done it.”
Ailin glanced at Basil and raised his eyebrow. “Really?”
Bas glared, then rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Rude.”
Before they could get into a full-blown argument, even if it wasn’t heated and was kind of funny, I said, “What were you saying, A?”
Ailin sighed and refocused on the mistletoe monster. “I don’t think this is a prank. A prank would stop at scaring someone, right? This… this is far beyond that.”
I nodded in agreement. “Not to mention the scale of the attacks. I doubt a prank would involve over fifty families at once, right?”
“It’s almost seventy now,” Thayer said. “Alec’s been sending the team updates.”
“Jesus.” I shook my head. “That’s… a lot.”
“Yeah, and they’re still coming in.”
I grimaced. This was awful, and there were already a lot of injured people. What if one of these things clung onto a child? What would happen? Could it kill them?
“Yes,” Ailin answered my silent question. “One of these could absolutely kill a child. Hell, in the right circumstance, it could kill an adult.”
“Fuck,” I breathed out. This was not good.
Clover said, “Actually, there’s already one teenager in critical condition. We have healing spells being sent over to the kid, so she should be alright, but yeah… this spell, or whatever it is, is really dangerous.”
Ailin stared at our daughter. “Are you sure the healing spells will take care of it?”
Clover nodded. “Yeah, Dad. There’s no internal bleeding or anything. She’s just got a huge gash in a dangerous place, but we sent one of our healers to sew her up and give her the tonics. I’d tell you if they needed you to run over there and make a healing bed.”
Ailin breathed out a long breath and gave her a nod before turning back to the mistletoe monster. Ailin was the best damn healer I’d ever seen, and he had the biggest heart of anyone I’d ever met. I wasn’t surprised he wanted to make sure that teenager—a complete stranger—didn’t need his help.
That was a part of why I loved the man so much.
Ailin nudged me with his shoulder without looking away from the mistletoe, so I had a feeling he’d overheard at least a part of what I was thinking.
After a few minutes, he sighed. “Alright, so I don’t think I can follow the life essence. It’s nearly impossible to see, and I have no way of marking it. Unless one of you has an idea?”
All of our kids shook their heads, and Thayer said, “We’ve got nothing, Dad.”
Ailin nodded at him. “Alright, then all we can do for now is destroy all the toys and decorations that are cursed with this spell. I’m going to leave this guy”—he poked the shielded mistletoe—“shielded and with Alec so I can examine it better later. Right now, we need to get rid of anything that’s attacking these poor people before more of them get hurt.”
Jorah blew out a breath with a nod. “Sounds like a plan… but we’re gonna be here all night. The count is up to seventy-eight already.”
“Great,” I mumbled. “After we kill everything, we’ve got to figure out where this shit came from and why this is happening.”
“Long night indeed.”
I scooped up Sera and Zamm, depositing the cat on my shoulder and the dragon on Ailin’s since they wanted to switch it up this time. Then we all headed out, and Ailin pulled the murderous mistletoe monster along, inside a bubble of a shield, all the way to the tent.
“Alec, I need you to keep this one intact.” Ailin floated the thing over to our brother-in-law.
“Why?” Alec grimaced at the thing as it tried to reach him through the shield. Those teeth were creepy as hell.
“So we can figure out what the hell’s going on here. Right now, we’re going to destroy all the attacking shit, and then we’ll be back for that guy.”
I said, “I’m going to bring back a couple more samples, just so you know. You might want to get some kind of container or something for it.”
“My shield will hold, thank you very much.” Ailin scoffed.
“Yes, but I think having it in something will make Alec feel better. Not to mention any of the victims that might come in here to talk to him.”
Alec nodded. “He’s right. I’ll find a crate or a bin or something and throw it inside.”
“Better get more than one. I want to have at least five more samples, just in case.”
Ailin gave me a small nod. “Good plan, baby.”
With a shrug, I led him out of the tent, hoping poor Alec would be okay with the murderous mistletoe so close by.
The first house we entered had multiple attacking objects. There were three toys—a stuffed bear, a train, and a handheld game console—and a giant wreath on the front door, all with teeth and claws and pulling fear and life essence out of its victims. It was gross.
Ailin and I caught the offending objects inside our shields, floated them out into the yard so we wouldn’t destroy anything inside the home, and dropped them on the grass.
I pulled on my magic, and Ailin pulled on his, both of us forming nice-sized blasting orbs. Then we shot the shit out of the damn things until they were burnt crisps lying on the grass.
Zamm stomped on them, looking like she was doing a little jig as the flames died down under her feet. It was a good thing she was fireproof. It was honestly adorable, and I wanted to take a video of her doing it, but I didn’t because of the severity of the situation.
When she was finished, I winced when I noticed how much grass we kind of… eviscerated with our blasts. Whoops .
In my head, Ailin said, “Don’t worry. I’ll fix it.”
My viramore bent down, placed his hands on the ground, and I felt him pour his magic into the grass. It always amazed me how his magic worked. His magic gained its power from nature itself, but he could also push that power back into plants, trees, and flowers and help them grow strong and healthy.
Before I knew it, the blast marks were gone, and the entire lawn looked picture-perfect.
Since Alec had a clean-up crew coming in behind us to collect all the pieces of spelled objects as evidence, we left them where they were and walked to the next house over.
This one was much of the same, and I thanked our lucky stars that the humans in this home had time to get out before anyone got seriously injured. Here, there was a nutcracker, another teddy bear, a race car and track, a dollhouse, and a board game that had some serious strength when it came to snapping shut and trying to eat us. It could’ve easily chopped some fingers off—super gross and creepy.
We pulled the offending items out, destroyed them on the lawn, and Ailin fixed the grass before we moved to the next house and did the whole ordeal over again.
We did this for hours and hours until my feet felt like they were going to fall off and my brain was so tired I could barely string together two coherent words.
Our kids were still going at it, and every time we walked past them, I could tell they were as exhausted as we were.
“How many more?” I asked.
Ailin checked his phone since we’d been added to the update text chain. “Uh… three.”
“That’s it?”
“As of right now.”
“Oh god, don’t say that.”
“You know more could be called in at any second.”
I grimaced and gave him an angry look, even though it wasn’t his fault. But he was right. We’d been down to two only an hour ago, and there was a sudden spike in calls, and fifteen more had been added on. This night couldn’t get any more frustrating.
“Let’s get this one done. Clover and Jorah have the one across the street, and Bas and Hiro have the one a block down.”
“Fine. Lead the way. This better be our last fucking one.”
He hummed in agreement, and we walked up the sidewalk to the next home on our list.
Right when we knocked, I felt my phone buzz.
Ailin went to reach for his own, and I grabbed his wrist to stop him, saying, “If we don’t check it, we can pretend we don’t know there’s more.”
He snorted and rolled his eyes. “Nice try, Seb. As if you’d ever not jump in to help someone who needs it.”
I exhaled loudly.
“You know I’m right.”
I shot him a glare. “No need to rub it in.”
He snorted again, then tried the doorknob. It wasn’t unlocked, which was strange. Every other house had been unlocked because the emergency operator had told everyone who called in with this issue to exit their home and leave the door unlocked for the BCA agents. But… maybe in their panic, the people who lived here forgot.
With no other idea what to do, Ailin knocked on the door again. We didn’t expect anyone to answer since the family should’ve left the premises long before we arrived.
I called Alec, and after he picked up, I said, “We’re at our last house, and the door’s locked. What do you want us to do?”
“Uh, give me one minute. I’ll see if I can find the family and get a key to you. What’s the address?”
I rattled off the address to him.
“Got it. Give me a few. While you wait, why don’t you go to the next one?”
I sighed. “There’s really been more called in?”
“Only two.”
“Well, at least that’s better than last time. Let me know when you want us to enter this other house.”
“Will do.”
“Talk soon.” I hung up and said to Ailin, “Let’s go to the next house. We’ll come back here afterward, and hopefully, someone will have a key or a way to open the door.”
“You mean other than blasting it with your magic, which I know you’re dying to do.”
“I am not.”
He gave me a look. “Sure you aren’t, baby.”
I flipped him off as we headed back down the sidewalk. Luckily, the next house was only three homes down. We entered and did our thing, taking out the garland, toy soldiers, and a stuffed elephant, fixed the grass, and headed back to the other house.
I called Alec again, and he answered with a, “No one can find the family, so I’m gonna need you to enter the home immediately in case they didn’t make it out. We have permission from Petunia Crane herself.”
Petunia was an old friend of ours who’d helped out during the Berserker War and was in charge of the council that ran the country. She’d been doing such an amazing job that people kept voting her back in. Although she kept claiming this was her last year—something she’d been saying for the last five years, so likely not. She loved her job, but she’d been doing it for a long time, so I wouldn’t blame her if she needed a break from it.
Ailin liked to call her the Queen of Brinnswick, which she absolutely hated—that probably made him do it more.
Since I had my phone on speaker, Ailin could hear Alec as well, and he said, “On it. Call back in a few.” He hung up my phone, and the two of us faced the door.
Since Ailin had more finesse when it came to opening doors with his magic—last time, I ended up simply blowing the handle off—I watched him pull power from the ground under his feet and release a green haze from his hand. The magic wrapped around the doorknob and floated into the keyhole, and only a few seconds passed before there was a soft click, and he was able to push the door open.
I threw a shield in front of us, just in case something came flying at us and attacked us, but when nothing happened, we stepped inside the house.
My eyes widened as I took in the living room, and I breathed out, “Oh my god.”