Page 6 of Transfiguration

“I’m not afraid of the Dominion.” Con would have been more afraid if Luca said Rou was coming for him. The two scariest people Con knew were Rou and Sam. And Sam would never hurt Con. Rou… he was a good guy, but the strength of his power meant he wasn’t always able to hold back the earth, and Con knew how strong and angry an element could be when denied.

Luca sucked in a deep breath. “Just be careful, please. I love you, want you home in one piece.”

Con smiled, unable to keep up his grumpy attitude in the face of Luca’s adoration. “Love you too, babe. Ride the vampire until I get home, make sure he’s well fed. I’ll be there in a few hours.” He hung up the phone, picturing Luca’s ass split wide with Sam’s fine cock, while Luca’s cock leaked and begged for Con’s attention. Luca was insatiable in the bedroom. Con loved that, but he was aging, slower than human, faster than the average witch, and his libido struggled to keep up. Mid-thirties, he still looked late twenties, but time was not on his side. Something else to point him toward finally accepting the Focus bond. Sam didn’t age. He was a vampire, changed at nineteen. Luca was born a half-vampire, so he was already almost a hundred years old and didn’t look a day over twenty-two, and likely never would.

If the Dominion was unraveling, maybe it was time to bite that bullet and make the tie. They could escape to another country, some place with fewer witches, and hide until the end of the world was over, even if it took a century or two. Time never felt more intimidating than when it was running out.

Con sighed and pulled the car out onto the highway toward the lead. He debated pulling off and changing but having not found anything on his Google Earth scans for the location, he wondered if he’d been punked. There was nothing there. At least on the map images, but a bunker could be underground. That would be hard to see from the sky. Traffickers were good at hiding things in plain sight, and their rich backers funded shady things like underground military bases. Con had broken into more than a handful of them in his days. The toy soldiers left guarding them were always wielding big guns and little skill. Like wearing camouflage and strapping on a gun grew balls instead of shrinking them? Con chuckled to himself at the memory of more than a few who had pissed their pants when faced with real magic.

He wove his car around the city for a while before making his way to the outskirts and the location. It looked like nothing. More dirt, which was the norm out here. Con parked and stepped out of the car. He had a few runes tattooed that could help focus wind magic in ways to trace a path. A decade of private study with books banned to most Dominion witches, and he had taught himself a lot.

He shifted his sight, letting the power rise in a swirl of warm wind. The area flickered and wriggled, manipulated waves of air, not unlike the heat reflecting off of pavement. Only this sight defined those waves into direction and colors, a more recent memory type of thing, something or someone moving through the space, shoving air aside, stirring up a wake. As he examined the area, most were low to the ground, likely animals, a few birds, their diagonal descent telling him more than any physical tracks would, but there was a bigger disruption a dozen yards off.

That was a giant javelina or a trafficker who was now one with the dirt. Con made his way over, keeping focused on the path of disturbed air, but having to readjust a few times as it was difficult to keep that sideways gaze to see it and still move forward. Where was he headed? Con followed the path over a small hill and near a ravine, the break in the spread of cactus in the distance indicating there was some sort of recent disruption in the area.

Was the area known for rain? Would a bunker flood here? Maybe they shut it down in the normal desert monsoon season? It seemed a strange place to put one, but Con never questioned the logic of people trying to hide things. Most often, it made no sense. The trail stopped, and he frowned, staring around for a direction. Down?

He let the wind lift and swirl around him, asking for a direction or clue. Sure enough, buried beneath the sand about three inches was a door with a big wheel lock on it. Like some bunker built in the 1970s. He shoved the sand back and bent to turn it. It rolled easily, like it had been opened often, but when he lifted the door, it looked like the rolling lock only worked from the outside. Meaning if someone happened upon him, he could be locked inside.

Con growled and grabbed the door, slamming the power of wind into it as he pulled. The entire thing groaned with a metallic whine but ripped away. He tossed it aside, feeling a bit like Superman for half a second. If there was anyone inside they’d have heard that, but he wasn’t worried. Everyone underestimated wind until it brought their house down around their ears.

He stared below into the space; a narrow stairway led into the dark. Would there be lights? Was it some sort of storage space? He let his owl senses settle over him, listening first, the smallest of sounds amplifying. There were no immediate sounds of movement, at least not nearby.

He wrapped a shield around himself, the same hair and skin cell shield as before, strong enough to stop most bullets, and headed into the dark. There were a handful of lights. Con flipped the first one with caution, the space illuminating with old fluorescents that winked and flickered for a few seconds. It looked like a warehouse, sections of empty space, a handful of stacks of emergency meals, a few boxes of ammunitions, and other survival supplies. No books.

A couple of doors led in opposite directions. Con followed the one to the left first, finding a long tunnel and a living type of space with a bathroom, a tiny kitchen, and a very retro style bedroom. It reminded him of one of those trendy Japanese pod spaces he’d used once on a trip to find an enchanted cat statue. This place was a hole-in-the-wall that was too dusty to have been used recently.

The door in the center led to a wider warehouse space filled with pallets, and a long, wide hallway out to a parking lot on the other side of the hill, though that door was locked from the outside too. Con would have to drive around to see if he could find it. But the space appeared to be some sort of loading dock. It was crazy how far the underground space went.

Con sorted through the pallets, finding more supplies: munitions, food, some clothing. Nothing magical. These boxes had a strange symbol on the side that looked sort of like a bone in fire? He took a picture, planning to search the Fellowship database when he got back. He’d have missed the symbol altogether in the dark if it wasn’t a raised wax thing of long years past. Black wax, a touch of red mixed in, an interesting combination. He had stumbled across a lot of cults in his days. Maybe this was a prepper cult?

He paused, thinking he heard movement, froze in place and let his owl hearing extend.

Was it a rat? Perhaps movement from beyond the walls? It sounded small, but not like scratching, and the metal structure muted some of his power. Maybe a bird from above? He listened long enough to determine it was coming from the right. The last door? Was someone in there?

He approached with caution, surprised that the door had a lock on it too. This door deadbolted to keep something locked inside. He didn’t have a key and had found nothing useful on the trafficker. But he put his hand over the lock and felt the wind rise from his fingers, examining the inside ridges until he could press them and hear the snick of it opening. Picking locks was one of his fortes, even the digital ones had inside mechanisms to open.

Con used the door as a shield, keeping his wind barrier tight around him just in case someone came out shooting. He’d never been a fan of guns. Imprecise weapons, miniature explosions. He didn’t need help from projectile weapons; he was a weapon.

The door eased back, opening to a bigger living space. A section of boxes stacked against the wall, all bearing labels of some of that survival food that had been in the warehouse. The area beyond opened up, bright with lights. Con hesitated, listening again, this time deeper. No movement, but faintly a heartbeat.

“Hello?” Con called, trying to pinpoint the sound. “Someone here? I can let you out.” He waited a minute, stillness leaving only the echoing of the heartbeat, which sped up a little. “I will not hurt you. I’m only here looking for a book.” Not a lie, exactly. If it was another trafficker, Con would deal with him much the way he had the last one.

“Promise?” A small voice whispered low enough that Con barely heard it. A child?

“I’m looking for a book,” Con said. “One with magic. The other guy, big dude that smelled? He won’t be coming back.”

A small face peered out from behind a stack of boxes. “Don’t know about a magic book. Have some books. None of them magic.” Pale, eyes wide, hair blonde, but pulled away from her face. Had that asshole been trafficking kids, too? “He’s really not coming back?”

“Was he family?” Con asked, feeling bad for a half second for killing the guy. Guess he wasn’t a psychopath, he thought, since the guilt came easy enough. Was he her dad or something?

“No.”

Con swallowed and stepped into the space, careful to keep a distance and trying not to frighten her. “Did he, ah… hurt you?” Fuck, he was the wrong one of the trio to deal with this sort of thing. Sam was the one who was good with kids. He’d had siblings, and even sometimes babysat Rou’s kids. Had one of those crazy personalities that could go from insane monster tearing shit up to smiling uncle with fun stories that were okay for kids. Con had his own dual mode, bored gamer, and killer. No in-between.

“Who are you?” The girl asked, not moving from her place behind the crates.

“Um, I’m Constantine…” Thief and scum killer didn’t sound like a good title. “You can just call me, Con.”