Page 61 of Transfiguration
Was that what Kaine meant about balance? “Rune theory stated the elements were a complete loop of intertwined power, all parts linking to each other. Read that in hundreds of texts. Don’t know why the Dominion changed it. But Hart builds power. Magical, political, financial, all of it. Doesn’t it make your teeth hurt to be close to him?” Con pointed out the runes on the light wheel section, which were very similar to those in the dark section. Mirrors rather than opposites, like the rest of the wheel was.
Seiran’s eyes got huge and a half dozen expressions crossed his face. “Fuck.”
“Yeah. The question is, how much does he know? Does he know about these Kresnik assholes? He’s a vampire, right? He’d have encountered them in the past?”
“I would think so.”
“Where’s your ball and chain? Ask him.”
“Gabe is talking with his vampires. He and Hart haven’t been a thing for thousands of years. He feels strange talking to him, confused? Not attracted, but the memories are mixed.”
“Convenient,” Con growled. “Interesting how none of you trust Hart.”
“Do you?” Seiran demanded. “You work for him.”
Con trusted no one but Sam and Luca… “No.”
Seiran grabbed his tablet off the edge of the counter and tapped the screen, bringing up something. “This is all on our private server here but look at the aerial pictures I found.”
One was of woods with a spread of cabins, or at least what looked like the tops of cabins interspersed between the trees. Zoomed out to towering heights, and it looked vaguely like the rune circle carved around Luca on the loft door, and the one they’d found around the dead Pillar. Broken arrays?
Seiran flipped to another, an old house that appeared to have seen better days. Across from a barren field was the similar symbol interlaced within the remains of a building. “This one was where Matthew, as a vampire, was supposed to have died. The building blew up. I didn’t know back then that it’s pretty hard to kill a vampire and keep it dead. The power of a vampire has to be dispersed or devoured, like Sam did to the TriMega.”
“How do they use nullification magic to steal magic?” Con asked. He flipped through more. Dozens of broken arrays. Dates and locations across not only the USA, but the world. Con gaped at them all. Were any of them still active? Some showed Matthew had been there. “I need to find Matthew’s body. Ask that son of a bitch if he has answers.”
Seiran sighed. “It was all a giant puzzle that I pulled from the Fellowship records, the Dominion, and my own notes, over a decade ofwtfmoments, but nothing fits together, until now. You’re good at that sort of thing?” He pointed at the finger bone on the counter. “Can we use that to track?”
“Yes,” Con agreed. “But aren’t you the investigator?”
Seiran rubbed his face. “Not like you are. I think the Dominion purposely keeps its witches minimally trained. I’ve been studying for decades and suddenly feel like I know nothing. Does Sam know more than me? He’s been your lover for decades and was with Matthew before that bastard supposedly died. He’d been using runes. What does he know?”
Con growled, hating the memory of Sam’s abuse by that monster. “Sam hates magic. He avoids it when possible. Runes are my thing. He’s better at brute strength and speed than magic. Though part of all that never made sense to me,” Con said.
“Which part?”
“Matthew was a vampire. Roman was a vampire. They both hunted other vampires. I know there was some shit between Santini and Roman, but why would Roman be attacking vampires other than Santini?” Con asked.
“I wondered that too. And Sam recalls Matthew saying his sire had taught him to hunt vampires. We know now that Matthew’s sire wasn’t Roman. So, who was it? And why?” Seiran sighed as he flipped through. More appeared as he scrolled. “Gabe’s people are sending us more. Uploading to a secure server that then drops them to me. It’s slow, but massive. Too much to wrap my head around. How could Hart see this and not link it? I really wish I could dig into the Fellowship records right now.”
“If someone is deleting everything, there might be nothing,” Con said. “Hart acts like he knows everything, but even he can’t be everywhere at once. If these assholes are in the Fellowship…”
“It would be no different than the Dominion or the Ascendance. A change in name doesn’t root out the cancer.”
Con scrolled through the data, cataloging it as he always did, sorting, and thinking he needed to start at the beginning. Maybe not the beginning of this mess, but the place this all started for him. He got up. “I need to borrow a car. Never mind, Sam has one in your garage.” He turned to head toward the garage.
“Wait! Where are you going?” Seiran rushed after him.
“To the place this all started for me,” he tapped the screen to bring up the aerial view of the cabin where his sister’s mortal life had ended. He wished he had Bella at his side to see her ghost if she was there. Maybe she would answer questions.
“We can have Bryar take us through the veil,” Seiran said.
“Is that wise?”
“I’m not sure any of this is wise. I don’t know anything anymore. Everything I’ve known and trusted my entire life has been a lie. So, you tell me? I’d rather jump through the veil than drive for hours, and if that piece of shit Matthew is there, I can’t promise not to go insane. Bryar might be able to pull me back inside the veil before I destroy the world if that happens.”
Con thought that was a stretch, and what he knew from Kaine about how the worlds needed to be bound. He suspected it would end them all either way. “Shouldn’t you stay here where it’s safe?”
“Fuck you,” Seiran said, fists clenched. “I will not sit on the sidelines waiting for someone to come for us. And they will, because they always fucking do!”