Page 68 of Transfiguration
“Hello?” He said, feeling half alive as he clicked answer.
“Where is my son? Why is no one answering their phones? What happened at your condo?” Hart demanded. “Where is Sam?”
Con blinked, staring up into the dark of the room, took the phone from his ear to check the time and realized he’d had less than three hours of sleep.
“Constantine,” Hart said, his voice cold and demanding. Hart never used Con’s first name, so the sound of it coming through the line gave him chills.
A thousand things crossed Con’s mind at that moment. Seiran had said communications were broken. Did that mean Hart didn’t know? His stomach churned at the memory of Luca pinned to the door again. “I think the phones were down?” Con tried. “Must work again.”
“I’ve been trying to reach all of you for three days,” Hart said.
Three days? Con thought it had been a little over twenty-four hours since the fire, but he glanced at the phone again. Maybe he had slept longer than he’d thought. He couldn’t remember the actual date as numbers blurred. That was some knock out spell Rou had. He rolled out of bed, phone pressed to his ear and making his way down through the quiet house, toward the arboretum. Would they still be there?
He didn’t sense anyone as he made his way through the house, asleep maybe? Hart asked him a few more things before another voice replaced his crisp tone on the line. “Constantine?” Page asked.
“Hey, Page,” Con said, trying for casual as he stood before the ward on the arboretum door. “How’s the new job? Big change for you, right? From assistant to the Pillar to mob boss? Not sure it’s a move up, but go you, getting out of the Dominion.” He studied the wards, letting the wind flow over it, memorizing the lines and finding small loopholes he could break. It would piss off the Pillar of Earth how easily Con unraveled the wards.
“Mr. Hart is very concerned,” Page continued. “He needs to see Luca.”
Con needed to see Luca, too. And not the continued nightmare of his body pinned to a door, burned, and used for a spell. He longed to go back and examine that spell again, with a clearer head. But he also had questions.
He found his way inside and to the spot, still marked with protective runes. He walked through the barrier without trouble. Nothing appeared to have changed. Con pulled a sharp slice of wind to slash himself again, and rain blood over where they rested. He cut deeper than he should have, but felt nothing, not even the familiar sting of pain that could be grounding. He decided in that moment to accept the Focus bond. Whatever that meant. Con had read about it. He understood the basics but knew little about the actual function. He was theirs already, and they were his. What did a magical bond matter? Would it have given them strength, brought them back already? Or drag him into the grave with them.
“I am yours, you are mine, until the sun forever breaks,” Con said as the blood poured down his arms over their graves. He didn’t know if it would work and didn’t care if he died right there waiting for them. He didn’t feel any different. Numb. Tired. Lonely.
Then he remembered the bag of parts, and how Matthew had been in the golem. If Con used the parts, could he get Matthew to speak, even if he didn’t have the vampire’s full body? “I need to talk to Matthew,” Con told Page.
Page hesitated. “He’s not able to talk.”
“Hart has his soul, right? Bella saw him in Hart’s office. Just put Matthew back in the golem. I’ll get answers out of him.”
“It’s not that simple.”
Con disagreed. He watched his blood flow, dripping down both his arms as if he’d planned a gruesome suicide rather than a donation to his lovers. “There’s a little girl missing. I gotta find her.” And get revenge for Luca. Maybe he’d let the wind take control. What was the point of letting the world continue without Sam and Luca? He briefly thought of Kaine and hoped the kid would be safe across the veil. “Put the soul back in the golem, Page.” Con demanded.
“Constantine. Let me talk to your men first.”
“They aren’t able totalkright now,” Con said through gritted teeth. Because someone had murdered Luca, and Sam had tried to save him. Con had been useless again. “Put the soul back in the golem, and I’ll pull answers from that monster.” Maybe his threat wasn’t strong enough because he was here and not there. It was always different to face the wind when it raged in the distance instead of it blasting sand into flesh and bone.
Con thought about the lines of the veil, his study giving them a set structure like a complicated math problem. Could he use that magic even if he wasn’t fae? He stood in the garden, filled with fae magic because they were metaphysically bound to Seiran, Pillar of Earth, through their creation of Kaine. If there was a way from here to Hart’s office, Con would be the one to find it. It’s what he did. If he could master traveling through the veil, how crazy could his skill be? And he’d never have to worry about not getting there fast enough to save his men again.
As he stood over where he knew Sam and Luca were, he felt a little lightheaded. Con wished he could feel them. He hated in that moment that he was wind and not earth. A crackle of energy rippled around him like a storm brewing. Con didn’t really care. When his guys were around, it was easier to mute his self-destructive nature. Without them, all bets were off.
He lifted his arms, feeling as if they weighed a thousand pounds, and called the wind to open the veil for him. The lines, as he remembered, a swirl of space and chaos. Con wondered if he could really define where they went. He’d only seen them twice, but he took a step forward. What was the worst that could happen? He’d get lost beyond and devoured by some fae? It didn’t matter.
Arms wrapped around his middle, and the rift snapped shut.
“Let me go, Kaine,” Con demanded. He felt the healing trickle over him, a soothing spread of warmth that was now the familiar touch of fae magic. The wounds on his arms healed, though he was still lightheaded from blood loss.
“You’ll get lost.”
“Doesn’t matter. Without my guys, I’m already lost.” He looked down and realized he’d somehow crushed his phone in his fist, strength he’d never had, pulled from the wind, which whipped around them, riling up the fae in the garden, and a storm brewed inside the small space.
Seiran entered the arboretum, and Con narrowed his gaze, thinking he’d sent Kaine again. “Go,” Seiran said to Kaine.
“But…”
“No. Go,” Seiran said firmly, and Kaine let go, vanishing with a pop not unlike the little fae lights around them. Seiran glared at Con.