“Nah.” Reagan adjusted her fanny pack. She didn’t want to get a utility belt, fearing it would be easier for people to realize that she wasn’t really using the casings she carried to do magic. She was a headcase. “Half the time she is running away screaming from the mark. We only bicker the other half of the time. Come on; let’s go. We’re losing the daylight.”
“Why are we doing this during the day, again?” I asked, stepping out of the car as I ballooned a concealment spell around myself. It made me uneasy to think that Darius and his people couldn’t serve as backup.
Emery exited the other side of the car and put up the same spell, but with little embellishments and intricacies that would make it more durable.
“You always seem to show me up,” I grumbled, moving so Reagan could get out of the car and climb right into my spell. “Don’t touch anything, Reagan, remember.”
“I know, I know— Crap.” The spell started to dissolve when a flare of her magic zipped through her fingers as she stepped into it. “My bad. Can you nullify my magic as we go?”
“Doing that takes a lot of concentration and energy. I don’t think I could do that and maintain a spell at the same time.”
“Good to know.” She clasped her hands low and kept her elbows close to her body. I increased the size of the spell.
“Let’s merge these spells and get going,” Emery said, coming around to us.
“You can merge spells?” Reagan put out her hands, her elbows still held in close, so she could feel what we were doing. “I didn’t think that was possible once the spells had been realized.”
“It is,” he said with glimmering eyes, “if you have a clever little turdswallop to accidentally do it when she’s mad that your spell is taking up too much room.”
“That’s a bad word, just so you know.” I tried to hide my threatening smile. “When you call me turdswallop, you’re calling me a bad word.”
“In British,” he said, his smile growing.
I rolled my eyes, letting my smile break free. “We’re venturing out while it’s still sunny…why?”
“Because they have vampires too,” Reagan said. “But they don’t have shifters.”
“Then why didn’t we leave earlier?”
“Because they have a lot more mages than we have shifters, and we might need the vampires to save our asses. I could get us out of a bind, but that might get me into a bigger bind.”
“And me,” I said, grabbing Emery’s bicep like it was a walking stick. “The size of this freaking thing…” I moved my hand down to his forearm so I could actually grab on. “And if your father found out about you, it would get me into a bind, too. Because if I can null your magic, I can probably null his. Right? Didn’t you get your weird from him?”
“Like you can talk.”
“I think I got my weird from both parents, actually. They didn’t hand over any normal to go with it.” I tuned in to the various magical vibes of the area flowing around me like the breeze. “Well, even if I couldn’t null his magic, I could figure out something. We beat a bunch of mages and mercenaries in dumb hats; we can take on your dad.”
“We probably wouldn’t be enough,” she said in a strangely thick voice. “But I’ve noted it for the files.”
“Two naturals and a nut case?” Emery’s voice was a low hum. He was probably worried about sound leaking out of the spell. “We’d dominate.”
Reagan huffed. She didn’t comment, but her magic surged. I grinned, ready to tease her about her squishy heart, when a foreign feeling wound around my leg. Just my leg, and nothing else.
“Slow,” I said quietly. The feeling tingled as it worked up my leg, lightly tapping. “Something is…touching me.” I opened my eyes and looked down. Nothing was there. No magical strands or weaves. “Reagan, do you feel anything?”
“Not magically.” She put her hand on my shoulder and turned, scanning. “Something is here, though, watching us. I feel…danger. You can’t tell what kind of magic it is?”
“No. I’ve never felt it before. It’s…” I tilted my head, then flinched at a sharp pain, like a pinch, on my hip. My magic welled up in response. Emery’s Plain Jane power stone, which I carried around because I was the designated power stone jockey, throbbed in its compartment in my belt. “Ow.”
“What?” Emery asked. He tensed and stopped before turning slowly.
“Something pinched me.” I rubbed the offending spot, feeling a light breath of intent.
Observe.
“It’s watching us,” I said in a hush, my eyes widening as I looked around for something hiding in the shadows.
“I literally just said it was watching us,” Reagan whispered.
A few people ambled along the sidewalk on the other side of the street, by themselves or chatting in groups of two. One person wandered toward us, thankfully stopping at a car up the way. Everyone seemed loose and normal—no one else seemed to have a clue something dangerous, or several dangerous things if you counted us, lurked in their presence.
I shook my head, frowning. My intuition, which usually picked up odd lurkers, didn’t even stir. Without that magical touch, I would’ve had no clue someone was in the area, spying on us.
“Sun is out, so it can’t be a vampire.” Reagan, her hand still on my shoulder, turned so as to better see behind us. “We should be invisible, so it is something that can see through magic, or at least feel it.”
“Druid,” Emery said, sounding as close to afraid as I’d ever heard him. He rolled his shoulders. “It’s a druid.”
Reagan swore quietly and a burst of her magic shook my bones. I barely patched up the spell before it dissipated entirely.
“What’s a druid?” I asked quietly, sweat beading on my brow from Emery and Reagan’s reactions. They wouldn’t react this way to a mage or vampire, so whatever this was, it had to be ten times worse.
“Any druid in the Brink would be of the warrior class. They’re usually used as assassins.” Reagan pushed me to get me moving. “I’ve heard they can hide in plain daylight. Right next to you, and you wouldn’t know it until the druid’s knife was in your neck. I’ve never seen one. I don’t even know what they look like.”
“Like large men or lithe women,” Emery said quietly.
“Are you positive that’s what it is?” Reagan asked. “Do you see it?”
We moved slowly down the sidewalk, my magic rolling and boiling above me, ready to be used in a hastily created spell.
“I didn’t see it, no.” Emery’s hands were in front of him, prepared for battle. “I was hunted by one of them. After I escaped the Guild the first time, they sent one. I know exactly the effect a warrior druid has on my senses. Exactly.”
“You aren’t dead, so you clearly escaped. That’s a good sign,” Reagan said, her magic coming in thick waves, pounding into me. Twisting through my energy and seeping into my body, ready to be used should I need it.
“I am very dangerous right now,” I whispered, just so everyone was on the same page.
“That’s a good thing,” Reagan replied, just as quietly.
“When that druid was after me, I’d never had so many forewarnings come in the space of two days,” Emery said. His gaze stayed pointed in one direction, not locking on anything. He clearly knew the general area the creature was hiding, but the fact that he couldn’t pick it out, when he could spot vampires, was…disconcerting.
“I don’t like this. Let’s get out of here,” I said, ready to sprint. Fighting against a shadow didn’t appeal to me. I hated the unknown.
“Did you get him in the end?” Reagan’s fingers tightened their grip on my shoulder.
“I did get her in the end,” Emery said. “When you can see them, it’s like battling any other extremely fast, extremely capable magical fighter. Their power is in their ability to hide in plain sight, as you said.”