Roger stepped closer to me, cutting off my line of sight. “What did you say?”
Reagan looked at the newcomer and put her hand on my shoulder, squeezing hard, silently telling me to zip the lip. There was no way to tell if the traitor was just one of the mages, or many, and where this newcomer fit in.
Her face had closed down, all humor sapped away. “What else do you need looked at, Roger?” she asked in a perfectly calm, steady voice. She’d picked up a trick or two from Darius.
“I did my part,” Callie said, moving away from the ward/spell stiffly. “Roger, can one of these boys take me to Karen?”
Roger paused again, his gaze now beating into Callie. His focus wasn’t there, though, I could tell. He was analyzing the sudden change in all of us.
“Andy,” he said, his voice a whip crack.
“Yes, Alpha.” The guy with the hole in the seam of his T-shirt scooted up and put out his arm.
“I’d break you, son. Just lead the way,” Callie said.
I couldn’t help my gaze dipping to the “Sweet Thang” written across the butt of her bright green sweatpants. The woman was colorful.
“Patrick, what do you think about this ward?” Roger asked.
“Well…” Patrick pushed his black-rimmed glasses up his nose and studied where the Bankses’ spell discovery spell was now starting to wear away. “It seems a little mishmashed for sure. But you had, what, three mages erect the ward? That’s to be expected. It has a good bit of power behind it. I’d have to check along the rest of the perimeter, but this looks good. We’ll know if someone comes through or tries to tear it down.”
“Who is this spell connected to?” Emery asked. “Who will get alerted if someone comes through?”
“Well…” Patrick adjusted his glasses. “It changes. Generally it is whoever’s on guard at the time. Whoever’s overseeing magical security for the house.”
“Who is…on guard right now?” Emery asked.
Patrick looked upward and sucked on his teeth. “I can’t…remember exactly. I’d have to go look. It’s not my turn yet, at any rate.”
Roger studied Patrick, and I couldn’t help but ask, “Is this how you run all of your operations, Roger?”
“It isn’t,” Reagan said, moving her fanny pack a little more toward her hip. It looked like an unconscious gesture. “Which makes me wonder why he would put up with it when the stakes are so high.”
Roger blasted out his shifter magic, but he didn’t so much as clench his jaw. “I’ve checked the schedule and had my people monitoring the effectiveness of our protections. So far, no one has been asleep on the job. The different mages have checked the work of their peers. As you’ve seen. Without understanding the magical side, there’s not much more I can do. Except call for reinforcements.”
Clearly he meant us, and I wondered if it was pride or something else that prevented him from saying it. It was also clear he not only thought someone might be getting through the ward, but was also worried about the loyalty and truthfulness of the mages he’d hired, who weren’t totally under his control.
“Oh yeah, we’ve seen.” Reagan shook her head. “Where do you get these people, Roger? The street corner?”
Patrick squinted and pushed his glasses a little farther up his nose.
Emery took off walking, and I hurried to catch up. Reagan fell in behind me.
“Patrick, we’re going with them,” I heard a male say. It must’ve been Devon.
A phone chimed and Roger barked, “Yeah?” He didn’t seem pleased with the way the day was unfolding.
Tattle.
I stepped over a spell snaking across the small path running alongside the ward. Reagan did the same, not needing me to point it out. She glanced back, and I could just see Roger stutter-step behind her before jumping over it at the last moment.
“Get Steve on it,” Roger said as he turned around and pointed at the spot he clearly couldn’t see, but had noticed us all avoiding. Devon grabbed the confused Patrick’s shoulders and walked him around the area. Roger paused a moment, his gaze on Patrick, his eyes hard.
Patrick hadn’t known the spell was there. That, or he’d forgotten. Either was bad, and clearly Roger had picked up on it.
“Steve,” Reagan said, pushing me forward. “I wonder if that’s the Steve we know.”
The Steve we knew turned into an enormous lion, and had helped us out in New Orleans. He’d wanted to take a tumble in the sheets with Reagan before finding out she was already spoken for. He’d been mystified to discover who (and what) had spoken for her.
Emery had stopped on the path and was staring off to the right at a tiny clearing with a patch of trampled grass. The branches of the small bushes dotting the area looked like they’d taken a beating. No spell was currently stretched across the little clearing, but as I stood there, I felt a strange sort of echo. Almost like threads of magic, weak and wispy, fluttered across the space like broken spider webs.
Hide. Fresh.
Reagan had barely stopped beside me before following the path up to the trampled area. Roger didn’t fall in behind her. Instead, with rumpled brow, he stared down at where the paths intersected.
“I’m going to just…use a casing…so as to…see if magic has been used here.” Reagan dug into her fanny pack, coming out with an empty casing she then squeezed together. Her eyes flicked to Patrick before she ripped out her sword and applied the casing to it. I had no doubt her muttered “magical spell” was nothing more than a bunch of curse words. “Spell camouflage, I’d bet. The magic was strong, but not strong enough for the residual magic to last more than a day. I’d bet this happened last night.”
“Residual magic?” I asked Emery quietly. “That’s a thing?”
Emery turned away and started walking again. When I caught up, the two of us were a little removed from the others. “Yes,” he said, “though not something I can usually make use of. The visible threads are usually gone in a couple hours. Could you feel anything?”
“A sort of echo of the spell’s intent.”
“Good.” The word was barely more than a whisper, as though he was talking to himself. “That’s another hole in our combined arsenal plugged up.”
Fast footsteps approached, and I knew the others were catching up. We walked around two more tripwires, clearly meant for whoever was using the path along the ward, before stopping at another mini-clearing. This one had older signs of disturbance, the area having nearly righted itself again.
Emery glanced at me, and I shook my head. I didn’t feel any magic whatsoever.
“Devon,” Roger barked, and the younger guy stepped up quickly, his hand still on Patrick’s shoulder. He had been told nothing, but he still knew something was amiss, and that it probably had to do with Patrick. Smart guy. “Was this reported?”
“Yes, Alpha, three days ago. Beta checked it out personally but couldn’t find any scents or tracks leading away. He assumed it was the magical workers.”
“Patrick?” Roger said, not looking at them.
“Oh. Um…yes, sir? Alpha?” Patrick shifted and pushed up his glasses.
“You’re wasting your time with him.” Reagan shook her head and wandered through the clearing, a hand held low, feeling for magic without letting on what she was doing.
“Have your people been working on this area in the last couple of days?” Roger asked, rejecting Reagan’s assessment of his hired help.
“Oh. Hmm.” Patrick turned and looked in the direction of the ward before shifting his gaze low and tracing his finger through the air. He was using the plant life to find the bright, shifting magical patch over the ward, something that screamed turnstile, letting people in and out, undetected, like a doorway.
“Text your mother,” Emery said, wrapping his fingers around my forearm. “She needs to get her task done and get out. Get them all out. Sooner the better.”
“If they were going to attack, wouldn’t they wait until nightfall so they could use their vampires?” I whispered, pulling out my phone with a shaking hand.