Page 68 of Hidden Sacrifice
“So, what do you all think?” Springfield asked as he finally returned to his seat. The server was right there to carefully hand out a new round of drinks.
“I think it sounds good,” Jasper grunted out, his massive arms crossed against his chest. “Princess?” He looked over to Mor.
“Yeah, I think that sounds like a good plan. Guys?” She looked around at us, requiring a nod of agreement before moving on with her gaze.
When her green eyes turned on me, it felt like everything in the room fell away. I heard her voice flutter into my mind. “Do you like the plan, Jax?”
“It’s a solid move. Let us move forward with it.”
“No time like the present, right boys,” Mor said with a smile, getting to her feet. “Off to,” she bent down to read the location on the file right in front of me.
Her low-cut top gave me the absolute best view down her shirt. I used just a tiny sliver of power to push the cup of her bra to the side, revealing her nipple to my gaze. Her eyes snapped to mine as she gave me a little wink before her eyes dropped lower again to read the file.
“Off to Oklahoma.”
* * *
“And you’re sure this is the address on the file?” Zebadiah asked, grabbing the folder from Ryan’s hands.
“Well, the house is old, that’s for sure. If an old lady is writing to the church, her letter must have gotten lost in the mail during the civil war,” Springfield laughed.
“It’s not that old. Abandoned for twenty years or so, I would guess by plant growth.” Justice said, having run a circuit in the mind of a bird to access the building and see if there were any souls present. He couldn’t locate ghosts until they were corporeal, but he could sense if one were floating around nearby.
“Jax, do a spell assessment,” Jasper barked out as if I didn’t know the routine. I balled up my fists as I walked toward the building, taking a deep breath and remembering the spell to reveal spells.
Finding a solid thread of power inside me, I twisted it and shaped it. I used the rune to guide my mental movements until the power linked into place. Energy trapped within the terms of the spell. I pushed the magic out into the building, feeling as it exploded outward like spilled coffee. It was eagerly searching out other spells, hungry to divulge their secrets.
Hundreds of spells flooded my mind; they covered every inch of the house inside and out. I could see them all inside my head like a three-dimensional mental map. There were even some in the yard we had already activated. Silent alarms that would let whomever it was, doing whatever it was with all these spells and fragments, know that we were here.
“Fuck. Shit. Fuck, we must go. We tripped an alarm. It took someone powerful to make all these spells, and right now, they know we’re looking at something of theirs.” I ran back to the group, moving past them. But no one followed.
“I say we stay and figure out who it is and what they’re up to,” Jace said, looking around as if he expected a monster lurking in the trees.
“I agree. Why wait? If they’re on their way now, let’s settle this,” Springfield agreed.
“Eight-on-one odds aren’t bad,” Jasper grumbled.
I knew I had been outvoted. I turned back with a sigh as I stood on the end to listen to the altered plan.
“Ok, so let’s hide and wait until someone comes. If we think we can take them, let’s jump them before they even know what hit them,” Springfield suggested.
“Or we can stand around in a group like idiots so the powerful thing can catch us while we are planning. Let’s get under cover or stand our ground. But hurry up,” Mor said, bouncing on her toes like she was more than ready for a head-to-head fight.
“The tree line is thickest over there,” Justice said before bounding away.
We probably looked more like a group of teenage demons off to track down their first ghost rather than two of Hell’s best packs as we headed for the tree line through the middle of a clearing.
This wouldn’t end well.
Hiding amongst the shadows, we turned back toward the house with all the spells, waiting for the arrival of someone. We hid, and we waited.
And waited.
And waited.
“I don’t think anyone is showing up,” Springfield muttered after we spent well over an hour hunched up in the trees and bushes.
“The spells were days old,” I hissed back. A powerful demon had made those spells not long ago.
