

An Innovation Today Book. Go Indie.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2016 John Hennessy

All rights reserved.

http://www.johnhennessy.net

Cover graphic: Erstudiostok / 123RF Stock Photo

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

# Also by John Hennessy

Novels

Remnants Trilogy

Book One: Remnants

Book Two: _Defiants_ (forthcoming)

Book Three: _Dirges_ (forthcoming)

The Cry of Havoc Saga

Book One: Life Descending

Book Two: Darkness Devouring

Black Bloods Quintet

Novella Prequel: Curefinder

Book One: Black Blood

Book Two: _Red Dusk_ (forthcoming)

Short Stories

_A Stalker's Game_ (free eBook)

# Dedication

To Katherine. Her patience knows no bounds.

Table of Contents

Also by John Hennessy

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Connect

About the Author

#

JULY THIRTEENTH, 2019, 2:17 A.M.

T **he image,** clear despite the pixelated resolution, revealed the spaceship and left no room for doubt. Clyde Aldridge shook his head in disbelief. It was all happening as it had fifteen years ago when he'd found the alien space probe. He had arrived early to work, wiped the sleep from his exhausted eyes, and sipped his black, unadulterated coffee while he waited for images from various long-distance space probes to finish their transmission. It was déjà vu right down to the minute. Nausea, powerful and swift, overwhelmed Clyde.

He fell out of his ergonomic office chair, the wheels rolling back. Staring at his hands, he watched them shake, uncontrollable, as though they weren't his hands at all but someone else's. Despite the warm air, goose pimples formed on his brown arms, his hairs erecting like protective thorns. Sweat dribbled down his smooth forehead to his thick-rimmed glasses, tracing the frame to the curve of his cheek before taking a detour into his finely manicured black beard. Paranoia worked its magic. He pressed the button to his travel mug, tipped the sleek silver container, and poured the expensive peaberry roast on his button-up shirt.

The liquid burned as he jumped to his feet. "Coffee spill," he said to Lane Jackson, a short, straight-haired woman sitting to his right. She often worked the graveyard shifts alongside him and considered each other friends.

She nodded at him in understanding. "Smart."

"Oh, you know me," he laughed.

"You need to cut back on the caffeine, Clyde. You spill on yourself at least once a week."

"My mom always told me I had butterfingers." The line, as false as a politician's promise, was the typical response he knew people gave, what they expected. No one suspected him to be any different with such perfect conformity. "Well, I better go change." He kept a spare shirt at work because of his weekly accidents. She nodded again, disinterested.

Clyde hurried to the bathroom where he locked the last stall at the far end, sat on the toilet lid, and retrieved his phone. The blank screen reflected his youthful face and the tight curls atop his head. People constantly commented on how young he looked at thirty-four, with the skin and build of a man half his age, which had prompted him to grow out his facial hair a few years ago, to give himself some air of maturity.

His thoughts brushed past the superficial, the gravity of his discovery weighing on him like a man who was about to face his execution.

The arrival of the spaceship could only lead down one road, one end: Tamara Dareday, the eighteen-year-old girl taken into custody by Blackthorn agents fifteen years ago. It happened right after he picked up his station phone and informed his boss of the biggest discovery in human history, which started the chain reaction that eventually led to her imprisonment and the largest global cover-up of all time. His hands still shaking, he turned on his phone, unlocked the touchscreen, and opened the live video feed from the cameras in Tamara's cell.

She sat on her bed with her back against the wall, knees tucked to her chest, her forearm resting flat over her kneecaps, her eyes squished against the skin of her arm to block out the overhead lights. Tiny sweat beads glistened on her pale skin, a product of the room's brightness, and it was almost always bright. A thin cloud of steam hovered over her body, also due to the intensity of the lamps. Her cell was no ordinary cell, with reinforced walls, a high ceiling, and a sizable observation window so thick a whale couldn't break through it at full speed. Her life was a battery of endless tests, and after fifteen years, government scientists were no closer to discovering what she was exactly, or how she came to be.

But Clyde knew. The moment he set eyes on her from the satellite images he could tell she was different. Like him. Once the cover-up had begun, he hacked into the FBI and NSA networks to find out what had happened at the crash site in northwest Kansas. He'd discovered it wasn't a crash at all, but a landing. The probe touched down precisely where it meant to in the middle of an expansive wheat field and collected a sample of Tamara's blood when the girl reached out to touch the fallen object. Within minutes, a task force of agents was crawling over the farmland, arresting the young woman whose life changed at whirlwind speeds. Extracted along with the probe, she was imprisoned before anyone else could arrive to contest the twisted version of the truth.

Tamara, fifteen years later, didn't look a day older, an outward sign of her genetic deviation. Clyde studied her and the room as his heart constricted from impotence. Beyond checking on her health, he could do nothing, unless he wanted to leave his job, his friends, his entire life behind and live on the run. Motionless in her pose, he thought her asleep, but her vitals told him otherwise. She spent most of her days like this, caged, quiet, immobile.

Blank sheets of paper were strewn all over her bed. She rarely glanced at them these last few weeks, though she stacked them up before she fell asleep, and slipped them under her mattress. When she woke she scattered them across her bed again. She performed this routine without fail, but according to the Blackthorn records, no one understood why.

The moment he made the call to the director of the Interplanetary Network Directorate, time would become his enemy, with her life in danger, thrown into chaos all over again. No doubt existed in his mind that she was connected to the probe in someway, and therefore connected to the spaceship now decelerating at the edge of the solar system. The problem: if he didn't make the call, someone else inevitably would, maybe in a couple of hours, but no more than half a day. He could even erase the evidence from the network, but another batch of images would come without fail, and all he'd gain for his trouble would be an extra hour head start. There simply was no stopping the first domino from its fall.

A bead of sweat splashed the screen guard and he wiped it away with his thumb. "I'm so sorry, Tamara. None of this should've ever happened to you. You didn't deserve it." After a dry swallow, he powered off his phone. Before leaving the restroom, he tossed cold water on his face, composing his nerves.

It's all right, Clyde. If you don't, someone else will. And there's still time to save her.

Returning to his station, he picked up his phone to begin another chain reaction that no one in the world could conceal.

#

JULY FOURTEENTH, 1:05 P.M.

C **lyde had been** driving for hours straight, shuffling through his digital library, growing more restless the closer he drew to his destination. The secret military installation where Tamara was confined, outside of Glenwood Springs, Colorado, was run by a black op program under the name Blackthorn, composed of NSA and FBI agents, all recruited because of their previous encounters with Abnormals. Built by the army during the thirties, the complex lay abandoned and forgotten for decades, until its current occupants took up residence at some point in the nineties.

The route, mapped out from his apartment in Pasadena to the GPS coordinates outside Glenwood, estimated twelve hours of travel on relatively deserted roads. Twelve hours where anything could happen to Tamara. Add in the time he took to prepare for the trip and he was well behind schedule. He cursed himself for not flying.

Clyde checked the radio every few hours for updates, but seldom gleaned any new information. When he switched over to the AM broadcast, only static met his ears. Rotating through the stations, he flipped over to FM, but earned the same results. After a few minutes fiddling with the receiver, he shut it off and basked in the rhythmic drone of rubber on blacktop. He preferred silence, which had heavily factored into his decision to work the graveyard shift for the last fifteen years, as dead as it usually was. Coworkers often asked why he'd chosen not to advance up the ladder, continuing to grind out each day at the bottom of the labor pool, working the same old assignment without transfer, passing up career opportunities right and left. His decision, unheard of at JPL, rested on what lay beside him.

He glanced over at the passenger's seat and the leather carrying tube, a similar case like those used to store blueprints and rolled-up artwork, but this one had been specially made for what it contained. Clyde bit his lip, staring at the case. Hidden in his closet for years, the sight of it stirred up bitter memories from his youth. Like the time his father made him practice his wrist movements for six hours straight in the morning and then another four hours after dinner. A shudder struck him and twisted his stomach.

Why did I even bring you?

While the thought lingered, anger festering, the 1984 Buick Electra Estate Wagon, his one and only car since leaving his past behind, suddenly died. The engine shut off and the clock failed. He steered the behemoth to the wide shoulder of I-70. The air conditioner had died earlier in the summer, unfixed, and now the car itself headed down the same path.

Turning the key, the engine fired up for a second before it sputtered out. "Shit." He popped the hood, checked his mirrors, and climbed out. The air smelled of burning asphalt and dust and a hint of sage. No smoke engulfed him when he opened the hood and secured the prop rod. He examined the fluids and parts that had broken down in the past, but nothing was out of the ordinary, which meant it was something simple or something that would cost more than the car's worth.

The midday heat pressed down on him with punishing fury. He'd been sweating since the first image from the space probe filled his computer screen, but the suffocating sun combined with no air conditioner added a whole new dimension of perspiration. It stung his eyes all day long and nothing helped. After closing the hood, he studied his surroundings: dry desert in every direction for miles and miles, with craggy hills all around and white-capped mountains in the far southwest, the fringe of the Colorado Rockies. Forty feet ahead he saw a green signpost, the top of which read: FRUITA 55. Fifty-five miles was a long way out in the middle of nowhere. He'd seen a gas station off the highway about ten miles back, but whether it was a town with a reasonable mechanic was a different question.

Cars passed without looking back. At the gas tank door, he bent down to smell the fuel, and a whoosh of hot air burned his eyes when he unscrewed the cap. The pain subsided as he leaned over the trunk, rubbing the tears away. He returned to his seat and wiped off his forehead with a towel. "Vapor lock," he muttered. "The something simple I was looking for. Now I just need to get gas." The case in the passenger's seat called to him, but he kept his eyes straight ahead. What else could he do? If he used the item inside it'd bring back an anchor of memories and feelings to the surface. But walking ten miles in this heat sounded like an even worse idea. That left him with one alternative: hitchhiking. The idea produced a spasm in his back. The last and _only_ time he'd hitchhiked was the night he climbed into that old beat-up truck for a ride down to Saskatoon from northern Saskatchewan, where he caught a bus and headed for California. Beyond his dreams, he hadn't caught sight of his parents since then, after he bolted out the front door like a bullet exiting a barrel. Gathering up his gear, he shoved it all into an old, shabby backpack that he'd had since he forsook his family and the Community, and everything they stood for.

Across the highway, in his tattered, sweat-stained clothing, Clyde held up his thumb when someone came within a hundred feet. Dust coated his mouth and nostrils. His lips were cracking in the dry climate. He'd spent too much of the last fifteen years indoors and wouldn't last another ten minutes under the direct sunlight.

A man with a face as youthful as Clyde's, in his early twenties if his clothes and haircut were any indication, rolled to a stop beside him in a bright red Dodge Viper convertible. As Clyde made to get in, the man raised his hand for him to stop. "You have a smartphone?"

"Yes," Clyde answered, his words barely audible, a tremor disrupting his voice.

"Have you checked Twitter or anything in the last twenty minutes?"

"No."

"You should. It's all over the news."

"What is?"

"Just watch a newsfeed, any newsfeed." The man adjusted his Broncos cap, the flat bill angled toward the sun, not shielding his face in the slightest. "You'll see. It's the end of the world, man."

Clyde nodded. "Can I get in? I only need to go to the nearest town down the road."

The man shot him a fiendish smirk before he said, "Fuck off," and drove away.

He tried to kick the car but missed the back fender and fell on his ass. "God _damn_ it!" _You should have seen that coming, Clyde. He was dressed like an Abercrombie and Fitch model and drove a ninety thousand dollar car._ Standing up, he slogged back to his car across the desert median. Out of the sun, he retrieved his phone and searched for CNN. The headline: BLACKTHORN REVEALED, WAGES SECRET WAR ran across the top of the screen. A video link was posted below. He tapped the thumbnail image.

A stream of images flashed in rapid succession, hundreds of still pictures from movies, TV shows, and video games, all of them with a central theme: vampires and werewolves. More specifically people capturing or killing them. The last few images showed a crowd of spectators behind a police tape with officers urging them back. The video went black before it cut to a newswoman he didn't recognize.

He turned it off, grasping the key message from the images. The aliens were here to hunt Abnormals, and Blackthorn, along with the White House, would cover it up for as long as they could until the problem went away, and if that meant disclosing the truth, or a version of the truth about Abnormals, then so be it. But would the aliens go away? Blackthorn didn't know why they wanted Abnormals, or did they, and they kept the secret so well hidden that even Clyde couldn't find it in their network? That was plausible enough. Whatever the reason, he knew it meant the end for Tamara, and the clock was winding down.

He looked over at the case in the passenger's seat again. For a long minute he just stared at it, until he smacked the steering wheel in frustration. "All right. You win."

The supple leather of the case met his fingers, and he pulled back at first, but then they flexed around the tube and he twisted off the plastic lid, trembling. His heart slammed against his chest as he peered down. Inside the foot-long cylinder, a ten-inch stick, long neglected, waited for his firm grasp, begging for his touch. "I don't want to do this," he said, gazing at the object with revulsion. "I have to do this." Tilting the case, the stick slid out an inch, just enough for him to grab hold and draw it the rest of the way.

"Hello, wand," he said, tossing the case into the passenger's seat. "It's been a long time, my friend. My enemy." He caressed the dark mahogany. When his finger brushed over the golden tip, a drop of blood trickled down his skin. The red blob left a trail down his forearm before he wiped it off on his jeans. "Still sharp after all this time. I guess I shouldn't have expected anything less." He sat there for a beat, inspecting his wand, the surge of emotion constricting his throat.

He was ten again, practicing his wrist movements with a training stick, his father behind him observing every motion with those keen eyes of his. "Stop," he barked when Clyde messed up. "That last flick just killed you. On the third rotation you go down, not up. Start again." Over and over again until his muscles couldn't move.

"The best Mandari aren't born, Son," his father would tell him daily. "They're made from hard work. Those who get by on natural talent are a mere shade of what they could be. Remember that when you become the greatest wizard this world has ever known."

Tears ran down Clyde's cheeks as his grip tightened on the wood. "You wanted too much for me," he whispered. "Too much. Always pushing, pushing, pushing. I never wanted to be great and powerful. Never wanted to be a High this or a Grand that. I just wanted to be me. Why couldn't I just be me? A boy who loved science." He shook his head. No one was listening, and asking ghosts questions only stalled his progress, his mission.

He cleared the tears away. "This is for you, Tamara. I do this for you." He snapped his wrist about, the motions still smooth even after so many years, the action so rehearsed it was ingrained into his subconscious and was now as peripheral as breathing—and his body never forgot how to breathe. He stepped out of the car and pointed his wand at the gas tank. A sharp flick of the wrist later, he pronounced: _"Jurceio infatatum_ gasoline."

Clyde didn't have to see the gas in the tank to know that the spell had worked; he could feel the liquid level change from less than a quarter to full. His knees buckled and he threw out a hand against the car for support. Unable to prevent the tears, they dropped from his cheeks to the sizzling asphalt under his loafers. His heartbeat hammered in his ears; it drowned out the world while his vision dimmed at the edges. A sigh seized in his chest before it eased out.

It was done—he had broken his vow to never use magic so long as he lived. Now he'd have to suffer through more memories and pain than he cared to deal with in a lifetime. He'd have to do it all before he reached the hidden installation, because he'd need a clear mind to rescue Tamara, and his father's haunting presence would only get him killed.

Jumping into the rig, he turned the key and the engine roared with life. The car idled, a familiar purr, like an old cat after a good belly rub, content beyond measure. That was the sound he heard in that 1984 station wagon.

The open windows did little in such high heat, and he considered fixing the air conditioner, after all, he'd already crossed the line from his past. He shook his head and let it be.

After pulling back onto the highway, he passed the seventy-five miles an hour sign, slammed his foot down, and never turned back.

I'm coming, Tamara. I'm almost there.

#

JULY FOURTEENTH, 4:22 P.M.

T **he bed,** a relic from the seventies, was somehow as stainless as he kept his kitchen. Much of the motel matched, clean but cheap, simple. The stuffy room smelled of fresh paint. Clyde cranked up the AC and kneeled in front of the fan. His face accepted the blast of cold air with gratitude.

Upon further investigation, the town of Glenwood Springs, with a populace less than ten thousand, turned out to be a vacation hotspot for city dwellers to get away for a weekend but not for the ski slopes of Aspen, an hour to the southeast. That meant it was fairly busy for a small town, especially on a Friday afternoon, people arriving for an early start to a weekend escape. Luckily for him it was later on a Sunday and the crowds had all trickled down to a few souls desperate for one more night away.

How could a secret government installation be so close to an urban area that attracts so many tourists? Clyde couldn't shake the question all afternoon. It was almost as if they wanted to get caught, wanted someone to find them, or maybe it blended in so well no one looked at what was right in front of their eyes. In any case, he'd find out the answer soon enough.

Clyde switched on the TV as he sat on the bed. The news, still reporting the series of images broadcasted by Blackthorn, spoke nothing about his kind. He found it curious the video hadn't included any famous witches or wizards like Harry Potter. _Unless they don't know about us. They might have no idea sunborn exist, only Tamara._ An unlikely possibility. Wherever a vampire or werebeast roamed, a Mandari was close by, on the hunt. "Someone has to balance the scales, Son," his father used to tell him, "and so we do. If it weren't for us sorcerers, moonborn would run rampant across the world. They would subjugate the human race and rule by the Law of Blood, the law that keeps the Prime Families in power."

"How noble of us," Clyde said once, when he was seventeen, only months before he left that world behind for good.

His father glared at him. "It _is_ noble. The moonborn would kill us all if we didn't stop them. And don't forget, rubes aren't the only ones who can be enslaved."

The memory evaporated as he wondered what his father and the _Communiarium_ —the Community of the Mandari, those born in the light of the sun and gifted with the ability to wield magic, often called witches and wizards—thought about the aliens and their arrival, if they knew about it at all. But of course they did, for there was little they didn't have their hand in, and top-secret information like this would be no exception.

They must have known about Blackthorn before all this, too. Maybe the Community even helped them. After all, they both capture and kill moonborn . . .

The aliens complicated the relationship. If the aliens started killing humans, or rubes as the Mandari referred to non-magical people, would the Community step in, would they start a war in their defense? Or would they deem the aliens, as a more advanced species, worthy of their protection?

He turned off the TV and lay back on the saggy mattress. The visual of his plan took shape in his mind. Always the planner, he'd mapped out every step of his life, to a certain extent, before and after he left the Community. The only event he didn't outline was the day he actually said goodbye to it all. It had been in a storm of rage when he stepped onto the road and flipped up his thumb for a lift. Today, he'd wait for the cover of darkness, drive up into the mountains, pacify the guards, and break Tamara out. Easy. A cakewalk.

Clyde pieced together each step over the hours, devising a contingency if something went wrong, but he didn't anticipate employing such precautions. Glenwood, praised as America's most walkable town, proved just that as he went for a stroll to clear his head, the smell of paint combined with the altitude bringing on a slight headache. He welcomed the thin and clean air in his lungs, a change he could grow used to. Across the street, behind a Wendy's, he found a paved trail and followed it north for half an hour or so.

The odd sensation that someone was following him raised the hairs on his neck. When he checked over his shoulder, nothing stalked him in the waxing moonlight. He dismissed the idea. _Just nerves, Clyde. They have no idea you're coming._ On the way back he grabbed a meal to go from a diner a few blocks up from his motel. Outside his door, the sensation returned, and the keycard slipped from his sweaty fingers.

With his back to the door, he scanned the vicinity, and a couple glared at him a few doors down as they headed for the stairs. _People. Just regular people._ He bent down, scooped up the card, inserted it, and pressed down on the handle when the green light flashed. When the door clicked behind him, he fought to reclaim his breath. "Easy now. Don't work yourself up."

He forced down a few bites of his club before the bacon cooled off. His stomach said no more before he ate half. The toilet called to him as his skin flushed. Ignoring the urge to vomit, he dipped his head under the faucet, and allowed the cold water to repel his fears.

The narrow window for his plan approached and he packed all he brought back down to his car. If he executed the plan early, he'd have to deal with a dozen more guards before they retired to their beds for the night, and that meant a dozen more guns pointed at him. The sheer odds of stopping so many bullets weighed against him even with magic on his side. Yet if he waited any longer, the head agent behind Tamara's imprisonment would reach the classified base, set to arrive by helicopter around three A.M. Normally, one man wouldn't demand so much attention as to rule the direction his plans went, but this was no ordinary man, and Clyde, to his disadvantage, didn't possess the combat abilities to counter him.

He drove south down Grand Avenue, crossed a bridge to the west side, and continued south after a roundabout, down Midland. Following the GPS on his phone, he turned right at a fork about a mile down the road, up Three Mile Road. The blacktop climbed into the hills, gated driveways marked with private property signs appeared every few hundred feet. Crickets sang in the night, their songs growing louder the farther into the wilderness.

He left the asphalt behind for a gravel road that snaked worse than a river, which slowed the trip considerably. The potholes became so bad the wagon's suspension threatened to bust. Although he factored in the roughness of the road, he never expected it to be this bad, and unless he braved faster speeds, the door would soon close on his scheme.

The pace of his heart quickened the closer he drew to the installation, and seemed to say, _go-back, go-back, go-back_. It soon overwhelmed his thoughts. "I can't go back," he reaffirmed with conviction. He peeked over at his wand case. "I must save her. I didn't fifteen years ago, but I'll die before I give up this time. You hear me?" His subconscious must have understood, because the attitude of his heart changed to say, _be-strong, be-strong, be-strong._

At last he pulled off into a private drive, blocked by a brown gate that was nothing more than a horizontal pole. No security guard was posted at it, choosing to monitor all activity from afar, to pose as a conspicuous residence; maybe they'd even have a cabin at the end of the driveway. Satellite photos over the area had been blurred out in all the databases he'd combed through, so he didn't know what to expect beyond what he gathered from the base's security cameras. He checked his phone and saw that the helicopter's flight, now pushed ahead of schedule, shrank his two-hour window to less than fifteen minutes, a nerve-racking revision that tightened all his muscles.

_You can still do this, Clyde. If you don't, she'll die._ Leaning out the window, wand in hand, he shouted, _"Eximo impedum!"_ The gate flew open and he drove on.

The driveway wound its way to a cabin with a detached garage built for motorhomes. A man with a shotgun stepped onto the front porch, cowboy hat atop his head, with a rugged brown jacket that completed the ensemble. He pointed the gun right at Clyde's chest as he got out. "This is private property. Get in your car and turn around, son."

Clyde's hands twitched. The wand nearly slipped from his grasp. The two stared each other down for a long moment, nothing but silence passing between them. Just as the man was about to say something else, Clyde raised his wand and bellowed, _"Dorquilus!"_ An orange spark shot from his wand-tip and dropped the man instantly to the wood. He ran up the steps, knelt, and pressed two fingers to his neck. _Still alive._ He sighed in relief. All those hours of practice had paid off, to some extent. Searching the man's pockets, he found a keycard. "I'll take this, thank you."

The garage, around the house, sported a thick metal door, like one to an industrial walk-in freezer. Standing in front of it, a team of six soldiers, all dressed in black tactical gear, aimed their automatic rifles to kill with headshots. More soldiers surrounded him, moving in the darkness like specters. _Dammit, of course there'd be more guards tonight, he'd make sure of it._ Before a single bullet flew, Clyde pointed his wand at the stars above and screamed, _"Dorquilus!"_

The orange spark bolted a hundred feet in the air before it erupted. A giant translucent dome spread to the ground. The image lasted a second before it evaporated. The soldiers collapsed around him like flies dying off en masse.

Clyde slid the keycard through the slot next to the door but the indicator light remained a solid red. By his calculations, the helicopter team was already airborne, and would reach him in less than ten minutes. That gave him about eight to find Tamara and escape. Eight minutes of quick reactions, something he wasn't built for, needing time to plan, to think a problem through to its best answer. "All right, Clyde, you can do this now. It's not the time to overthink. Trust your instincts." Wand up, he drew in a deep breath.

As with the gate, the Disimpediment Charm opened the door, the hinges swinging without a whisper. A bare decontamination room greeted him, but he didn't have time for the two-minute drill, and blasted the inside door out of his way.

The red warning lights, hanging between the long fluorescent main lights, began to flash. An alarm belled over the intercom.

Down a hall, the security room displayed his every move on a wall of screens, cameras recording a hundred different angles within the installation. Again, the security system denied him entrance after swiping the keycard. He knocked it down with a spell. A guard waited off to the side of the door.

Clyde, without time to say the Reduction Charm, shouted it in his head. The nonverbal spell slowed the bullets soaring for his gut until they stopped in midair, then fell to the floor, harmless. The man's jaw dropped, a dumbfounded expression contorting his face. "What the—" He hit the linoleum before he could finish.

Scanning the wall of monitors, Clyde located Tamara, now curled up in a ball against the wall opposite the door. "One more minute, Tamara." Level twelve, sealed off when the guard activated the alarm, also contained other Abnormals, most notably: vampires and werewolves, the bane of any wizard. They also had a werefox and two werecats of the smaller variety, which meant less dangerous, but with all of them together he couldn't cut the power to the floor. If she'd been alone, he wouldn't have bothered with the security room at all, but to maintain the captivity of the more vicious moonborn, he had to unseal the level safely, and that meant without magic.

Sweat flooded his eyes the longer he took to override the security protocol. The encryption, much higher than the levels used at JPL, stumped him at first, but once his mind kicked into gear the measures became little more than a nuisance. His fingers slipped over the keyboard. "Come on, almost there." On the monitor, the lights on level twelve returned to normal, and the elevator resumed operation, which meant the stairwell, his backup route, was also unlocked.

"Come on, come on, come on," he sputtered, pressing the large down arrow on the wall panel between two elevators. A ding signaled as one of the elevators opened. Before he stepped into it, a voice stopped him. "Magic Man," someone called behind him.

His magic, an omnipresent force within him, like the blood flowing in his veins and his heart hammering in his chest, suddenly vanished from his senses, as if someone disconnected it like a power cord.

The moment had come, sooner than he planned for—than what he hoped for.

"Special Agent Turner." Clyde made an about-face and met the man's intense gaze; the whites of his eyes popped in contrast to his obsidian skin and the pools that were virtually all pupil, the striking disparity made even more apparent by the navy suit he wore. Tall, broad-shouldered, Turner was the epitome of a field agent, with a sharp mind and a singular passion for solving mysteries. "I—I was hoping to never meet you."

"And I've been waiting a long time to meet you, Magic Man." Turner's Glock 23, directed at Clyde's heart, gleamed under the bright light.

Clyde trembled, his knees promising to give out soon. "Are you going to kill me?"

"Kill you?" The agent's face softened. "What kind of monster do you think I am?"

"The kind that would hand over an eighteen-year-old girl to our new friends in the sky."

Turner, whose head was as hairless and shiny as an apple, gave a thin smile. "You and I both know she's not eighteen. And 'friends' is a strong word, don't you think? Visitors certainly, but our goal is to see them leave as soon as possible, and you're right, handing her over might accomplish that aim."

"I won't let you do it," Clyde stuttered.

The agent suppressed a laugh. "You don't have much of a choice, without powers around me. You can feel the loss, I've seen it in every one of your kind I've come across, and you're no different. All the signs are there: your posture, the way you're shaking, the dilation of your pupils. It's pathetic how dependent you are on magic."

"You're a nullix," Clyde whispered.

Turner nodded. Nullixes were people, usually of rube descent though sometimes of Mandari blood, who generated a field in which magic wouldn't work around them. Few enough of them existed, and most never even knew they possessed such power, as they rarely interacted with sunborn, at least at a conscious level. Agent Turner proved the exception, utilizing his gift to his full advantage, hunting down supernatural creatures and eliminating them, or, in some cases like Tamara's, bringing them to this facility for experiments.

"You won't stop these bullets," he said, "and though I don't plan on killing you, I will make it so you'll never walk again." The elevator closed. "Looks like you've missed your ride."

Time for his first contingency. He squinted past Agent Turner and shook with fear. "What are you doing here?"

Sold on the act, Turner glanced over his shoulder, which gave Clyde the precious seconds he needed to head for the stairwell. "Dammit," Turner snarled. His Glock blared in the enclosed space. The bullets whizzed by Clyde's cheek as he cleared the threshold into the shaft.

Swinging over the railing, Clyde dropped through the open space between the stairs, hoping the distance from level one to twelve was enough to break Turner's range. One. Three. Six. Eight. Ten. _"Tarsisto,"_ he roared. His body slowed at the handrail, within arm's reach, and he sailed over the banister in one quick motion. With a bone-crunching echo, his feet planted on the stair before the landing.

Bullets ricocheted in the stairwell. He wasted no time, darting into the level-twelve corridor, where more guards challenged him. None of them could withstand the Sleeping Jinx.

He ran past several reinforced doors accommodating moonborn captives. Halfway down the hall, the scratches that marked Tamara's room stood out like a beacon, drawing his attention. He flattened his palm against the cold metal and sighed.

"I gave you a chance to live, Magic Man."

To his right, from the direction of the elevators, stood Agent Turner.

"Don't move," he ordered, as Clyde squared up with him. "You can't save her. Look, I know who you are. I've read your file. You've been off limits to me for years, left alone because you called in the alien probe. And I get it, you believe you're the reason she's here. That you failed her. But she would've ended up here no matter what. You must see that?"

Clyde's eyes flicked left, sweeping the distance, and this time when his hands shook it wasn't an act.

"Oh, don't pull that horseshit on me again," Turner snapped.

Behind the agent, a fist the size of Clyde's stomach, elevated above his head and paused, poised to strike.

#

JULY FIFTEENTH, 1:17 A.M.

T **he blow came** a second later. Agent Turner rocketed for the floor. A man twice the agent's size appeared in his absence. Bushy eyebrows framed his pale face and ragged golden hair reached down to his midback. Irises, so dark and big they swallowed the whites of his eyes, shimmered under the fluorescence. Sweat coated his skin, the same way Tamara's did in such harsh lighting.

"Y-you," Clyde stumbled over the word.

"Me," the man said with a bite of sarcasm. His resonant voice filled the entire hall without effort.

"You were following me earlier tonight, weren't you?"

"Yes."

"Why?" His tone demanded an answer.

"Because I knew you were coming here, and I couldn't have you slip away, as elusive as you are with your magic tricks."

Clyde gulped. "My tricks?"

"Shut it, bub," the man growled. "I have no time for this dance. You know what I am and I know what you are. I was following you because I need you. You can guess as to what for."

"You want me to release one of the prisoners." He stated it as a fact.

"Very good," the man rasped. "Door number twenty-three, if you please."

"I—I can't," Clyde declared. "Not with him around."

The man spat on the agent. "Filthy nullix. I'll snap his neck then, his powers will die when he does."

"Don't hurt him," he pleaded. "All life his precious, even his."

"Precious," the man laughed. "You've got it wrong, mancer, his life is worthless. Expendable."

"I won't help you if you kill him."

"You would rather die yourself?"

"I would."

"Have it your way." He raised his fist to pummel Clyde's face.

"Wait! Wait!" Clyde shielded himself with his hands. "I'll help you, I swear I will. Just don't kill him."

"Fine. Help me drag him to the elevator."

"You need help with that?" Clyde couldn't help but sound amused. Based off the man's absurd size, he would've wagered his wand—if he were a gambling man—that he could lift a car, let alone a human of Turner's stature.

"He's a nullix, remember? I have magic in my blood, too, or do you know so little about us?" He passed over the question. "My full strength doesn't work around him."

Clyde nodded, grabbed Turner's wrists, helped drag him into the elevator, and pressed the button for level one. After the elevator doors closed, something poked him in the back. "A gun, really?"

"They're efficient," the man said. "My quicker reflexes mean that even you wouldn't have time to stop the bullet before it gets lodged in your spine. Now move. Room twenty-three."

With the weapon pushing him forward, Clyde led the way to the specified door. "I'm surprised you can't merely rip it off."

"If they can't do it from the inside, why would I be able to do it from the outside?" The man's colossal presence loomed over Clyde. "They're reinforced against all moonborn and, with the security tripped, currently locked down, something you already know, which is why I need you and your magic tricks."

"Sounds like you've been working on this for a long time."

They stopped at the door with the number twenty-three bolted to the wall beside it. "You've no idea." He jabbed the muzzle into Clyde's back. "Now open it."

"It will take some time," Clyde said, holding out his wand. "These doors have measures to slow—"

"I know, bub," the man cut in. "Just hurry up and get on with it."

The first door only required one spell, and beyond it led to an observation room, where a giant flat screen displayed a bald man lying on a bed in the fetal position, dressed all in white, his sheets and clothes soaked in sweat. Off to the left, a decontamination room separated them from the man. "They're torturing him with those lights," he muttered. He glanced from the screen to Clyde. "And they call _us_ monsters." With a nod at the inside door to the decon chamber, he barked, "Hurry up."

The process took five minutes, layering spells upon the metal frame and the lock. The man kept his silence, the gun unwavering from the small of Clyde's back, as he spoke his incantations in a clear voice. The locking mechanism clicked, and the man stepped in front, spinning the wheel to open the chamber.

The bald man was standing at the door when it swung open, his imposing stature now given life. His fangs flashed for a moment before they receded, giving way to a broad smile.

"Twelve years, two hundred and seventy-two days, seven hours, and seventeen minutes since last we've seen each other, my old friend," the bald man spoke with a deep but harsh smoker's voice. "It is good to see you, Garrett." The two embraced.

"And you, Prytor." Garrett dipped his massive head in reverence after they parted. "Your people have missed your guidance, especially myself."

The bald man stepped into the decontamination room, inspecting the chamber, absorbing the shock of freedom. "What is this?" he asked, cocking his head at Clyde. "A mancer?"

"Without him, you would not breathe this air."

"I owe my freedom to a sunborn?" By the way he grinned, this bit of news entertained him.

"Not by choice." Garrett revealed the handgun.

"All the same, I owe him my gratitude." The man's pale gray eyes searched Clyde's, piercing into his mind, digging for information into who he was and what he desired. "Do you know who I am, mancer?"

Clyde shook his head but spoke nothing.

"I am Isaacarion Turulli, Prytor of the Turulli Family."

Clyde drew back in haste.

"You know _of_ me, at least," the Prytor said, pleased. "What is your name, mancer?" When Clyde did not answer, he yelled, "Speak!"

Clyde flinched. "C-c-clyde Al-aldridge."

"Very good. Well, Mr. Aldridge, I take care of those who take care of me. I will not forget this debt."

"Prytor, there is much I must tell you." Garrett redirected the Prytor's attention. "The landscape has changed amongst the oligarchy. The Agrusa Family has swayed many of the Prime Assembly."

"What of my beloved wife, who left me here to rot like a dog?"

"She has lost all persuasion. All power."

"My children?"

"Not in front of this one, Prytor. He cannot know our ills."

Isaacarion nodded. "We will meet again." He placed a hand on Clyde's shoulder, who grimaced at the touch, cowering to the floor. "For now, I must leave you to your business and return to my throne." Nearly collapsing after another step, he threw out his arm to brace himself, but Garrett caught him instead.

"You need sustenance. Come, there are many in the hallway."

"Not here," Clyde shouted. "Not around me." His grip redoubled around his wand.

Garrett backhanded Clyde's mouth with his free hand. He went reeling to the floor, his blood streaking the wall, his glasses flying off his head. "You dare tell the Lord of the Titan Throne where he can and cannot eat?"

The Prytor raised a hand to stop further aggressive action. "It is fine, Garrett. I will feed somewhere else. Take me away from this wretched place." Garrett huffed before scooping up his master and fleeing to the stairwell.

Clyde rubbed his chin. The wound stung and forced out a groan. The meeting left him temporarily dazed. Questions piled in his head as he reclaimed his glasses. _How did Blackthorn manage to capture the most powerful vampire in the world?_ It made little sense, but even more, it didn't make sense that they could hold him here for so long. His whole family, an army by any count, would've stormed this place and killed everyone within just to make a point. Yet that hadn't happened, locked up for over twelve years, an interesting fact to consider if they ever did meet again.

His purpose flooded his mind, propelled him out of the room, down the hall, and into the observation room from which a guard or lab assistant usually watched over Tamara. She was in the same spot from when he checked in the security room. He began casting the intricate series of incantations. The moment his concentration broke, he'd have to start again, and the strain on his eyes took its toll, his eyelids attacked by spasms. His vision blurred and filled with tears as the last spell left his lips. Only when he heard the audible click did he stop.

He fell backward and collected his energy before he spun the wheel to open the door. Half expecting Tamara to ambush him, he retreated a step, but braved the room when nothing happened. He found her unmoved from her position, as though she didn't notice the open door, the change in the air—or even his presence. Maybe she thought it was all occurring in her mind, a fantasy that had played out a thousand times since her capture, now only a delusion, hope so long expired.

"Tamara," Clyde whispered. "It's me, Clyde. I'm here to take you away from this place. I'm here to save you."

She squinted up at him, shading her brow with her forearm. "No one can save me," she muttered.

"I'm a little different than no one." Clyde held out his wand, scanned the room, and settled on a blank piece of paper on the bed. _"Volitari!"_ The paper ascended to the middle of the room, hovering.

She followed the paper, her pale blue eyes never blinking, mouth parted, skeptical but wonderstruck.

"Believe me now?" He lowered the paper back to the bed.

"Clyde?" The name, less than a whisper, hung in the air like a noose.

He nodded. "Sorry for my late arrival."

She stared at him like he was Death come to claim her. "You've written me for so long that I never thought you'd actually come." Her voice, as wispy as smoke, barely reached his ears, frailer than the paper beside her. She picked up the sheet with trembling fingers and brought it before her face. "Fifteen years you've been sending these, and in all of them you speak of rescue and hope, and a life far away from misery. Why? Why did you come now? What's changed?"

The paper, blank to the cameras, was enchanted for only her eyes to read. It baffled everyone how she received these mysterious blank papers, but all the scientists disregarded them as harmless, believing a guard gave them to her to pass the time.

Clyde opened his mouth to talk, but Tamara's voice filled the room instead. "Curefinder."

"What?"

"This is about Curefinder," she said, clamoring to her feet, her body suddenly full of energy, as though her fragile state from moments before had been an act, a ruse for the guards. "The probe," she added after he gave her a confused look. Her voice grew more powerful with each word. "It was called Curefinder Twelve. You've come because of it, haven't you?" The recycled air shifted, full of anger, the tension choking.

He nodded again. "I'll explain everything once we get you out of here."

"And how do I know I can trust you any more than the people who've locked me up? Who've ran a hundred thousand tests, poking, prodding, injecting, cutting, tormenting me, day after day, hour after hour. For all I know you're no better than them. For all I know you _are_ them."

"You know I'm not one of them. You asked me why I came now instead of fifteen years ago. It's because I was afraid, and I didn't know how to do the right thing before. But now I do. I came now because if you stay here you'll die." He offered his hand. "And I don't want you to die, Tamara."

Her eyes burned with hatred and disgust. "How . . .  _noble_ of you."

The word struck him like a slap to his face, an echo of his own sentiment toward his father.

"Nothing I can say will make up for my failures. There's no redemption for what I've done, for what I've let happen to you, and I understand that, and am prepared to live with that. What I can't live with is you dying here. Please, Tamara, we must hurry. Agent Turner—"

"He's here?"

"Unconscious, but he could wake up any second, and we both know what'll happen then."

Tamara knocked away his hand. "All right. Lead the way." Clyde wasted no more time and swept out the door. Tamara gasped when they entered the hall. She pointed at the guards scattered on the floor and slumped against the walls. "Did you . . .?"

"Kill them? No, of course not. They're only asleep. The effects will wear off in a few hours. We can't linger here. Hurry." He raced for the stairwell. Before they exited the main floor, he halted in the decon room, his gut cringing.

"What is it?" Tamara asked, clipping his heels.

"Turner, he's awake. To the car, quick." Clyde fumbled with the keys as they sped for the old wagon. Missing the lock, he scratched the surrounding metal. The key convulsed in his grip.

"What're you doing?"

"Trying to unlock the damn door," he growled.

"Why'd you lock it in the first place?"

"I don't know, habit I guess." Clyde glanced at the garage door and saw Turner taking aim. The key slipped into the hole and clicked in the turn. The first bullet hit his door as he jumped in, unlocking the passenger's side. The second tore off his side mirror. Ducking below the wheel, he jammed the key into the starter, twisted, and the wagon roared with life. The third bullet ricocheted off the hood. Shifting into reverse, he floored the pedal, backing up a couple of feet before spinning the wheel to swing the car around.

The fourth bullet blew out the back windshield. Tamara screamed, but Clyde's curses drowned out her voice. Once clear of the gate, he leaned out the window and closed the obstacle with his wand. Down the bumpy road he drove.

"Well, I'm glad that's over," Tamara said with a massive sigh.

Clyde shook his head. "Oh it's only just begun."

#

JULY FIFTEENTH, 2:01 A.M.

"T **here's a club** sandwich in the bag by your feet," Clyde said a few minutes later, his nerves collected, his heartbeat a faint but steady _buh-bump_ in his chest. "There's bacon on it. Do you like bacon?"

Tamara unraveled the crumpled bag, reached inside, and withdrew the three-layered square with a toothpick jutting through its center. "I don't remember what bacon tastes like," she said with a soft whimper.

His heart sank at the pain in her voice. "Personally, I love bacon. Go on, the whole thing is yours."

She took a bite and chewed slowly. "Oh. My. God. This is amazing." Each bite after that lasted only one or two chews before she gulped it down. The sandwich vanished in seconds.

"We'll stop and get something else when we get back into town." Clyde reached into the backseat and grabbed another bag. "Here, I got you some clothes. You can't go around in a white medical gown."

Tamara pulled out a pair of black pants made of stretchy material. "What are these?"

"They're called yoga pants. I see women wearing them everywhere. You'll blend in."

She tugged on a leg underneath her gown. "They're tight."

"They're supposed to be tight." They left the pothole-riddled dirt road behind for the smooth blacktop. "It's in vogue. The shirt should be really comfortable. It's made to wick away sweat."

"Cover your eyes," she said, and he put up a palm to block his peripheral. He heard her strip off the gown, hook the bra, and shuffle into the shirt. "Okay."

He examined her in her new clothing. The sweat that had drenched her skin no longer clung to her, and the athletic attire somehow changed her appearance to the degree that she looked like an entirely different woman, composed, ready to meet any challenge. "You look, well, normal." He gave her a grand smile.

"Thanks," she said, sincerity marking the word. "Can I have this water?" She held up a clear plastic bottle.

"Of course. There's a case in the back if you want more."

She downed the bottle in a couple of gulps, then crawled into the trunk space of the wagon, collected a few bottles, and returned. The delicate hairs on her forearms stood up, her skin pimpling. "The air is so nice," she said, buckling up. "It's so cold. I haven't felt cold air in . . ."

Clyde said nothing. Truth was, he didn't know what to say to her; he'd watched her from afar for so long, he was a little stunned that she was sitting beside him in his car, and words he usually formed with ease became jumbled as he opened his mouth to give them voice. He wanted to apologize a thousand times, but that wouldn't earn the results he desired.

"So, what's the plan? I assume you have one after all that."

"Indeed I do. There's a plastic box behind your seat. Inside is a map."

Tamara retrieved the box, flipped open the latches, and stared at a stack of maps and other papers, weighted down by a small flashlight.

"Unfold the one on top."

Flashlight in hand, she spread the paper before her and gazed at a world map, marked up in red ink, dots sprinkled across every continent. At the southern tip of South America, the widest gap between a pair of dots caught her eye, with inches of clear space. "What is this?" she asked, tracing a finger to Kansas.

"It's a map with all the locations of all the witches and wizards in the world."

She peered over at him. "Other people like you?"

"Like me in that they share my ability to wield magic, but they're nothing like me, not in mind or heart."

"What do you mean?"

"Do you remember what I wrote in the letters about Mandari?"

"That they help people?"

He inclined his head. "And that's true, to a degree, but they mainly help themselves. They care about power more than the life of any human."

She returned to the map after a prolonged silence. "Why do you have all their locations mapped out?"

"They've been keeping tabs on me since I left their Community, so I thought I'd do the same, and it turns out, there is some reward for all my effort. See that large expanse where there are no markings?" She gave a hesitant nod. "That's called Patagonia. No Mandari live within the area for hundreds of miles, and they rarely investigate Abnormals in that region because there's little activity involving moonborn. Only one witch has traveled there in the last ten years, and her trip lasted three days, before she headed north again."

"Is this your plan? To make our way there?" Her tone switched from curious to heated.

"We'll be able to survive down there."

"And do what exactly?"

"Live. Be free. You grew up on a farm, right? Maybe we'll buy a piece of farmland and—"

"You talk as if we're married," she cut him off. "As if we're in this together."

"We are in this together, Tamara," he said with conviction. "There's no going back for me, and I . . . I can't leave you."

An awkward silence smothered both of them. "Why can't you leave me? Everyone else in my life has left me, what makes you any different?"

How could he speak the words that so often drifted in his head? To give them voice, right here, right now, meant confessing a love—called an infatuation by most—based on no contact. Yet he devoted himself to a woman to whom he only existed as pieces of paper, mere words that many would consider ramblings of a madman. That was the truth he felt though, all the way to his marrow, that he loved her as much as a person could love another, and he intended to show her this in time, when the pieces fell into logical position. Not now, when the pieces would be jammed into place, forced to fit in rejection.

"I'm different because I'm not afraid of you," he said at last, the tension dissolving.

She turned to him, a devious glint in her eyes, lips straight—a hard line. "Maybe you should be." No emotion strained her voice.

"And maybe you should be afraid of me," he said, "but you're not. I can tell you trust me. You might struggle with accepting that, but you do, just like I trust you."

Another minute passed. "Okay," she said in a soft whisper.

He raised an eyebrow. "Okay?"

"Okay. We're in this together."

"Just like that?"

She nodded. "Tell me your plan."

They hit Midland Avenue, heading back toward the motel, across the river, but turned right at the light onto Glen Avenue, the opposite direction of the motel and the interstate.

"First we have to find another car. This one's been bugged."

"Bugged? You're not serious?"

"There's a tracking device attached to the undercarriage." The words came out smoother than he expected.

"How do you know?"

"Turner wouldn't have entered the installation without making sure he'd be able to follow us. He's confident in his abilities, but he's also smart, always planning for the worst. But we've got some time before he'll be able to catch up, and by then we'll be long gone."

"Sounds like you know him well."

"I have a whole file on him in that box if you want to read it."

"Maybe later," she said, putting the box between her feet. "What's after switching cars?"

He drove by a Walmart and went with the curve as the road ended in a parking lot surrounded by stores. He pointed at the Pizza Hut in the far corner. "How do you feel about pizza?"

"Pizza?" He noticed how the word made her salivate, a sheen on her lips.

He parked the wagon, pulled out his wallet, and slipped her a fifty. "Get whatever you like. Or two, if you want. I'll find us another rig."

Money in hand, she paused, her fingers on the door handle. "I haven't seen or talked to any normal . . ."

"I'm s-so sorry, how could I forget? How about I go get the pizza while you hold down the fort?"

"No. No, I need to do this." She pressed down on the handle, swung her legs onto the asphalt, and stood, her nails biting into the metal body.

"We can go in together," he proposed.

She shook her head. "Living a normal life is all I've dreamed about for the last fifteen years."

Clyde got out of the car. "I understand. I'll be over there at that green CR-V, getting it ready for the trip, fortifying it with a few spells."

"I don't know what that means, but okay." She turned and walked off. He watched her disappear through the doors a minute later.

The CR-V, painted a forest green, awaited his wand. He unlocked the car, checked inside for pictures and any of the owner's belongings to indicate what type of person drove it. If he had to steal, it wasn't going to be from a single parent working two jobs. Registered to a Carlton Walters, Clyde dug a little deeper, searching the web for any more information. He came up with nothing either way, so he shoved a hundred Benjamins into an envelope and mailed it via spell to Mr. Walters, who would stumble upon it the moment they left the parking lot.

Tamara suddenly appeared out of nowhere, her head hanging, eyes fixed on the ground. "Tamara," he exclaimed. He read the misery in her face. "What happened?"

"I'm not ready," she answered with a dry scrape. "I wanted to be, but I'm not. When she asked me what I wanted, I couldn't get a word out."

He ran over to her and wrapped his arms around her. "That's all right," he soothed her. "It's okay. I can get the pizza."

"Can we just go?" she asked in a small voice. "I don't want to be here anymore."

Clyde released her. "Sure. Yeah. Yeah, we can go. Let me get the stuff from the Buick." She strapped into the front seat of the CR-V while he jogged back to his old companion. After he emptied the seats and trunk space, he rubbed the hood. "I'll miss you, my friend. I hope your next owner takes good care of you." He tossed the key into the front seat and left. The next person to set eyes upon the car would get the sudden urge to climb in and drive all the way to Denver, hopefully derailing Turner for good.

Pulling out of the parking lot, he shot down Glen Avenue again, which eventually turned into a divided highway that would lead them over the Rockies and down to New Mexico.

"You want to talk about it?" Clyde asked.

"Not really."

"All right, we don't have to. We don't have to talk at all until you're ready."

She yawned. "I just need to process everything, that's all."

"Take all the time you need."

Behind them, the lights of Glenwood Springs faded, along with their words, as the song of rolling rubber stole the conversation.

#

JULY FIFTEENTH, 6:53 A.M.

T **hey had driven** for hours without saying more than a handful of words to each other. Tamara slept most of the way, the heater creating the perfect environment for tired eyes, and hers were exhausted beyond recuperation, as though she hadn't slept for fifteen years.

She occasionally muttered, and twitched like a bug after death, a scene that wouldn't let Clyde look away despite all his effort. "I'm not going back," she blurted. He checked and saw that she was still asleep. "No, please. I'm not going back. Get away from me. I won't. I _can't."_ And then suddenly she shot up in the reclined chair, breathing hard, covered in a downpour of sweat.

"It's all right, Tamara," Clyde said in a gentle, soothing voice. "You're with me, heading as far away from that place as we can get. You remember?"

She gazed at him, shaking, eyes cloudy. "I—I remember you got me out." Each word fought for release. "Clyde." She grazed his arm. "I remember. I'm sorry." Tears collected in her eyes and glistened in the sunrise.

"There's nothing to apologize for. You did nothing wrong, Tamara." He grabbed her hand and squeezed his reassurance. "You're never going back there, I promise you."

She withdrew her hand from his. "You don't know that." Frustration arose in an instant. "You don't know what'll happen."

"I know I'd die before I let that happen."

"You know all the words," she said, "but you don't know the future. You just might die. You know what they're capable of, and you know how far they'll go to get me back."

"You know what they're capable of, but you don't know what _I'm_ capable of, or the lengths I'll go to ensure you never go back there." He pulled into the parking lot of East West Grill where a banner for breakfast called to him. Before their discussion grew too heated, he defused the tension. "Are you hungry? I'm starving."

The deflection worked only because her stomach growled. Anger kept her muscles tight.

Before he opened his door, he turned to her and said, "Look, I don't mean to make it sound like everything's sunshine and rainbows, because it's not, but the only way we'll survive this is if we believe in each other. I believe in you, Tamara. Now you just have to believe in me."

She returned his soft gaze with a hard glare. "I don't even know you."

"But you know I'm on your side. You know all I want is to help you."

"You're a coward," she said through gritted teeth. "You could've helped me fifteen years ago, instead you chose to live your life while I wasted away in that cell."

Clyde hung his head. He didn't say anything for a long while. "You're right, I am a coward, but I'm trying to be brave. Will you be brave with me?"

She considered his words for a beat, then broke down in tears. "I don't know how to be brave anymore . . . I—I feel broken."

He leaned over and rubbed her back in tender strokes. "Then let me help put you back together. Let me make you stronger like you've made me." They locked eyes as he wiped the tears from her cheeks.

"I don't want to go back," she whispered.

"You won't."

She grabbed his hand. "I shouldn't, but I believe you." Leaning over the console between them, she kissed his cheek ever so softly, then pulled away, leaving a wet ring on his smooth skin.

Clyde's body seized, unfamiliar with this affection, and all he could do was offer a nervous smile. "Thank you," he said, manners forefront.

"I'm ready for breakfast now," she said, grinning, a twist of shyness in her dimples. Her cheeks darkened to a shade of pink. The woman inside the diner unlocked the front door and flipped on the OPEN sign; the red neon glowed with dazzling brilliance.

The stucco exterior needed a paint job, but the inside proved clean and bright when they took their seats at a half-booth, half-chair combo table, opposite of each other. When it came time to order, Tamara pointed out the items she wanted on the menu, speaking not a word to the waitress. Nearly finished with their bountiful meal, the woman behind the counter turned up the radio, listening to the news broadcast.

"The now very public war against what many are calling Abnormals has escalated again today," said the radio reporter. "With over a dozen people confirmed dead this morning at a golf course outside of Houston, Texas. A skirmish broke out between Blackthorn agents and a group of reported vampires around two this morning. That brings the death toll to over a hundred in a very short time since the breaking news of Blackthorn's disclosure yesterday. Many victims have been found drained of blood, or much worse in the states of Wyoming and Utah, where packs of werewolves are said to be living. Government officials are urging citizens to stay home for the time being."

"Peggy, can you turn that shit off?" a large, portly man cried from a table in the corner. A gray DeWalt baseball cap shaded his eyes. "I'm tired of listening to all that nonsense."

"You don't believe it, Earl?"

"Peggy, come on, turn it off."

The woman ignored the man, until someone else complained, then switched the station only to hear a similar broadcast. Eventually she opted to shut the radio off.

"I think we better go," Clyde said in a hushed voice. He left a fifty underneath the check. The two made a bathroom pit stop before they set out again, refueled for the next few hundred miles.

"There's still nothing about the aliens," he said a couple miles down the road. After he'd told her about the aliens and their arrival back in Glenwood, the two hadn't broached the subject, for Clyde feared it would weigh too much on Tamara, as the catalyst that led to her imprisonment. "I honestly didn't think they could cover everything up for this long. It has to come out soon."

"I think you underestimate their reach, their power," she said. "You didn't say anything before about humans fighting a war with Abnormals."

"That's what Blackthorn does, and a few other groups around the world, some that have existed for over a thousand years. There's always been war between the moonborn and humanity, reaching various heights of conflict before dropping off into the fringes of societal awareness. The Mandari have always stepped in to prevent humanity's enslavement, to maintain a certain balance in the world without destroying the moonborn, though the sunborn have tried exterminating them many times. But that's insignificant to what's coming."

"What do you mean? What's coming?"

He scratched his beard before answering, forming his thoughts into a succinct assertion. "The aliens, I believe they're here for Abnormal blood, and soon they're going to start taking it with Blackthorn's help."

She drew his attention with her haunting gaze. "They're here searching for a cure."

"Why do you think that?"

"I don't think, I _know._ The probe was called Curefinder Twelve. When I first came upon it in the west field, I couldn't read the markings, but then they slowly morphed into English, and I knew exactly what it said. That was when I put my hand on it and the mechanical arm reached out with a needle. It took a sample of my blood and retreated. I knew then that something was wrong with me. That I was different."

"Nothing's wrong with you," Clyde assured her.

"Something must be, otherwise why would they lock me up for fifteen years? Why would they perform all those experiments on me? They don't do that to normal people."

"Being an Abnormal isn't a bad thing."

"Says the guy with the wand, who can make people fall asleep with a few words and a flick of the wrist."

Clyde shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "What happened next in the field? After the probe drew your blood."

"Nothing for a few minutes, and then all those agents showed up, cuffing me, putting a few darts in my neck. The next thing I knew I was waking up in that cell you found me in, and the rest you know."

"I suppose I do."

Tamara held out a hand, palm up, and glided her fingers up and down her forearm. "So the aliens are here for a cure and they think it lies in the blood of Abnormals. Why do you think they believe that?"

"Abnormals have robust immune systems. Rarely do we die of disease. Maybe they think they can integrate our immunities into their genetics."

"Do you think they're looking for a specific Abnormal?"

"Possibly, but it's hard to say without knowing more about them, about their illness."

"You were afraid they'd hand me over to them," she said, as if answering a question, excited. "That's why you chose now to rescue me."

"Partly," he admitted. "Another part had to do with courage, or the lack of it in my case, until I saw the spaceship. Then I knew I had to do something, that the time for idleness was over."

"And now you're whisking me off to fairyland," she said, her sarcastic tone not lost on him. "So you were going to tell me your plan earlier and never did."

"Right, yeah. Well, it's a fairly simple plan. Leo, a friend of mine from when I was a kid, lives in Roswell, New Mexico. He works in the rube anticrime department for the Order of Blood, so he'll know how to slip out of the country undetected."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Rube anticrime department? Order of Blood?"

"Right. You wouldn't know what the hell I'm talking about," Clyde laughed. "Excuse the gibberish. Rube is a term that means non-magical. The Order of Blood is the agency charged with keeping moonborn in check and other policing duties. They claim to have our best interest at heart, but power is a greater motivation than goodwill, and few have true interest beyond the self."

"But you think your friend Leo does? That he'll really help us?"

"I haven't spoken to him since I've left, but he was a good guy before. All he ever talked about was helping people. I just hope nothing's changed . . ."

"You don't sound all too confident," she noted.

"Well like I said, it's been a long time, and few Mandari can resist the call of power, and Leo might not be any different. We'll have to wait and see. If all goes according to plan, he'll be able to get us down to one of the South American drug countries, and from there we'll make our way to Patagonia."

Tamara unfolded the world map. "Which ones are the drug countries and why one of them?"

He pointed at the northwest of South America. "Columbia, Peru, and Bolivia are the big three. One of Leo's various jobs is to keep a watch on drug trafficking, so he'll know of secret ways to smuggle us out. With his help, the Order of Blood won't be able to track us, which means we'll have a real chance of making a life for ourselves."

"I like the sound of that," she said, her fingers trailing back to Kansas. "What's the weather like down there? Kansas was always really hot in the summer."

"I don't think it gets too warm, and it's rather arid where we're going, so I can't say it's like Kansas at all."

"Oh," she sighed. "You think they grow wheat where we're going? The wheat fields were always my favorite. It's so pretty in the summer."

He explored the depths of her eyes and saw the longing in them; he had to be careful not to crush what hope remained locked inside her. "I don't know." His doubt, obvious to anyone who listened with an ounce of attention, soared over Tamara, unfazed.

"I hope there's lots of wheat." The nostalgia in her voice broke his heart. "I've dreamed about walking in the golden fields every day since they took me, lying out in the middle of tall stalks under the moon, gazing at all the stars in a cloudless sky. That was one of my favorite parts of my childhood, looking at the stars with my sister."

At the mention of Tamara's sister, an overwhelming sensation of neglect hit him like a sandbag to the gut, nausea crawling up his throat. _How could I have forgotten her family? They have no idea what's going on. Would she like to see them one last time? Would they even want to see her? They think she's in a maximum-security mental hospital._

She interrupted his thoughts with a question. "How many witches and wizards are there? There are so few dots."

"By my last count, twelve hundred and sixty-six, most of them living in Goldhart, a village near Reindeer Lake, right here"—he tapped the northern section of Saskatchewan—"it's where I grew up."

She studied the region he indicated. "I understand the seclusion, but why are there so few of you?"

"A plague in the sixties decimated the population," Clyde answered, his eyes focused on the rearview mirror and the truck tailgating them. "We've been slowly rebuilding ever since."

"So your immune system isn't perfect?"

He laughed. "I guess not, though I've never been sick. Our immune systems can adapt much faster than a human's, and eventually we overcame the plague, but I've been told it came very close to wiping us out."

"Why do you keep looking in the mirror?" She turned and watched as the truck passed.

"It's merely a precaution."

"You've been doing it since Glenwood Springs." She folded up the map and put it away. "Don't you think they would've caught us by now if they were tracking us?"

He regarded the truck, which pumped its brakes, its taillights glowing red. Sweat began to bead along his hairline when he observed the black SUV approaching behind them. Sandwiched, two vehicles trapped them, with only the fenced in fields east and west of the road providing an escape. "You said it yourself, Turner isn't going to give up—he's never lost a fugitive before, and I'm sure he doesn't plan on starting with us."

She began chewing on her lip. "You think he'll really be able to find us?"

"He's a clever man," Clyde said. "I would imagine there's not much he isn't capable of, given the resources at his disposal . . ."

"Can we talk about something else? You're making me nervous."

"Sorry." He switched on the blinker, pulled off onto the shoulder, then swung back into the lane once the traffic passed. He scanned the map app on his phone. "We're close to the New Mexico border. It looks like another five hours to Roswell." He replaced his handheld in the cupholder between them. "Is there anything in particular you wanted to talk about? You must have a million questions buzzing around. I know I would."

"Well . . ." She paused.

"You can ask or tell me anything, Tamara," he encouraged.

"In one of your letters you said you knew what I am and that you'd tell me, but you never did . . ."

"I thought—I thought you figured it out." His thick eyebrows drew together, wrinkles forming along his forehead.

"I know I can do things when I get upset," she related. "Things like you can do . . . I guess I just want you to say it."

He couldn't remember a time when he didn't know what he was, that magic flowed in his veins, part of his DNA. Memories of his father hounding him over the years filled his head; he quickly shook them off. "That you're like me—a Mandari."

"So it's true, I am a witch?"

"Yes," he said. "But not exactly—"

Without warning, a giant meteorite smashed the CR-V's hood, flipping the vehicle end over end. Clyde had no time to react. Not even to scream. They were in the air for half a breath before the roof landed on the ground, skidding to a halt.

#

JULY FIFTEENTH, 8:13 A.M.

T **wo boots,** comprised of black metal that shimmered like water, stepped in front of the CR-V. Clyde closed his eyes and reached out with his mind to evaluate his body. Nothing was broken or seriously injured. When he opened his eyes a metal hand was gripping the windshield frame by Tamara, the glass shattered, sprinkled across the blacktop and grass.

Don't panic, Clyde. You always panic, so don't do it this time. Remain calm like in Glenwood. You'll get her out of this.

A second hand joined the first and together the two rolled the CR-V back onto its wheels. Staring down a powered suit of armor, his instincts gave him no advice on how to proceed, frozen in his seat. It hadn't been a meteorite that pummeled the car, but this being, enhanced by a sophisticated exoskeleton that would've given Iron Man a run for his money, dressed in the battle gear of a space soldier. The figure before them slumped from broad shoulders like a gorilla, with forearms longer than its legs, a massive chest, and a long, curved horn that seemed to span from its nose, much like the hadrosaur toy he had in his dinosaur collection, the seed that began his love of science.

Tamara squeezed his palm. "What do we do?" she rasped.

Clyde peered at her reflection in the alien's golden visor, behind which it examined them in turn, making no advances. Before either of them moved, a computerized voice came from the suit of armor, relaying a language neither of them understood. It paused, as though waiting for a response, patient.

"Climb out the back," he coughed. "I'll handle this—this—"

"Alien," she finished for him.

"Hurry!" He raised his wand in his right while his left unbuckled the seatbelt. She was already crawling over the seat when the words of magic left his mouth. _"Dorquilus!"_

The alien monstrosity didn't collapse to the ground like the guards had, but the powered armor could've solved that issue. The figure stood motionless until Tamara kicked open the bent hatch at the rear. The alien bound two steps before it sprung into the air, leaping over the CR-V, and for the first time Clyde glimpsed its armored-covered tail, which equaled the length of its torso. It landed four feet beyond the vehicle, facing Tamara, speaking in its alien tongue.

Clyde tried the handle, but the door was jammed into the frame. He shouldered it open with a few heavy hits. By the time he reached Tamara, the alien had already deployed the launchers atop its shoulders, two small cannons that singled them out as targets.

The vibrations in the air changed, the darts exploding from the weapons, zeroing in on their necks. Clyde detected the subtle variation, his wrist already in motion, the words on the tip of his tongue. _"Tarsisto!"_ he boomed.

The darts, propelled by blue-flame rockets, stopped in midair. The soldier cocked its head, and Clyde could picture how wide its eyes were beneath its helmet, the surprise absolute. The projectiles crashed to the asphalt. The cannons rotated and fired off a second salvo. Again Clyde halted the weapons before they found their mark.

A car swerved off the road and sped around the alien, not bothering to stop once past, honking the entire way.

The soldier paid the driver no mind, focused on Tamara, its tail whipping back and forth, the tip pointed at her like a third eye. Suddenly it lunged, wrapped around her like a snake coil, and wrenched her into the air behind its hulking suit. "Clyde!" she screamed. "Don't let it take me."

With one trick reserved, Clyde hesitated, for the spell would kill his phone and leave them scrambling for safety, and with Turner scouring Colorado they'd be easy prey. _It's the only option, Clyde._ The voice nudged him into action. The cannons repositioned, now directed solely at him, cycling through different weapons. These would not be harmless tranquilizing darts. He guessed the alien planned a much more brutal and final outcome for him.

" _Pulsurium elemagno!"_ he yelled. A wave of white light erupted from his wand and enfolded the alien. Before the cannons fired, the suit of armor grew stationary, a lifeless piece of metal waiting for someone to tip it over. Clyde scrutinized the reflective visor for a minute, making sure it wasn't a trick on the alien's part, setting up a trap to knock him out. Tamara hung in the air, still snared in the grip of the armored tail, the muscle inside the impervious exoskeleton keeping her in position.

"Get me out of here," she barked, kicking and fighting to loosened the hold. Clyde repaired his cracked glasses, then added his strength, which proved inadequate for such a job, and finally resorted to his wand instead.

Tamara locked her arms around him, her breaths quick and hot on his neck, tears wetting his skin, a shudder of a sob shaking his body. He consoled her, but only for a moment, urging her toward the car to collect what little supplies they could carry. To either side of the road a thicket of woodland now replaced the fields, and Clyde took hold of her hand and pulled her westward, helping her over the fence and into the dense trees.

A few hundred feet south, the reason for the tree growth became apparent, arriving at the banks of a shallow river, more rock than water with the sun beating down on them. The traversable barrier delayed them a second before they continued on through the brush.

"What did you do back there?" Tamara asked, winded. Years of confinement had done nothing for her respiratory conditioning.

"I created a small but focused electromagnetic pulse," he answered. Her blank reaction made him elaborate. "Essentially, I fried the electronics of the suit, made it so the alien didn't have any power. Its life support should still function, but it won't be going anywhere for a while."

"It was amazing." Her eyes sparkled with awe. "Can you teach me how to do stuff like that?"

Clyde nodded. "I can even teach you how to invent your own spells, too, like the one I just cast—it was of my own design. But there are lots of basics you have to learn first."

"I want to learn it all, everything you know."

He held back a laugh. "I think we can accomplish that, once we get to Patagonia. When you complete your training, I'll show you how to make your own wand."

She scrunched her eyebrows together. "I have to make it?"

"Of course. Every sunborn has to make their own magical instrument. What you construct it from defines you as a sorcerer. It's hard work no doubt, but few things are more rewarding."

"I can't wait to begin," she said, breathless.

They left the trees behind after another few hundred feet. A house beckoned them in the distance, a garage of equal size built behind it. Scattered farm equipment and old cars cluttered the graveled driveway and surrounding yard.

They came upon a familiar station wagon. "Are there any keys?" Tamara panted.

"No, but that's not a problem." He opened the rusted door and the hinges screeched in defiance.

"Hey," a voice called behind them. Standing on the wrap-around porch, a bald man, dressed in a greasy blue shirt with a paunch bulging the front, held up a fire iron, the tip curiously sharp. "What the hell do ya think you're doing? Get off my property before my son puts a hole in your fuckin' face."

A second man, even larger than the first and built like a linebacker, stepped onto the porch, a rifle resting against his shoulder. The screen door slammed shut behind him.

"I ain't gonna tell ya again," the older man warned, and brandished the poker for good measure.

The indelible sound of helicopter blades in full rotation occupied the silence of the countryside. At first the noise was faint, but it steadily grew, until it drowned out the world. A black copter, unmarked, flew into view from the north. A black figure sat in the rectangular opening, draped in a fine navy suit, headset cupped over his ears. The sun twinkled off Agent Turner's smooth head. Clyde thought he saw something of a smile on the agent's face. The next move Turner made paralyzed him, Tamara, and the strangers on the porch; the agent picked up a sniper rifle resting across his lap, placed the butt against his shoulder, and closed one eye, his right targeting them through a scope.

The discharge cut through the beating of the chopper blades. The son, who pointed the rifle at Clyde's breastbone, shot back a couple of feet, a hole blasted through his forehead. The father stared down at his boy, unable to move, a statue of a target, while blood pooled and leaked through the chipped deck boards.

But something differed from Clyde's first meeting with Turner; this time around, he could sense his magic, its force woven into every cell in his body, the very fabric of his being. Turner had him within his crosshairs and yet Clyde felt no difference. _It's too far for his power._ The thought, a nanosecond from spark to conclusion, gave Turner all the time he needed.

Clyde knew what was coming next, but by the time he raised his hand, a second blast rang out across the flatland. He didn't watch the father collapse to the wood, bent on foiling the shot, his focus on the copter and the spell, the words pictured in his mind's eye. The gap between the helicopter and his wand was ten times the distance that had stood between him and the alien; the spell would have to be stronger by tenfold to reach it, and that was no easy leap to make.

The energy built up inside him like it always did before he cast a spell, but at the same time he sensed it wouldn't be enough—the chopper simply hovered out of striking distance. Then suddenly his energy surged, as though fed by a new source outside his own will. He turned and saw Tamara wreathed in a golden glow, her anger wild, her magic raw. The energy peaked inside him and he expelled the power, channeled through his wand, all aimed at Special Agent Turner.

The flare of white blinded two thousand feet in every direction and forced Clyde to shield his eyes and spin away. The impairment lasted a fleeting tick of a clock. By the time he gathered up the courage to open his eyes again, the copter was swirling out of control, plunging for the trees and tracts of pasture. He grabbed Tamara's hand and ran southwest. Never had his heartbeat thumped with such intensity, the roar in his ears so loud it blocked out his thoughts, and all he could do was charge across the alfalfa fields. Hand in hand they wove through the bands of scattered trees and bales of hay, jumped a ditch, then a second, all the while never downshifting, until they found the open backyards of a line of mobile homes, unfenced and uncared for.

Parked to the side of one of the houses were two rows of vehicles, each of the various transports fulfilling some need; trucks of diverse sizes, coupes and sedans and old clunker sports cars, and even a discolored bus that was no more functional than his dead handheld. None of the vehicles were clean, so he chose the one he reckoned would be the most reliable, a Ford Contour with red paint faded by endless exposure to the sun, and started it up with a few spells.

"Get in," Clyde said, a little too roughly. Tamara, whose body was stuck in a perpetual tremor, could barely do anything beyond stare at him in open-mouthed bewilderment. He had to guide her into the seat and strap her belt across her chest. Tossing his pack into the backseat, he climbed behind the wheel and peeled out, the tires kicking up so much dust it caused both of them to cough for a good minute after they cleared the driveway.

There was no lying to himself; he knew what would happen to the pilot and to Turner the moment he released the words, the energy pouring out of him like a flash flood. Like looking through a window in his mind, he could see their charred remains flung across the tall grass in fragments. The sight of such gore made him cringe, guilt crushing his insides.

_All life is precious_ , he thought. _How could I have done that? How could I have taken their lives so easily?_ His stomach turned in revulsion at the power pulsating in his veins. He glanced down at the wooden instrument held in place by his thigh. The golden tip glimmered in a ray of sunlight that pierced through the window like a blazing spear. _No one should have power like this. No one should be able to do what I just did._

Tears dampened the folds of his eyes, but he blinked them away. Now wasn't the time to break down and weep. That time would come, when he was alone and far away, but now he had to get Tamara, this woman constructed of crystal by years of isolation and torment, out of the country.

Heading south in silence, a big yellow sign marked their crossing into New Mexico, complete with peppers and the slogan: THE LAND OF ENCHANTMENT. The air was thinner here than in Glenwood Springs, the high plateau stretching on for miles and miles, the thorns of the Rockies jutting in the western horizon. Despite the higher elevation, the dull throb from hours ago had vanished, his heart pumping more blood to his brain than ever before.

After the shock from the events had somewhat worn off, he broke the dry, hot air with parched words. "What I did back there—"

"What _we_ did," she corrected. "You may have said the words and waved the wand, but we both know you didn't do it alone, so don't try to shoulder all the weight."

"Do you feel it then?"

"Feel what?"

"The guilt," he rasped.

Tamara studied him for a minute. "Guilt?" she said at last. "No, I don't feel any guilt for what we had to do."

He held her gaze, confused, searching for what knotted her shoulders. "Then what weight burdens you?"

"The weight of freedom," she said resolutely. "The fact that we had to make that choice is what weighs on me. There's no such thing when you're locked up. There are no choices like that. They simply don't exist."

Clyde rubbed his irritated chin, the long hairs growing coarser by the day. He shook his head as his cheeks flushed. How could she not feel guilty? Two people dead and no remorse for their extinguished lives? Though he understood what she meant—the choice of survival came with a high price at times—he didn't understand, _couldn't_ understand how she didn't ache for their passing. The weight of her chains wore differently than the weight of his power, he concluded, a system he could only comprehend if he suffered it himself. And in the end he might, if his plan soured even more, if Leo refused to help them. If they even made it to Leo . . .

Realizing he hadn't responded, he said, "I'm sorry." It was all he could think to say.

"You don't have to keep apologizing for my imprisonment." She placed a hand on his. "You got me out, that's all that matters now. I forgive you, Clyde."

He wanted to apologize again, but forced the words back down his throat with a painful swallow, the arid atmosphere peeling away at his esophagus. A hundred thousand thoughts ran through his mind, a chaotic mess of feelings; he was losing his grip and needed to find a foothold on which he could sort out the meaningful from the insignificant.

_She forgives me. She forgives me even though I don't deserve it._ It came to him then, tears blotting his vision, his resolve steeling. _There's only one thing that means anything: Tamara. Get her to safety. That's what you promised, so that's what you'll do. Worry about everything else later._ "I haven't gotten you out all the way," he said in a low voice. "But I will.

"I will."

#

JULY FIFTEENTH, 2:52 P.M.

T **hey switched vehicles** half a dozen times on their way to Roswell, driving a blue Lexus LS by their final exchange, all the owners compensated like the first in Glenwood Springs. The car was a little on the flashy side for Clyde's taste, but he figured what the hell, if all went according to plan, it'd be the last ride before they left the US for good, and who didn't like a little luxury from time to time? The air conditioner worked, the plush seats contoured to his shape for support, and it handled like an Indy car.

Tracking down Leo would take some time, though Clyde hoped no more than a day, but hopes and wishes were worth as much as dirt at an auction. Pinpointing a wizard who worked all day busting drug operations along the entire US-Mexico border had taken over half a year. Why Leo had chosen Roswell to make his home, Clyde had yet to figure out. It was far away from any of the major interstates, but then traveling wouldn't be an issue for a man in his position and with his skill set. It wasn't a large city, so he wouldn't attract too much attention, and with close to fifty thousand people, it wasn't exactly small, which meant he wouldn't stand out like a delinquent in a town with five hundred. If he had to take a stab at the reason Leo chose Roswell, it was because of this fact, but there were too many other factors, some he needed to work out.

What he knew for sure was that the wizard lived in the boonies, on a swathe of farmland southeast of the city, owned by an alias or by someone else entirely. Working in the rube anticrime department, a Mandari usually lived tentatively, and moved from town to town depending on where the big case was at the time. But Leo had settled down, and Clyde, curious to learn why, had his guesses about that too. Chief among them: a woman. Love, notched at the top of all magic and considered more powerful than blood magic, could conquer the world if harnessed right. At least that was what his family and teachers taught him. Lies were plentiful in his youth, and he kept little faith in such words, but even so, he didn't completely dismiss them either.

They were eight miles out of Roswell when the storm hit. Tamara first spotted the black clouds rolling across the western skyline, giant puffs so dark they looked unnatural, as though someone had tampered with a photo to darken all the light tones. The contrast between the east and west made Clyde picture all the good against evil images he'd seen throughout the years, a heavenly embodiment of the dark versus the light.

_This is going to be one hell of a storm_ , he thought.

"I remember the summer storms that would thunder across the farm," Tamara said, staring at the oncoming force, mesmerized. "One year the equipment barn blew over, and a few weeks later a flash flood swept away twenty head of cattle. Both were savage storms, and I remember being so scared—too scared to even play board games with my sister while we waited them out in our basement." She inclined her head at the darkness sweeping toward the car. "Neither looked as threatening as that."

"That doesn't sound good." Without bothering to glance at the street sign, he steered right, heading south down a road that didn't have painted lines. He followed the Locator Charm, a spell created from a discarded medical glove Leo had worn, left behind at a crime scene four months ago. A hard spell to make, an easy spell to use—it guided him to his destination, a sense of direction that unconsciously navigated the roads, like he was being towed, bound by an invisible rope pulling him along for the ride.

Pushing down the gas pedal, the engine whined before the gears shifted, then wound up again. They were cruising now. He loved that about these flatland country roads, they were as straight as rulers, and in a car like the LS, topping a hundred took only seconds.

Rain started to fall. Gently at first, but it steadily grew into a downpour. Then the wind picked up. A gust rattled the car. The spell told him they were almost there, but they were close enough that he didn't need it anymore; he could sense Leo's presence, his possessions, all that he'd touched and cherished and called his own.

He drove past a pasture full of Holsteins, the black-and-white cattle running for shelter under tall narrow roofs, structures built to shade and nothing more. Spinning into a long private driveway, the tires kicked up gravel as he passed a row of apple trees on his left and alfalfa fields on his right. While the fields kept going far out of sight, the small orchard ended, and he banked left, down another road, this one made of dirt and overgrown brush, hardly driven upon.

The driveway ended at a small bungalow, painted white with yellow trim, surrounded by trees and bushes that concealed it well. A shed stood next to the house, a dilapidated relic, with rusted aluminum siding and missing metal roof panels. Clyde didn't think it would survive the storm.

The car slid to a stop at the bottom of the porch. Clyde grabbed his wand, an insurance policy in case events didn't go well. "Inside, hurry!" The damp air smelled sweet when he opened his door, like a freshly mowed lawn, a fragrance from his youth that he seldom caught in the Pasadenan air. The clouds shot bullets from above like a machine gun. The pellets of rain pummeled the ground with a fury Clyde had never witnessed. It was as if the sky released all its tension, all its anger on one spot. The force resulted in devastation.

Clyde forgot his worry for the shed, his concern now turning to their own safety, which grew more precarious by the second. Bounding up the steps, he pounded on the door. No one answered, and that was when he noticed that something was off, that what he was feeling was not Leo himself, but rather a residual imprint of his presence, like a fingerprint that only sunborn could detect. He held out his wand and yelled, _"Eximo impedum."_ The locks preventing their entrance made audible clicks.

Tamara reached for the door, but Clyde stopped her arm. "Something's not right here."

"What do you mean?"

A crack of thunder boomed, drowning out his reply. The porch shook and the rain surged, muddying up the dry patch of lawn in front of the house. Clyde tapped the doorframe with his wand. A shock jolted through his system and buckled his knees. He collapsed to the floor, writhing, his veins grotesquely bulging as he cried out.

Tamara kneeled beside him, clutching his shoulder. "Clyde!"

"Stay back," he called through gritted teeth. "Don't touch me." His eyes rolled about in their sockets, the movement rapid, and his eyelids flickered.

She recoiled, but only for a moment, repositioning her hands on his face. "Don't be afraid," she said, the words as soft as snow. The spell that afflicted him didn't transfer to her like he knew it should and, strangely enough, her fingers seemed to absorb its effects, dissolving the magic.

Clyde gasped for breath when the spell broke, and he clung to her, his head cradled in her arms.

"It's okay, Clyde," she reassured him. "You're okay."

He felt her pulse through her fingers, her gentle touch soothing his wild, desperate lungs, sucking in oxygen. "How?" he croaked. "It was a Crippling Curse. How did you dispel it?"

"I don't know." She stroked his cheek. "I didn't want you to die, and the thought repeated in my head until the magic stopped." The wind was blowing the rain sideways, angled to reach the doormat, which left the two soaked. Tamara brushed her hair behind her ears so the water sliding down her long strands would stop dripping in Clyde's face. "I can't do this without you. I need you."

After he collected his breath, Clyde got to his feet with Tamara's help. The two faced each other, noses an inch apart, both sopping wet from head to toe, beads of rainwater coating their skin, glistening in the dim stormlight, accentuated by the frequent lightning strikes. Thunder roared in the distance.

"I need you, too. More than you'll ever know." Something took hold of Clyde then, a feeling deep within that prompted him to lean in, reciprocated by Tamara's gravitation toward his body. Their lips hovered just out of reach of each other. Then he took the plunge, and when his lips connected with hers, a spark exploded in his body, a release of euphoria unknown to him, fifteen years in the making. Her full lips were softer than pillows, more luscious than he ever dreamed, and he dreamed of them often. He never wanted to pull away from the wet kiss, lost in its power, stronger than any spell he'd ever cast.

A hundred thousand nerves tingled and sang with life all throughout his body, an explosion of sensation, his blood fueling the fire in his heart.

Time escaped him. When they separated, he could not say how long it had been. Seconds? Minutes? Hours? _Is this love?_ he asked himself. _Is this what it feels like?_ He was beginning to understand what he was taught in his youth about its power. It held no other rival.

She bent down and retrieved his lost wand, which he'd dropped when the spell first stunned him. Her fingers slipped through his when she handed it back to him.

Is that what dispelled the magic? Love?

The rain beat down in a fierce rage. A fence post flew across the sky over the orchard. The storm's ferocity would not be ignored. "We should get inside," he said, pointing his wand toward the door. "It should be perfectly safe now. No more traps."

He crossed the threshold first to prove his words true. Nothing happened. Closing the door behind Tamara, he scanned the house. There was no mistaking this was Leo's place. His magical imprint covered everything, from the fake flowers in the vase on the mantle, to the humming refrigerator in the kitchen. Yet all looked as though he hadn't stepped foot in the home for half a decade. Dust layered the furniture, the appliances, the counters; it hung in the air and choked those who breathed the staleness.

"Your friend lives here?" Tamara asked, surveying the living room connected to the entrance.

"Yes," he replied.

"Are you sure?"

"The spell wouldn't have led us here otherwise. Unless . . ."

"Unless what?"

Clyde spied the shed through the window and examined it. "Unless it's not here we're supposed to be." He nodded at the tipping structure. A panel tore off the roof and darted after the fence post from earlier. "He could be living in there."

"But it's tiny, barely the size of my cell."

"Magic has a way of altering what one can see. From the outside it looks like a ruined shack, but from the inside it could be a royal palace."

"If magic can do that, why have this place?"

"Because it makes it look like he lives here without actually living here." He continued to study the shed as he explained. "It probably sends everyone away without him having to deal with rubes. It's not that uncommon for our kind when living among them, to hide in plain sight. In any case, he's not here. He must be working somewhere else, which means we could be waiting here a few days."

"Did you live like this?" she asked, sliding her fingers over dusty furniture in his peripherals.

"No, I fully emerged myself with the rube community. But I lived without my magic. It was a way of life for me, to be as human as I could. There are some destinies that cannot be ignored though." He twirled his wand in his fingers.

Clyde turned around and noticed Tamara shivering. He rubbed her shoulders and felt the prickles on her skin. The goose pimples grew at his touch.

"I'm cold," Tamara said. It wasn't so much a statement as an invitation.

He smiled. "I can tell. I can also fix that easily enough." He raised his wand to banish the moisture.

She batted the instrument aside. "I don't want your magic. I want you."

His breath leapt up his throat and came out as a pant. "I—" All he could hear was his heart thumping against his chest like a gavel against a sound block. Words abandoned him. His tongue knotted like a pretzel, unable to form a coherent syllable.

"And you want me, too. I know it. I can feel it in my blood, like it's talking to me, and it's telling me you've been waiting as long as I have."

"Waiting?" he managed to get out.

"I dreamed about you," she said with unconcealed longing. "That night I received your first letter, and every night since then. I dreamed about the man who wrote those sweet words and that promise. You promised to free me, and sure it took longer than I first imagined, but you did it. You kept your word. And even before I saw you, I knew in my veins that our connection was real, that it was more than just my imagination, and now I know that you've gone through the same thing, felt the doubt, the disappointment, living in the shadow of fear. But together we've nothing to be afraid of. Together we're so much stronger."

His affection bloomed into uncontrollable passion, and he kissed her, hard. She returned the kiss, her mouth open, inviting him deeper. His skin burned like a furnace, and the need for his magic to heat up their bodies no longer applied, wrapped in each other's embrace. Their lust for one another was like two fires joining—the merger brighter, hotter, and all the more intense.

The storm raged outside. The rain played a song on the roof, the tempo fast, the tone dark and destructive.

Tamara pulled back after a minute, took his hand, and led him down the short hall to the right. She chose the larger of the two bedrooms. Sitting on the bed, she beckoned to him, leaving no doubt in what she desired.

Clyde closed the door and stepped toward the bed.

#

JULY SIXTEENTH, 6:47 A.M.

T **he night had** been slow and sweet, fast and furious, and intensely intimate. Clyde knew the word magic with a reality few experienced, but to call the night magical didn't do it justice. It was so much more. A virgin, he didn't quite know what to expect, and nothing prepared him for his flesh against her own, their nakedness intertwined.

Tamara slept soundly on his chest, and he watched her for the better part of an hour, his gaze interrupted from time to time by shadows outside. The trees that surrounded the house swayed in the breeze, dancing in the sunrise.

The storm had passed after a few hours, waxing and waning in intervals, until one final surge after sunset, the finale nearly ripping the house from its foundations. Only the wind remained after, a gentle reminder of the power that had swept through the region.

Clyde, with delicate care, rolled Tamara off his chest, and squeezed right before he released her on the other side of the bed. The sheets smelled of dust, unwashed and unmoved for years. Neither had noticed throughout the night, but now, in the stillness of the morning, a musty waft hit him like a sock full of rocks to his mouth, the blow dizzying him for a second. He noticed then that there was something else besides staleness in the air.

Entering the living room, he maneuvered past broken glass entrenched in the carpet fibers. He picked up the culprit, a rusty bucket, below the shattered window. Strange, he hadn't heard the window break during the storm. The scent drove him to the front window. The ramshackle shed still stood despite the severity of the tempest.

As Clyde assessed the building, one thing became clear: this was no ordinary shed. Compelled, he opened the front door, leapt down the porch steps, and swept across the muddy lawn. The fresh smell of the world after a heavy rain delighted his nose, and yet the other scent lingered, defiling the clean, reviving aroma permeating the air. It didn't take the gift of magic to tell from where the foul odor originated.

A Disimpediment Charm made quick work of the padlock, which proved an obstacle for show more than an actual hurdle. No, the real barrier lay inside, and Clyde's intuition told him it wasn't to keep people out. The hinges scraped as he swung the door open. What he found inside surprised him even more than he could've guessed—there was nothing but racks of farm tools. He grasped a hoe, spun it in his hands, and flung it at the back wall. An echo rang out, as though the space between the wooden interior and metal exterior were hollow.

_Could it be? Would Leo go to such lengths just to avoid prying rube eyes? A simple Concealment Charm would accomplish the same thing._ He knocked on the wood and the same hollow echo met his ears. _Why, Leo? What are you hiding?_

Tapping the wood with his wand, he intoned, _"Revelios."_ The wooden boards splintered into a thousand pieces, revealing a luminous golden door, as bright as the sun and more glorious to behold. For anyone but a sorcerer, the golden light would inflict pain onto the gazer, often deadly. For rubes, it might only cripple if lucky, but it would kill any moonborn who set eyes upon it for more than a glimpse. The spell, difficult to cast for even the most proficient sunborn, was overkill for a protection ward, which meant Leo wasn't just hiding his residence from rubes; the implication had a much grander feel to it.

Clyde grabbed the handle and pulled. Beyond, a hallway, lined with blue LED Christmas lights along the floor and ceiling, extended out of sight and ended in darkness. Glass windowpanes, spaced every thirty feet, counted ten on each wall, all as tall as a person and slightly wider than the height.

He'd been right about the building being larger on the inside, much larger in fact. Crossing over the threshold, he entered the corridor, a tremor in his fingers. When he came within view of the first window, thirty feet into the hall, he swallowed, choking down the fear as he stared down a man, all skin and bones and thin hair. The putrid scent was strong now, of dried blood and decay, the natural reek of the moonborn, unable to mask it with a perfume as they customarily did.

It'd been so long since he smelled it, he'd forgotten how nasty it was; it traced his mouth and forced him to spit. Isaacarion hadn't carried the stench, and he'd been imprisoned for twelve years. Clyde hadn't thought about that before. The vampire should've stunk of rot, so why hadn't he? The answer would have to wait until he figured out what was going on here.

The vampire before him was staring at the floor; taking notice of Clyde's presence, the man slowly raised his head. The withered state of the man shocked Clyde so much that he backed abruptly into the glass behind him. A hand banged the window by his ear. He jumped around and saw the woman for the first time.

"Kill me," the woman whispered, barely able to get the broken words out. "Kill . . ."

The man took up the plea. "Kill me," he begged. The rest of the prisoners stirred, resting their hands against the windows, all of them appealing for the same mercy.

"What's going on here?" a man said from behind him. "Who are you?"

Clyde spun toward the entrance. The soft blue light made it difficult to see very far in the room, but the golden door illuminated a broad-chested man standing under the doorway. "Leo?" He approached cautiously, eyeing the raised wand.

"Clyde?" Leo rasped when Clyde stepped into the golden light. Clyde nodded, his attention focused on Leo's wand. "What are you doing here?"

"I—I need your help."

"My help?" Handsome, girls had always lavished Leo with attention, and the years hadn't given him any trouble. Quite the contrary, his muscles were now thicker, and the stubble on his face presented a more rugged look.

Clyde shrugged off the tinge of jealousy. "What is all this?" he asked, unable to control his mouth.

"It's an experiment I'm conducting," Leo answered with intended vagueness.

"It's not sanctioned by the Order of Blood, is it?"

"No, it is not." The hint of a smile spread across his lips. "The Dominaria wouldn't even give me an audience on the subject. She wouldn't let me explain my proposal once the word 'torture' was tossed around."

"The subject?" Clyde baited.

"You've seen enough to know for yourself."

Clyde took a step closer, his fingers tightening around his wand. "Are you trying to cure them?"

"Cure them? Why would I want to cure them?"

"You said a long time ago that you wanted to help people."

Leo laughed. "We were kids, Clyde. I thought I could save the world back then. It turns out I can, but not for everyone."

"What are you saying? You plan on killing them?" Clyde rushed back to the woman behind the first window and pointed. "By starving them to death? What good would that do?"

"Not just them," Leo said, glancing at the woman. "All the moonborn, all at once. I'm going to eradicate them once and for all, Clyde. We all know it needs to be done, even if the other Mandari can't concede the thought."

"All life is precious," Clyde said pleadingly.

"You're wrong," he snarled. "These savages are nothing more than a plague upon the world." The woman took up the call again. "See? They _want_ to die."

"Of course they want to die," Clyde snapped. "Who knows how long you've kept them here and what tests you've subjected them to."

"Don't you get it? The aliens are here for Abnormals. They need us for a cure. We can hide ourselves, but we can't hide the moonborn, so we must kill them all in order to get the aliens to leave. There have already been hundreds of collateral casualties, mostly rubes, and the number grows by the hour. I'm doing this for them. I'm going to end this war for them, for peace."

Clyde's knuckles turned white, and if his wand hadn't been made with magic, it probably would've snapped under such strain. "Couldn't you work on cures for the aliens and mooborn instead? Then no one would have to die."

The hostile air shifted for a second, as though someone had pressed the pause button, freezing them in place. Leo raised an eyebrow. "You're not alone."

"Clyde?" Tamara said urgently from outside the shed. "Clyde, something's wrong." Leo turned and she lumbered into view behind him. She was holding her stomach, which now bulged out from her waist, with an arm beneath and an arm on top. Her shirt couldn't contain her belly. "What's—what's happening to me?"

"Abomination," Leo spat. "You impregnated this—this—"

Clyde drew his wand and pointed it at Leo's throat. "Don't. Don't, Leo. Just let us go. Nothing has to happen here."

"You know the laws of our people," Leo said, straightening up, wand ready to cast.

"Don't," Clyde implored.

"Why shouldn't I?"

"I won't tell the Order about what you're doing here."

"You're too righteous to keep such a promise," Leo scoffed. "We both know that."

"I swear I won't," he said. "Let us go and you can keep your secret. You'll never see us again."

" _Suffangulo!"_ Leo shouted. Clyde instantly collapsed to the floor, grabbing at his throat, thrashing and kicking. His face grew redder and redder by the second. "I've got a better idea, old friend. How about I kill you to make sure you don't go squealing, then ship off your little lady friend here to the Order, let them handle her and the infestation growing in her belly. How does that sound?"

Clyde's face purpled as he gasped. Veins popped out all over his forehead. He fought against the spell, but the world grew dark around him, his vision flecked with spots. He couldn't hold on much longer.

And then, to his horror and relief, the sound of flesh being punctured echoed in the hall. Clyde glanced up. The tip of a silver blade poked out of Leo's chest. It vanished, then reappeared two inches below where it had been, blood gushing across the floor. Soon, riddled with a dozen holes, Leo fell next to Clyde, a gurgled cry trying to escape. Leo reached upward, clawing the air. His hand gradually sunk before it dropped to the floor.

Clyde sucked in air, harsh coughs scraping against his throat, the rush of oxygen burning his lungs worse than shots of moonshine. Tamara, at his side, let her tears fall freely as she released the knife. "I almost lost you," she burst out.

"Wha—what did you do?"

"I saved you," she said, her chest puffing up, proud.

Clyde sat up. He pulled her head toward his, and with their foreheads leaning against each other's, they regained their breaths. After a few minutes, he appraised Leo's stiff body. "I'm sorry, old friend. It would seem corruption knows no bounds. Even so, you didn't deserve to die like this." He patted Leo's chest. "Keeping moonborn weapons around, I thought you were smarter." At the sound of Tamara's voice, he met her watery eyes, concern overriding his remorse.

"I'll release them when the time is right." Clyde collected the two wands and stowed the instruments between his pants. "What's happening to me?" She rubbed her growing belly. "Am I really pregnant? Does it go this fast for our kind?"

Clyde scratched his beard, then placed his hand on her stomach. "Our gestation is similar to a rube's . . . I've never heard of anything like this. You look six months pregnant."

"And it's growing by the minute," she said. "I can feel my stomach stretching."

Silence fell, Clyde absorbed in thought. Tamara wept, clutching the baby that matured within her. "We have to get you somewhere safe," he said at last.

"I want to go home," she muttered with streaks running down her face. "I want to be with my family."

"They won't understand," Clyde protested.

"My sister will. She'll help us."

Clyde stared deep into her eyes and couldn't refuse her. If she wanted her family, then she'd get her family. "Okay." He helped her to her feet. "If that's what you want."

She nodded. "I need my sister."

He wiped away her tears. "Then it's time for you to go home. We can take Leo's rig. No one will look for us in it."

"What about them?" Tamara glanced behind him at the moonborn trapped in the cells.

"I'll release them when the time is right." Clyde collected the two wands and stowed the instruments between his pants.

"Release them? Won't they go around killing people?"

"Some will, not all. Vampires feed on more than just humans."

"If all life is precious, what makes their lives more worthy than those whose lives they take?"

"We all have to feed," he said calmly. "It is the cycle of life. Besides, not all vampires kill for the sake of killing, many only do it to survive, and we cannot condemn them because of what sustains them. Everything is prey to something." He directed his wand at the ceiling and cast the sleeping spell. Before replacing his wand, he opened the cell doors with another spell, and shrouded the golden door in a black cloud. They hurried from the room after all was set.

Clyde opened the passenger's door of Leo's baby blue Ford Ranger and helped Tamara into the seat. "We need to get something for you to eat," he said after he buckled himself in. "There isn't anything in the house—"

The pickup bed sunk with a loud thud. Clyde whipped his neck around and spotted the vampire hunched over, back arched, hands spread wide, claws out, head up. The skeletal figure didn't strike fear in him like a healthy vampire would, emaciated to the point that pity shot to the forefront of his mind.

The vampire pulled Clyde's gaze and held it. "I will remember this, mancer." As Clyde opened his mouth to reply, the vampire sprang twenty feet into the air, landed with a roll, and dashed across the verdant field.

Clyde put the truck in gear and tore out of the driveway. He didn't want to risk finding out what exactly the vampire meant.

It dawned on him, after he hit the main road, the truck cruising at eighty, that he was going to become a father.

#

JULY SIXTEENTH, 11:07 P.M.

T **hey reached Tamara's** family's farm in northwest Kansas, a few miles outside of Atwood, soon after sundown. Clyde parked in one of the equipment barns far off the road, working on the information that it was the least used building, mostly storing old family furniture and other heirlooms not warranting space in the house. The pickup bed, loaded with enough food to feed ten people for a month, had steadily dwindled since then. On their shopping trip, they'd also bought a few outfits for Tamara to wear, her old clothes already ruined, stained in blood.

The baby, a girl with jet black hair, big brown eyes, the fair skin of her mother, and a rosy glow in the cheeks, came a few hours after their arrival. Clyde had realized halfway to Kansas that the birth would take place that night. The rate at which Tamara's stomach grew only increased throughout the day, and her hunger matched an all-you-can-eat champion; to top it all off, her water broke the minute they crossed the state line into Kansas.

Without magic, delivery would've been impossible, or at least severely stressful. With magic, the birth went as smoothly as if a certified midwife had been there. Good fortune played its role, too.

The hot summer air dampened Clyde's skin with sweat as he held his little girl outside the barn, while Tamara slept off the long battle of labor. He swayed her back and forth, swaddled in a clean towel, a finger in her mouth. Among the various crops, Tamara's family grew wheat, the main field surrounding them and the barn. Crickets sang to the full moon hanging in the sky. A dim lantern above the barn door provided the only other light.

"I don't understand how, but I'm glad you're in my life," Clyde said softly, his paternal instincts kicking in, giving his voice the properties of a lullaby. He glanced up at the moon and saw the wings of a bird glide past. The dark shape landed on the fence post next to him.

"My, my, I haven't seen a raven since . . . since I left the Community." Clyde shifted his daughter's weight so that he cradled her with one arm.

The raven cocked its head and cawed. It left its mouth open in a half-dumbfounded, half-begging expression. Searching through his pockets, he extracted a small box of Sour Dots, dumped a few on the ground, and then tossed one for the bird to catch. The raven leapt into the air and caught the morsel of sugar, landing in the same spot. It gobbled the candy all in one swallow.

"You like candy I take it," Clyde said, amused. "Good, because that's all I have. You see that, sweetie? Did you see the raven catch the candy? It must be a good omen." The second the last syllable left his lips, a chill crept up his spine, and a shiver followed. The night grew darker, colder. "I knew it was too good to be true."

Only silence responded.

"You can come out now," Clyde shouted. "I know you're there."

From the shadows, a man rounded the barn, dressed all in black, the ensemble formal and ominous. A full head of hair, cut short and as thick as carpet, was combed to the right.

"So you're the Reaper?" Clyde asked, masking the quiver in his throat with a rasp. The Reaper, the only sorcerer Clyde failed to track down, was more elusive than a phantom, more a figment of imagination than reality, for all knew of the Reaper and his function, the stories told to Mandari children like Little Red Riding Hood was read to rubes. But no one ever saw him, or at least none who lived, and he supposed that was the point.

The man nodded. He looked haggard, clinging to life by a fraying thread, wishing to let go but couldn't for one reason or another. Most likely a strong sense of duty kept the man from ending it all. "My name is Drake Wexler."

"I don't care what your name is, Reaper. Did you travel here using some poor bastard's wand? Did it have enough residual magic in it after you killed him?"

"They always have enough residual magic in them," Drake answered, solemn, a hint of remorse clouding his speech. "We all have our duties in this world. I am the Reaper, mine is to purge the corruption from our kind. Do you know why I'm here?"

Tears began falling down Clyde's cheeks, shimmering in the moonlight. "Of course." He managed to keep his words even.

"Have you named her?"

"Not yet," Clyde answered. "She was a little unexpected."

"Good. That'll make this easier."

"Easier?"

"To move on."

"There is no moving on," Clyde said sharply. "This is it . . . You don't have to do it, you know."

"I do," Drake whispered, an inkling of sadness lacing the assertion. "I always do. This is my lot in life. I was chosen among our kind for this unsavory charge, and I must fulfill my task."

"I could kill you," he threatened.

"You could try," Drake said, his tone unchanged, "but you and I both know you wouldn't succeed. My life is dealing death. No one is better. I am not proud of it, but it is what it is."

"Why? Because the Order commands you to do it?"

"Because our law dictates that it must be done, for the well-being of our species, for the purity of our blood." The words, soft-spoken, came out too gently for how severe they were.

"Can I ask you something?" Clyde said, matching the composure of the other wizard.

Drake scrunched his brow, a barely perceptible change, except for how emotionless his face had been beyond the perpetual gloom it took on, and the expression gave way to the idea that the man had never been asked this before. He gave a slow nod.

"How—how did you know?"

"Her birth triggered it. I could sense the perversion in her blood. And now I'm here."

"And now you're here." Clyde attempted to blink away the tears. A sudden urge to hand over his daughter swelled within him, so powerful, so intense that he could not ignore it long, and he reached out in offering. "Will you hold her for a moment?"

This, too, also gave Drake pause, another new question he looked unprepared for. "No one has ever asked me to hold their child," he admitted. "Usually there is quite a struggle." He accepted her after a minor debate; Clyde deducted that he was not a man who made snap decisions.

With his daughter in the stranger's arms, he couldn't help but say, _"Omnivitara pretiotum."_ No flash of light erupted, no colors sparked, no outward sign at all that magic flowed in the air. But there was a discernable easing of Drake's features, the hard lines of his forehead relaxing, the tension, the struggle evaporating before Clyde's eyes.

"All life is precious," Drake said. He stared into the baby's eyes and the world slipped away, entranced, and it became clear to Clyde that the Reaper was no longer there in the moment, but somewhere else entirely. He was taking a journey through time. Whether it was backward or forward, he didn't know.

The moon grew brighter, and it seemed to take on a different shade of blue. Drake gasped after a long beat, as if he'd forgotten to breathe, the inhalation sharp, painful.

"I think—I think I'll name her Aberdeen," Clyde said, drawing Drake's gaze. He noticed that something had changed in the man. Beneath the weathered exterior, deep down, in the chambers of his heart, where he battled between fulfilling his duty by dealing death and doing what he felt to be right by saving lives, the latter had finally won after centuries of suppression and defeat.

"Aberdeen is an elegant name," Drake concurred. "Fit for the mightiest, the boldest, the wisest."

"You saw something, didn't you? The future?"

"I will help you, Clyde Aldridge. I will help you escape."

"Tell me what you saw," he demanded.

Drake sighed, handing the baby back to Clyde. "If she does not live, none of us will."

_What does that mean? What is he saying?_ Clyde thought about asking, but knew he would receive no answers. The man had changed his mind and that was all that mattered. His daughter would live, grow, and perhaps with luck, thrive. He envisioned the three of them down in Patagonia, far away from the clutches of the Community, living on a farm not so unlike the surrounding one.

"There is a problem though," Drake interrupted Clyde's thoughts of the future. The Reaper continued after he received a questioning stare. "The power in her blood"—he indicated Aberdeen with his eyes—"is strongest around her mother. The bond between mother and child knows no equal, which is usually a good thing, but in this case, it means that as long as the child is near her mother, the corrupted magic flowing in her veins will be detectable to the Order."

"Which means they'll never stop hunting us . . ." Clyde shrank at the realization. "Is there nothing you can do?"

"There is," Drake replied, "but you won't like it." What the Reaper was about to say became apparent long before the words left his tongue. "You will have to separate."

"Separate?" The word defiled his mouth and left a harsh aftertaste.

The raven, perched atop the fence throughout the conversation, cawed at the two men, flapping its wings in distress, as if objecting to the idea. The commotion made Clyde glance up and scan the distance. Out in the field, in a white summer dress, Tamara spread her arms as she peered up at the moon, her fingers grazing the awns of the wheat. The stiff bristles tickled her skin and she giggled.

Clyde gestured for Drake to remain, and approached Tamara, baby in arms, tears drizzling his cheeks. "Tamara," he said weakly.

"This is what it means to be free," she spoke before he could tell her of the hard decision they'd have to make. Her body had returned to normal, as if she hadn't delivered a baby a few hours earlier, now fully recuperated with no sign of fatigue. "This is what I've dreamed about for the last fifteen years: the warm summer air, the bright stars above, the glorious moon, the wheat kissing my skin. It's more magical than magic." She giggled again, then spun to meet him.

"Tamara," he started a second time.

"We have to give her up," she said with a full but gentle voice.

"How—"

"My blood told me after we left Leo's," she cut him off.

"Your blood told you?" He had seen magic do many astonishing feats that defied all imagination, but he'd never heard of blood talking to anyone. That was new. That was odd . . . She had spoken of her blood talking to her before, but he'd brushed it off as a figure of speech.

"Yes." Her voice, calm, even, gave no hint of sorrow or contempt. The way she spoke sounded like she had made peace with the idea. "This morning, on the way here, it said I'd have to leave Aberdeen with my sister. That's what you want to name her, isn't it?"

Clyde's head spun, attacked by confusion and wonder. "Did you have a vision?" That was the only explanation that came to him for what she knew.

"I didn't see any of that in my head, if that's what you're asking." She reached out, and he yielded the child into her mother's arms.

He struggled to understand what that meant. _If it wasn't a vision, then what?_ _Some form of new magic?_ Thoughts flew at him too fast to latch onto any single one for long. It became difficult to think straight.

"I like the name, by the way." She was smiling down at their little girl, brushing her nose against the baby's own nose, which was no longer than one of his fingernails.

"It was the name of my great-great-grandmother," he said. "She was the only family member I liked. She wasn't the same as all the rest. She was kind and wise, and ever resilient—I've yet to meet anyone with an equal mind."

"She will live up to the name," Tamara said, rocking Aberdeen in loving fashion.

Like wind, Drake appeared at their side, silent, graceful. "I must perform the spell soon, before those I serve grow suspicious."

"You're the man who will hide her magic?" Tamara asked, reeling back a step out of instinct.

"I am," the Reaper acknowledged.

She faced him with as much will as she could muster. "What do we need to do?"

"Follow me." He spun on his heels, and a black cloak appeared for a second, like a haze of wispy smoke, before it dematerialized into air.

Clyde and Tamara gazed at each other, skeptical, but eventually followed the wizard into the barn.

Drake produced a small dish about the size of a salsa bowl from out of nowhere. "Some say love is a more powerful magic than blood magic. I say it depends on the love and it depends on the blood. Your blood is strong and your love is strong. Normally that is good, unconquerable in most cases, but for our purposes it'll make the spell all the more difficult. To divide the bond, I'll need blood from each of you."

Clyde narrowed his eyes on the wizard. "Divide the bond?" he asked, much more nervous than Tamara, because blood magic always had its drawbacks—its price. And that price was never cheap.

"You can feel how strong her magic is, can't you?" Clyde answered Drake with a nod. "The spell will mask her magic until she's much older, perhaps even into her late teens, early twenties, but that will not be enough for her to hide from the Order. Like I said, the bond between parents and children, more specifically mother and child, are nearly infrangible, as you are well aware. I assume you can feel your parents even now." His words, directed at Clyde, forced out a shudder.

"Yes, I can," Clyde said. "I've tried a thousand different ways to sever the link."

"And you failed each time, correct?"

"Yes," he replied, the bitterness not lost despite all the years.

"That link," Drake continued, "as you are also aware, can be tracked by Noeyes in the Room of Seers. Your parents have agreed to let you be, giving you the freedom to entrench yourself in a rube way of life, for they believe you will come back to the Community at some point. Without this spell, your daughter will not be so lucky."

"The spell will cut the bond?"

"Not cut, divide. There is a difference. When her powers begin to manifest, the link will grow again, and by that time she'll be able to disappear permanently, as I'll show you how to do."

Doubts surfaced about leaving Aberdeen behind. How could a father willingly abandon his child? _What if all of this is some elaborate act for the Reaper to gain our trust?_ He shook his head. _Too complicated and unnecessary. He could kill us any time he wishes._ More questions arose. "If you can teach us to hide from the Order, and mask her magic at the same time, then why can't we bring her with us?"

"The closer you remain to Aberdeen after the spell is cast, the faster the bond will regrow, and a child's magic is wild, uncontrollable—it can't be hidden in the same manner as one who's heard the Call of Magic. The concealment spell simply wouldn't work on her, and you'd be found before you ever left the country. But separated from you, she'll have the advantage of time. Time to grow into her powers. Time to become an adult. The Order won't be able to detect her outbursts of raw magic that all adolescent Mandari suffer through, and by the time she hears the Call, it'll be too late for them to find her."

"So we'll be able to be with her again?" Tamara regarded Drake with bright, hopeful eyes.

"Yes," Drake said flatly.

Clyde saw, ever so briefly, the uncertainty in Drake's face. The wizard covered it up with an uneasy smile.

"We must begin the spell," the Reaper urged. "It will take hours to complete, and every minute we waste, the more suspect the Order will become." He proffered the bowl. "Your blood." A small knife materialized in his free hand. The blade gleamed in the muted light of the bewitched candles floating above their heads.

Tamara drew her blood first. She slashed her palm and squeezed the crimson drops into the bowl. Clyde copied the action after a pause. The real test of resolve came at the juncture to harm his daughter or take off running. Although it wrung his heart to inflict pain on her, running wasn't an option, at least not yet.

The spell, as Drake said, took hours to complete. He mixed in a hundred other ingredients from a satchel that magically appeared like the knife and bowl. Every few minutes Clyde, Tamara, and Aberdeen had to add a drop of blood to the bowl, the contents of which boiled, the vapors filling the barn. The raven observed the entire scene in silence from the rafters; it didn't move once, as far as Clyde could tell, positioned with its head cocked, one eye staring directly at them throughout the exercise.

The loss of feeling was instantaneous with the spell's completion. Clyde could feel the connection, the living presence of Aberdeen, even before she was born, a feeling that had increased tenfold when she entered the world. That connection was wrenched from his chest as if a pair of invisible hands dug through his flesh and tore a part of him away. He doubled over and clutched at his seizing heart. The feeling, sliced like an umbilical cord, slipped away into oblivion.

Gasping, he found himself on his knees, one hand holding him up on the ground, the other massaging his chest. Dazed, he tried to collect his wits. The shock, absolute in its potency, disoriented him like he'd taken a sucker-punch to the head.

A void existed in his heart—one he knew could only be filled with his daughter's love. That void, he realized as he raised his eyes to Aberdeen, tucked perfectly in her mother's arms, would never be filled again.

#

JULY SEVENTEENTH, 6:09 A.M.

G **azing east,** Clyde regarded the sunrise, red against a cloudless sky, and contemplated all that had transpired in the last few hours. He sat on a metal swing in the backyard of the homestead Tamara grew up in. The swing, thirty years old and rickety as hell, wobbled under his weight, the posts bobbing off the ground. The raven studied him from its perch atop a purple ash sapling. "Watch over her, will you?" he asked the bird, who had taken quite an interest in Aberdeen. "Can you do that for me?"

The raven angled its head and nodded.

Clyde smiled. "Thank you, friend." He'd already said goodbye to the only child he would ever have, the daughter he would never know.

_Was it worth it, Clyde?_ he asked himself, as he swayed back and forth on rusted chains. At first the pain had been unbearable, but in the following minutes after Drake cast the spell, the agony slowly waned, along with the overwhelming sadness that accompanied it. All that was left was a dull ache in the pit, deep in his heart, created by the separation. "It'll be there all your life," Drake said after he and Tamara had gathered their emotions. "At least until you rebuild the connection with Aberdeen after she's heard the Call."

Tamara grabbed his hand. "It'll be okay. We'll see her again. For now, we have to worry about us, about getting away from the Order." All Clyde could do at the time was give a faint smile. She prepared Aberdeen for departure after that, and was now inside the home of her childhood, reconnecting with her younger sister, Rita, now thirty-one and married, and explaining the situation as best she could. How much of their story would they believe? That question floated in Clyde's mind over and over. All of it would sound utterly insane to a rube, even laughable, and he didn't judge them harshly for it; few could accept magic without seeing it first hand, and they couldn't exactly show Tamara's sister that Aberdeen had been conceived and born within a day.

The harder part, he guessed, would be accepting the baby to raise as their own. Tamara had complete faith that Rita would gladly accept Aberdeen. Clyde on the other hand outwardly bore his skepticism. Fifteen years, after all, was a long time, and rubes tended to change even more than sunborn. The once loving girl of Tamara's youth, who she spoke of with such fondness, could be nothing more than a cruel and bitter shell of the former person she was. Drake had taken no chances, he told Clyde later, casting a charm to ensure they'd take her in.

His mind wandered to his brief conversation with Drake before the Reaper left to make preparations for their exit. The two of them had waited outside the house in the predawn light, going over the plans for the tenth time, when Clyde switched the subject. "Have you heard anything about how the Mandari intend to handle the aliens?"

Drake laughed. "I am privy to little. They give me my assignments, and I'm expected to carry them out. No one has a need to tell me about the dealings of the _Communiarium_ , and so no one does. But, strangely enough, I have heard of an attack on two sorcerers living in Wyoming. Both were brutally murdered."

Wyoming sparked the image of his map: he pictured it in his mind, and the two markings he'd drawn in Wyoming to designate the sunborn. "They were Exsequitors, weren't they?" Exsequitors, the soldiers of the Order of Blood, controlled the moonborn population, hunting and killing those they could find.

Drake cocked an eyebrow at him. "How did you know?"

"Wyoming is Agriferus territory," he answered, keeping the panic out of his voice, even though Drake probably wouldn't care that he'd been tracking all of their kind. "Why else would two Mandari be there except for werewolf control?"

"Something tells me there's more to your answer, but I won't press." The Reaper flashed a dark smile. "Anyway, some in the Community believe the aliens are responsible for the attack, as I'm sure you're already aware that they're hunting down all Abnormals. They want us for something, and apparently they're not against killing us for it. If that keeps up, I imagine the Order will step in shortly to put an end to them, or send them on their merry way back to wherever it is they've come from."

"Couldn't it just as easily been werewolves that killed them?"

"It could, sure."

"But you don't think so?"

"I don't know what to believe yet. All I have to go on are stories, and by all accounts, they weren't killed in any fashion a werewolf uses."

Clyde rubbed his chin. "I see." He was about to ask more when Drake said he had to leave to make the necessary preparations. The two gripped forearms. "Thank you for all you've done."

Drake released his clasp. "Thank me when this is all over. I'll see you soon." The wizard left him alone, to sway on the swing and reflect upon the choices he'd made in his life, wringing his hands over his complete lack of planning in the last twenty-four hours. _But how could I've planned for having a baby in a day?_ _And Leo? Leo I probably should've seen coming. I should've never sought his help. It was foolish to think he'd be the same man._

The sight of Tamara roused him from his musing. Her skin, radiant in the growing sunlight, made him yearn to caress its smoothness. How could any woman be so beautiful and strong, and yet so fragile at the same time?

Before she reached halfway between them, the air changed, the vibe of magical current that permeated the world stopped, like someone had pulled the plug to a clock and it just went blank. Clyde instantly determined the culprit: Turner. The nullix skulked somewhere nearby, within range that his abilities cut off the flow of magic, leaving him defenseless.

But how? How did he survive the crash?

Tamara stopped dead in her tracks. "Clyde?" she inflected with a hint of worry.

She could sense it too. He saw it in her eyes, how they dilated at the loss. Despite her erratic and unchanneled connection to magic, it was a part of her, and losing the connection was worse than losing a limb; it was closer to having a second heart, and without its binary beat, the whole world felt off, limited to half capacity. "We have to go. Now." He waved her into a run, heading for the truck, which they'd left back at the barn. The raven nodded again when he peeked over his shoulder. The bird meant to honor its vow, and that comforted him, despite it being only a bird and not some fearsome soldier like the guardians in ancient stories he read as a boy.

"Where?" she asked, her breaths ragged. "We're not supposed to meet Drake for hours."

The blare of a diesel engine drowned out his reply. A black SUV sped around the house, through the cornfield, the stalks trampled, flattened to mush. A second SUV barreled around the other side of the homestead. A bullet whizzed over their heads, the sharp crack of gunfire punctuating the once peaceful morning.

Chopper rotors beat in the sky, declaring the arrival of aerial reinforcement, two flying in from the south, and one from the west. The barn, half a mile away, promised no protection from the encircling vultures. The hope placed in reaching the truck also seemed like folly now. They were too far from it, and there were too many agents set against them. Tamara must have seen the SUVs coming from the direction of the barn, because she grabbed hold of Clyde's hand and redirected him. "The silo!" she shrieked.

The octagonal structure, built of wood and in need of more than a paint job, looked as if it might catch fire from the midday sun, a veritable tinderbox waiting for the match to send it on its way. In other words: a deathtrap.

Clyde said nothing to object though. They had nowhere else to fortify for a last stand. Perhaps they could dig their heels in just long enough for him to formulate an escape plan. The top of the building was not rounded like most silos Clyde had seen, but shaped into a turret, complete with windows on four of the eight sides. Thirty feet below one of the windows, facing them, a door stood ajar. He opened the door and Tamara rushed past. After he slammed it shut, she slid a large crowbar through a slot, and looped it through a second slot on the opposite side, ensuring the door wouldn't give without a fight.

Turning, Clyde inspected the disused silo. "What is this place?"

"When the new silos were built," Tamara said, leading him up a winding staircase, "my grandpa turned it into storage, and remodeled the top into a painting studio for my grandma. After she died, my father turned it into a playhouse for my sister and me." The climb stole what little breath remained in their lungs from the sprint. Halting at the top, she budged open the bright yellow door, giving him a view of a sunny room painted in vibrant yellows. The space was a little girl's dream, full of toys and stuffed animals, art supplies for crafts, and a bookcase crammed with spent coloring books, another loaded with magazines from adolescence. Pictures of wheat and cornfields hung on the walls, presumably created by her grandmother.

The perch gave them a three-sixty vantage of the area. Black SUVs swarmed from every direction. The three helicopters circled the tower at a precautionary distance. The first SUV reached the silo half a blink later, and Agent Turner jumped out, black shades veiling his eyes, sidearm drawn and ready. At least ten more vehicles surrounded the building within thirty seconds. Agents sprang from them like bees leaving a hive when kicked, bodies spreading over the field in tactical formations, the Blackthorn task force preparing to strike.

_This must have been what it was like the first time, fifteen years ago, agents crawling everywhere._ Clyde shifted his gaze onto Tamara. Her eyes were shaking, the fear so strong, so absolute. Hopelessness peaked to a new height inside him, for it too was absolute—hope could not survive in the suffocation encompassing them. Without his magic, escape was no longer an option. The notion solidified as a new craft entered the skyline. It zipped toward them faster than a rocket, impossibly fast—otherworldly fast.

"No," Clyde whispered.

Tamara pointed at the object. "What is that?" Within moments, the aircraft became fully visible, its frame pulled from science fiction, with a semi-cylindrical body, flat bottom, and stubby, bisected-octagonal wings. Thrusters decelerated the ship as it made its descent, and landing gear extended from the underside, the rows of thick wheels sturdy beyond measure. The touchdown was precise, flawless in its ease and grace. From the belly of the craft, between the support structures, a lift lowered to the ground. On it, the same alien soldier leaned on a spear, like a sentry standing guard, with an infinite reservoir of patience. It took a lumbering step forward, confidence in its stride.

Clyde didn't need magic to know that it was the same alien they had encountered on the Colorado highway; though it was dressed in a different suit, its gait gave it away. There was a desperateness in its movements that said _it_ had to be the one to capture Clyde and Tamara. He gazed at the soldier's golden visor and it was as though they were staring each other down, eyes piercing each other's for the first time, a duel of composure.

_So now Blackthorn is working with the aliens._ He foresaw the alliance, but the speed at which it had happened stunned him. In little more than two days the two sides had come together, a feat of communication he imagined would take months. _And the world still doesn't know about them, if they ever will  . . . What chance do Abnormals have now? None,_ he concluded. _Not with Turner's abilities at their disposal._

Agent Turner caught Clyde's attention, megaphone in hand, feedback from the device screeching. "Surrender peacefully, Magic Man, and you will not be harmed. There's no need for both of you to die this day." The attempt to appeal to his sense of survival failed—it washed over him with a clarity one only found when facing certain death.

Clyde turned away from the field and found Tamara's weeping eyes. _Such pointless words_ , he thought. _To live without her would be to die._ He offered her his hand. "The roads were always leading us here," he said quietly when she locked her fingers with his. "We were never meant to make it."

A jet of fire flashed in his peripherals. From the alien's shoulders, two streams of red blasted the base of the silo, the flamethrowers small but effective.

Their fate was now decided; they would die by fire.

"What about Aberdeen?" The words came out roughly, barely audible. Tamara tightened her grip, hands trembling.

"Drake's spell will keep her safe. They'll test her, but she'll be just another human to them." He tried to keep his voice relaxed, but it constricted at the end, a lump in his throat. Smoke wafted through the glassless windows, the smell singeing his nose hairs.

"I can't go back," she said desperately. Something changed in her eyes after she spoke the line, a resignation that capitulated the end, and yet beneath the acceptance, the fire of love had not yielded. "But you can be there for her when she becomes of age. You can keep her safe."

"Tamara, I can't—"

"I'm sorry," she cried.

The next moment, Clyde found himself falling, pushed out the broken window, two hands to his chest. He reached for her and screamed, "NO!" Landing on his back, he coughed in pain, the air knocked out of him. The tinderbox rapidly grew into an inferno before his watery eyes. The sequence happened so quickly he only just registered that she'd been clutching something in her fist when she drove him from the room.

The silo exploded as the comprehension struck. She'd been holding a grenade. Flaming shards of wood rocketed across the sky, torching the dry field around the building. Agents were ducking the shrapnel, scrambling to find safety, the blaze unfurling as it found more fuel.

Clyde had no time to think, only react, the fire licking at his feet. He rolled over and clambered to his feet. Staggering forward, he could only manage shallow breaths, sharp pains tearing apart his insides with every inhalation. The line of agents, scattered in the tumult, gave chase for a couple of steps before they were overtaken by an armored figure.

He glanced over his shoulder and saw the alien in pursuit. There was no sign of Turner. Another hundred feet and his powers returned with a jolt that nearly tripped him up. With the possibility that Turner lingered nearby, he couldn't fight and win, and with Tamara's last words echoing in his head, he had to survive, for their daughter's sake.

Suddenly, the threat of the fire to the homestead overtook all thoughts, and he extracted his wand from his waist, spun, and flicked his wrist with rapid grace. _"Exstinguor cumventium!"_ he shouted at the sky-reaching flames. The fire abruptly died, like someone blowing out a candle, and left only tendrils of black smoke to blanket the fields.

Clyde rushed on without breaking stride, a feat of pure athletic ability, like turning in midair to catch a game-winning touchdown with one hand.

There was no time for celebration though, and he withdrew Leo's wand, the magical instrument glowing dully in the sunlight. Its residual magic throbbed in his hand, the last vestiges of the sorcerer's life force. The Transportation Charm, one of the more powerful conjurations invented, required residual magic, the magic left after a Mandari's death. The spell would take him anywhere he wanted to go. The only hitch was that he didn't know how to use the spell, for it, like all spells, had to be practiced in order to cast it with precision and confidence. Without knowing how the magic worked, there was no guarantee he'd arrive where he planned to, and he could end up in the middle of the Sahara. But desperation left him with no other alternatives—it was use or die.

Holding out Leo's wand in his left, he twirled his own in his right, the movements in his mind's eye, forced to commit to memory by his father in his fifteenth year. His throat closed, afraid to speak the incantation, but he pushed through the wall of fear and cried out, _"Transterra emergecium!"_

A black cloud appeared ten steps before him, slightly taller and wider than his body, twisting like a funnel through space, the other end connected to his destination.

His hackles straightened in alarm. Clyde twisted his neck to peek behind him and spotted the shadow inches at his back. The alien was within an arm's reach, close enough that it would enter the portal before it closed. He couldn't let that happen. Reacting in the fraction of a second, he leapt in the air, spinning, jinx on his tongue, prepared for execution.

" _Ensnarlix!"_

Giant thorny roots burst out of the ground and entangled the alien's feet, the hold tighter than any fist. The soldier stretched out a hand like a rattlesnake launching its body in attack, the maneuver too quick to see, and grabbed for Clyde's wand. The golden tip, a deadly spike used to kill moonborn, pierced the alien's armor, straight through its palm. At the same moment, the soldier slashed at the imprisoning roots with its spear in an attempt to free itself, but the action proved too slow. By the time the blade sliced through the plant, Clyde had vanished, the wand-tip retreating from the alien's flesh.

Darkness surrounded Clyde. He couldn't see, taste, or smell anything in the void. His heartbeat drummed in his ear, and the wands burned in his hands, though his fingers felt like cubes of ice, frozen together. The peculiar sensation lasted but a fleeting pump of his heart before the world returned.

Flung across a room, he landed on his back, the air again knocked from his lungs. He gasped for life. Time stretched out with no meaning as he recovered. A second could've been an hour for all that made sense to him.

In that span, more tears drenched his face than he thought anyone could shed in a lifetime. Grief penetrated him so deeply that it seemed like his heart had stopped. He ceased to live in that moment. _Where did you get the grenade? Did you somehow conjure it or had it been in that rickety old silo  . . .? Why, Tamara? Why didn't you let me come with you? Aberdeen,_ he realized. _Because of Aberdeen._ She was the reason that his pulse returned just then. The thought of his daughter brought him back from the brink. _I will be there for you, Aberdeen. I promise._

By the time he regained his senses and his breath, he became conscious of the fact that the ceiling he'd been staring at was oddly familiar. He'd been picturing Patagonia when he cast the spell, hoping to emerge somewhere in southern Argentina. To his discouragement, this felt like a place he'd been before, and recently, no less.

Bending at the waist, he rose, and the sense washed over him with acute paralysis. "No," he whispered. "Not here. No, no, _no_!" Before him, tacked to a sheet of particleboard, a list of experiments, their steps, and their outcomes were displayed with crisp organization. Above it, written in a distinct hand, the phrase _omnilunixus periretum_. "All moonborn must die," he read aloud, letting reality sink in, while the shock faded away.

_Guilt must have brought me back here_. Clyde managed to stand on shaky legs. _Guilt and misery._ He adjusted his glasses and scanned the room, and without a doubt, understood where he was: Leo's shed. Stumbling over to a workbench, he skimmed several notes littering the flat surface, his touch as light as air, drawn to one page in particular. Bringing the paper up to his eyes, he read: _A plague is coming. I have foreseen it. They're going to kill us all._

An image of a landscape covered in corpses flashed in his mind. In the depths of his heart, the truth of the words bloomed, and all became clear to him. The image would come to pass if the aliens didn't leave, and leave quickly.

The cure the alien's sought, he gleamed, lay in the blood of Abnormals. He was no geneticist or microbiologist by any means, but with magic as an aid, his chances of finding a cure greatly outweighed a rube who possessed the same educational background. Afflicted with any number of problems, the aliens could be dying from something as simple as chicken pox. He'd need a sample of their blood to get started. _But how to get it?_ He surveyed the room and found his wand on the floor a few feet away. The tip, coated in dark red blood, shined in the fluorescent lighting. Picking up the instrument, he grinned. "You were wrong, Leo. Not all moonborn have to die. No one has to die. I will save them all."

With his mind made up, Clyde began to study the alien's blood, bent on finding the illness and the cure. Before long, he scribbled out Leo's _omnilunixus periretum_ motto and wrote _omnivitara pretiotum_ underneath it.

I will save them all, Leo, because all life is precious.

END OF PREQUEL

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# About the Author

Born in 1988, John Hennessy grew up in Yakima, WA, graduated from Western Washington in 2011, and now lives in Portland, OR, with his wife, a chubby kitty, and two budgies who sing to him while he writes. His love for fantasy started at a young age with Warcraft II, and it quickly bloomed into much more as he was introduced to different writers like Garth Nix, Orson Scott Card, and Michael Crichton. When he's not writing, he's usually reading, biking, running, watching basketball, or some show on Netflix.

