Page 55 of Son of a Witch

No. She was wrong. I could have if I’d been alert and ready. I’d failed Tor. I tapped a depressing, downbeat song on my leg.

“Do you want to go back to the Guardians?” Astra repeated.

The part that wanted to protect my team did. But the other side of me didn’t want to give in so easily when I’d recently jumped many hurdles and come a long way from the man I’d been. To my credit, I’d taken the next step with Astra and felt comfortable exploring with Tor.

Astra had taught me to embrace my uniqueness even if I was weird and awkward. Now I felt more comfortable speaking my mind to Knoxe and standing up for myself.

Giving up and returning to the prison would halt all the positive progress I’d made. No, I’d stay and beat my natural instincts back, just like I’d overcome them with Astra and Tor in the shower cubicle. Today’s mission would be the next step for me. I’d get used to my new leader and teammate, it would just take time, repeated outings from the prison, and me learning to trust them.

“No, I want to stay and conquer this,” I told her, stopping the subdued music I played on myself.

A smile stretched across her face that put an instant cease to the iciness within me. “I’m so proud of how far you’ve come. You know that?”

I grinned back at her, drumming a light, pleasing melody on my thigh that made the anxiety ease off. “Me, too.”

“Come on then.” She jerked her head. “Let’s find these weasels, capture them, get them back to the prison. Then we can catch the man we really want.”

The name we really wanted sat heavy between us. Styx. The vampire coven. Urgency to capture him and send him back to his homeworld for punishment thumped within me like a desperate beat.

Serena smacked at the side of the device she used to scan the veil magick. “I can’t get a reading on anything. Something’s interfering.”

Astra grabbed my hand, tugging me to my feet, and dragging me over to our leader to examine the device. White blotches of veil energy smeared the area shown on screen, preventing the device from performing any tracking on possible locations of where the escapees had portalled to next.

Astra glanced past our new leader to scan the area. “One of the Sorcerers told me the vampires used a magical device to weaken the prison’s defenses.”

Serena shook the scanner as if that might help it. “What device?”

“She didn’t say.” Astra squeezed my hand, and I relished the warmth and confidence she pumped into me.

Serena made a hmming sound but didn’t look up.

My or Astra’s magic might be able to get a better reading on the situation. A sonar scan might indicate any interference and so might her chemical powers.

“We’ll take a look.” I drew Astra some feet away. “See what we can find.”

My hand fell to the waist of my uniform, to the tuning bars in the velvet pouch in my pocket. Tools I hadn’t used in a few weeks since I didn’t need to anymore. Headaches and growing powers meant I didn’t need to rely on the bars to produce the sound when I could generate them myself. Habit had me keep them with me.

Four clicks of my fingers sent a pulse of sonar in every direction. Eyes closed, I waited for the return reverberation, absorbing them, forming various pictures in my mind. Scattered patterns of notes everywhere. Discordant harmonies that didn’t make sense. Upside down, tilted, completely flipped, or broken notes. Strange. I’d never seen anything like it. Accompanying sounds crafted by these distorted notes hurt my ears, prompting me to grab my hair and scream.

“Pascal?” Astra’s worried tempo brought me back to her. I breathed hard. Her fingers over mine encouraged mine to relax and release my hair. “What’s wrong? What did you read from the music?”

It took me a few moments to still my mind and process what I’d absorbed. Unnatural and destroyed harmonies. I scrubbed the sweat from my temples. Up until this moment, everything had made sense, and now I didn’t understand what was going on.

“The veil’s music is warped.” More pictures came to me. “Something’s interrupted their flow and misshapen them.” Tinny notes struck my spine, and I clenched my fists tightly to my side. “A force that’s dissipated the veil energy. It’s impossible to trace the location of where the escapees jumped next.”

It didn’t make sense. How had the warden tracked this location if the vampires and escapees could cover their tracks?

Concerned notes bled from Serena that twisted and split apart. “That explains the interference.”

Astra brushed my forehead, her smile calling me back to her. Serena studied us, disapproving scores sputtering off her, and I clasped the back of Astra’s neck. Our new leader didn’t accept our relationship and thought it put the team at risk. Bad luck. Astra was my girlfriend, and no team leader was going to say otherwise. My grip tightened, and Astra’s eyes darkened with concern.

She squeezed my wrist. “Let me take a look and see what I can find.”

Orange letters and mathematical formulas flew off Astra as she conducted her own investigation. Soft glow illuminated her milky skin, lighting up her eyes and dark hair with a fiery sunshade. Letters within the chemical equations dropped from the sequences, faded, or merged with new numbers or symbols, creating entirely different compounds. She frowned, flicking them away but they returned, drawn by some chemical bonding power.

“Something’s changing the elements,” she murmured. “Breaking them down or changing their arrangement into new elements. The air around the portal has a higher composition of nitrogen and lower oxygen than what is typically found on Earth.”

Puzzled glances exchanged between Astra, Serena, and me.

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