Page 58 of Son of a Witch

Except for losing Supergirl. Screw that. Fate was not going to take the last thing precious to me. Supergirl. For her, I’d fight until the damn death. Even if she was the one who got to live, I didn’t care, so long as she was safe.

Charged with a new determination, I mindlessly clicked on the mouse, scrolling through website after website. Standard sites we checked on mission prep, searching for any clue that might help the team. Social media had nothing for me, so I moved onto the next sites on the checklist. News reports had some minor mentions of tall, thin, pale zombie monsters crossing through their town with scary, tattooed and scarred men. Sounded like our missing prisoners. I scribbled down the town names on my notebook. More detailed study revealed no pattern to the vamps’ and prisoners’ appearances in three towns across New South Wales. Puzzled, I scratched at my forehead.

The door edged open as sentry Ben nudged it with his boot. He carried two mugs of steaming coffee.

“Thought you might like a coffee.” He set a mug next to my mouse.

“Thanks, man,” I replied, picking up the hot mug and sipping at the scalding caffeine. “Appreciate it.”

These days, fatigue hit my body a lot quicker as I lost muscle mass from not using my back, stomach, and legs, and my system struggled to adjust to its new circumstances. I needed the hit of coffee to keep myself awake, especially when conducting boring research.

“How are you holding up?” Ben sat on the edge of the desk, blowing on his drink, shifting the steam.

Fuck. Loaded question. My palms screamed with pain at the burn from clutching my mug harder. One of few working senses in my body with the majority of me numb and dead. “Not very good, to be honest. But I’m not the type to sit and complain.”

“I’m sorry, buddy.” Ben clapped me on the shoulder. “You’re a good guy and didn’t deserve this.”

Reverberations echoed along my neck, and I snapped to attention. Excited, I pushed myself up with my arms and shifted in my chair. Maybe my back was getting some feeling back. Though, the doctors said I might feel some strange twinges and sensations, so I didn’t want to get my hopes up and slouched back.

“Shit happens.” Having enough of this conversation, I returned to my screen, clicking through to the weather radar for my next search.

I entered the coordinates of the site the warden indicated the vamps and prisoners had landed. Bars and squares flickered across the screen. The picture distorted and the clouds swirled as if a hurricane formed. Never seen that before. The radar only showed rainfall, not clouds, and it normally displayed as a cloud of white for light rainfall, ranging from blue to yellows, up to red for heavy rainfall.

“That’s odd.” Ben leaned in to examine them.

“Fucking A it is!” I watched as the bars expanded like a stretched accordion being played. “What would make the weather do that?”

Supergirl mentioned the Sorcerers said the vamps used a magical device to destroy the prison’s protection system. This could have been a side-effect of using this device. Whatever it was, it was freaking weird.

Excited by the development, I glanced up at Ben and said, “Get the damn Sorcerers down here to check this out!”

CHAPTER21

Astra

Air samples.Collection containers. Testing machines. The words circled in my head as I marched to the Watch Tower after arriving back from our trip to the last portal location. Frick, I had no clue how to collect air samples and needed to get onto a computer and research collection and testing methods and the equipment needed. Serena and Loco had agreed to go and speak with the warden, get permission to place the order for whatever we needed, and collect it once placed. We’d get to the damn bottom of this mess.

What I didn’t expect was to walk into an argument. Raised voices parrying about the room with Tor going at two of the Sorcerers. A haughty-looking woman with her nose out of joint, wrapped in a purple shawl. The man in his fifties beside her, glasses on the tip of his nose, repeated everything she said like a parrot and mimicked her actions. The woman’s bitch by the look of it. Frightened of her, too, he tucked his head when she glared at him.

Sentry Ben smirked from the corner, wagging an eyebrow at me, warning me to sit and enjoy the show.

“This is vital to a current investigation,” Tor insisted, pinching at his forehead, the vein in his temple swollen.

“You’re not privy to Sorcerer business,” the woman barked. “We haven’t been brought in to assist you.”

Rude cow. No wonder Cheyanne preferred to complete her work by herself. If I worked with her, I’d have smacked this lady in the nose.

“You were brought in to secure the facility,” Tor snapped, losing his patience, his face and neck flaring red. “That includes returning escaped prisoners where they belong and preventing them from getting out again.”

That was my man! Relief warmed me that he regained some of his lost passion. If I were in his shoes, I’d be down too. Just because he couldn’t walk, didn’t mean Tor wasn’t a vital member and contributor to this team, and I wanted him to feel just as important to us even if he couldn’t be out in the field, incapacitating targets.

Curious what they argued about, I interrupted in a voice elevated above the commotion, “What’s going on here?”

All three of them glanced over at me, the haughty woman with a twitch to her cheek. The other man tried to calm the woman, but she brushed him off, leaving him helpless to settle the dispute. Ben shook his head and snorted into his palm.

“I found some strange weather patterns.” Tor waved me over to his computer terminal, and I crossed to him, taking a seat beside him. “I asked the Sorcerers if they’d investigate.”

I studied the strange bars and squares on the weather radar, becoming even more convinced of my theory. “This is an excellent finding, Tor. I detected unusual atmospheric readings, too.” I gave him a reassuring squeeze of his wrist. “We’re ordering sampling equipment to test it.”

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