This isn't what I wanted...
The members of the pack swarm around me in the pack house, some of them asking questions I don't answer, all of them arguing over what exactly how to rescue Butch without sacrificing me...strategies flying left and right as they yell and fight with each other viciously. All of them blaming themselves for Butch being captured...for being caught off guard and left with nothing to bargain with.
Especially Butch's parents, Amelia silently sitting by herself as her mate Dylan barks orders and plans for attack. My own parents are hovering around me too, temporarily leaving to check on my siblings.
All of these people are blaming themselves for this...when the harsh reality is that the fault rests squarely on my shoulders. I'm the one Drayid wants, I'm the reason Butch was taken in the first place....in the driveway of my own house, me sleeping soundly only feet away when he was taken.
He's gone because I let my guard down...it's no ones fault but mine...but they won't listen.
I have to fix this, with every passing moment I can feel my mate writhe in agony...and his link with me getting weaker as he does...his mind in turmoil as Drayid uses a spell to make him see an illusion of me being tortured. I look down to see Zuzu curled up in my lap, looking up at me expectantly, and I narrow my eyes as I make my decision.
This is my pack, my mate, and my brother...it's time I take charge and settle this myself. I'll give Drayid my magic alright...but he's not going to like how I give it to him. But first- I need to get out of here without being noticed, which is not any easy feat considering I'm surrounded by protective werewolves. But I have a spell for that.
Letting Zuzu curl around my neck, I begin to whisper chant a spell I used to use to sneak in and out of school.
"Visididen, Visididen, Visididen." I murmur quietly, my voice unheard in the chaos around me as I focus on turning my body perfectly transparent to everyone around me, as well as completely suppressing my scent.
Standing up, I make my way to front door without being noticed, exiting into the cool night air silently as I make my way to my house. The second I walk through my front door I drop the spell, and begin grabbing things to prepare for my confrontation. I have to move quickly though, the pack if not my parents will discover I'm gone soon...and if they catch me here I'll have to resort to drastic measures to get away.
"Zuzu, go fetch me my arsenal please." I whisper, and he slithers down to the basement to fetch my stash of defense potions I created in case of an attack. Everything from explosive ones to sleep inducing smokes, even a few blinding ones.
As he does that I grab one of my empty messenger bags with an expansion and weight charm on it and begin filling it with supplies. A flashlight, a lighter, the potions in plastic containers that Zuzu brings me, my strongest warding charm to keep the dark energy away, and the tomb Auntie wrote the answers in.
Finishing that, I exchange my slippers for my pair of black riot combat boots, pulling the laces tight as I tie them over my fitted jeans. I then tie up my wild hair, pulling it into a taunt French braid to the base of my skull and putting the rest in a tight bun. I also grab my silver coated hunting knife in its sheath and strap it to my belt, and as I'm leaving the room, I notice Butch's leather jacket sitting on the back of my desk chair, and I pick it up to inhale his scent deeply before pulling it on over my two shirts, it's a bit too big...the sleeves a bit long, but I don't care. I zip it up halfway and help Zuzu curl inside before I zip it the rest of the way up.
Grabbing my bag and pulling it over my shoulders, I lock the door behind me as I leave the house, dropping my keys in my bag as I head towards Butch's 67 impala for any clues. After I reach it I investigate, trying to ignore the smell of death as I look for anything out of place. As I reach in to grab his keys out of the ignition, I notice something sitting on the drivers seat...
A bowl of powder just as black as my nail polish.
Catching a whiff of its scent, I recognize what it is immediately. It's burn powder, you burn it to see and hear a message in its smoke. Taking my lighter, I sit the bowl on the ground and set the contents on fire, backing up as the large plume of smoke billows up.
"Hello little Tempest, I see you've found my message...such a clever girl..."
I narrow my eyes at his smoke reflection, his mocking tone grinding against my already frayed patience.
"Oh don't be such a downer, Tempest...you'll be reunited with your mate soon."
"Just tell me where." I bite out, not in the mood for small talk, and he chuckles.
"There's an abandoned asylum twenty miles from here...I'm sure you'll find your way here."
The smoke disappears along with his voice, and as I stare at the empty bowl it hits me, it's a physical object from the place he's holding Butch. Picking it up, I turn it over to reveal a sigil recently engraved on the bottom. Placing my palm on it, I close my eyes and focus my magic into the spot as I concentrate on my destination....and once the air swirls around me I open my eyes again, taking in the dark atmosphere of the forest that surrounds the decrepit building in the distance.
Lifting the Luna pendant in hand, I press a kiss to it before I begin to carefully make my way to Drayid's hideout, carefully observing the dark witches and cannibal wolves patrolling the perimeter from a distance. After memorizing their movements, I take the black bandanna I packed and tie it behind my head, pulling it over my nose and mouth before taking out one of my sleep powder bombs and making my first move.
Time to go stealth.
I repeat my earlier spell and turn myself transparent, using it to sneak through the small gap between the guards. Crouched in the shadow of a corner, I pull the cork out of the powder bomb and spin it towards the large grouping of wolves and witches, the sudden change in pressure expelling the contents into the air to breathed in by anyone within 10 feet. They begin to drop like flies, the curiosity of the others bringing them close only to drop too.
Good. The more I knock out now, the less I have to fight later.
The concoction they inhaled should keep them out cold for 6 hours, so I creep around the building to find a safe entry point. With any of the doors out of the question for being nailed shut, I look to one of the three stories worth of windows. With the only the assumption that he's likely on the top floor, and the lack of anything to climb up on without making noise, I settle for one of the busted out windows on the bottom floor.
I take one look at the pitch black interior and realize I can't use my flashlight without drawing attention to me. So I revert to magic.
"Serpens oculis meis." I whisper, and my vision becomes equal to Zuzu's. Once I'm sure the room is clear, I climb inside and silently move through the creepy place, careful to avoid stepping on broken shards of glass and running into the rusted out bed frames. I can feel Zuzu shift uncomfortably inside my jacket, he and I both feeling the dark energy that's heavy in this place...thick enough to drown in, or go mad if you let it consume you.
There's been too much death and suffering here...it lingers and creeps like a living thing that should've died a long time ago.
After making through the first floor and knocking out the two witches with more sleep powder, which is much more potent indoors, I move up the stairs to the second, tensing at every creek of the old steps. The light is a little better upstairs with the lit lanterns, but it only seems to make this place creepier as it casts light on the abandoned wheelchairs and discarded straight jackets...and the haunting messages carved into the walls.
My distraction nearly makes me collide with one of Drayid's pets, and I tuck myself into an empty closet just before he walks into me. My heart races as he stops in his tracks...the sound of his nostrils flaring as he sniffs has me reaching for both the knife sheathed on the back of my belt, and one of the last two sleep bombs on me as a drop of sweat slides down my forehead.
My ears perk at the sound of another wolf lumbering by, it too stopping to sniff in front of the closet where I'm hiding. Once their noses reach the doorway, I uncork the sleep bomb and gently roll it between their feet, both of them sticking their noses down to it to investigate...inadvertently inhaling the blue powder in the process. They both drop with an audible thump, and after hearing their wolfy snores I gently step over their muzzles and move to the nearest set of stairs, fighting the urge to sigh in relief.
It isn't over yet. There's one more floor to go...a mate to rescue, and an evil witch to destroy before I can let my guard down.
Reaching the third floor, I drop my vision spell, for the rooms are lit with numerous burning candles. I try to move slow and stick to shadows, but considering my link with Butch is getting stronger by the second it's extremely difficult. He's hurting and on the verge of unconsciousness, his wolf absent and completely silent.
I reach the last door with a racing heart, already knowing by the smell that it's not as empty as it looks. Creeping through what used to be an office, I jump at the sound of someone clapping, and I swivel around with a death grip on my knifes handle to see who it is...and find myself staring into the bloodshot eyes of the monster himself.
"I have to say that I'm very impressed, you snuck past all my minions without alerting a single one. Even your Aunt Serena couldn't do that."
Letting my transparency spell drop, I grit my teeth at his praise, watching carefully as a woman walks up beside from the shadows, the twisted smile on her sticky red lips showing her sharp white teeth...that primal look making me grip the knife tighter.
"I came here for my mate, not to make small talk with you Drayid. Where is he?"
"So you do know who I am, excellent, this makes things much easier." He replies smugly, and I huff.
"I said where is he?" I bark, Zuzu hissing inside my jacket as the witch steps forward angrily.
"You don't order Lord Drayid around you little-"
Drayid halts her with an extended hand.
"It's alright Tryxa, she wants to skip the pleasantries and get straight to business, which is perfectly understandable." He murmurs, looking to me with a feverish light in his eyes.
"You know the deal child, your magic for his release."
"No, I'm only giving you my magic once he's released. I know better than to trust you to follow through afterwards." I argue, knowing that he'd more than likely kill Butch after the removal of my magic killed me....
Which is exactly why it's not gonna happen.
"Intelligent argument, you're not as naive as I expected you to be." He praises again, "Tryxa, reunite the two love birds, though their reunion will be brief."
Tryxa disappears momentarily, then returns with my mate in tow, dragging him across the floor to drop him at my feet. I resist the urge to kill her on the spot for the satisfaction in her eyes.
Crouching down to his damaged body, I flip him over on his back to look him over. His shirt is torn and dirty, what's left of it soaked with sweat as his face contorts in anguish. The silver cuffs restraining his hands leave dark blistering singe marks on his wrists, and I immediately reach towards them to relieve him of that pain.
"Reserare." I murmur quietly, yanking off the dreadful things as they click open. I may not be able to remove the wolfsbane swimming in his bloodstream, but I can settle his nightmares.
"Mariquil...Mariquil." I whisper soothingly in his ear, my hand pressed over the mark I gave him. And I sigh internally as his heartbeat steadies and breathing normalizes, his eyes fluttering open to look at me.
"Tempest..." He forces out, and I nod as I pull my bandanna off my face.
"It's okay Mishka, what you saw wasn't real." I assure him, my eyes flicking up to watch our audience. I need to get him out now, before they realize what I'm about to do.
"It's time for you to go now, be safe." I whisper as I curl a slip of paper into his hand, pressing my other to his face as I kiss his forehead.
"Tempest...no..."
"I'm sorry Mishka, revertetur in terram suam!"
"You bitch!" Tryxa screams as I teleport Butch to the safety of the pack house, and I sway a little as I stand back up and prepare for a fight.
I never planned to make an exchange, I'm finishing this bastard once and for all, he's not keeping any of my loved ones hostage again.
"You managed to deceive me into losing my bargaining chip, allow me to reward you with a quick death!" Drayid yells, and I reach for my first exploding potion to launch it at the two hidden wolves now flying at me.
The explosion knocks me back into to the wall and kills the closest wolf, sending the other to the floor stunned.
"I'll kill you myself you little tramp!" Tryxa, her hands blazing with fireballs as she comes at me next, the other wolf recovering quicker than I planned.
Within a split second, Zuzu launches out of my jacket, fangs out and hissing as he aims for the witch.
"Crescere!" I shout, and almost smile at the shock on her face as my familiar triples in length and weight just before he latches his teeth into her throat, coiling around her tightly as he would his prey, squeezing her tighter as she continues to thrash while screaming.
My distraction comes back to bite me though as the other cannibal wolf hits me hard, knocking my back against the floor with his teeth snapping within inches of my face, it's taking all of my enhanced strength to keep him at bay long enough to reach my knife, and the second I do I plunge it up into his chest and through his heart, twisting it for good measure as he lets out a last whimpering breath.
"Goodnight you filthy beast."
I roll to the side as he drops, not wanting his dead weight to crush me beneath him. As I stand up and return my now bloody weapon to its sheath, I look up to see Zuzu finishing the woman off, the fight long over us he uncoils and returns to my side.
"Well...that was disappointing." Drayid mutters, and as we lock eyes he laughs darkly. I take a fighting stance as Zuzu hisses and coils up, preparing to spring at a moments notice.
"I suppose the saying is true after all...if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself!"
He launches a set of fireballs at me, to which I immediately throw up my strongest shield spell to protect me and Zuzu, but even it cracks a little as the power pushes me back with each hit. The last fireball pushes me against the wall once again, and I brace for the final blow.
"Lumine ignis!!" He yells, and a massive stream of fire hits my shield and shatters it violently, throwing me against the floor as the fire begins to burn everything else around me.
It's in this moment, watching the burning embers fall in front of me with a strange glow that I realize what Aunties clue means...look to the heavens...she meant the Spirit Plane! It's how you can separate a soul from a body without harming it!
Knowing what I have to do now, I launch myself up off the floor with a burst of adrenaline, heading straight towards Drayid as I deflect his attacks, his shock at my change in tactic giving me enough time to grab hold of him.
"Impediendum!" I shout, and he immediately becomes incapable of moving at all. Zuzu wraps around him for good measure as I prepare for teleport once more.
"Revertere ad hospitium!"
"No!!" He yells as we teleport out to the pack hospital, and the second we arrive I go into my next spell, already feeling my hold on him fading as my marks begin to glow on my body.
"I call on the Goddess to show me the way,
Bring me to the place of no night or day,
To vanquish the darkness in this vessel,
Take me to where all the spirits travel!"
I watch the light fade out as the spell takes affect, taking me to a place I've only ever heard stories about.