Descending Darkness(105)

“Larkin, do you have any idea where Dravin’s compound is?” Emma asks.

Larkin shakes his head. “Dravin wouldn’t tell anyone. There’s an enchantment on the compound, so you can’t find it. Since I’ve been there before, I can transport there, but I don’t know where it is specifically. It’d be easier to find if Ryanne called me. Right now, I’m sure that I could manage to go there, but I don’t think I’d be able to make it back with a second person.”

“I might know someone who can help…” Mrs. Howick suggests. The surge of elation that spreads through me is enough to bring me visible again.

“Who?”

“My son, Travis.”

“You have a son?” James asks.

“Yeah, he’s twenty-seven. I had him when I was young. His gift is similar to Larkin’s, but he can only go to places he’s been before unless someone calls for him,” she looks toward Liam.

“I can tell her,” Liam says, “if she’s still out.”

“Travis!” Mrs. Howick calls. A man transports into the room next to Mrs. Howick. She smiles at her son, who’s staring at the room around him, shocked at the amount of people crammed into this small area. He looks younger than twenty-seven. If I had to guess, I would have said he was around Bragden’s age.

Closing his open mouth, he turns and looks at his mom. “What’s going on?” he asks.

Mrs. Howick goes on to explain our situation to her son. He nods and is able to keep up with everything. Like all mages, he knows of the prophecy. He’s also aware that Dravin is looking for Ryanne. “So you,” he points to Liam, “can tell her to call for me if she wakes up?”

“Yes, but only if you’re willing to help.”

“Of course, I’ll help. I want to stop Dravin as much as the next guy, especially after what he did to my sister. You can tell her.” Liam leans his head back against the wall. Natalie grabs his hand as he closes his eyes. His body goes slack as he travels to the dream world and hopefully to Ryanne.

“Does anyone have a picture of her so I know what she looks like?” Travis asks. Emma pulls out her phone and flips through her pictures. “I don’t want to be grabbin’ the wrong gal.”

“You have a picture of her? She doesn’t let me take any pictures of her,” I say.

“I have the pictures of her from the wedding,” she explains as she hands her phone over to Travis. “You can flip to the next one too.

His eyebrows rise as he looks at the photos. He nods as he flips to the other photo. “Wow, she’s a pretty little thing,” Travis says. I turn and glare at him. Emma hits my shoulder.

“She’s too young for me, man. Calm down,” he says as he hands the phone back. “So if she does call me, what should I expect?”

“We don’t know,” I say as Liam starts moving again. That didn’t take long.

“I told her. They’re trying to wake her up, so I couldn’t tell her much more than that. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. If they’re waking her up, that could mean they found a way to extract the magic.”

“Or they could be torturing more information out of her,” I remind him.

“Or that.”



*****

“Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey.” Dravin’s trying to shake me awake. I can still feel the dormirako running through my bloodstream, trying to pull me back to sleep.

“I’m a vegetarian,” I mutter.

“That’s okay. It’s a stupid saying anyway,” he says.

“Is there a reason why you’re waking me up? Because this is the most sleep I’ve gotten in a long time,” I tell him as I roll my head in his general direction. “It’s a shame that I wake up, and I’m living in a nightmare.”

Ahh, there’s the Ryanne I know. “I’d be a little nicer to me, if I were you. I literally hold your life in my hands.” If only Dravin would leave then I could call for…Travis? Travis Howick? I think that’s what Liam told me.

“You have an enchantment on you, don’t you?” Dravin asks. I just stare at him. We can’t detect any magic in her because of an enchantment. “Don’t you?” he yells. He throws his arm back and slaps me across the face. Because of the dormirako, most of my body is still numb, so that definitely didn’t hurt as much as it should have.

“What’s wrong?” I ask him innocently as he starts pacing the room. I can’t take the dormirako away because she’ll be able to use her full powers, but she’d feel more pain if she wasn’t on it. What to do? Does Dravin not know that I can read his mind? I thought Natasha would tell him that much.