Alek had said his vision showed me standing at a crossroads between shifters dying and living. I’d killed one shifter, a man whose name I might never know. It didn’t matter it that it was a mercy killing. I didn’t want to kill anyone.
Lies. I wanted to kill Samir. Sometimes I dreamed terrible and explicit revenge fantasies when I couldn’t sleep on the worst nights. I wanted to rain hell upon him in the worst way. And yet. He had a couple thousand years of practice on me and only in my deepest nightmares did I even speculate how many sorcerers and human mages he’d eaten over the millennia. There was no way I’d ever be strong enough to face him.
And you grow stronger while you run away? Alek’s words ran through my mind.
I hadn’t grown stronger. The magic I had used in the last two days felt pretty weak to me. My power was still there, but I’d grown out of shape, out of practice. I was getting weaker.
“All the more reason you can’t stay,” I said aloud to the accusing silence. Maybe I was a coward, but I’d be an alive coward. And my friends would be safe. I was doing the right thing.
I sighed and wondered who I was trying to convince, standing here arguing with myself in my head about a decision that only had one good answer where everyone got to go on living.
Survive. You are not living, Jade Crow. Alek’s words in my head again.
Footsteps raced up the street outside, distracting me from my stupid inner turmoil, and I was already turning toward the door when Max, Harper’s little brother, ran into it and started yelling my name.
I unlocked the door and Max nearly fell into my arms as he burst through, talking rapidly.
“Woah there, buddy. Slow down. Who took Rose?” I tried to parse his rushed sentences.
“Harper and Levi,” he said. “They came by a while ago, said I should go get some coffee. I went out and when I got back nobody was there. They took mom. I thought I should run to you cause your phone just goes to voice mail and no one is picking up and I don’t know where they are.”
“I do,” I muttered, thinking hard. Levi had definitely given in too easily. “Idiot.”
“Me?”
“No, not you. Me. I should have known they’d go after Alek. They’re going to try to fight the guy who did that to your mom and force him to undo it.”
“Good,” Max said.
“What? No. Not good.” They were going to go get in the way at best, and at worst get Alek killed if he was distracted trying to protect them. They’d get everyone killed, or enslaved and paralyzed, and universe knew what else. Fucking toast on a stick.
I had to stop them. Or save them. I couldn’t just leave now.
Besides, I really did want to fight something. Bernard Barnes wasn’t Samir, but he was a start.
Maybe this was the universe’s way of telling me it was time to stop running.
“All right, Universe,” I said, glaring up at the ceiling. “Message received.”
“What are you going to do?” Max said as he followed me up the steps and into my apartment.
“I know sort of where they were going, but we don’t have the map. So I have to cast a spell on this medallion I took off one of the evil minions so we can track the person who made it, who I bet is the guy your sister and Levi went after, and so we can stop him from killing everyone before the moon hits zenith.”
“Cool,” Max said.
Oh, to be fifteen again.
The medallion was still in the bathroom drawer. I looked it over, finding little imperfections and dents in the clay that I hoped meant it was handmade. The stain on it reminded me of dried blood, and I tried not to think about that too hard as I held it in both hands and called on my magic.
It was a variation of the spell I’d done for Alek, only I needed no compass this time. The medallion would act as my guide. I felt it pulling northwest.
“You have your permit, right?” I asked Max as we descended the stairs to my car. The moon was already peaking up over the buildings.
“Yeah?”
“Good.” I tossed him my keys. “I need to focus on this spell. You’re driving. Try not to kill us.”
For the record, my car started up just fine.
“Pull over here,” I told Max after about half an hour of driving on the narrow highway along the border of the River of No Return Wilderness. “This is where I have to go on foot.”
“The moon is over the trees,” he said as we got out of the car. “How far is it? How long do we have?”
I almost said “who is this we, white man,” but I’d used that line once today and I figured there was some kind of cosmic limit.