He tried through several others, working the angles. All of them came up empty.
Maybe it really was the energy bill.
He straightened up and felt his way over to the kitchen counter, where he’d left his laptop. Its glow made him squint. The Wi-Fi symbol wasn’t there.
No power, no Wi-Fi,he thought in annoyance, glancing around for his phone. Normal people would’ve had it in their hand or pocket, ready to call the cops.
Of course, it wasn’t like the cops could help him against his enemies. They didn’t even know magical enemies existed. But besides them, there was no one to call. His circle had been reduced to the walls of their house. After his sister had died, it had been enough. Now…
Why did his and Nessa’s life always seem to land them in the stink? They must’ve been cursed.
He didn’t bother with the flashlight. The house was tiny, the smallest they’d inhabited since splitting from Ivy House. Actually, it was the smallest they’d been in since he could remember, but they hadn’t had many options with such short notice.
His phone waited on the kitchen counter next to his plate with toast crumbs. Whoops. He’d meant to wash that.
Thankfully, he still had cell service.
He worked his way back to the table, sat, and unlocked the home screen. He was about to tap the browser app when a face took over the screen.
Adrenaline coursed through him. His finger froze, hovering above the image. She had jade-green eyes—the result of contacts, surely—and spiky green hair with black roots. Her lips parted, and he knew this was somehow live, or perhaps filmed and now playing. This wasn’t some random social media short he’d accidentally swiped into, if that were even possible. He wasn’t like Nessa when it came to technology.
“The computer is a window into your soul.” The person’s voice was gruff, but the face was soft, mostly free of lines except for around the eyes. He or she smiled—he couldn’t tell sex, and he certainly couldn’t tell magical type, not with so little to go off. “Just kidding.” The smile smoothed out into a serious expression. “But the computerisa window into your life. Look at me! I’m like a Peeping Tom over here.”
“This…this is my phone,” he stammered.
The face leaned closer until one eye took up the whole screen, like a T. Rex inJurassic Park.
“It’s a handheld computer, you elitist,” the voice said. The face came back into full view. “Get those cameras off the cloud! From now on, you keep a hardwired system or none at all. Back up to a tape like it’s 1990, you get me? Bet you didn’t know they got camerasinsidethat bish. They do. I’ve been watching you wander around the house. Invasion of privacy, much? You need to do a sweep before you settle down, bro. Cameras are small now. You’ve got to be detail-oriented these days. At least they aren’t in your bedrooms. I call that an almost win.”
“Who…” He didn’t know what to say, but he rose slowly, knowing he had to get Nessa.
“Ah-ah-aah.” The one eye took up the screen again. “Stay where you are. The Captain will get her own surprise in…like…” She glanced to the side. He caught sight of a smallish ear with a skull-and-crossbones earring. “When I’m damn good and ready, that’s when.” The face came back, smiling. “You had a few tagalongs in your setup. Someone has been spying, my dude. Besides me,obviously.Don’t worry about them—I gave them the boot a week or so ago. They’re good, but they’re notmegood. To keep up with me, you gotta be me, know what I mean?” She grinned.
He did not know what she meant. Not even a little bit. He didn’t know what the hell was going on, and he was too shockedto do anything but stare mutely. This had to be a mage. No one else would call Nessa “the Captain.”
A mage this obviously odd, this far on the outskirts of what was considered normal, would be of a level of eccentricity on par with Jessie’s crew. It meant an incredibly powerful magic wielder. A confident one. One who had crawled in through Nessa’s defenses—hell, not even her defenses. They’d slid into Sebastian’s cell phone, with all its security settings. Into the energy provider’s mainframe, or however the power situation worked. This was a level of hacking that Sebastian hadn’t seen in the mage world. This type of thing existed in the land of Dicks and Janes, where people broke into the government and went to federal prison for a lifetime.
His brow turned clammy.
The person winked. “I’d start jogging, if I were you. Whoever was tagging along on your systems will know where you are. They can’t spy with their fingers, but they can surely spy with their googlies, you get me?” A finger came into the screen to point at her eye. “Changing locations keeps ’em guessing.” He heard typing. “Byeee!”
The face vanished, showing his home screen again. The lights flared. Appliances beeped as they came back on, the power restored. An alarm or something sounded from down the hall before he heard a big crash.
“Nessa!” His phone clattered across the floor as he jumped up and raced toward her room. He put out his hands, ready to do magic.
When he barged in, Nessa was picking herself up off the floor, wiping her eyes. She looked at him in confusion as she staggered toward her desk. Her systems were aglow, and they started beeping madly.
“What the hell is going on?” she said in a sleepy voice.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. My phone’s alarm went off for some reason. I startled awake to turn it off and rolled off the bed. I didn’t realize I was so?—”
The light from the monitors bathed her horrified expression right before she swore.
Sebastian swung his gaze that way. A map showed the location of the video, which pictured the inside of a small living room. Three masses of human pulp hung from hooks. Crimson stained the cream carpet, splattered the walls, cut across the couches, and dripped from the bodies.
“It looks like they’ve been pulled inside out,” Nessa said in a dismayed hush.
