Other than sleeping for nearly twenty-four hours straight and fucking like bunnies, Angel and I spent the weekend poring over books magically gifted with knowledge of all things supernatural. From a guide to Veil Herbology to shielding techniques to world ending offensive spells. The latter I’d shoved under the bed and was grateful when the damn thing vanished into the ether again.
I tried to practice a handful of spells, though weirdly, my magic needed less structure than the books mapped out and more mental direction, which became exhausting by late Sunday. I needed a book on magic theory. Angel asked Nox for something on structure versus unstructured, but the cat blinked at us. Either he didn’t have anything, or he had no idea what we were talking about.
My magic, used to create shields and basic skills, was shaky at best. Angel suspected I needed to be across the Veil to pull more magic out of the air. I worried it meant someone needed to die. The whole necromancy thing was more unnerving because all I really knew was lore.
Did I want to control animated corpses? No.
Was it useful to obtain knowledge from the dead? Yes. Sort of. Ghosts—those were a weird sticking point. Angel said mostSVs could talk to ghosts but couldn’t raise a corpse. Did that mean I wasn’t an SV? Or a super-powered one?
Thankfully, the military hadn’t come knocking. Though I’d exchanged numbers with Hardy, and he’d been keeping me updated on the attack on my place. Mainly that nothing had happened since I left, though they had members of their team regularly checking in.
“You’re brooding,” Angel observed, buckling his tactical vest as we loaded the SED transport van.
“I’m reflecting.” I yanked my gloves on too hard, the leather creaking. My gift, if I wanted to call it that, made me nauseous just thinking about it. I knew better than to ignore the magic thrumming under my skin. Burying my head in the sand just meant getting blindsided later. But did my personal fae-dragon librarian have to be such a ruthless taskmaster? There had to be a middle ground betweenBasic Warding for BeginnersandZombie Battle Tactics: Raising Your Own Undead Army.
At least focusing on my class status and little brother provided a sane distraction. “Ivan will want to stay.”
“With you,” Angel said, unbothered.
“No, at Xavier’s apartment.”
Angel paused mid-motion. The van’s interior lights caught the amber flecks in his eyes as he turned to me. “Ivan doesn’t want marble countertops and fancy gaming systems, Jude. He wants his brother.”
The words hit like a punch to the ribs. Before I could deflect, Angel stepped closer, his voice dropping below the chatter of assembling agents. “Is that apartment nicer than yours? Sure. Like a palace or a museum. Who wants to live in those? Home isn’t a place. Not like that. It’s where you feel safe, and sometimes it’s a person that creates that for you. Even my apartment stopped being a home the moment I scented you.”
I fumbled my helmet. “Holy Christmas! Warn a guy before you...”
He kissed me hard enough to knock my head against the van wall. Whistles erupted around us. “Eventually you’re going to have to accept the words that make your heart speed up.”
“Aw,” Tiana said from her spot in the corner of the truck, surrounded by monitors. “How sweet.”
“Enough to give us all cavities,” Ezra griped.
“Suck it, dog boy,” I threw at him, annoyed by the audience.
“Pretty sure you already have,” he snapped back.
“Children, children,” Wade grumbled as he started up the van, Bobby in the passenger seat up front. Remi curled himself in one of the tiny bunks, looking like he hadn’t slept all weekend.
“You okay, Remi?” I asked.
He waved a hand at me, not opening his eyes.
Angel finished gearing up and hit a button. A screen lowered from the roof and displayed a map. Talk about high-tech vans. I sighed as he tapped the map display, gathering everyone’s attention.
“Assignment is to monitor the new tear. Reports say it’s stable, but we’ve got movement on the other side. We’re to observe, document, and if necessary, redirect any supernaturals getting too close to the breach. We don’t need to be herding things back through suburban neighborhoods again.”
“New tear?” I asked, wondering if there had been another after Brandon’s apartment building had been dragged across.
“The one through the apartment,” Angel said, reaching out to rub my shoulder. “The whole building is across now, but the expansion has stopped.”
My stomach flipped over. “I thought the locations got messed up when it happens.”
“It has, but we’ve had a few things cross that had to be collected and returned. There’s a barricade up on the other side,but it doesn’t always keep stuff from coming over. Which means we’ll have to drive the long way around, but it’s safer to keep the other stuff out.”
“We spend a lot of TFW weeks parked by new tears and investigating small stuff close by to help where we can,” Wade added. “We’re spread too thin to do more.”
“Right now, there are eleven new tears in the state,” Angel added. “This one is the most recent, though to have that many at once is a lot.” He sighed. “I’d rather be investigating in the office than lassoing supes. But we either all take a turn, or let the military take over.”
