She nodded once and put the van in gear. “Here we go.”
Chaos stayed silent. Whether he agreed with my choice or not, he didn’t say. I took the quiet as an opportunity to recharge my vim and leaned my head against the window. The glass felt cold against my skin, and the gentle vibration of the wheels on the road lulled me to sleep.
I woke as Ember shut off the engine in a mall parking lot. The good news: it had closed at eight p.m. Few cars dotted the lot, which meant the employees closing shop were the only ones inside.
The bad news: shopping malls didn’t exist in the sixteen hundreds, so finding the next hidey hole would be impossible.
I straightened in my seat and compared the two maps. “Are we sure this is the place?”
Ember turned her hand palms up. “No. I drove around to see if an old building still stood, but this town is as modern as can be. Whatever structure she hid it in is long gone now. Maybe you can sense it.”
My cheeks puffed as I blew out a breath. “I can try.”
Ember holstered her weapons, and I grabbed my satchel before we crept through the parking lot toward the mall entrance. Lights attached to towering poles cast circles of illumination on the asphalt, and a paper fast food bag tumbled by in the wind.
A man wearing jeans and a red flannel exited the mall, snapping his gaze in our direction. Ember yanked me down behind a pickup truck. “Do we have any more of Shade’s spells?”
I checked the bag and did not curl my lip in disgust. Yay me. “One. Should I activate it?”
“I can’t walk around with all these weapons without garnering unwanted attention, so yeah. We don’t have a choice.”
I uncorked the bottle and activated the spell, cloaking us in a shadow that would follow for at least five minutes. Ten if we were lucky. Ember straightened, and I followed her toward the entrance. She goosed the man in the side as we passed, and he squealed, rubbing his ribs like something bit him before darting to the Mazda in the back of the lot. My sister snickered. I rolled my eyes.
“Ember likes to antagonize.”
“You should’ve seen her when we were kids.” I stopped in front of the left side door while Ember tried them all, beginning at the right.
“They’re locked,” she said. “Got your picking kit?”
I reached for the handle in front of me and tugged the door open, gesturing for her to enter.
“See?” She strode inside. “You do have dad’s power. You knew exactly which door was unlocked.”
“I paid attention to which one the guy left through.” I followed her in and tugged the door shut behind me.
“Attention to detail is a powerful tool too.” She rested a hand on her hip. “Where to now?”
“I feel the tug. Do you? It’s behind your navel.”
I focused on the sensation in my belly, and sure enough, it was there, just like at the church. I couldn’t see the location in my mind, but an invisible force guided me down the corridor. The path split, and I followed it to the right without hesitation. A single door, painted beige to match the wall, stood between a shoe store and a candy factory.
“This way.” I motioned for Ember to follow and stepped through the door.
She lit a fireball to light the darkened hallway, and we made our way down, taking a sharp left turn at the end before descending a steep staircase into the basement. The massive furnace and metal ductwork gave off Freddy Krueger vibes, but my target was a piece of plywood nailed to the wall and blocked with an empty shelving unit.
“Help me move this.” I grabbed one side, my sister got the other, and a screech pierced my eardrums as we dragged it across the floor.
I scanned the area for a crowbar or anything we could use to pry the wood from the wall. Ember had her own idea. She slammed her boot into the wood, knocking a jagged hole in the center. She kicked again and one more time before grabbing the splintered pieces and tearing them out, making a hole big enough for us to pass through.
“You should have let me check it for magic before you busted it down,” I said.
“Oops.” She gestured to the opening, and I cast my spell, sending golden sparkles on the hunt for magic.
A few stuck, revealing a faint disturbance in the air, like a magical heatwave. “It’s old, but there’s a ward here. Not on the wood; it was cast long before the space was covered.”
Ember nodded. “Give people the heebie jeebies so they won’t want to continue into the tunnel.”
“It must’ve worked. They sealed it off.”
Ember climbed into the forbidden space, and I followed. The deeper in we went, the more unfinished the space became. The wood floor gave way to dirt, the walls going from studs and support beams to plain old earth.
The tunnel stretched on for another fifty yards before spilling out into a small chamber about the size of my bedroom. A sickening feeling joined the pull in my gut, and I grabbed Ember’s arm, stopping her from entering the room.
“What?” she asked.
“Something doesn’t feel right.” My head spun, my vision wavering. “Chaos? Are you picking up anything?”
Silence answered me.
“Now is not the time for you to go dormant, mister. Help me interpret these feelings.” A wave of nausea washed over me, and I tightened my grip on Ember’s arm. “I don’t feel good.”
My sister took both my hands in hers. “We’re so close. Help me cast the magic-revealing spell, and you can sit out the rest of this adventure.”
“This is bad, Em. I don’t know what’s happening.” My vision tunneled, glowing red around the edges. “I can’t…”
“C’mon, sis. I can’t do it without the potion, so unless you’ve got one ready-made in that bag of yours…”
“Confess, expose…” I shook my head, and the room tilted.
