Nobody said anything for a moment when Bill and I wedged ourselves into the overcrowded living room. Annie sat on the couch and visibly shuddered when she looked at Uncle Bill. I frowned at her and wondered if there was some kind of history there. Jessie looked at the two of us with curiosity. Maybe she was surprised there wasn’t any obvious blood on me or Bill. Based on how she’d all but run out of the room, she’d certainly expected it. Gran looked ever more tired, as though the day’s events had wrung her out in some fundamental way. I felt another twinge of guilt, followed by another stab of resentment. I hated that emotional division inside myself and some part of me wished I’d never asked any of the questions. With all kinds of badness headed our way, the last thing I needed was the distraction of being furious with Gran and Bill. Except, I was furious. No matter how much logic told me they’d done it for good reasons, they’d still lied to me. I pushed those feelings down hard. I’d have to have it out with Gran at some point. There was no getting around that fight, but I figured it could maybe wait until after we averted the freaking apocalypse.

“Priorities,” I muttered to myself.

“What?” Jessie asked.

I waved the question away. “Nothing.”

There was an awkward moment of silence before Bill broke the silence. “Based on what you’ve told me, this Carter guy is going to come for us.”

“He’s going to come for me and Jessie,” I said. “He’s got no beef with the rest of you.”

Annie and Bill gave me near-identical looks that told me exactly how stupid they found that comment. I piped down under their withering stares.

Bill continued. “Unfortunately, we don’t know his capacities beyond what Jericho and Jessie have seen. Care to enlighten us?”

Jessie shook her head. “I really don’t remember much. I don’t even know if I jumped out of that window on my own. Carter might well have pushed me out of it. He is a badass, though. I’m no featherweight, and he came out on top in that fight.”

“Jericho?” Bill asked, looking over at me.

I ground my teeth in momentary frustration. “I can’t really tell you more than she did. He’s overwhelming. It was a close thing when I shielded us. He came within inches of cutting through my casting. That was after he and Jessie damn near brought down a hotel.”

A little distance had done nothing to diminish the memory of that moment. The unadulterated strength of his power slamming down against my shield of forgetting was still enough to make me shiver. It wasn’t like what happened with the Council of Ravens. There were five of them, in a prepared place of their own power. You expect overwhelming force in a situation like that. Carter had done it off the cuff in some random public space. I just couldn’t wrap my head around the idea of any one person wielding that much raw magic. The idea of facing him straight on sent my heart into a panicked burst of fluttering beats.

Then, the implications of throwing around that kind of power in a public space really hit home. I knew Jessie enough by now to recognize that she’d never have initiated something so dangerous where bystanders might get caught in the crossfire. She might be a mercenary, but she wasn’t a psychopath. Hell, even the people I’d normally consider fundamentally evil didn’t pull that crap. We kept our fights hidden, in the shadows, away from the scrutiny of the uninformed. Except, Carter just didn’t care. It was a chilling realization. I didn’t know if he’d use people as human shields or leverage, but I couldn’t put it past him. Even the general threat of his magical ability made fighting him anywhere populated a non-starter. I had a sickening series of mental pictures wash over me. Old man Weather’s bleeding out on his steps, the Domingo family crushed beneath a collapsed wall, Gabriella shielding her brother as magical fire washed over them. We couldn’t risk it.

“We can’t fight him here,” I said, as more images of devastation played out in my head. “If he’d pick a fight in downtown Denver, what the hell would he do here?”

Bill grimaced. “More like, what wouldn’t he do? Still, he’d never dare attack us here.”

Annie's face scrunched up. “Why not?”

“I’m with Annie. There’s no good reason for him to hold back in this neighborhood,” added Jessie.

Bill and I traded a look before I clarified. “He means in this house.”

Annie and Jessie traded a look that time. I looked over at Gran, who’d been holding her silence through all of this.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

She huffed a little sigh. “Oh, fine then. I’ll show them.”

Gran waved a hand around the room. There was a blinding moment of incandescent blue light before it settled back into a dull glow. Annie blinked a few times before she stared around in slack-jawed amazement. Jessie uttered a few choice curses as she took off her hipster glasses and rubbed at her eyes. When she finally looked around, though, her jaw dropped open for a moment.

“Holy shit,” she whispered. “That would definitely fuck someone’s day up.”

The walls, floor, and ceiling were covered in glowing runes. I’d studied those runes on and off for most of my life and still only knew what a small fraction of them did. Jessie had the right takeaway, though. Nobody was going to pick a fight in or near this house if they had even a shred of a survival instinct left. It’d vaporize almost anyone who tried it. I doubted Carter, even with all of his terrible strength, would chance a confrontation here.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Unfortunately, it doesn’t do anything for anyone else in the vicinity. Carter just has to wait for us to leave before he starts a cataclysmic party.”

“He’s right, Jessie,” said Annie. “There’s too many innocents here.”

“Innocents,” snorted Jessie.

“There are families here, Jessie Wood,” snapped Gran with barbed wire intensity. “Good people who don’t deserve to die.”

Jessie paled beneath Gran’s blast furnace glare. I felt for her. Gran had bestowed a few of those glares on me over the years. It was an experience you didn’t soon shrug off. I took pity on Jessie and coughed to get everyone’s attention.

“The point stands. It can’t be here.”

Jessie piped up. “Here’s a what if.”

I looked to her. “What, what if?”

“What if we weren’t here? Like, what if we weren’t on this continent? What are the odds that this bird he’s looking for is on, oh, I don’t know, Majorca? We could all just hop a plane and go live on Majorca for the next three or four,” Jessie paused to think.

“Years?” Suggested Bill.

“I was thinking decades, honestly,” Jessie corrected. “Still, it’s a nice Mediterranean climate. Doesn’t get too cold. Lots of tourism, so we wouldn’t stand out. There are worse places to keep a low profile.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “That was a suspiciously specific idea, Jessie.”

“I might, possibly, own a villa there,” she said.

I gave the thought a lot more consideration than I probably should have, given the stakes. It was an awfully tempting picture, though. Beaches and warm breezes are always an easy sell. I glanced around the room. Bill had a faraway look on his face. Annie looked pensive. Gran looked, well, she mostly just looked tired. Jessie looked excited that no one had vetoed the plan immediately.

“Look,” I said, “why don’t we call that plan C.”

“What’s plan B?” Jessie asked.

Bill lifted an eyebrow at me. “What’s plan A, for that matter?”

I fixed them both with gimlet eyes before I answered. “I’d like to think that, with all the cumulative magical combat experience in this room, we can come up with at least two alternatives to running away. Even if running away means running away to Mediterranean paradise.”

“There are really nice beaches there,” murmured Bill.

“Most people there speak Spanish,” said Jessie. “How’s your Spanish, Jericho?”

“Mi español está bien, which is not the point. Focus people!”

“Alright, alright,” grumbled Bill. “You couldn’t even let me have the fantasy for two minutes?”

“It’s still plan C. You may get to live the fantasy.”

Bill nodded. “That’s fair.”

“Alright,” I said, desperate to get everyone back on track. “We’re agreed that it can’t be here, so does anyone have a better suggestion? Somewhere quiet and away from prying civilian eyes?”

Annie looked at her sister. “What about your place, Jessie?”

Jessie gave Annie a dirty look. “What about my place, Annie?”

“It’s secluded. Lots of magical protections already in place. It’s ideal.”

“No! Why don’t we do it at your place?”

“Really?” Annie said, more exasperated than angry. “You think a temple filled with pacifists is the right choice for a firefight?”

“I put a lot of work into building my home. I’m not going to see it destroyed by hosting a private war there.”

“Ladies,” Bill started with a bemused expression.

“What?” They demanded in unison as they turned flinty eyes on him.

Bill raised his hands in mock surrender.

“We’ll find somewhere else, Jessie,” I said. “It’s fine. I know this place in the Ozarks that’s miles from anywhere else.”

“No,” said Gran sharply. “You can’t fight there. You might draw his attention.”

I gave Gran a considering look. “Would that be so bad? It’s not my favorite tactic, but a little let’s you and him fight could work to our advantage.”

“No, lad. He might kill you all as an object lesson.”

Bill looked from Gran to me. “Who are you talking about?”

“I don’t actually know his name,” I said.

Annie’s quiet voice drew our attention. “I do. He’s talking about my father. He’s talking about Longshadow.”

“Oh, hell. Gran’s right, Jericho. You do not bring a war to that guy’s doorstep,” said Bill before looking at Annie. “He’s your father? Seriously? I mean, is he even human?”

Annie offered an uncomfortable shrug. “Maybe.”

“How about you, Bill? Any ideas?” I prompted.

“I know plenty of abandoned places we could go, but it’s anyone's guess how safe the buildings are. Falling through a rotting floor is not fun.”

“Voice of experience?” Annie asked.

“Oh, you have no idea.”

“Annie’s right,” said Jessie, sounding none too happy about it. “We should do it at my place.”

“Jessie,” I said. “It’s not necessary.”

“It is. I’d rather fight Carter on my own turf. I’ve already got a bunch of nasty surprises in place. It’ll be a lot easier to build on that foundation.”

“True,” I conceded.

“You know,” mused Annie, “we may be overlooking something obvious here. We could always bring in more help to fight Carter.”