Come, Seeling Night Read online

  Come Seeling Night

  Paxton Locke Book III

  Daniel Humphreys

  Contents

  Newsletter

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Paxton Locke and Division M will return

  Review Request

  About Daniel Humphreys

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  For Rex—

  Mentor, friend, and first reader.

  You are missed.

  Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck,

  Till thou applaud the deed. Come, seeling night,

  Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day

  And with thy bloody and invisible hand

  Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond

  Which keeps me pale. Light thickens, and the crow

  Makes wing to th’ rooky wood.

  Good things of day begin to droop and drowse;

  Whiles night’s black agents to their preys do rouse.

  William Shakespeare

  MacBeth — Act 3, Scene 2

  Chapter One

  Aleister—Saturday morning

  Leesburg, Virginia

  It was a cookie-cutter house in the midst of a mass-produced subdivision, but Aleister Knight doubted that any of the houses in the neighborhood had anything close to the scene in the living room of this particular abode.

  The woman he’d tied to the chair was attractive, though a bit slimmer than he preferred. She wore the same sports bra, yoga pants, and sneakers that she’d been wearing when she returned from her morning jog.

  She lived alone, though the living room seemed arranged for entertaining. A sofa and a pair of love seats squared off the room, facing a fireplace with a gas log. The brightly-colored decorative rug in the center of the room made for a convenient landing point for the chair. The even lines and balance between each piece of furniture appealed to Knight’s sense of order.

  Resuming consciousness, his prisoner raised her head. She jerked in surprise as she caught sight of him standing in her house, and she twisted her head wildly, assessing the rest of the room.

  All was as she’d left it before her run, save for the few things he’d brought. His carefully-folded topcoat lay across one arm of the sofa, held down by the weight of his walking stick. The polished obsidian ball on top of the cane drank in the light even as it drew her eyes to it. There’d been a spot of blood on it after he tapped her on the back of the head, but he’d polished it clean even before securing her to the chair.

  He gave her a moment to look, then snapped his fingers next to her ear. “Over here, love. There’s nothing over there to get you out of your predicament.”

  The woman in the chair narrowed her eyes and adopted a haughty tone. “I’m not your love, friend. My name is Kristin Hughes, and if you had any sense you’d turn around and walk out of this house right now.”

  Knight had to give her credit—he’d seen more than a few men and women in the same predicament break down into a blubbering mess. This one had some spine.

  He almost felt bad for what was to come.

  “I need your assistance with something then, Kristin. Rumor is you’re just the person I need to get what I want.”

  “I work for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms,” Kristin said, taking her time with each word and emphasizing each syllable. “I’m a mid-level administrator. We process background checks. Do you understand the world of hurt you’re going to be in, messing with a government employee?”

  Aleister laughed. “Cut the crap, doll. I know that you work for ATF, but you’re actually in M Division. You have much a more important job than rubber-stamping background checks.”

  Her face went a little pale, but she was good. Her voice remained smooth. “There’s no M Division. I’m not sure what—”

  “Enough.” He raised a hand, cupped his fingers, and cradled a ball of roiling, liquid flame. “How about we skip the boring part where you pretend to not know what I’m talking about?”

  She kept her eyes on the fire and nodded. “All right.”

  He snapped his fingers again, banishing the fire. “Lovely. You work in the regional field office not far from here, correct?” He grinned. “The one over the facility known as the Menagerie?”

  “How—” She caught herself, took a breath, and continued, “You’ll never get inside. Our security’s too good.”

  “No worries, love, I have no use for any of the oddities and critters you keep down in the basement. Leave it to Americans to be sentimental about some of the most vicious beasts to ever walk the Earth. No, I’m more interested in the secure vault in your research laboratory.”

  “Like I said, our security—”

  “Yes, yes,” he said, annoyed. “State of the art, layers of hexes, curses unto the nth generation and all that. I’m quivering. But then, I’m not going to be the one opening the vault, am I?”

  The third member of the party, silent up to this point, cleared her throat. She rose from her seat behind Kristin, strolled around the living room and stood next to Aleister. “I’ll be handling that part. I’m Liliana.”

  The captive woman frowned. Aleister imagined it was a combination of things—the revelation of a third party, her introductory assertion, and, of course, her appearance.

  As was his habit, he dressed well, albeit comfortably, in sensible shoes, black dress slacks, and a bleached button-down shirt. It was the sort of outfit that blended into pretty much any social situation and could dress up or down as needed. His companion’s appearance was more extravagant.

  Liliana dressed all in black—skintight leather pants, high-heeled boots, and a cable-knit sweater that had probably cost more than his entire ensemble. She’s fussy like that.

  The woman in black wore her blond hair in a tight ponytail, her lipstick and glittering nail polish a bright crimson. She raised her hand, lifting a laminated ID card attached to a thin lanyard.

  “If you think you can use my badge and just walk in there—” Kristin started.

  Liliana sighed theatrically and turned to Aleister. With a pout, she said, “Can we get this over, already? I’d like to take some time to settle in before I go in.”

  “But of course,” Aleister said with a nod. He turned and strolled to the sofa. He took a seat and leaned into the plush cushions. “This is more comfortable than it looks, Kristin. Excellent taste.”

  A confused look on her face, Kristin looked back and forth between Aleister and Liliana. “Both of you are insane. I—” She looked back to the other woman, her jaw dropping.

  Writhing, Liliana shucked the leather pants around her ankles and stepped out of them. She’d already slid the boots off and set them to one side. Reaching down, she pulled the sweater over her head, revealing that she wore nothing at all in the way of underwear.

  Stunned into
silence, Kristin continued to stare at the other woman’s naked breasts as she walked a slow circle around the chair. As attractive as they were, Aleister would have been more concerned with Liliana’s lack of a belly button than heaving bosoms, had he been in the same situation.

  He had an unfair advantage, though—he knew what was about to happen.

  Kristin gasped, recoiling back as the surface of the other woman’s body rippled. It expanded like rising dough in some areas while pulling in, in others. After a few seconds, the glamorous ice queen now bore the appearance of the woman in the chair—identical down to the butterfly tattoo above the swell of her buttocks.

  The Division M agent stared at her duplicate and screamed in terror.

  “You’d be screaming even more if you saw what she really looked like,” Aleister said. “Might as well save your breath. I’ve warded the living room—no one will hear you.”

  “There’s no need to be so mean, Aleister,” Liliana said. She moved to the fireplace and studied her new reflection in the mirror over the mantle. “Her hair’s so plain,” Liliana whined, her voice an exact duplicate of Kristin’s.

  “It’s only until Monday,” Aleister reminded her. More sternly, he added, “I’ll remind you that I’ve doubled your usual fee.”

  “Fine.”

  “I don’t know what you are,” Kristin interjected. “But it doesn’t matter. You may look and sound like me, but there are passcodes—things you’ll need to know.” She took a deep breath and threw her shoulders back as far as she could with her arms tied to the chair. “Do your worst. I won’t tell you shit.”

  Aleister shrugged. “I believe you. No worries, love. I’m not going to waste my time torturing you. Liliana has a far more effective means of getting the information out of you.”

  “And I am so, so hungry,” the duplicate said. She stared at the woman in the chair and licked her lips.

  “How long will this take?” He asked. “I may step out for a bite, myself.”

  Liliana hung the lanyard around her neck and flipped the badge around, reading the name printed on the card. “No more than an hour. And call me ‘Kristin’, Aleister.”

  “Enjoy the silence. I’ll be back directly.”

  She didn’t wait long. As soon as he opened the door and exited the house, Knight was chased by screams that escalated from terror to agony in the blink of an eye.

  Chapter Two

  Paxton

  Location unknown

  I woke up with a blindfold over my eyes, a foul-tasting rubber block between my teeth, and one hell of a headache.

  For a few unnerving seconds, I struggled to recall how I’d gotten into this mess. My memories of the past few hours came back to me through a haze, my thoughts slow and murky.

  I’ve been drugged, I realized. I let out a little bit of a giggle before I realized that sort of thing was nigh-impossible with something wedging your jaw open.

  Pushing through the fuzz, I forced myself to remain calm and breathe through my nose. The last thing I needed to do was freak out and choke myself into unconsciousness. Focusing on my other senses, I worked my way down my body starting at the top of my head. My scalp felt bare, which didn’t make sense considering until I wrinkled my face and realized that something soft and circular circled each eye. Goggles? Whatever they were, they rendered me blind. I’d have to be careful. A hood might obscure any expressions I made, but as I regained more and more of my faculties, it became obvious that most of my face was bare.

  I felt a similar pressure to that of my eyes around my mouth and one side of my nose. Cool air tickled my lips, and I detected a faint, medicinal whiff from the breeze. This was a bit more confusing until I put two and two together. I’d come awake from an unnatural sleep, and the source of the cool air seemed concentrated in a small area around my face. Is that an oxygen mask? That, or something similar, I reasoned.

  There was a strange hum in the air, though everything seemed muffled. A subtle vibration in my hips, transferred through whatever I was sitting on, buzzed in time to the sound. As I puzzled it over, I swallowed, and my ears popped.

  Airplane. That can’t be good.

  With each passing moment, my mind was growing clearer. Memory trickled in, and it became harder not to panic. I remembered coming upon the smoldering ruin of my friend Kent’s house and overhearing that my mother had taken Cassie. I remembered losing my cool and revealing myself to the mysterious Federal agent who’d been haunting my steps over the past few weeks. At once, I realized that there was a sore, throbbing ache in my right bicep—if I’d been drugged, it seemed likely that had been the site of the injection. I tried to reach up to rub at the pain, but straps secured both of my arms at wrist and elbow. A quick test of my legs found them strapped at the ankles as well as mid-thigh. Whoever had put me on this plane didn’t want me free to cause any trouble.

  For your average Joe, that would have been all she wrote. And even though I myself am no master escape artist, Houdini himself would weep in frustration at some of the tricks up my sleeve.

  My name is Paxton Locke, and I’m a wizard.

  Although come to think of it, I don’t remember Gandalf, Raistlin, or Dumbledore ever getting into this sort of predicament. Perhaps it’s best to not put on airs.

  I took a deep breath, gathered my focus, and…nothing.

  A few days before, I’d picked up a new spell that allowed me to phase through solid matter. It’s come in pretty handy for avoiding fights and slipping through locked doors, but even though everything felt the same as it normally did when I cast a spell, nada.

  Fair enough. On second thought, it was probably a good idea not to phase out on a moving airplane. I concentrated and waited for lines of applied force to slice through the bands around my wrists. Once my arms were free, I could take care of the rest of the straps and figure out where I was, and more importantly, where in the Hell I was going.

  Again—nothing.

  I resisted the urge to scream against the rubber block. Since I started down this career path, I’ve spent more than my fair share of time getting my ass kicked, but it has been a long time since I’ve felt powerless. I didn’t like it then, and I for sure didn’t like it now.

  Just wait, I told myself. Something in the drugs—when that wears off, you’re good to go.

  A sudden noise overcame the drone of airplane engines. The warbling tone sounded like some sort of alarm, and from the shouting involved, that was what it was.

  Two voices converged not far from me, the first crying out, “He’s flat-lined, get the paddles!”

  I winced, wishing I could tell them, that no, I was just fine, but no one touched me. Do they have someone else in here with me?

  “Charging!”

  If I wasn’t alone, this was an opportunity—if someone across from me was in the midst of a medical emergency, I doubted that much attention was being paid to me. My magic refused to cooperate. Maybe I could wriggle free?

  It was a desperate plan, but something about the feel of the slab between my teeth made desperation seem the proper response. I twisted, tugging at the straps and praying for a sudden release. All I needed was one arm. A free hand and I could get my eyes uncovered, pull the damn thing out of my mouth, and fight back. The push will work. The mind-control spell wasn’t something I liked to abuse, but it was an old, uncomfortable ally at this point. I’d never go so far as to do so, but if anyone deserved to be ordered to dance around like a fool, it was anyone who’d blindfold and gag someone on an airplane to parts unknown.

  My frustrated movements must have garnered attention from another observer, because a new voice barked, “Hey! He’s waking up!”

  “Shit! Put him under again!”

  This time, I did scream as someone seized my left arm and jammed a needle into my bicep. The muscle cramped, and I flailed in my restraints as a soothing cold flooded up my arm from the site of the injection. Rough hands pulled on the mask, blasting cold air and who knew what else into my no
strils.

  Stay awake, I told myself. Stay awa—

  Cassie—early Saturday morning

  Western New Mexico

  Cassie Hatcher had always figured it was normal to dislike your boyfriend’s mother. Even when she’d been trying to decide whether to keep Paxton as a hands-off friend or something more back in the day, she hadn’t much cared much for Helen Locke. Her sentence to federal prison for murder was icing on the cake, even though Cassie and Paxton had drifted apart after he left town.

  Now, having rekindled an almost-official relationship as adults, most women would move past the high school stuff and try to build a relationship with a potential mother-in-law. And even with the convicted felon thing, most mothers-in-law weren’t psychotic no-kidding witches bent on mass murder and who knew what else. That made things more complicated.

  Don’t forget to add kidnapping to the list. Cassie didn’t bother to hide her scowl. With any normal kidnapping, she might have been able to make a run for it or signal another car for help. After only a few hours, Cassie was beginning to understand why Pax didn’t like to use the push on anyone unless he absolutely had to. She felt mostly normal, but any moment she tried to move in a manner that would violate the command to ‘sit quietly’, invisible iron bands snapped into place around her entire body and pinned her in place. He got out of it, she reminded herself. Somehow, some way, he broke her hold over him. Keep fighting, and you’ll get the same chance.