We slowly made our way through the snow, keeping an eye out for any traps. It wouldn't do any good for the rescuers to get injured during the rescue attempt. I was klutzy enough that the possibility was greater than normal. We decided to travel in silence in case our voices carried through the wilderness. I couldn't even hear the snow crunching under the large bodies surrounding me.
Getting a little bored, I elected to strike up a conversation mentally with Rick and Nate for fun. Between all of our powers, we were able to have our own little conference calls.
"So, I'm thinking I didn't give up my soul. With that reasoning, do you guys think I'm some kind of sorceress?" I asked.
"You're different. Taking on sorceress abilities might be why you don't feel the same. If it's as simple as that, I'd be happy. I haven't heard of any phoenixes wielding that kind of magic, so I'm not sure it's possible," Rick said.
"How would I test the theory?"
"I believe you already have. Your amplified powers and being able to do pretty much anything you want if you concentrate on it, are not phoenix powers. Rick said he wasn't sure it was possible, but I contend that we've already seen it with our own eyes." Nate said.
"Are you upset about that?" I asked him.
"No. I'm actually thrilled. I've always told you I'm all for anything that makes you stronger. It doesn't really make you a different person, just adds some extra fighting power. And just so you know, if you magically turned into a squirrel one day, I would still love you."
"What about you, Freddie? Would you consider me some kind of mutant if it turns out I have sorceress magic flowing through my blood?"
"As far as I see it, it will probably make my job as your protector a lot easier. Except for when you decide to use it against me. Which it seems you do every day already," he replied. "As long as you don't turn against us, there shouldn't be an issue, but I'm kind of rooting for you to turn into a squirrel. That would be pretty funny."
"Sweetheart, it really isn't that big of a deal. We know eventually you'll remember everything and be able to fill in any of the missing blanks. You'll still be our queen and everyone will still love you," Nate said.
I wasn't so sure about that. Power had a way of changing people, and the people without the power tended to see things differently. I thought the things I could do were cool, but if there were more to come, I was afraid where things would lead.
Kyle signaled us to change directions. It wouldn't be long until we could see the cabin. I had no idea what we were walking into. Miranda said there were more uniques being held there than the three missing from Eek, but she didn't have a report on their conditions. If the warlock had gotten word that we'd fixed Miranda, he might have killed everyone and moved on to the next town.
After ten minutes, I got my first glimpse of the cabin to our right. I wished we were speaking out loud, because I really wanted to ask if anyone had an ability that could tell us how many people were in the cabin. Some hand gestures were passed around the guys that I had no clue what they meant. My repertoire of hand gestures tended to be hockey penalty calls.
"They mean we're getting ready to surround the cabin," Nate telepathically informed me. "You'll stay behind me at all times until we have a feel for what we're dealing with."
"I was pretty sure we already knew we were dealing with a lunatic," I replied.
As the others circled the house, we headed for the front door. When we got there, Nate stopped to listen. I did the same, but heard nothing. He slowly reached out and turned the knob to open the door. Inside I saw a room with cages lining the far wall and six bodies on the floor with their hearts cut out.
"Oh no," I said out loud, tired of worrying about who could hear us. It looked like we were too late to do any rescuing.
"Shh, it will be okay," Nate said as he whistled.
There were no other rooms to the cabin, so the warlock couldn't have escaped. The rest of the guys started coming through the door behind us.
"I didn't see anything. No people, no tracks, no nothing," Liam said while the other guys all repeated the same general sentiment.
"Something must have tipped him off," Nate said.
"Why do you say that?" I asked. "Maybe he was just done here. He did already kill everyone." Since I'd thought the same thing, I didn't need to get clarification, but I wondered if his reasoning differed from mine.
"They aren't dead," Rick said, walking over to check on one of the bodies.
"They don't look too healthy to me," I stated.
"They're all shifters, Avery, just like Miranda. They've been here less time than her and are already starting to regrow their hearts. If they were able to shift, they could do it faster, but they still have the ghost orchid in their system," Joseph said.
"Do you want me to try to bring their animals out like I did with Miranda?" I asked.
I was pretty sure I could do it again fairly easily. Six was a lot more than two, but there was no energy drain or anything when I called out the foxes.
"Let's take a look at their statuses and see. I can feel a couple of them are birds, so I know they aren't anywhere near as bad," Nate said.
"I feel a hyena and a wolf amongst them. If I were to make predictions, I would say within an hour they should be well enough to move," Joseph added.
To me, they still looked dead. I thought I should focus my energies more on developing the powers I had instead of coming up with new ones, so I knew what was normal for me. I said should; I doubted I'd follow through immediately though, because the new ones were just so much fun.
?"So what do we do?" I asked. "What are the odds the warlock is coming back?"
"I doubt that very much," Nate said. "We still need to keep our guard up, but I think we're safe to hang around until they can move."
"Okay, well looking around, it doesn't seem he left us many clues on where he was going," I said. "You would've thought he would be decent enough to leave a forwarding address. How do you think he knew we were coming anyway? I didn't see anything we could have triggered on the way in."
"Let's hope our friends here can give us some indication on how he knew," Rick said. "Because it's starting to bother me. I didn't feel any spells activate as we were walking up and I'm pretty sure he's been gone for close to an hour judging by the conditions of the bodies. I don't think his hearing is good enough to hear snowmobiles from this far away, but I don't know his strength."
"Yeah, there's something that just isn't making sense," Kyle agreed.
There were meaningful glances passed around the guys before we studied every nook and cranny of the cabin and found nothing that helped answer our questions. After about thirty minutes, the first of the victims started mumbling and fidgeting.
"God damn it, that hurt!" he yelled as he tried to sit up.
"I'm not sure you should be moving around too much just yet," Liam told him. "I can't say from experience, but having one's heart removed is probably akin to major surgery, even for uniques."
That was the understatement of the year, I thought to myself. My worst injury had been bullet wounds and I thought I was going to die from them. I couldn't imagine having your heart ripped out.
"What happened here?" Nate asked, not allowing the guy to get too comfortable.
"I don't really know. All of a sudden the guy comes in mumbling to himself. That was odd by itself because before that moment he never spoke. I actually thought he wasn't able to. He took out a dart gun and started shooting each of us with that stuff that paralyzes us, and then grabbed me out of my cell.
"He threw me on the ground and started carving up my chest with a big knife. Let me just tell you, that is not something you want to be conscious during. As soon as my heart was out, so was I. I don't know what happened between that point and now, but it seems he gave everybody a turn with the knife," he said, looking around.
"As we thought, something must have tipped him off that we were on our way. Either he's stronger than I expected and hid the warning bells, or he h
as someone working with him," Rick said.
"Yeah, but who would that be? I can't see another unique siding with him to kill us," Joseph said.
"I'm sure we all have ideas about what could be going on, but we don't know how secure the room is, so let's keep them to ourselves. Until we can find this guy and confirm our suspicions, just realize he's probably going to be one step ahead of us," Nate said.
Great, I hated when he was all mysterious. At least I was pretty sure the weirdness and lie about everything being okay wasn't necessarily something about me.
"So, are these people the ones you were missing?" I asked. I hated the idea that there were more people out there potentially going through the same thing.
"Yes, Jim is the one that's already awake. He's the missing hawk from our town," Kyle said. "Over there," he said pointing, "is Carol. She's the hyena. The missing bear, Shane, is right in front of you."
"The other three are an eagle, a wolf and a lion. They go by Haley, Fred and Michael, respectively," Jim informed us.
"Well, even though the circumstances could be better, it's nice to meet you, Jim. I'm Avery," I said, and then proceeded to introduce Nate and Rick.
"You aren't from around these parts, where do you come into this mess," he asked.
"Well, you happen to be looking at royalty," Kyle said, making me want to kick him. "These are the doc's parents. They got worried when she couldn't be reached and decided to come check things out. I bet you didn't know our Lizzie was a princess to the phoenixes."
Jim looked up in shock. Yeah, I kind of had that effect on people. I couldn't wait for the time when everyone would just get used to me and Nate being whatever it was that made them think we were super special. I wanted to believe it was Nate's fault for being the king, but everyone we met focused in on me.
"You're really the queen of the phoenixes?" Jim asked.
"That's what they tell me," I answered.
I didn't get it. Nate was the first one created. I thought that was way more awesome than just being his spouse.
"It's an honor to meet you," he said to me before adding a little belatedly, "both."
"Well, it's nice to meet you, too," Nate said with a laugh. The laugh was more at my reaction to being a novelty than the fact that I'd found another person who focused in on me.
More of the injured uniques started stirring. We got basically the same stories out of all of them until the last one finally woke. She was the eagle, Haley.
After a little yelling about the pain, her eyes focused on me and said, "He had a message for you."
"Me?" I asked looking around the room, hoping she really meant someone else.
"I'm guessing it is you. He said, 'Tell the woman that I will wait two days for her to try and find me. If she comes alone, maybe we can end this war before it even starts.' Then he proceeded to cut out my heart."
"But he isn't even the big poobah. What would he hope to accomplish by meeting me?" I asked. A part of me hoped the warlock had expected another female to show up for the rescue, but the mention of the war wiped that away.
"Avery, I think it's obvious," Nate said. "He thinks if he can kill you, not only will it get him in good with his boss, but I suspect the minions are probably being told the war will be over as soon as you die."
"What in the world did I do to this guy? Did I turn him into a bug or something in a past life, and then squish him?" I asked.
"I already told you, you didn't use sorceress powers in a past life. I don't know what the guy's problem is. Maybe he's seen some prophecy he doesn't want to happen. You never really know what's going on in a psycho's mind," Nate replied.
"So how soon before we can get out of here?" I queried. "It seems I have an evil warlock to find before he does any more damage."