More than Magic Book 8: Magic Unveiled

“Ember,” Jen said softly.

I glanced down and noticed that, once again, I had set fire to the carpet of the car.

“Sorry.” I patted the little flame out and then clenched my fists to stop from snapping my fingers and creating more sparks. “I'm just nervous.” Nervous was an understatement.

“We all are,” Mariana said.

I nodded, but the sentiment didn't help that much. “How long have we been sitting here?” I asked, even though the clock was right in front of me.

“Two and a half hours,” Shannon said.

I groaned and wiggled my back against my seat, trying to get comfortable. I felt like the closer we got, the longer everything seemed to take. Rak climbed from the center console and onto my lap, purring. The sound was comforting, but I had to wonder if he was also keeping an eye on me, so I didn’t set anything else on fire.

“Someone’s here!” Jen said suddenly.

I looked up at the parking lot across the street, watching as a car pulled in and parked. For the last hour the only movement in the parking lot had been people leaving. This was new. After a tense minute, people started to get out of the car.

The first thing I noticed was a woman with long, bright red hair, which transitioned to orange and then yellow as it grew out. The hair was a dead giveaway, but I switched briefly into thermal vision to check her temperature anyway.

“Fire elemental,” I said softly.

Mariana gasped and leaned forward, between the two front seats. “And that’s Anthony!”

I didn’t know what he looked like, but Shannon nodded. “That’s him, alright,” she said grimly.

“Do you think the guy with the raven is Victor? He looks like he’s in charge,” said Jen.

“Yeah,” I agreed. The other two were walking behind him, but something about it seemed more like a formation than just three friends walking from their car into a restaurant.

Nobody had seen Victor yet, but when Thomas and Dani, and TS and Charlie spoke with Anthony in order to get invitations to Cavaliers, they were promised that Victor would meet them. The way Anthony spoke about Victor gave us all the impression he was the head guy, but weren’t sure how that worked, since we thought this whole operation – whatever it was – was led by someone named Reave. Of course now Dani and Thomas couldn’t give us any answers… we just had to hope that tonight would be successful.

“I guess something is actually happening now. Can you hear what they’re saying?” Jen whispered.

“No,” Shannon breathed, “But if that guy is a vampire, he might be able to hear us.”

There was no way to tell at this distance if he was a wizard or a vampire, but considering the nature of the group, I doubted he was human.

“I don't like this,” Mariana said suddenly. “It’s too risky. If Dani and Thomas haven't been able to even contact us in six months, what good are TS and Charlie going to be able to do?”

“What happens when they don't come back either?” I blurted.

“It’s a risk they’re willing to take,” Shannon said softly. “We all feel the same, we’re just… not the ones who can do it.”

Mariana was right; Dani and Thomas were supposed to be some of the best agents in the region and they hadn't even found a way to contact us yet, never mind getting away from… wherever the hell they were. Sending two people in to rescue them was just going to result in having to rescue four people instead.

But Jen was right too. If Dani and Thomas couldn’t get out, the only answer was to go in after them.

That left Shannon and Mariana. We arranged a meeting for them, and for TS and Charlie, with Anthony, just in case not everyone was chosen. It seemed we were right to be cautious, TS and Charlie were given instructions to come to the meeting, Shannon and Mariana were thanked and that was that.

We sat in tense silence, all eyes on Cavaliers, for several minutes. Just when I was starting to feel like I couldn’t stand to wait any longer, the door opened and the guy with the raven came back out, followed by Anthony and several people. TS was the tallest and I noticed him right away. For one panicked moment, I couldn’t see my dad, then I realized there was heat coming from behind TS. As they gathered around, I spotted him and sighed in relief.

They stood around for a while as the guy with the raven talked. Then, they lined up and took turns putting stuff into a box. We all exchanged a curious look. I started to say something but Shannon frantically shushed me and pointed to her ear, then at the man across the street. I nodded and forced myself to stay quiet.

Jen sucked in a breath and waved for our attention, then pointed. A bus was arriving! We watched as it pulled into the parking lot and then stopped near the group. I held my breath as they all slowly boarded the bus. For a couple of minutes, it sat there idling.

“Fire!” I hissed as quietly as I could. “In Cavaliers!”

It burned for a minute – too hot for a normal fire. Then, it died down. A moment later the fire elemental woman walked out.

“Was it her?” Jen asked.

“Yeah,” I whispered. “I think she burned something.”

“I wonder what,” said Mariana.

We all nodded in agreement.

“Ember,” Rak said, gently curving his claws into my thigh to get my attention.

I realized I had just raised the temperature in the car by ten degrees and muttered an apology before getting myself under control.

Jen started the car and slowly pulled out, after giving the bus time to get ahead of us. “Here we go,” she muttered.

We drove in tense silence, trying to keep far enough back so nobody would realize we were following, but not so far we would lose them.

The minutes passed as the bus rumbled along. Then the hours. The bus exited onto a small highway and I read a sign without really reading it. A few seconds later, it sank in.

“That sign,” I gasped, turning in my seat. “We’re heading toward Allegany State Park!”

Everyone sucked in a breath.

“It’s a big park…” Mariana said slowly. “We might just be going near it…”

But just a few minutes later, the bus turned onto a road that led to a campground. A gated campground.

“Ashes,” I muttered, as the gate raised, allowing the bus through, before lowering in front of us. I watched in growing alarm as the bus continued into the campground.

We pulled up to the gatehouse and a man leaned out. “Hello. Do you have a reservation for a cabin?”

“Oh, no,” Jen said. She hesitated and then said, “We’re just checking out the campground. Mind if we drive around a bit?”

“It’s a little late for that,” he said skeptically.

“We’re ghost hunters,” Shannon called from the backseat, flashing a huge smile at the man. “We love campgrounds at night!”

He stared at her for a moment, then cleared his throat. “Sure. Okay…” he said, “Let me get you a pass…” He pulled back into his gatehouse with a shiver and started writing.

The man handed us a pass, which Jen stuck onto the dashboard. “Happy uh… hunting?” he offered.

“Thanks!” Jen told him.

The gate rose, so slowly I wanted to scream, and we drove through.

“Drive faster!” I snapped, even though I could see that Jen was already going ten over the speed limit.

Nevertheless, Jen sped up a little bit.

“Does anyone see the bus?” she asked nervously.

I felt a rush of wind and turned to see Shannon had opened her window and was sniffing the air. “No, but I smell it,” she said, pulling her head back in. “Keep going this way.”

There weren’t enough lights around here for me to see well either, so I switched to thermal vision. Everything changed to shades of blue and green, and even some black. I shivered at the sight of the cold. In the distance I could see little dots of orange and red from campfires and much larger blobs of yellow from trailers. I looked all around us, searching for signs of people or the bus.

We reached a fork in the road and Shannon directed us to the left. The road looped around and curved through the trees, with RVs and campers on either side. We passed a row of restrooms and a run-down barn. I peered in through the large holes in the doors of the barn as we drove by, but it was empty.

The road curved around farther and we slowly followed it, searching desperately for the bus. A nervous knot began to form in my stomach.

“I can’t smell it!” Shannon cried. “Turn around, we missed it!”

Jen quickly pulled into an unused campsite and turned. We retraced our path along the road, an air of tension in the car. We got all the way back to the fork, but Shannon shook her head.

“No, it’s the road we were just on for sure.”

“Damnit!” Jen growled, turning around again. “Does anyone see it?!”

“Maybe we should get out and walk?” Shannon suggested.

“There!” Mariana shrieked. “In the barn!”

Jen slowed the car. We all leaned toward the windows. I could swear I had already looked in the barn, but sure enough, there was heat coming from it – something in there was warm. We all waited, watching, but nothing seemed to happen. The only change was that the warm spot was gradually cooling down. One, single warm spot.

“I don't think anyone's in there,” Shannon said at last.

“There isn’t,” I said, the knot in my stomach twisted and I felt another one forming at the base of my skull, poised to become an awful headache. There were no other heat signatures, no people. They had gotten off the bus already and were… gone.

“Let's go,” Jen said, drawing her wand.

We opened the car doors and cautiously headed for the barn, keeping an eye out all around us. I couldn't see anyone. It was a cold night and most of the campers were likely already asleep or huddled around the fires I could see in the distance.

“Anything?” Jen whispered softly.

Shannon shook her head. “I can't smell anyone.”

“I don’t see anyone,” I added.

One of the doors swung open. I switched out of thermal vision, just long enough to confirm that I really was looking at the same bus, and then switched back as we went into the barn.

“The engine is warm,” I said softly, looking at the shades of orange. The edges of the engine had cooled to yellow, but it was still almost red in places. “It didn't turn off that long ago.”

“Is anyone on it?” asked Mariana.

I shook my head. “No.” I should have been able to see the heat signatures through the bus, especially my dad's and the fire elemental woman.

There was nothing.

Nobody.

We all crept forward nervously toward the bus. Shannon gave the door a gentle tug, it opened easily. One by one we poked our heads onto the small bus. Empty.

Even though I knew there was nobody on it, my heart sank and my gut twisted.

“Then where are they?!” asked Jen, voice cracking with emotion.

We quickly searched every inch of the bus for something. Anything. Rak checked under the seats and then went under the bus itself. But there was nothing.

After that we searched throughout the barn itself, desperately looking for any sign of what had happened. After a few minutes it became clear that it was just an empty, rundown barn.

“If they got off, it wasn’t in the barn,” said Shannon. “I can’t smell them anywhere but on the bus.”

Soon we were all standing quietly in the doorway of the barn, staring at the rapidly cooling bus.

“How could we have lost them?” Mariana said, sounding like she was on the verge of tears. “We were right behind the bus the entire time. That guy at the gate stopped us for like a minute. How could we possibly have lost them?”

“They have to be here!” cried Jen, desperately pivoting in a small circle, looking around wide-eyed. “They couldn’t have gotten off the bus anywhere else!”

I heaved a sigh. “We were practically circling the barn, there is no way we missed that many people crossing the grounds, even if they were running.”

“No,” said Jen. “They couldn’t possibly have gotten off until it stopped here. Right here!”

“Except they didn’t get off here,” I said.

“We should go,” Shannon said.

“Go?!” I screeched at her. “You want to leave?!”

“Keep your voice down,” she reminded me. “We don’t know what happened, but if the bus is here, the driver has to be.” She frowned then sniffed. “I don’t smell him either…”

“There are potions that can alter scents,” Mariana said. “Or erase them. Maybe they did get off here, but someone hid their scent.”

Shannon sighed. “If they got off here, then so did those people who took them. It’s not safe to stick around.”

“She’s right,” Rak said. “We can’t risk being caught too. Not when… not when we might be their only chance.”

Nobody spoke as Jen turned the car back to the main road of the campground and drove slowly toward the gatehouse. The guard waved merrily to us and Jen lowered her window.

“Shannon, smell him, what is he?” she asked softly as we pulled up.

The guard leaned out of the gate house curiously. “No ghosts?” he teased.

“No, but we might be back, thank you for letting us drive around,” Jen said. I didn't know if he could hear the forced cheer in her voice, but I could.

“Not a problem,” he said with a wave. “Take care.”

“Non-magic,” Shannon said as we drove away down the road.

Jen pulled over suddenly. For a moment she just sat there, gripping the steering wheel, and I wondered if she was going to start crying. Then, almost angrily, she pulled out her phone and punched my address into her GPS.

The trip home was a long, somber one. Nobody spoke. At some point, I fell asleep, waking up only when we stopped for gas. I sleepily watched Shannon change places with Jen and the next thing I knew, we were pulling up to my house.

As I climbed the steps, I let myself imagine that Charlie and TS were here somehow. That they got away and were waiting for us. But the house was dark and empty.

I stood in the living room wordlessly as the others came in around me. Mariana sat heavily on the couch with a soft sob. Jen and Shannon did the same on the other. Rak joined them.

Fighting back tears, I crossed the room slowly and sat by Mariana. The silence was almost oppressive, but I couldn’t think of anything to say. I felt like if I spoke, I’d start crying.

“I think you have a message!” Shannon said suddenly.

“A message?” I asked.

“On your answering machine.”

I snapped my head up and gasped. There was a blinking light on the answering machine.

My breath caught and I stood slowly, as if moving too quickly would make the light stop blinking. Had my dad called? Were they okay?! I crossed the room on shaking legs, a thousand possibilities flashing through my mind. They were okay. They needed help. Nobody on the other end of the line… Some soggy person from MES calling about crap... I reached forward and hesitated with my finger over the playback button, then took a deep breath.

Not a single one of the possible messages I thought of could have prepared me for it.