Stronger Together chapter 129 (Patreon)

Carlos's body was...messy. Like seriously fucked up. It looked like  someone had clawed through the skin pulled the sternum apart and ripped  the heart out with their fingers while making sure to get as much blood  on him as possible. Whoever had done it, and I assumed it was someone  here, must have used magic of some kind to stay clean because not a  speck of blood was showing on anyone here. Everyone looked wary of each  other, I imagined beings like this weren't used to threats getting so  close undetected.

I could sympathize, I was fucking  terrified something had managed to get within ten feet of me and commit  murder in complete silence. I was also furious they'd dared try it in  the room with my girls, and if I found out who it was I was going to  give them a five fingered godsteel suppository. Dalton looked murderous  that anyone would violate his hospitality but he couldn't accuse anyone  without doing the same so he was just sort of seething while he tried to  collect his wits and figure out hos next move.

Of  course before he managed we all felt a powerful magical shock wave wash  through the room. Dalton's head snapped up towards Brynn "Brynn, why  the fuck did the lock down protocols on the wards just trigger? You're  right here and I sure as fuck didn't trigger them. No one else has  access." His angry expression started to shift more toward concerned as  he spoke, and I seriously hoped his lock down protocols worked  differently than Harry's. From the extreme distress on his face though I  sort of doubted it.

Brynn's  face was pale and frantic "I don't know, but we are officially locked  down as of right now. No one can enter or leave for at least three days.  Whoever triggered them used the siege contingency. Those wards aren't  coming down until it ends no matter how hard we punch the things." She  closed here eyes and took a deep breath. "Ok, we have storage for a  siege in the house so food isn't an issue and the lights and hot water  all work off magic. Etri's people do damn good work and you poured a ton  into this house."

I  was so shaken I actually raised my hand like this was a classroom "  What if we break the wards. We're pretty samn powerful I'm sure we could  manage to drop them. I think first priority here is getting out of the  house where a powerful vampire was just violently murdered five feat  from a group of extremely strong supernaturals without a single sound  escaping while it happened." I got a round of nods and agreements from  the others who all looked at Dalton expectantly as if hoping he would  give us a map of his wards and their weak points.

No  such luck however, the man just shook his head "Not possible. The wards  are built into a leyline, it's why I picked this house when I was  buying. The svartalves hooked the line up to the wards like a power  cable. It's not a small line either, even a minor god would have some  trouble punching through those. This whole place is made to be pretty  much unbreachable when the siege contingency activates. Of course, it  can only hold for three days before the massive power flow erodes the  spells and they collapse so we aren't stuck forever."

I  couldn't help but consider what the wards could endure if they were  constructed from godsteel. Could I build invincible wards if I found a  leyline strong enough? I really needed to meet with that svartalves. I  was betting they would teach me their secrets in exchange for access to  godsteel. A totally unique metal perfect for enchanting? They would be  idiots to pass that up. I internally shook off the thoughts, focus  Cameron, stealth murderer trapped in a house with a bunch of  powerful...supernatural entities.

My  eyes widened. The escapee! This could be the thing that escaped  Demonreach. Alfred has mentioned it would seek out small gatherings of  powerful beings. But if it was the escapee this was really bad. The  thing could read people's minds and perfectly mimic them even to their  closest friends anyone here aside from Barb and Raven could be the  killer. The girls had enough tricks that I pretty much assumed it  couldn't get them, especially Raven. Plus they had been with me since we  arrived. The question was with Dalton's security how the hell did it  even get inside to find someone to become?

Thinking  about it there was an easy way in though, the escapee could have come  in as a maid, I was betting Dalton hired any gorgeous woman who showed  up as long as she didn't seem shady. It would be simple to pass a  background check since the escapee could be anyone. It just needed to  mimic someone with no issues in their past, literally any pretty girl  off the street would do. It would even know about any troubles that  might show up on the background check because it could read their  memories. Then all it would need to do would be wait outside for one of  the guests and then jump whichever one was easiest.

But  Raven's empathy should still have caught on to any suspicious mental  defects. Even knowing their memories wouldn't be enough to disguise  their emotions. I cleared my mind and focused. We needed to tell someone  about this, but anyone we told could be the escapee. In that case the  safest way to do things was to tell everyone at once. Only one of them  could be the escapee so if we got them all on board looking we would  have eleven people helping us even if one of them was trying to secretly  kill us all. Raven seemed to have had the same though because when I  looked at her and then flicked my eyes to the surrounding guests she  nodded solemnly.

I  cleared my throat, getting everyone's attention. I'd have to be careful  here, it was absolutely imperative I didn't give away Demonreach's  existence or location, luckily I had an excuse ready to go in the form  of my mentor, who had a reputation for being a huge busybody regarding  supernatural goings on in Chicago. "We might have more to worry about  than you all think.I'm not sure if Dalton mentioned it but I'm  apprenticed under Harry Dresden, Chicago's only professional wizard.  Sergei and Nadia know for sure because they knew his mother, but I  wasn't sure if the rest of you made the connection from just his first  name when we talked earlier."

Apparently  they had because no one looked surprised at all, I took their flat  looks as urgings to make my point "Anyway, Harry and I recently caught a  case in town trying to track down some sort of psychic vampire. The  thing is supposed to be some kind of ancestor of the White Court's  hunger demon. It can read the memories of people it kills and mimic them  perfectly. It consumes the years they would have lived to get stronger  and uses the power to further psychically influence others. The thing  has been known to start wars to harvest large amounts of life force but  it was weakened and ran to Chicago to hide. Our client told us it would  probably seek out a small gathering of powerful supernaturals."

I  was pretty proud of my story, since I was duty bound to keep my clients  confidential. It was a simple lie but it had no major gaps, plus they  had other stuff to worry about. Hana was glaring at me " You didn't  mention anything about this during the raid on the Black Court nest, it  would have been nice to know I might be stepping into the crosshairs of  some kind of psychic super monster when I agreed to help you. I'd have  charged more." Her tone was half snark half genuine worry with just an  undertone of actual anger but I could see her point.

I  shook my head to put her at ease though "I understand your worries but  it's not an issue. The monster didn't know we were hunting it until I  just told you all." Their faces paled as they all processed what I meant  by that. "Yeah, I suspect the thing might be here. In fact, I think it  might be in this room. Killing Carlos would have given it a nice boost  of power since he's a vampire and it's old as dirt from what I know and  would know how to kill silently. The only issue is that Raven over there  is an empath and she hasn't sensed any killing intent from anyone here.  Even if it's psychic it shouldn't be able to hide from her senses, but  someone here must have done it so her getting nothing doesn't make sense  either."

Dalton  spoke up, offering the scariest fucking possibility I could imagine.  "What if it doesn't know?" I turned to look at him in confusion just  like the others but he held up his hands. "Psychic bullshit is a bit  double edged. You see it in mortal magic with psychomancy, people  messing with minds messes with their minds. Maybe this thing was so hurt  from whatever drove it here that when it ate the memories of whoever it  killed it actually internalized them. If it thinks it actually is  whichever of us it killed first she wouldn't sense anything, maybe when  the lights went out it acted on instinct."

His  voice was grave and I could see why. If the monster didn't know who it  was then any of us could be the escapee and not even know it. I was  positive it wasn't me because it couldn't mimic my arm or weave.  Godsteel was unique and no shapeshifter was going to be able to recreate  the stuff. Barb looked troubled and spoke up, interrupting the mutters  from the other guests. "We have a bigger problem if that's true." We all  looked at her. "The killer was someone in this room, but the wards were  triggered by someone who wasn't here. If the killer doesn't know who  they are that means whoever triggered the wards did it for a different  reason, and I doubt it's a friendly one."

A  distressed sound came from Valentina. "You're saying that not only are  we trapped in here with a crazy serial killer who doesn't know they're a  serial killer, but that the person who actually trapped us probably  plans to kill us all and didn't even factor the killer into their plans?  The best course of action for the second scenario is to group together  and count on our fellow captives for safety. But if any one of us could  snap and murder the others the second their memories are triggered how  the hell are we supposed to trust anyone?"

She  was right, this was just about the worst possible situation we could be  in. Honestly the escapee losing it's memory was even worse than if it  was here planning to fucking murder us all. At least if it knew it might  give away some hints even if Raven's empathy didn't work. Hoe the fuck  were we supposed to trip someone up when they didn't know what they  were? Despite my rising panic and intense wish that I had something I  could punch right now I forced myself to take deep breaths and calm  down.

I  raised my voice about the bickering, cutting everyone off. "Everyone  calm down! This isn't helpful. We obviously have an advantage here over  both of our enemies. We're together and ware of their existence. The  monster provides a bit of a twist but we still outnumber it more than  ten to one. We're all powerful people and as long as we keep our eyes on  the others there's no reason we can't..." I trailed off as I counted  the people in the room, noting a missing face. "Uhhh, does anyone know  where Sergei went?"