Hi,

I can't tell you how excited I am about this chapter!! I'm going to introduce a new POV in this one, oh and it was so much fun writing this!!! :-D

Okay, so here we go, I hope you like it! Please let me know what you're thinking.

Lara

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Chapter 37

ANDY

The familiar pang of adrenaline made its way into my system. Years and years of training, almost five years in the Force, and still it felt like the first time. The soothing rush, that particular shot of excitement, I breathed it in, let it settle. Everything was alright again.

Like a junkie, getting his fix.

I tested the words in my mind just to see if they hurt. Did they fucking ever. At this point in time I was past caring. There was no other way I could do this. In motion. And so fucking alive.

I rolled my shoulders and started to move into the street, back facing the line of closed-down shops and factories – a dozen a dime in this part of the city. They gave the area enough room for holes and retreats an enemy could slip into; exceptionally good terrain for ambushes. It was too dark for my comfort, the only source of light coming from the few odd streetlights that were still working.

I felt it. We all did. Something big just happened here in this street, and I had no clue what. The power tasted like nothing I ever felt before. In the light of what I'd felt, the blue-white flash concert at the entrance to the sewer system behind felt like a distant dream, the presence of the Force like a faded afterthought.

The sewer system. Ah dammit, after Anna disappeared everything went to hell in a handbasket. We'd be lucky if the Force got anything out of this mess.

The auras of Marrok's wolves small, liquid scraps of motion that alerted me to their presence at my back. The Force had called in reinforcements, securing the crime scene at the sewers first. Neither I, nor the wolves had a fucking protocol we had to follow. Like me, they were curious enough to throw caution to the wind and come investigate what happened here.

I stopped dead in my tracks. No. It couldn't be.

There she was. Motionless, staring at her open palm as if it was a mirror. What the fuck did she think she was doing?

And what was she doing here?

The building behind her was destroyed, it's front gaping open like a two-faced Pierrot clown. Victor's mansion was positively destroyed. The whole street was a mess of upturned cars and debris littering the way. There was blood on the street a few feet beside her. A lot of blood.

I had no idea what happened and why she was still standing there. How she was still standing there. My eyes drifted over the wasteland around. Dammit, she was a sitting duck.

"Anna," I said, taking a step forward and away from the safety of the wall at my back.

She turned and glanced at me.

I stilled. The hairs on the back of my neck lifted like a line of soldiers standing attention. I stared at her, peered into the darkness, trying to get a better look at her face. She said nothing. Her eyes remained on me only for a few seconds, then strayed and drifted past, dismissing me.

My breath caught. I knew that look. It was the unemotional gaze of a soldier dismissing a minor, non-threatening object in enemy territory.

"He's coming," she said.

No inflection that would add meaning to the artless statement.

"Who?" I said slowly.

Something was wrong.

I entered second sight, felt for the auratic landscape around us. There was the clustered pack of wolves, light red dots creeping into the street behind us slowly. The coven house ahead, a dark disturbed mess of auratic black that seemingly bled out of a gaping wound.

"There's only the two of us and the wolves," I said, turning back to her. My gaze stopped, caught up on her motionless form in second sight.

I took another step forward. "Anna, something's wrong. Your aura. It's-"

"Don't come any closer," she said. "Tell him to leave me alone."

"What the fuck do you mean, don't come any closer? I'm trying to-"

The world drifted apart, opened and cracked behind her. And she was gone. I narrowed my eyes.

A portal.

Dammit, these days Anna was using it like a rogue.

I stilled.

Rogue.

And that was exactly it. That was what auratic sight showed me when I looked at her. The most unbelievable and catastrophic news of all. In second sight, Anna looked like a rogue witch.

I flexed my hands, staring at the empty air she'd left behind. Where did she go? And what happened?

Anna, dammit.

I wanted to punch something. Multiple somethings.

The air changed, charged with power. Reality split in two, the scent of the grave like a decadent perfume shoving, forcing its way up my nose. Power flapping its wings, before vanishing in a heartbeat. I turned.

Alexander was standing behind me. Deep blue eyes staring at the spot Anna was in seconds ago.

"Where is she?"

Cool and calculating as ever. I didn't particularly like the head vampire, for more than one reason. The question was why he was here and why he appeared just now.

His eyes were vacant, betrayed neither information nor emotion. Still, there was something in the way he moved. Purpose und determination were fused into his bones like a liquid mesh that kept moving whenever he did.

That he acted so rationally as head vampire was what gave me pause the first time I saw him. He was one of the major players in this city and he was more aware of that than most men in power. He would never yield and bow to anyone, but had the intellect and strategic inventory to make his opponents believe he did make concessions to them. It's not only that he was powerful, he was smart enough to know how to use it.

The question was what interest he had in Anna. Until I had a satisfying answer to that, I was going to be very careful what I told someone like Alexander.

"Where is she?" His voice was flat, practical. Like a weapon to be used.

"I don't know," I said.

He turned to me. The weight of his gaze demanded, provoked a reaction. I heard that Anna spent a lot of time with him. How the hell did she manage?

I stayed still, stared him in the eye. Said nothing.

"What happened?"

I crossed my arms in front of my chest. He wasn't going to attack me out in the open. Not here. Not now.

"I don't know," I said evenly.

No reaction. Either he was indeed a patient strategist, or he was going to go for my jugular in the next few seconds. His eyes went back to survey the street, flickering over the debris in a cursory glance.

"Is there something you do know, Mr. Varner?"

It was a challenge, his attempt at getting a rise out of me. I recognized it for what it was. And ignored it. This was not the time or place to argue. Anna might be in danger. If Alexander was willing to help and put her out of harm's way, no matter his motives, I couldn't afford to refuse any offer he made.

"She vanished before I had a chance to talk to her," I said.

"There is more," he said.

"She told me not to come closer. And she gave me a specific message for you. She wanted you to leave her alone."

A muscle in his jaw flexed. Something in the atmosphere changed, atoms grinding against each other violently.

"Did she, now? We will see about that," he said softly – so soft, I wasn't sure if he wanted me to hear it.

Motion and noise slipped into the street behind us like a gush of wind coming into a deserted valley. The wailing of police sirens penetrated the momentary stillness in the street. I'd been wondering who was going to arrive first on the scene. The Force who had their hands full with the mess the rogues had left in the sewer systems or the human police.

I narrowed my eyes. Human police.

Comparted to the Circle, the human forces were better and more systematically organized, despite or maybe because of their lack of magic. I thought they were going to think twice about entering this part of town. We were after all not far from the Red Zone. Guess I was wrong. Maybe times were changing. Then again, it was a different story if Raphael Medici was involved.

I glanced at the head vampire. The human police Force would make it difficult, for both the Circle and the vamps. No matter what, I was not going to reveal what I saw when I looked at Anna's aura. Because if I was right, it meant she went rogue.

* * *

I eyed the head vampire from the side. He hadn't said a word to the TF3 about what Anna said, or that she disappeared through a portal. Either he counted on my silence from the start, or lying to the Forces was a risk he was willing to take. I didn't tell the TF3 either. And it was a close call. I'm a Circle member and I take my responsibility seriously.

Anna, Anna. What the hell are you doing?

Not again.

Losing Maria was fucking hard. Now her. She, out of all people. Why her? She who I-

I stopped my train of thought. Wrong. Concentrate.

Alexander had been taking in the scene, accepting the human police's rude behavior with grace and well-mannered forbearance. As if he was biding his time.

Did he have a way to track Anna? Rumors had it that she was his human servant. Not something I could believe, not with someone as stubborn as her.

But still... why else the statement that they were going to see? Something told me my best shot at finding Anna, might be following close on the head vampire's heels.

News of Medici's injury reached us right after Anna left. The Inri Brotherhood tried to attack the Invisibility Cloak's headquarters. My guess was that this was the big thing Anna was talking about.

Logic said Medici wanted something they stored in there. The official report said the Force almost brought Medici down and that he might have been fatally injured before he managed to escape. I wasn't too sure about that and I doubted it was the Force's doing. The Death Squad could have had a hand in it too.

According to the reports Anna was seen with the Inri Brotherhood when they attacked. I didn't believe she was "with" them for one second, but she was probably there, trying to prevent the Inri Brotherhood from doing harm. And harm they did.

The Brotherhood cast a powerful spell and pulled an invisibility shield over the whole Invisibility Cloak headquarters. The magical impact was off the charts. The wards immensely complicated. The Circle was still trying to untangle and dismantle the building.

Medici had to have had another, extremely powerful elemental witch at his disposal. Probably more than one, if the rumors I heard were true. It was going to take time and some arm-twisting, but I would get my hands on the "sensitive information" normal Force members like me were not authorized to access.

The investigators thought Anna left with the rogues who escaped and fled. A greater part of the Circle still believed she was part of them.

My fingers tightened into fists. She was not. The great three witches help me, she was not.

I should be out there, with the Force. I was not. Could not. Not if it was about her. It was wrong on so many levels, but it felt like it was the right thing to do. I had to find Anna and find out what exactly happened, before anybody else did.