Page 22 of Spring L.A.W.
Rayna’s face went cold.
“Rayna,” Joell said carefully, “do you know that sigil?”
She nodded once. “Yeah. I’ve seen it before. Back when I was doing recon for the Para Accord. That’s a black-tier military glyph. Think NSA meets necromancers. It’s not just surveillance. They specialize in magical containment.”
“Containment?” Brianna said. “Like, cages and handcuffs?”
“More like null fields and soul-jars.”
Joell’s espresso paused halfway to her mouth. “Or ‘Echo blasters?’ Charming.”
The sketch now showed Jasper sliding into the SUV. Lioness, eyes still glazed, scribbled out the driver’s profile: square-jawed, gray-haired, wearing mirrored aviators like a man with something to prove, or hide.
Joell stood. “We’ve got a location and a target. If Jasper’s reporting to this guy, then we follow him. See where they go. See what they want.”
“And if they want us?”
“Then we give them a reason to regret that,” Joell said.
A few minutes later,the witches were crammed into Brianna’s Prius like a coven-shaped sardine can, with Lioness still sketching in the passenger seat and Rayna riding shotgun in thebackbecause Brianna had to drive her own car.
“I swear to Hecate, if you brake one more time without warning, I’m glamoring this car into a pumpkin,” Rayna growled, gripping the headrest.
“Sorry,” Brianna muttered. “I don’ttailpeople. I walk them into my office and make them cry with past-life regressions.”
Lioness didn’t even blink. Her hand flew across the page, updating the landscape in real-time, showing an industrial strip lined with graffiti, a boarded-up liquor store, and a stray cat that might have been a raccoon.
“There,” Joell said from behind Brianna, pointing over the dashboard. “One block up, SUV just turned left.”
Lioness agreed faintly, her voice trance-thin. “Still moving. Still calm. He doesn’t know we’re here.”
“Good,” Joell muttered. “Let’s keep it that way.”
They rolled through the turn, trailing the SUV from a safe distance, while Lioness continued to draw. The sketch blurred into the shape of a parking lot. Cracked concrete. A rusted truck. And then…
“Oh no,” Lioness whispered.
“What?” Joell asked, eyes darting from the road to the sketch pad.
“It’s fuzzy,” Lioness said. “Like static. Something’s interfering.”
“Can you push through it?”
Lioness hesitated. “I can try.”
Joell didn’t like the sound of that. “Pull the Prius over behind that abandoned building and kill the engine.”
“Rayna, Brianna, boost her. Keep her grounded but open. Let’s see what we’re dealing with.”
The others nodded and placed their hands on Lioness’s shoulders. The pad stilled for a beat, then Lioness gasped and started sketching again.
This time, the SUV was parked. Next to it stood a couple of figures in tactical gear, blurry like heat mirages. One of them was holding something that pulsed on the page, like a lantern or a beacon.
Rayna frowned. “What is that?”
“It's a ward disruptor,” Joell said. “Old tech, but nasty. They’re fuzzing the field.”
“Wait,” Brianna said. “You said he didn’t know we were following him.”
