Page 81 of Truthfinder’s Promise

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Jensen kept an arm around her as they walked back into the kitchen, and she didn’t let herself worry over how much she liked it. Or whether he was just doing it because they had agreed to keep up appearances until this was all over.

“I found the repository,” she said without preamble, “and I called Julian. He more or less agreed to what we discussed.”

“We should have been present for the call,” Dom objected.

“I was present.” Jensen’s words brooked no further comment.

“Julian’s sending someone to pick up the proof item in an hour.”

Jace’s nose wrinkled. “Would that be what’s in Jensen’s pocket that smells so terrible?”

Shifter brows around the table furrowed. “I don’t smell anything,” Hel said.

“It’s a magical smell,” the Aspecters replied in near-perfect unison.

“I couldn’t get anything out of him on the auction location,” Meredith continued. “I refused to meet at his house—” she put a big hell no down for getting caught in Julian’s home defenses and held as his personal pet Truthfinder “—and we compromised on Winter Forest Park. Lot three, six tomorrow night. I didn’t even have to work to get Jensen in. Apparently, Analisa is excited to meet him because, ‘none of the other ones are tame.’ ”

The words made the Shifters bristle, but also gave them hope. They were the first concrete proof they’d received that Analisa had the Shifters.

“Val, please tell me you have some idea where Julian’s taking me.”

Valkyrie’s lips twisted in a grimace. “Yes, and no. As you know, Julian mostly got off with a slap on the wrist when the old council dissolved,” she said, likely for the benefit of the Shifters in the room. “He can’t leave Seclusion but we don’t have the right to routinely monitor him.”

“Am I to take it you’ve been non-routinely monitoring him?”

“Random city-wide security sweeps,” she said with a straight face. “One thing those sweeps all have in common is a section on the northeast side of town. Or rather the lack of information on it in reports. It’s always written off as ‘nothing of interest’ so it didn’t raise any red flags until I cross-referenced it with the file on Julian. Sometimes he is logged as ‘going for a drive’ but the details on his route become vague around a certain northeast area.

“I sent a team to check it out. When I didn’t hear from them after an hour I called for an update. They were back at base and hadn’t remembered I’d sent them to check the area until I called. They’re one of my best teams. I sent them back, along with a second team. The same thing happened again.”

“Disorientation spell?” Meredith guessed.

Val nodded. “The largest and most complex I’ve ever seen. I haven’t been able to fully map the perimeter because my teams keep getting too close to it and wandering back to headquarters, but I’d guestimate the area at roughly a square mile.”

Hel raised her hand like she was in school. “What does that mean?”

“It means we have a square mile area that is completely unknown to us. Cross the threshold, and you will become confused and stumble around until the spell eventually spits you back out. You won’t remember what you were doing or why you were there.

“County and Aspect records are useless. According to every map of Seclusion we have, the area doesn’t exist. Which means the spell itself had its origin over two-hundred years ago. So a family or an organization has kept it running over the years.”

Jace cleared his throat. “Or it could be the same person.”

Val looked at her little brother like she thought maybe he’d been hit on the head recently with a blunt object. “Did you miss the over two-hundred years part?”

“No. When Meredith said Julian mentioned thralls, I thought I’d seen the term somewhere. It was a footnote in one of the books I read on Life Aspect. The note was short, about a Life Aspecter from the fourteen hundreds. I copied it.” He pulled out his phone and read. “ ‘Shortly thereafter Gregory lost the path, and began to take of the life of others. The siphoning forged a bond between him and his victims, making them forever enthralled of him, completely obedient, even as their energy granted him unnaturally long life.’ ”

“That sounds creepy,” Hel offered. “You have a really creepy storyteller’s voice. You should write books.”

That broke the tension as the Aspecters laughed.

“What?” Hel crossed her arms. “What did I say?”

“He does write books.” Turning to Jace, Meredith said, “So you think Analisa’s a good Life Aspecter gone bad?”

He spread his hands in an I-don’t-know gesture.

“Siren? You’re the Life Aspecter present. Is any of this ringing a bell? Have you ever thought you might be in danger of becoming an energy vampire and ascending to the ranks of the immortal?” Immortal. “Shit.”