I nodded. I was also a little shocked, since I hadn’t even asked a question yet.

  He shrugged, “Human information is easy, no magic blocking it. It’s also a good thing, it means none of their supernaturals are involved in it. Anyway, bring Dana with you, and have her bamboozle them all into thinking they were rescued by mercenaries. It’s important, don’t let them find out the persons who acted against them were from America. I don’t know what the results would be, but I don’t imagine they’d be good. It’s the right thing to do, but you’ll be kicking a hornet’s nest.

  “There’ll be a few holes in the girl’s stories, but that won’t matter since the guilty parties will be dead over there, and the interrogators will just attribute that to the shock of their horrid experience. The compound itself has several cameras, so get with Katie for an illusion. You're about to piss off a lot of powerful human men. We also can’t track down and kill them all, not without starting world war three, so don’t let them get your picture. In short, you’ll be taking down the suppliers, not all the buyers. No doubt they also have several people in law enforcement around the world in their pockets, including here, and have access to law enforcement databases.”

  I shook my head, “So, I’m guessing you have no objections to my plan to be judge, jury, and executioner?”

  Ben sighed, “It isn’t a good thing for us to play god. We have to fight hard against being entitled in the first place, but the alternative is unpalatable.”

  I asked, “How do you deal with it?”

  Ben frowned, “I don’t. My power doesn’t give me a head’s up on things like that. I just find kids that are in danger. Otherwise, I stick to supernatural business.”

  I nodded, “But what about walk-ins? Your power doesn’t control that, just like Joe called my office to hire me. Surely that adds complications at times your power can’t account for.”

  He shrugged, “Not really. Maybe I’ve just been lucky, but I’ve made it pretty clear in my press coverage that my psychic power only works on young kidnap victims, children up to mid-teen in age. I don’t get the breadth in types of cases that you do. Still, I’ve never had something out of country come up like that, and children are trafficked as well, so it could just be luck. I’ve never run into anything the authorities here couldn’t handle with a little help at most. I don’t imagine it will be all that common for you either, just the luck of the draw dropped this horror in your lap.”

  I blew out a breath, and held up the envelope, “Thanks for the help.”

  He grimaced, “Least I could do, don’t be gentle when you go. You might want to pick up a rifle somewhere, to back up that mercenary story, and so there’s no unexplained violent deaths due to water magic. The less of us to get wind of this the better as well. Unexplained ripped apart bodies will appear on supernatural radar, and some may get the idea there’s a rogue and act on it.”

  I smirked, “Got it. Maybe I’ll just use theirs.”

  He laughed, “That’ll work.”

  I nodded, “I’ll get with Katie, and deliver this, then take Dana for a trip. I’ll also try not to murder the timeline when I deliver the women to Cairo.”

  After taking them out, we’d have to chill for at least six hours, before I moved the girls magically to Cairo, and get them into Cairo. Then again, maybe we should take a couple of trucks, and actually drive it the long way. Dana could handle the border guards, and it’d add more details to the timeline for the investigation it would no doubt launch.

  Maybe it was a good thing that Mark pushed back our date to tomorrow night, I’d be elsewhere later that night.

  Chapter Four

  Katie came through with some illusion spells. Later that afternoon Dana and I looked completely average. It was hard to even guess a nationality or race from the features of the illusions we wore, which were mixed and diverse. Dana had also come up with the idea of picking up new clothes, including gloves and hats. We were dressed in all black. The last thing we needed to do was leave behind fingerprints or any DNA to be found.

  I locked up the office a little early, and I’d already dropped the envelope anonymously onto Millie’s desk for the local group who was part of the trafficking. I was sure she’d make sure it was dealt with. Then the two of us entered the water realm. The blue greens were all just a blur at the intense speed we were moving, yet it would take quite a while for us to cross the ocean and reach our destination. I’d never been there, but it was easy to trace the connection between Sidney and the diamond earrings she treasured.

  It would also be a relatively long trip.

  It was close to five local time in Myrtle Beach, so around ten where we were going. Given that time of day, it wasn’t all that much of a surprise that she was busy when we popped back into the real world. Busy was a horrible word to use for what was actually happening to her, but my blood was already boiling at the sexual abuse, slavery, shame, and objectification she must’ve endured the last six months, and I was trying to hold it together. Mentally, I mean. My magic surged and put her to sleep, while the man taking her against her will was dealt with by Dana.

  There was a loud snap, as the man’s neck broke, and he flew across the room. It didn’t take long for Dana to cover Sidney up.

  There were two humans right outside the door, and my magic clamped around their bodies, and clenched their jaws so they couldn’t cry out. We opened the door and walked out, and I grabbed the AK-47 hanging over the guard’s shoulder.

  Call me cruel, but I took my time, giving the men plenty of time to see the death coming in my furious eyes. But, I was merciful when the time came, and put a single bullet between both their eyes. I’d never fired an assault weapon before, but it wasn’t all that hard to hit the target from a foot away from the end of the barrel. My power ensured none of the blood spray or brain matter found its way onto Dana or I.

  The pandemonium that could’ve started from the sharp retort of the rifle died before it really got started. It was a long series of executions, they had no chance, no way to fight back. My power reached out and froze every male in the building, guards and rapists both, all easily within my range of my two-hundred-and-fifty-foot radius of reach. All the woman, of which there were twenty-three, were sent into dreamland.

  The men were allowed to stay awake, to think, to fear, as death slowly claimed them one by one. Some of them had even soiled themselves, by the time we got to them, which gave me a dark sense of satisfaction. I tried to be clinical about it, but I failed miserably. I was so angry, and my heart pounded in my chest as we moved through the building and killed them all. Still more guards arrived from outside the building, from other parts of the compound, but as soon as they reached my range they were caught like flies in amber.

  It was a horrible thing, and I’ll skip the details, we weren’t even in the slightest danger. It was pure judgement, justice, and retribution. None escaped their just punishment.

  Except to say, my earlier thoughts were born out. A sorcerer increasing their power needed experience, knowledge, and full mastery of their current level of magic, plus perhaps a stressful circumstance to push the mind.

  What I did that day counted as stressful, despite the humans I killed not having a chance, and the reach of my power expanded as we did our work that night. Power flooded me, as my reach extended another fifty feet. From two fifty to three hundred feet. The radial reach of my power now the length of a football field. Just fifty more feet, more than doubled my power given the volume of a sphere. Twice as powerful as I was moments ago, eight times as powerful as I was the night that I’d learned I was a sorceress.

  I was too distracted with my bloody work to spare any focus on seeing what the differences were. The obvious though, was my power was much stronger, and I felt the emotions of the ones I was saving, and those I was hunting, more strongly.

  I also couldn’t fail to notice, without even trying, the links between humans and objects were more obvious to me as well. They were less ephemeral, and they felt very solid to me at that point. But past those two obvious things that took zero focus to notice, I didn’t put any effort into figuring out anything new. I was too absorbed by the night’s bloody work.

  We brought justice that night, but it wasn’t a cold justice, it was hot, and I wondered if I’d have nightmares. I felt both completely justified yet horrified by the slaughter. I knew it was right, but it felt a little wrong because of how easy it was. I was a powerful water sorceress, and they were weak stains on humanity. It felt like playing god, which rubbed me wrong.

  We might not have been able to go after all the so-called buyers, as Ben had called them, but we got a good number of them, at least those that had been visiting that night. Evil entitled men, military officers, leaders, and men of influence in the area. Evil men who actually deluded themselves into thinking it was their right to own and use a woman as they saw fit. A god given right to slake their evil lust, and the thought turned my stomach.

  That wasn’t just my active imagination, it was what I felt from them, as I brought justice. They were scared, terrified even, but also saw me as the evil one. It was… sick.

  It was an evil so stark, that fire burned in my veins.

  When it was finished we found the surveillance room, and destroyed all the footage of the bedrooms, as well as any footage that showed anything unnatural going on. Such as men being unable to move. In the end, all there was left for the investigators to find was footage of an unknown mercenary group walking around with their rifles, and dead bodies with bullets in their heads.

  Enough to show gun wielding mercenaries, but little else. We could’ve destroyed all the evidence, but we wanted to leave a trail, or enough of one that they wouldn’t dig too deeply. Yes, they’d no doubt be looking very hard for Dana and I, or the illusions of people we had over us, but they wouldn’t be looking very hard for how it happened.

  Then the truly hard part came, as we woke the women up one by one. All young, the oldest maybe twenty, the rest all late teens, all remarkably attractive, from almost every race across the world. Some wept, some were clearly in a state of shock, and everything in between, but we managed to help them get cleaned up and dressed. Dana was also able to calm them, at least partially, then we found two vans painted a military green color.

  I felt a sense of satisfied justice, but no personal satisfaction. I was sickened by what I’d had to do. I was kind to Sidney, the woman that had put me on this path, but no more or less so than anyone else that’d been trapped in that hopeless nightmare. I didn’t want anything like a bias for one captive over another to stick out in their minds, and to come out in the questioning they were all sure to endure when handed over to their embassies. In truth I felt for all of them equally anyway, so it wasn’t all that hard to do.

  We left behind a compound filled with the judged, and the dead.

  Dana took the lead, while I followed in the second van. We’d had all day to plan out our route to the border into Egypt and to Cairo. Dana was in the lead simply because she’d be questioned first, and she’d use compulsion for a viable cover story to get us past.

  As for me, I wasn’t taking any chances. I shielded both vehicles in case we ran into someone that decided to shoot first and ask questions later. That didn’t happen, but as I said I wasn’t taking chances. It was a long night, and a far drive, but worth doing right to eliminate any clues there was supernatural involvement. The trail of the ladies’ escape was clear enough to read, if not to completely understand who was behind it.

  I was exhausted by the time it was all said and done, then Dana and I headed home for a few hours sleep, before Wednesday morning came. I managed to get to sleep thanks to my power, fully embracing my inner Stepford sorceress in order to sink into sleep. It was the one use of embracing my magic to deaden emotions that I allowed myself. To find sleep after a particularly disturbing event. I just hadn’t needed to do so in almost five months.

  The next day, we called Joe after it all made the news, and let him know his daughter was coming home. I hoped it worked out, Sidney would have a lot to work through. I couldn’t even imagine what she and the others had been through the last six months, at least not without feeling my gorge rise, and I certainly couldn’t understand it, not fully.

  I experimented with my expanded power the next day, mostly for something to do as a distraction from what I’d done the night before. The most significant difference in my new power was in the emotional links between people and objects. I could not only just trace a connection with my magic like in the past, but the link was now strong enough to my senses for me to send magic down it. They felt solid, not ephemeral. The link acted as a tether of sorts, even if the person or object on the other end of the connection was far from my immediate radial reach, I could act upon it with magic from a distance.

  That opened up a few more possibilities for me, one of which I wouldn’t entertain using.

  The bracelet for example, and the connection of emotions it held to Katie. If I sent magic down that link I could feel Katie’s non-passionate emotions, even with her across town, or across the world for that matter. Having an object within my immediate reach was enough to read the person on the other side.

  More than that, I could feel all the other objects Katie was connected to as well, through the bracelet. Basically jumping connections, using the bracelet as an access point.

  Sending my magic down those links also had other applications. I could summon my own clothes, from my closet, even if out of my immediate range. It took a lot more power than it would if I was within three hundred feet of my closet, but it did work.

  The hops also worked from the people side. I was able to trace Dana’s connection to the mansion, and then feel all the links from that mansion to all the other vampires that considered that place home and had formed an emotional connection to it. I coined the term connection hopping for my own personal thoughts.

  I was limited in hops though, to just one. I couldn’t then in turn send my magic to another vampire, and then trace all their objects. One hop, I could send my magic down the line and read all the connections attached at the other end, but I couldn’t route the magic down a second line. I suspected I’d never be able to do that. It wasn’t out of lack of power, there was just a practical limit there that couldn’t be overcome.

  Still, even one hop increased the facility of my magic by a great extent. And while I couldn’t take that second hop with my full magic, I could still trace those connections and do all else that implied.

  I could hop with magic from Dana, to the house, to another vampire, and then trace that connection so I could fast travel directly to that person or scry them. I just couldn’t send my magic to them over that second hop, but it worked with all my old tricks.

  Lastly, which I didn’t actually test, and would never use, was that I was fairly sure I could kill a person if I was holding something of theirs. If I could send magic down a connection to summon a far-off object, then surely I could send offensive magic down an object to person link as well. A similar application, I supposed I could summon Katie to me, if I wished, just like the clothes in my closet, but I wasn’t about to experiment on my cousin.

  My travelling was also twice as fast. Fifty more feet of reach while in the realm of water meant that I had twice as much power to draw on while I was there, which meant moving twice as fast. Eight times faster than when I’d gotten started seven months ago.

  Not much else was different, or at least that was the only new thing I could do that I found. The information, emotions, and connections were barraging my mind though. Once again it would take me a few months of practice before I’d be ready to grow again.

  To put it in perspective, I’d compare it to being in a stadium full of people. The old reach was like hearing tens of conversations around me, and the buzz of hundreds of conversations almost out of my reach of hearing. The new three-hundred-foot reach was like being in that same stadium, but the crowd was roaring and cheering, and I heard several thousands of people very clearly. Like they were all screaming at me.

  It was hard not to get distracted by it, since my mind wasn’t used to filtering out input that strong. I knew my mind would adapt, but it would take time, experience, and a lot of practice. It wasn’t that overwhelming, but it was an appreciable thing. After all, my mind was already very accustomed to focusing and working sharply under the comparable conditions of having a full stadium of people, so the shouting part was just a matter of degrees.

  I’d also avoided the news as much as possible for the rest of the day. There was a press feeding frenzy going on about it. To my disgust, they seemed far more focused on the brutal killings of the victim’s abusers, than on the victims themselves.

  Chapter Five

  My body warmed where Mark’s eyes raked across it when he picked me up later that evening. I was in a blue cocktail dress, and black high heels. He looked damned good himself, in a dark suit jacket and pants, and a dark blue shirt.

  “Hi,” I said with a light smile, as he pulled me into a sweet kiss.

  It was kissing Mark for the first time three months ago, that truly drove home the fact vampire legends as far as humans went were total crap. His lips were warm, firm but soft, and his breath hot. His hands were warm on my waist, as he held me against him and devoured my lips. Vampires in truth, were very much alive.

  I grinned when he finally relented and ended the kiss. I guessed I really did look good that night.