Page 25

Powell snapped upright, his pride wounded, and his lips pulled back in a baring of teeth. “There’s nothing stupid about it! It’s for a glorious purpose and neanderthals like you would never understand it!”

“Yeah? Try explaining it to me anyway.”

“Ha! I don’t have the crayons or the patience.”

Borrowman shrugged as if this was no loss. “Guess it doesn’t matter, since our chaos magician is going to destroy it.”

Eh. If by destroy you mean slowly drain it to the point of inertia and then seal it somewhere safely, sure. Even Elio hadn’t found a way to destroy a power bank. The glyphs suck up all power, so you have to be careful what even gets near it.

A thought struck and I eyed Lachlan sideways. I wonder, though, if an iron sword could cleave its energy and speed the process up? Something to try when we’re home.

Powell stared at him, aghast. “Destroy it? WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU! You can’t just destroy something because you don’t like it!”

Donovan snorted. “I don’t think he’s following the plot.”

With a gesture, Jon called for the walky talky and leaned in a little. “Borrowman, we’ve got a problem. Something in his lines makes me think he’s got someone at the secondary location.”

My head snapped towards him, horror rising like bile up my throat. Say what, now?!

Borrowman didn’t blink, didn’t let on he heard, which made me think he was very used to Jon just popping off with crazy statements like this.

“Destroying it or not aside, tell me about the second location. You’ve got someone there?”

Powell mutinously glared back.

“Yes, he really does.” Jon’s eyes narrowed and he was clearly focusing hard. “Not a friend, I think this person’s a victim.”

Shit, I did not like the sound of that.

“You wanted to eat this guy too?”

Powell just snorted and refused to engage.

“Uh…huh.” Jon’s head canted and he clearly wasn’t sure what to think. “He didn’t. This man wasn’t for eating. He’s tied into the power bank somehow, though. Also his actions are tied into childhood trauma. A severe loss he suffered through. I think his father?”

Oh? Huh, this was kind of a plot twist, how did these three things go together?

“Listen, it doesn’t look good that you won’t tell me about this person you’ve got captive, or the location of where he is, or even what all of this was for. Unless you can give me a good reason, we’ll destroy your blood bowl thing,” Borrowman informed Powell, not batting an eye to give the game away. “Did you make it to fix something, or…?”

Desperate now, Powell put both palms on the table, agitated and trembling in place. “You can’t destroy it. All right? You can’t. With that power, you can raise even the dead and bring them back to life. It’s essential that power remains intact! I’ve spent years getting to this point!”

“Ahh,” I murmured, the final piece coming into place.

Jon tilted his head a little to look at me. “Share with the class, Seiji.”

“I think he’s come across a very, very old theory. Hundreds of years ago, there was a theory floating about in psychic circles that you could retrieve a man’s soul, and put it into another’s body. The trick was you had to have enough power to reach beyond this plane and call the soul back. A way to force open the door between this realm and the afterlife, in essence. It didn’t get anywhere because any decent Medium could tell you that’s absolutely not possible, but the idea got published in a pamphlet and it still crops up from time to time.” I pointed at him. “Usually believed by people like him, who are desperate enough to latch onto any idea.”

Skylar had her head tilting sideways, almost enough to unbalance herself. “Wait, wait, this lunatic was sacrificing hundreds and eating people, all to resurrect his dad? Math ain’t mathing.”

“No,” Abby corrected almost absently, “the eating people thing came later.”

Jon confirmed this, eyes still on Powell. “True, the other two were doing it longer than him. I think he was sucked into their lifestyle, he didn’t start with that aim.”

Oh, that would make more sense. “So, what, he just went along with cannibalism to appease the other two?”

“Likely because he needed their help.”

Which he had. The orderly, Charlie, to help cover for him in the hospital. The wealthy Carrington because of the vacation house. So theirs was very much a parasitical relationship, then.