Angel Falls (Cassandra Bick Chronicles Book 3) by Tracey Sinclair Read Free Book Online

silent communication that long-term couples are so good at, a conversation without words that stretched the silence almost to discomfort. I shifted awkwardly in my seat, not wanting to interrupt, but Medea, with a sigh, turned to me.
    ‘I’m really not sure how we can help anyway,’ she said, and it felt like such a concession I sagged in relief. I needed them on my side – and not just for their abilities. I needed my friends.
    ‘Help me find him. Cain thinks we can get him to… burn through the angel blood, and once it’s out of his system, he should recover. Then we can try and come up with some kind of truce or reparation. But we need him sane for that to work.’
    ‘And if he doesn’t recover?’ Katie asked, though her tone wasn’t unkind. I dropped my gaze.
    ‘Then Cain will… take care of it.’ I put my hands to my eyes, as if I could rub away the sights of the last few weeks. ‘I know we can’t just leave him to have free rein over the city. I get that. But I have to believe we’ve tried everything else first.’
    Medea looked at Katie, who nodded, and then turned back to me.
    ‘OK. Tell me what you need.’
     
    ***
     
    A locator spell is fairly simple magic, though you do need a decent level of skill to control it, to block out the background noise of the city and find your target. I’d considered bringing a bottle of wine that Laclos had brought me to use as a focus, but instead, thinking freshness was an issue and recalling Cain’s opinion that ‘blood is life’, I brought one of the pillowcases that had been ruined in the fight. I just hoped it wouldn’t lead us to Cain instead. Katie wrinkled her nose slightly when I pulled it out of my bag.
    ‘It’s like being back at work,’ she muttered, but Medea was already in concentration mode, all practicality.
    ‘I haven’t done any magic since…’ she gave me a rueful smile. ‘I’m a bit rusty. It might not work.’
    ‘I appreciate you even trying,’ I assured her. ‘Any idea of where he’s sleeping during the day will be useful.’
    The plan was to catch him when he was vulnerable, in daylight hours. I didn’t fancy a rematch, and I honestly wasn’t sure if Cain would survive one. With a starting point, even a loose one, I could use my Sense to narrow it down. London was a great city, but it was also very big and, we were discovering, one where it was very easy to hide if you wanted to.
    As with most skilled practitioners, Medea didn’t need much for the ritual: magic in its truest form is unshowy and comes from within, the bells and whistles mainly there to impress the punters or deter the dabblers. She sat, cross-legged, the blood-soaked cloth in front of her, with a candle and an A-Z I’d picked up on the way, having seen her use one successfully in a previous locator spell. Katie and I sat nearby, quiet and unobtrusive, and I felt my anxiety spike as the tell-tale prickle of magic hit my Sense as Medea started her incantation. But then… nothing.
    Katie frowned, as puzzled as I was, and Medea sat back, offering us a slightly sheepish smile.
    ‘Wow, clearly I really am rusty. OK, let’s ramp this up a bit.’
    She unfastened the charm bracelet she usually wore, and dropped it onto the pillowcase. I’d never really paid much attention to it before, but looking closely I could see the symbols weren’t random: they were all related to London. A bus, a Tube sign, an elephant next to a castle, a cross, a crown… she clearly hadn’t just picked this up at Claire’s Accessories because she thought it was pretty. I felt it, this time, a shift in the energy like the air before a storm, and I sat back, relieved. It was working! But barely had that thought formed than a wave of repulsion hit me so forcefully I rocked back, and I Sensed, rather than heard, the word ‘no’, as clear as a bell, although none of us had spoken. There was a crack like a gunshot and Medea was lifted off the ground and flung backwards, hitting the