Chapter 10: The Orgy and the Hunt
The Changeling’s death-screech was not just sound. It was a particle wave of stolen identity given violent release, a psychic shrapnel bomb packed with every repressed craving it had absorbed from the skins it wore. The blast hit Jan first, square in the chest.
It didn’t feel like an attack. It felt like truth.
Her knees buckled. A white-hot wire of need, ten times more intense than anything she’d ever channeled, spliced directly into her nervous system. It bypassed thought, bypassed magic, went straight to biology. A guttural groan tore from her throat as her hands, acting on their own, clawed at the torn remains of her blouse. The fabric gave way with a ripping sigh. Her breasts spilled free into the cool lodge air, her nipples pebbling into hard, aching points instantly. “Fuck,” she slurred, the word dripping with helpless want.
The wave rippled outward.
Bethany, mid-reach for another device, gasped as if punched. Her analytical eyes glazed over, her mouth falling open. A violent tremor ran through her. Her own hand dropped, not for a tool, but to palm herself roughly through her charcoal trousers, a desperate, grinding motion. A thin, high moan escaped her clenched teeth.
Stacy was already moving, not as a defender, but as a predator. Her gun clattered to the floor, forgotten. Her hands went to her own clothing, tearing at the sleek athletic wear with ruthless efficiency. In seconds, her sculpted, sun-kissed body was bare, muscles coiling and gleaming under the chandelier light. She dropped to her hands and knees, a panther in heat, and crawled toward Jan, her dark eyes fixed on Jan’s exposed cunt with single-minded hunger.
“Jan… need…” Stacy growled, her voice unrecognizable.
The spell was a selective poison. It ignited existing sparks into infernos. Aaron and Annie, standing close, turned to each other. There was no gentle question. Annie’s hands fisted in Aaron’s shirt, yanking his mouth down to hers in a kiss that was all tongue and teeth. His ink-stained fingers shoved her skirt up, cupping her bare ass, pulling her against the hard ridge of his erection. She broke the kiss, gasping, “Now, Aaron, fuck me now—”
Brigid and Aisling, their magical senses wide open from their attempted counter-spell, took the full force. It was a feedback loop of catastrophic proportions. Brigid’s meticulous mental controls vaporized. Aisling’s con artist cool shattered. They crashed together, Brigid’s back hitting a bookshelf, sending tomes thudding to the floor. Aisling’s mouth was on hers, fierce and claiming, one hand tangling in Brigid’s perfect braid, the other groping for the buttons of her blouse. Brigid met the assault with equal hunger, her hands grabbing Aisling’s ass, grinding their hips together. A raw, needy sound, utterly unlike Brigid, vibrated against Aisling’s lips.
On the other side of the room, Amy, Jason, and Yukio became a single, writhing organism. Jason, the gentlemanly hesitation burned away, had Amy bent over the arm of a sofa, her flower-print dress around her waist. His cock, thick and flushed, slid into her wet cunt with one deep, claiming stroke. Amy cried out, a sound of pure relief, her fingers clutching at the velvet. Yukio, her boldness magnified to frenzy, peeled off her top, her full breasts bouncing. She mounted Jason’s face, grinding her pussy against his mouth, her head thrown back as she reached down to pinch and pull at Amy’s nipples.
“Yes, fuck her, Jason,” Yukio chanted, “eat me, yes—”
Katie ‘Boom Boom’ Manelli, whose magic was all about release, simply exploded. She fell back onto a Persian rug, hiking her black dress up around her hips. She spread her legs wide, presenting her glistening, pierced cunt to the room. Two fingers plunged inside herself, her other hand roughly pinching a nipple through the lace of her bra. “Somebody fuck me!” she demanded, her voice hoarse. “Anybody! I don’t care, just fill me up!”
The lodge descended into a cacophony of base, urgent sound. The wet, rhythmic slap of skin on skin. Guttural moans. Choked pleas. The creak of furniture under straining bodies. The air grew thick, humid, and ripe with the salty-musky scent of sweat and sex.
Jan was at the epicenter. Stacy was on her, their mouths a furious battle of tongues. Stacy’s thigh shoved between Jan’s legs, providing brutal, perfect friction. Jan ground down on it, her back arching. Then Bethany was there, her Golden Wand composure gone, replaced by a wild-eyed need. She pushed Stacy aside just enough to bury her face between Jan’s spread thighs. Her tongue, clever and insistent, licked a broad stripe through Jan’s folds before spearing deep inside her.
“Oh, god, Beth, yes!” Jan screamed, her fingers tearing at Bethany’s spiky pink hair.
Aaron, his trousers around his ankles, pressed against Annie from behind. He guided his cock to her entrance, slick with her arousal. With one powerful thrust, he sank to the hilt. Annie screamed, her body bowing forward, her own hand reaching between her legs to rub frantic circles on her clit as he fucked her with deep, pounding strokes. Her head was turned, her mouth seeking and finding Amy’s, their tongues tangling as Jason hammered into Amy from the other side.
Becky, the deep-cover agent, gave in completely. She shoved Hank backwards onto a low couch. He was too stunned, too normatively human to be fully ensnared by the magic, but his body responded to the naked, frenzied woman climbing onto him. She yanked his jeans open, freed his hard cock, and impaled herself on it in one savage drop. Her head snapped back, a strangled cry ripping from her throat as she began to ride him, her breasts bouncing, her hips a piston. “Fuck, yes, fuck!” she chanted, her nails digging into his shoulders.
Zara and Youssef, the most normal people in the room, were no exception. Pressed against the mahogany wall, Youssef lifted Zara, her legs wrapping around his waist. He fumbled, then pushed inside her. Her eyes widened, a cry of shock and intense pleasure bursting from her lips as he began to move, each thrust driving her back against the polished wood.
Katie, ignored in her solo frenzy, saw Aisling and Brigid stumbling past, locked in their desperate clutch. With a grunt of effort, Katie hooked a leg around Aisling’s, tripping them down onto the rug beside her. In a tangle of limbs, Katie’s mouth found Aisling’s cunt, her tongue lashing the other woman’s clit. Aisling shrieked, her back arching, her own head diving between Brigid’s thighs. Brigid, her glasses askew, could only grip Aisling’s hair and sob with each flick of her cousin’s tongue.
Through the heaving, sweaty tableau, Bedivere walked. His polished shoes stepped over a discarded bra, around a writhing couple. His expression was one of detached, academic curiosity, like a man examining an anthill kicked into chaos. He paused near Jan, Stacy, and Bethany—a knot of grinding limbs and seeking mouths. Jan’s glazed eyes met his.
“Enjoy your… communion,” he said, his voice cold and clear, cutting through the sex-noise. “The body’s demands are so tedious. I have a real prize to collect.”
He moved toward the main doors. Brigid, from her place on the floor, her face buried in Aisling’s sex, saw him. A spark of stubborn will flared through the magical intoxication. “S-stop…” she gasped.
But Will and Sarah, the two non-magical anchors of the triad, were untouched. The spell slithered off their natural resistance. They stood frozen by the fireplace, horrified, clutching each other. Will made a move to help Brigid, but Sarah held him back, her eyes wide with terror and understanding. “You can’t, the magic will get you too,” she whispered.
Bedivere glanced at them, a faint smirk on his lips, and pushed open the lodge’s heavy front door. He stepped out into the Chicago afternoon, pulling it shut behind him, muffling the sounds of the orgy.
In a pocket of relative calm near the kitchen entrance, Amir and Fatima stood back-to-back. Amir’s hands were raised, a small, shimmering prism of Golden Wand energy rotating between them—a personal nullification ward, one of Becky’s gifts. Fatima, within its protection, was chanting in low, guttural Arabic, her ink-stained fingers weaving a complex pattern in the air. Sweat beaded on her brow. She was constructing a counterspell, not to suppress desire, but to untangle the Changeling’s malicious amplification from natural arousal, a surgical strike.
“Hurry, Fati,” Amir grunted, his eyes darting to where Becky rode Hank with animalistic abandon. A complex knot of guilt, shame, and unwanted arousal twisted in his gut.
“I am hurrying, you idiot,” Fatima snapped, her voice strained. Her eyes were locked on the magical lattice she was dissolving, thread by psychic thread.
The door Bedivere had just exited swung open again. Cassie slipped in, followed by the hulking form of Rainbor, the small, skittering Gregor, and the wafting, pleased presence of Lady Eleanor. They took in the scene with pragmatic speed.
“Path says follow the cold one,” Cassie stated, her eyes not on the orgy, but on the fading thermal imprint of Bedivere’s passage on the floor. “But the chaos must be contained first.”
“Contain this?” Rainbor rumbled, eyeing the dozens of copulating humans with mild distaste. “Orc mating rituals are more orderly. And private.”
“The spell is breaking down,” Fatima called, her voice gaining strength. The sigil she wove flared a brilliant, clean white. “On my mark… now!”
She clapped her hands together. The white light exploded outward in a silent, concussive ring.
It washed over the room like a bucket of ice water.
The frantic, mindless frenzy didn’t stop, but it slowed. It transformed. The magical compulsion shattered, leaving behind the natural, intense, but conscious arousal of over two dozen people who had been pushed to the very brink.
The fucking continued, but the cries shifted from desperate need to focused pleasure. Stacy’s mouth left Jan’s, both of them panting. Stacy looked down, realizing Bethany’s head was still between Jan’s legs, her tongue now working with precise, hungry dedication. Stacy, instead of pulling away, kissed Jan deeply again, her hand moving to cup and knead Bethany’s breast through her suit jacket.
Aaron’s thrusts into Annie became a steady, deep rhythm, his forehead resting on her shoulder, her hand reaching back to clutch his hip. Amy convulsed around Jason’s cock, her orgasm triggering his own, while Yukio shuddered and cried out against Jason’s thigh. Katie, Aisling, and Brigid were a spent, trembling pile of limbs and slow, tender kisses.
The front door opened once more.
Mike and Casey Williamson walked in, the winter chill trailing off their coats. Mike carried the baby carrier in one hand, Rick asleep inside, blissfully unaware. Polluck, the battle-scarred cat, slunk in between their legs and immediately hissed at the sight of Godfrey, who was sitting by the destroyed Changeling corpse, looking profoundly bored.
Mike stopped. His eyes did a slow, comprehensive sweep of the lodge main hall: the naked and half-naked bodies, the glistening skin, the pairs and trios still connected in the aftershocks of passion, the air thick and sweet with sex. He took in Jan, splayed on the floor, Bethany eating her out, Stacy kissing her. He saw Becky, slumped on Hank’s chest, both of them breathing hard. He saw Aaron slowly pulling out of Annie, who turned and kissed him gently.
Casey’s eyebrow arched. She shifted the diaper bag on her shoulder.
Mike’s goofy grin spread across his face. He looked at Casey, then back at the room.
“Huh,” he said, his voice dripping with affectionate irony. “We miss all the good parties.”
Cassie ignored them, already moving toward the door Bedivere had used. “The trail is cooling. Rainbor, Gregor, with me. Eleanor, scout ahead.”
The ghostly woman giggled. “A chase! How diverting!” She streamed out the door.
Fatima sagged against her brother, the counterspell having drained her. She looked at the scene, at Jan finally stirring, pushing herself up on her elbows, a dazed but aware look in her green eyes. Fatima’s gaze then landed on Hank, who was helping a stunned, blushing Becky to her feet.
“Ya ibn el sharmoota,” Fatima muttered wearily, a filthy Arabic curse. She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Jan. We need to move. Bedivere is gone. The Merlin…”
Jan nodded, sitting up fully. She gently pushed Bethany’s head away, then pulled Stacy down for one last, hard kiss. “I know,” she said, her voice raspy but clear. She looked at the reunited Percival, who was averting his eyes with academic politeness. “He’s in the city. Somewhere ordinary.” She looked at Mike and Casey, at the baby. “Did you…?”
“Had coffee with Aunt Calista,” Casey said, her tone dry. “Talked about hydrangeas. It was very normal.” She glanced at Rick. “He slept the whole time.”
A cold certainty settled in Jan’s gut, cutting through the post-coital haze. The mundane coffee shop. The ordinary outing. The perfect, boring shield. Bedivere would be thinking in terms of magical hideouts, grand schemes. He’d overlook the simple, human truth.
But Calista hadn’t just been hiding. She’d been preparing.
Jan stood, her legs shaky but functional. She grabbed her torn shirt, not bothering to put it on, her breasts bare, her skin marked with bites and kisses. She was a vision of chaotic, defiant vitality.
“He’s not hunting the Merlin anymore,” Jan said, the pieces snapping together. “He’s hunting us. Our connections. Our normal.” Her eyes went to Rick, then back to her friends, now untangling themselves, gathering clothes, their faces shifting from sated confusion to grim determination. “He knows the Merlin touched our lives. So he’s coming for what we love. Starting with what looks weakest.”
In his carrier, baby Rick cooed in his sleep, unaware of the potent, invisible wards now woven into his very soul—a great-aunt’s fierce, hidden love. Outside, in the ordinary city, a monster in a tailored suit began his search, his eyes passing over every simple, unmagical coffee shop without a second glance.
Outside, in the ordinary city, a monster in a tailored suit began his search, his eyes passing over every simple, unmagical coffee shop without a second glance.
Inside the Lodge, the scent of sex and spent magic was a heavy fog. Eric emerged from a side hallway, Reggie trotting at his heel. The dog, a mutt with wise eyes, went straight to the baby carrier Mike had set down. Reggie sniffed intently at the sleeping Rick, whining softly, then looked up at Eric.
“He’s warded,” Eric said, his voice quiet but carrying. He knelt, his dreadlocks falling over his shoulder as he placed a hand near, but not touching, the carrier. “Powerful stuff. Layered. Feels… maternal. Not aggressive. Just absolute protection.”
Jan, now pulling on a borrowed sweater from a lost-and-found bin, paused. She reached out with her Green Moon senses, feeling only the warm, quiet hum of a healthy baby. “I don’t feel anything.”
“You wouldn’t,” Brigid said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, her blouse still hanging open. She approached, Aisling a half-step behind her. Both young women’s auras still crackled with residual energy from their thwarted spellwork. Brigid’s analytical gaze focused on Rick. “The wards are built into his life-force. They’re not a separate enchantment. They’re part of his metabolic rhythm.” Aisling gave a sharp nod, her green eyes narrowed. “It’s seamless work. The kind of thing you’d need a lifetime to learn, and a real reason to use.”
Jan and Bethany exchanged a look over the carrier. The same cold, logical thread connected in both their minds.
“There’s no rule,” Bethany said slowly, each word precise, “that says the Merlin must be a man.”
Jan’s mind flashed back to the swirling holograms in Morgane’s obsidian prison. The surveillance feeds. One had showed Mara at her office desk. Why would Bedivere care about a lawyer? Unless her client was the prize.
“Fuck a duck,” Jan whispered. She fumbled in her pouch, pulling out her mundane smartphone. She hit Mara’s contact, put it on speaker, and held it out.
It rang twice. “Jan? This is a terrible time. I’m drafting a motion.” Mara’s voice was all business, a lifeline to normalcy.
“What are you working on?” Jan asked, her eyes locked on Bethany’s.
“I value attorney-client privilege, you anarchist. Why?” Mara’s tone was wary.
Jan switched tactics. “Did you have a client recently? A walk-in? Someone you have trouble remembering?”
A long pause stretched on the line. They could hear Mara’s chair creak, the rustle of paper. “That’s… unnerving that you’d ask that.” Another pause. “Yes. Last night. An older woman. Silver-streaked hair tied back. Elegant. She needed… consultancy on a matter of internal succession. I remember the retainer. I remember the case notes being perfectly clear. But I cannot, for the life of me, picture her face. Zack remembers even less.”
Bethany’s pink-spiked head turned slowly toward Casey. “Your Aunt Calista. Do you have a photo?”
Casey, who had been quietly nursing a sudden, chilling understanding, nodded mutely. She pulled out her phone, her fingers trembling slightly. She swiped, tapped, and zoomed in on a picture. It was from her wedding day. She stood, smiling in her simple dress, next to a tall, striking woman in an impeccably cut cream suit, her silver-streaked hair in an elegant knot. Her aunt’s arm was around her, the smile warm, the grey eyes sharp.
Bethany took the phone. Jan leaned in. They stared.
“Oh, you have got to be shitting me,” Jan breathed.
Bethany’s voice was flat. “Were you with her the entire time at the coffee shop? Never left her alone with Rick?”
Mike started to answer, his habitual ‘yes’ forming. Then he stopped. His ears turned red. “Well, I mean… we were there the whole time…” He trailed off, his eyes darting to Casey.
Casey’s cheeks flushed, but her gaze was steady. A slow, snorting laugh escaped her. “We slipped off. For a quickie. The bathroom was single-occupancy. It was maybe five minutes.” She shrugged, the motion defiant. “You know how it is with us. We get caught naked so often we might as well enjoy the reason why.”
Five minutes. An eternity for a master of subtle glamour and misdirection.
Jan looked down at Godfrey, who had sat patiently by the carrier throughout. “Godfrey. You were there. Did you see?”
The golden retriever puppy looked up at her. He gave a single, clear, affirmative woof. Then he lay down, put his head on his paws, and exhaled a sigh that seemed to carry the weight of millennia.
Eric was nodding, his hand on Reggie’s head. “The dog’s confirming it. In his memory-scents. He watched her. He saw the magic leave her hands and settle on the baby. He wasn’t concerned. It felt… kind.”
The silence in the lodge was absolute, swallowing the last echoes of passion. Every eye was fixed on Jan and Bethany.
The truth was a physical thing, a lens clicking into place and bringing the blurred, chaotic world into devastating focus.
“Casey’s Aunt Calista,” Jan said, the words hollow with awe, “is the fucking Merlin.”
The resulting chaos was not of bodies, but of voices. A gabble of shock, denial, and sudden, connecting memories. Bethany cut through it, her Golden Wand training snapping back into place. “Where did she go? After the shop?”
Mike and Casey looked at each other, consulting a silent, spousal memory. “She said she had an estate matter to finalize,” Mike offered. “Something about a property transfer out in Lake Forest. Gave us a hug, said she’d call soon.”
“It’s a lead. A thin one.” Jan’s mind was racing, assembling pieces, delegating. Her gaze swept the room—over the exhausted, sex-rumpled allies, the steadfast non-magical friends, the specialized talents. “Okay. Mike, Casey, you’re the touchpoint. You go. Take Godfrey; he’s her witness and a walking nullifier. Eric, Reggie—you can track the signature of those wards if you get close. Nora!” She called out to the red-haired android, who was calmly collecting discarded clothing. “Your sensors might pick up tech-traces even magical ones miss. And Aunt Noor!” Jan’s eyes found Fatima’s cool, knowledgeable aunt, who had been observing from the kitchen doorway with a small, knowing smile. “You see magic differently than any Order. I need that.”
Aunt Noor simply nodded, wiping her hands on a dish towel.
“Johnny!” Jan yelled, seemingly at the ceiling.
A patch of air near the chandelier shimmered. Her brother faded into view, munching on a bag of chips, his clothes perpetually rumpled. “I heard my name. Also, wow, you guys redecorated with naked people.” He popped another chip in his mouth. “Lake Forest, huh? Time streams are stable there. I can open a door.”
“Do it,” Jan said. “Get them close. Find Calista. Tell her… tell her the castle’s under siege and the king needs to come home.”
Bethany was already shrugging into a fresh suit jacket from her TARDIS-handbag. “We’ll coordinate from here. Percival and I can use the Golden Wand network, try to trace any faction movements pointing that way. We’ll be right behind you.”
As the designated group coalesced—Mike grabbing the baby carrier, Casey slinging the diaper bag, Godfrey falling in at their heels, the eclectic backup squad forming around them—a stumbling figure cut through the crowd.
Vivian looked like a ghost of herself. Her pale skin was sheened with cold sweat, her leather jacket hanging open. Her eyes, usually a timid green, were pitch black, voids of desperate hunger. She trembled violently, every muscle taut. Dale had his arms around her, trying to hold her up, his face etched with panic.
“Jan! Bethany! Please!” Dale’s voice cracked. “It’s the energy… the aftermath in the room… it’s too much, she’s burning up!”
Vivian’s head lolled. A low, continuous whine of agony came from her throat. Her demonic nature, the succubus half that fed on sexual energy, had been force-fed a banquet it couldn’t digest. The ambient aftermath of the Changeling’s spell was a toxin to her system, a wildfire in her veins.
“She needs to feed,” Dale pleaded, tears in his eyes. “Properly. Gently. Or it’ll consume her. She’s trying not to… not to take from me, not like this…”
Jan was moving before he finished. “Hank. Couch. Now.” The command brooked no argument.
Hank, still pulling his shirt on, blinked. “Me? But I’m not… I don’t…”
“You’re saturated with low-grade ambient energy,” Bethany said, her scanner already pointing at him. “You’re the safest battery. And you’re here.”
Jan guided the stumbling Vivian to the wide, velvet couch where Becky had ridden Hank minutes before. She pushed Hank down onto it. “Just sit there and be handsome. And don’t be scared.”
Vivian fell atop him, her body wracked with tremors. The hunger wasn’t desire; it was a catastrophic need. Her black eyes met Hank’s terrified blue ones. “S…sorry,” she slurred.
Her mouth crashed onto his. It wasn’t a kiss. It was a seal. As her lips met his, a visible ripple of tension flowed out of her and into him. Hank’s eyes fluttered, a moan that was equal parts pleasure and shock escaping into her mouth. Vivian’s hands clawed at his shirt, tearing it open. Her mouth left his, trailing down his chest.
She wasn’t seducing. She was siphoning. Her need was a physical vacuum.
She took his nipple into her mouth, biting down just shy of breaking skin. Hank arched off the couch, a strangled “Fuck!” bursting from him. Vivian swallowed, and a faint, roseate glow seemed to pass from his skin into hers. The terrible trembling in her limbs lessened slightly.
Her head moved lower, her fingers tearing open his belt and jeans. She pulled his cock out. It was half-hard, confused by fear and the strange, overwhelming energy flow. She didn’t tease. She engulfed him, taking his length to the back of her throat in one smooth, desperate motion.
Hank cried out, his hands fisting in the velvet cushions. Her suction was relentless, a rhythmic pull that seemed to draw the very vitality from his core. His hips bucked involuntarily, fucking up into that wet, scorching heat. “Oh god, oh god…”
Vivian fed. The black receded from her eyes, leaving a stormy, hungry green. Her movements became less frantic, more focused. She bobbed her head, her tongue working the underside of his shaft, her throat milking him. She was drawing off the chaotic sexual energy that had soaked into him, filtering it, converting it to something that could sustain her without killing her donor.
Dale watched, his own hands clenched, his love for her warring with his horror. Jan stood guard, one hand on Vivian’s back, monitoring the flow with her Green Moon sight. She saw the violent, sparking red energy in Vivian calming, turning a steady, deep gold as Hank’s own energy—laced with the aftermath of Becky’s ride—stabilized it.
Hank was panting, close to the edge. “I’m gonna… Viv, I’m…”
Vivian pulled off him with a wet pop. Her voice was ragged but clearer. “Not yet. Need the transfer complete.” She swung a leg over him, positioning herself above his throbbing cock. She looked down at him, a flicker of her normal, apologetic self in her eyes. “This will feel… intense.”
She sank down onto him, sheathing him fully inside her in one slow, inexorable drop. Both of them gasped. Hank’s head slammed back against the couch arm. Vivian’s back arched, her breasts pushing against her torn tank top.
She began to move. Not with the frenzy of before, but with a deep, rolling rhythm. Each rise and fall was a pump, a direct conduit. Hank could feel it—a rushing sensation, not just of pleasure, but of something being drawn out of him, through his cock, into her welcoming, clasping depths. It was terrifying and exhilarating. He grabbed her hips, his fingers digging in, as much to anchor himself as to guide her.
“Yes,” Vivian whispered, her head falling back. “That’s it… give it to me… let it go…” Her inner muscles clenched around him in a slow, undulating spiral, milking him, pulling the energy and his climax up from his roots.
Hank lost all coherence. He thrust up to meet her, his orgasm tearing through him with a force that felt like it was stripping his nerves bare. He came with a shout, pulsing into her, a physical release that was also a surrender. Vivian gasped, her body seizing around him. She wasn’t orgasming from pleasure, but from satiation. The last of the destructive energy burned away, converted. The black tint vanished from her vision entirely.
She collapsed forward onto his chest, breathing heavily, sweaty and spent. Hank lay beneath her, utterly drained, staring at the ceiling with dazed, wide eyes.
Dale was there in an instant, draping a blanket over Vivian’s back, touching her cheek. “Viv?”
“I’m okay,” she murmured, turning her face into his hand. “I’m… full. It’s quiet.” She looked at Hank, a profound apology in her eyes. “Thank you. I’m so sorry.”
Hank just blinked, slowly. “Did I… just save a life by having the weirdest fucking orgasm of my life?”
“Basically,” Jan said, patting his shoulder. “Good job, buddy.”
The moment of crisis had passed, but it had cost them time. Jan looked toward the door where Mike, Casey, and their strange new caravan had departed with Johnny. The trail to Calista—to the Merlin—was growing colder by the second.
Bethany met her gaze, her vintage phone already in hand. “The network is lighting up. Bedivere’s faction is moving. They’re not searching randomly anymore. They’re converging.” She looked at the phone’s screen, then up at Jan, her expression grim. “They’ve got a destination. And it’s in Lake Forest.”