CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Zak

BAM!

"Shit man!" Sam jumped as the door slammed shut.

"Change of plans." I stated and strode over to our table.

He wrinkled his nose, "We had one of those?"

I raked my hair and paced for second while hoping he wouldn't be too pissed at my next statement. "We have to go to Bane's locker."

"What?" His eyebrows shot up, "Who's Bane? You have a locker? What the hell man?" he spat out, sounding, well, pissed.

I leaned over the table and braced myself on my knuckles, "He's dead, irrelevant and yes, I do." I responded calmly, not looking at him. I heard him click his tongue and give a slow exhale that was definitely conveying restrained anger.

He sighed, "Ok, why didn't you mention this earlier? Did that Druid say something?" He tilted his head and leaned in, forcing me to make eye-contact.

"Yeah, he did."

"And that was?"

I sighed and pushed off my knuckles so I was standing in front of the table, "Some of the lesser Dark Fae don't believe I'm dead and suspect that I, the Crystal Druid, am helping Brian, and they're looking for me under Cethlenn's orders." I rubbed my hand over my face.

"Crystal Druid, really?" He smirked, chuckling a little.

"It's my Fae title." I crossed my arms and stared down at him, apparently coming off more hostile than I thought, because his smirk disappeared and he set his face back to serious, then started shuffling his notes.

"Ok, um, you're dead, good to know." He raised his eyebrows and shook his head, "But why are you worried?" he looked up at me, confusion written all over his face, "You've gotta have some magic artifact thing, or," he waved his hand over the books, "or a spell, lyin' around that can hide your face from the cameras."

"Hmmph," my lip twitched up and I looked down at my feet as I thought about how useful Lallakai's magic would be right now, "not anymore. Besides, the cameras aren't what I'm worried about."

"What then?" he snipped, sounding like he was losing his patience.

I took a deep breath and raised my eyes to look at him, "Bane was a very powerful Druid who specialized in the dark arts and thus, worked almost exclusively with Dark Fae, some of whom were extremely loyal. And as his apprentice, I'd be the most likely to go there."

"Hmm," he frowned and nodded as if he was weighing the validity of my answer, then shrugged, "makes sense."

"What does?"

"You know, why you didn't say anything. You think there might be some magic Druid alarm or something, and you don't want to put your family in danger if they tail you or you know, use some Druid alarm."

"That's pretty accurate actually…" It wasn't just that though. Yeah, Saber and the babies were my main concern. And I didn't know if there even was such a thing as a tailor made 'druid alarm', but after what I'd seen in the past year, I wasn't ruling it out as a possibility. But the reason I hadn't mentioned it was stupid, childish fear.

Out of all of Bane's lockers and strongholds, I hated that one the most. Its purpose or contents weren't terrifying, compared to his others. It was where Bane kept his least dangerous artifacts and re-examined his recent purchases. For me though, it was nightmare fuel and I always had to mentally prepare before going.

The first time Bane brought me into the city I was seven. We were leaving the house on the outskirts of the city soon and he had deals to finish. When we got to the old strip mall where he was meeting his contacts, he walked me to the alley behind the mall, stood me next to the dumpster and told me to "stay put or there'd

be consequences". There'd be consequences for me either way, especially if his deal went bad. But I wasn't stupid enough to say that, and I knew not to speak unless he used my name, so I nodded and watched him walk through the back door.

An hour passed, and the varg he'd told to watch me got bored and went off somewhere, confident that it was almost night fall and I was too scared of Bane to disobey. I waited five minutes and ran for the side street the alley connected with. I was stupid and thought that if I could find a police officer they would help me. But the sun was down and there were more broken streetlights than working ones. I also had no idea where we were or that the police really didn't give a shit about that part of town.

It took ten minutes for Bane to find me. When he did, he dragged me and the varg who'd left me unattended to the locker. Looking back, the whole thing was probably just one of his fucked up tests, because we were in walking distance of the place. And when we got there he killed the varg, beat me well enough that for

the next three days my options were 'stomach' or 'stand', then forced hallucinogen spiked water down me.

He shut the door, cutting the electricity and left me there, in the dark, next to the stinking corpse of his varg and a little dark fae for me to "play with" for what felt like days.

The front half of the storage locker was built like a maze, with lots of dark corners. That, plus the hallucinogen and the dark fae that screwed with me the whole time, made the monsters my seven year old imagination conjured all too real.

He got the result he wanted though, I didn't try to run again until I was sixteen and met Saber the first time.

The downside, for both him and me, was that from then on, if I went to that locker with him I'd have a night terror the next time I slept. I'd scream and beg, which woke him up and usually got me a kick to the ribs. To this day, it was also a recurring feature of almost every nightmare ever about my life with Bane. I'd hoped it was something that would go away when I got older, but it didn't. Not even after I'd killed the bastard.

Which was why I avoided it like the plague.

But there were at least six grimoires there that might be useful. So I'd go.

"Zak?" I heard Sam, but didn't process it, "Zak? Are you okay?" he asked in a tone that sounded like he was trying to calm a wounded animal.

"I'm fine."

His eyes drifted to the chair back that I hadn't realized I was death gripping, then back to my face, and gave me a look that said he didn't buy it.

"If you say so…Well, as I was saying, fortunately," he took his phone out and smiled, "Dean and I don't exist in this universe, we'll go. Here," he stood and held his phone out over the table, "put the address in. Dean'll scout it and we'll go tonight."

I narrowed my eyes, not quite believing his reaction, "I just told you I was apprenticed to a dark arts master and you're fine with that?"

"Um yeah, why wouldn't I be?" He replied, not looking up from his phone, where he was presumably texting Dean.

"Because it's dark magic, it's just not the reaction I usually get."

"What do you usually get?" he asked, still very focused on his phone.

At that, he looked up from his phone, lips pursed, and looking offended. "Zak," he huffed, "we've been working together for almost seventy two hours straight. Do you honestly think that I give a shit that you know some dark magic? Also, I'm pretty sure that eighty-five percent of the magic I know how to do would be classified as dark here, and, honestly, if we weren't working a job right now, I'd be asking for pointers. So, yeah, you're gonna have to do a lot worse than know some dark magic to reach 'fear and disgust'." He smiled and tossed his phone at me, "Now, address please," he nodded at the phone in my hand, "we're burnin' daylight."