Everyone had piled into Luke's van, eager to go find Jason and the girls. Luke did not understand what sort of trouble Jason had gotten himself into, but the fact that it involved fairies, magic and such?!? He had a lot of explaining to do when he found him, if he didn't strangle the man first!
"Any idea where we're supposed to go?" Luke asked as he started the engine.
"I can give you a direction of where he is, but I can't be any more specific until we get closer," Phalmina told him.
"Fair enough," Luke replied as he put the van into gear and drove.
He headed straight for the highway, thinking that would have been the fastest way to get to wherever Jason was. Apparently, Phalmina had... bonded with him?... as a means of sharing their experiences and understanding one another better. Luke didn't pretend to understand it, but sounded wickedly cool. He wondered if it could be done for someone without magic and tucked that question away for later.
Luke looked back into the van and saw the Gaian women assembled there. The one who surprised him the most was Xaera, as he didn't expect a troll woman to look like she did. He kept his eyes on the road, partially to avoid causing an accident and also to keep Karla from giving him the stink eye. They'd only been together for a few days, but he wasn't sure if she was the jealous sort, so he kept his eyes forward.
With Phalmina acting as their compass, she directed Luke more accurately as they neared Jason's location. They had left the highway and were now in a very affluent area. Many of the houses there were closer to proper mansions, easily worth millions of dollars each.
"I can sense him... he's in pain!" Phalmina cried out. "Faster Luke, please!"
"I'm going as fast as I can without drawing attention to myself. If we get pulled over and questioned by cops, we won't be able to help him!" Luke replied, a little annoyed.
"He's... there!" she pointed, her finger stabbing toward the largest house on the block.
"In there? You sure?" he wondered as he pulled up to the house next to it.
"I'm positive! I can sense his magic and lifeforce, but... it's distorted... like it's being blocked or something!" Phalmina said.
"I sense something... not right," Daelina stated, her skin crawling with a sense of wrongness.
"I can feel it too. The magic, it's strong and... corrupted. Like it's... a perversion of everything right and natural," Xaera muttered, her mouth tasting the magic in the air.
"This place doesn't look like anyone's been here for years," Karla stated, looking over the property in disgust.
"Hold on. Look up there!" Luke said, pointing to the walls and gates surrounding the property. Everywhere, there were cameras pointed at multiple angles, to minimize any blind spots in the feed.
"Cameras. So what?" Karla wondered, unamused.
"If this place was abandoned, then why are the cameras new?" he asked. Karla looked up at the devices and saw that Luke was right! The cameras were new and not cheap either, by the look of them.
"Do you think there are any blind spots?" Karla asked.
"Odds are, there aren't. Not with cams like that. But I can try a remote hack and see if I can at least create a feed loop. Keep it repeating bogus footage while we sneak inside," Luke replied.
"Is there anything we can do?" Phalmina asked, eager to go after Jason.
"If you can keep a watch outside and make sure no one is coming while I work, that would be helpful. But I don't know if you'll be able to do that," Luke told them.
"Pfft! That's easy!" Emalia said as she, Daelina and Phalmina waved their hands in a quick spell, shrinking back down to fairy size.
"Whoa! I didn't know you could do that!" Luke said, eyeing the tiny women.
"There's lots that we can do that you don't know about," Emalia said, flirting with him. Luke had an uneasy look on his face until Phalmina came to his rescue.
"Ema, behave yourself. We have a job to do and we need to give Luke the time he needs," Phalmina snapped. Emalia was a little crestfallen, but nodded and flew out of the window that Karla had rolled down. The fairies zoomed on out, but Phalmina lingered behind for a minute, shooting a wink at Karla before joining her friends as lookouts.
Karla smiled to herself as she was glad that even among the fairies, there those with some sense of propriety. She didn't know how Phalmina could tell that Luke was with her, but she supposed that such creatures had enhanced senses. Or something along those lines, she didn't know, but that the fairy had stuck up for her like that was heartening.
She turned her attention back to Luke, who was working his magic over his laptop. Karla hoped he could find a way into the structure and quickly. She had heard rumors about groups like this, that went after creatures and people with magic. But it was only hearsay and wild, crazy nonsense she'd heard in Denmark. At least, she hoped that's what they were.
******************************
Jason blinked his eyes as he came to, wondering what had just happened. He remembered standing in Elizabeth's living room when... He craned his neck around and tried to move, only to find that he could not. Turning his head further, he saw shackles kept him chained down. Jason struggled against them, trying to use his Gaian strength to break through, but nothing happened.
"It's pointless to resist," a male voice told him.
Jason's head snapped over to the speaker and saw that it was Chad. He was approaching him, wearing a fancy ceremonial robe, accompanied by three other men. They too, were wearing similar robes, but with fewer adornments. Jason wondered if the embellishments had anything to do with status, but put that thought from his mind. He looked down at the shackles and was confused how he couldn't break or bend them.
"We etched them with runes which contain your power," Chad told him smugly. "None of your abilities or... magic... will work here."
The man spat the word 'magic', as though it was a filthy word and beneath him. He gestured to the other men, who walked forward to Jason. He then noticed they had pots on their hands, along with paint brushes. The men took the lids off the pots and dipping their brushes in, painting something on Jason.
"What the fuck are you doing?!?" Jason demanded.
"Preparing you for a power transfer. You have much power, which is being misused. We will take it and put it to its proper and correct use," Chad sneered as he watched the procedure.
"So, you take that which doesn't belong to you? That explains a lot!" Jason growled.
"Such power will always belong to men like me! How men like you come by it is irrelevant, because we will always take what belongs to us. People like you are merely tools to be used and cast aside when they no longer have any use," Chad laughed.
"So, you steal that which you cannot have, because you feel you deserve it?" Jason shouted, trying to startle the men from painting the runes on him. Sadly, they didn't shift or waver, continuing their work without issue.
"Yes. Pity that you cannot understand that concept," Chad scoffed.
