One Crossroads Later

Chapter Ten

"Maybe you shouldn't have pressed him so hard," the Irish vampire said, while running his finger along the rim of his teacup. When he looked at Monica, she saw what she could only describe as emotional exhaustion.

His comment made her frown. It had been hours – long enough for the sun to rise and set again – and every break from Flynn's temper tantrums made her more aware of how bad it was when he started up again. "I've thought about that, yeah," she said, pulling the blanket from the back of her chair and draping it over her shoulders. She curled onto the dining room chair like somehow it had become larger and her, smaller. "The problem is, she's crammed all of this into his head."

Robin nodded, falling silent again. While he studied the inside of his cup, Monica shot a look at Martin, who shot her a small, comforting smile. It failed to make her feel any better, though. It could've taken days before Flynn became this irate, but poking at the chaos magic had agitated whatever programming his 'Mistress' had implanted into his brain. Monica hadn't seen it this bad in ages, though.

Not since the time they'd brought in Ben Grey from the battlefield.

"There was this seer," she said aloud, not bothering to explain where her thoughts had gone. "One of the actual decent ones. A little on the older side, but when they get past their mid-thirties, they're basically considered Master Seers. So, they get the tougher assignments."

Idly, she picked at the fuzz on her blanket. It helped her avoid making eye contact with anyone. "The risk factor increases with tougher assignments, though," she continued. "The whole reason we have a Master Seer designation in the Order is because these are highly skilled, very gifted, or very savvy hunters. They're supposed to handle the dangerous missions. Because of that, it has a higher mortality rate."

A mental image surfaced, becoming more vivid as she painted the story for Martin and Robin. This seer – a friend, as she'd considered him – left for a mission whole but came back broken. Not just physically; sure, a guy like Ben could've handled being thrown around and would've preferred dying to what happened to him. "The chaos magician weakened him and got inside his head," Monica said. "Before the lady filling my role could fight them off, Ben had his psychic gifts compromised."

"How so?" Robin asked.

Monica forced herself to look up at him again. "Usually, chaos magicians can't control a seer. No rules on what they can do pre-gifts, I guess, but after that, they only really have one tool to knock a seer out of the field without killing them. Sometimes, our sorcerers can save some of their gifts, but chaos magic that embeds too deep in the seer's mind will drive them insane. If we can't save them from it, we have to turn off every gift one by one until the insanity stops."

"Let me guess, they had to turn his all off." When Monica nodded, Robin sat back in his seat and raised an eyebrow. "What do you do to a seer who hasn't even had his psychic gifts manifest, though?"

"That's the problem I'm trying to solve."

Robin nodded. While the room fell silent again, Monica reached for the handwritten journal she had on the table and slid it closer to where she sat. She felt the eyes of everyone else on her, piqued with curiosity, but ignored them in favor of paging through her notes. Each page contained every bit of magic she'd learned, conned, or stolen; her personal Book of Shadows.

It didn't take long for her to find what she'd been looking for.

"I've lost my fucking mind," Monica said, now forced to reckon with the stroke of mad brilliance that had visited her. "This is either the best or the worst thing I've ever tried to do."

"That's frightening," Martin commented.

"I agree," Robin said. Monica felt judgment from the Irish vampire, but continued reading through her notes. "What is that?"