Read Online A Torment of Savages (The Reanimation Files Book 4) by A. J. Locke - Free Book Online Page B

killed?”
    “Who knows?” Tielle said. “They are all hospitalized and still unconscious with no certainty as to when they will wake up. So just like Leena, we can’t question them.”
    “What can we do then?” Micah asked.
    Tielle unclasped her hands and turned around. “Investigate,” she said. “What happened at the circle is already on the news causing panic, I was not able to stop that. The PTF is doing their own investigations, and I want you on it too, Selene.”
    “What exactly am I supposed to do though?”
    “Examine the site, use runes to see if there’s any energy you can gather for us to analyze, take pictures. Then scout around and see if it’s happened anywhere else.”
    “All right, I can do that.”
    “I’m not sure to what end it will be, but we must do something,” Tielle said. “While we wait for whoever or whatever to reveal themselves…we must do something.” She hung her head briefly and squeezed her eyes closed for a moment.
    “I wish I could have told my son not to come anymore,” I heard Tielle mutter.
    “Son?” I said, a little too sharply. Tielle looked at me with a raised eyebrow.
    “Yes, my son, Jian. You’re already aware that I have a son.”
    “Right, I am. I uh…was just surprised to hear you mention him since you don’t really talk about your family. Or anything personal at all.”
    Tielle gave a brief, tight smile. “Jian is here from D.C. to spend time with me and tour some colleges since it looks like I will be here for a prolonged period. He’s the one who gave me the perfume.”
    Hence her choice to wear the foul smelling thing instead of dumping it.
    “Oh, how nice,” I said. “It’d be great to meet him.”
    “We’ll see,” she said, looking out the window again.
    “Right, well, I’ll go start my investigation.”
    “Give me a full report when you’re done.”
    “Like you had to ask.” I turned and started to walk out, almost forgetting about Micah, who fell into step beside me. My thoughts were churning, and not only about the symbolic dead animals and blackened earth. Tielle, a dead witch, had a son. I don’t know how I did not remember that. I had found out about him when I’d researched Tielle back when she was hell-bent on getting my reanimation power stripped. Jian was her only child, had to be about eighteen if he was looking at colleges, and lived in D.C. That was all I knew about him.
    This put an interesting spin on the issue with the almost non-existence of dead warlocks and the question as to whether or not dead witches had been practicing infanticide. So that meant Tielle hadn’t gone with the flow and not only kept her baby boy but made no secret of it in the dead witch community. So did other dead witches follow suit and keep their sons? If so, why weren’t there many visible dead warlocks around? It was puzzling, to say the least. Did Jian practice dead magic? He was young, so there’d be no reason I would have heard about him aside from the fact that he was Tielle’s son. Maybe he was looking at colleges with Paranormal Studies programs. There were several good ones here.
    I thought of the one dead warlock I knew of in current times. Dr. Perlysse. He had been a very public figure, but had there ever been any attempts on his life once the choice had been made not to kill him as an infant? Maybe that’s why he kept such a public profile.
    “Selene? Selene?”
    I snapped out of my thoughts to see Micah looking at me while he held the elevator door open. I barely remembered walking here from Tielle’s office. Micah took my hand.
    “I know it seems like bad times are descending upon us again, but try not to let it weigh you down. Whatever it is we’ll take care of it.”
    “Same as we always do, right?” The smile I gave him was weak. He bent down and kissed my forehead and I sighed and leaned into him. He moved so he could use his back to keep the elevator door open and wrapped his arms around me. I folded myself