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  Over Our Heads

  Published by Jan Stryvant

  Copyright 2017 Jan Stryvant

  Copyright Jan Stryvant 2017

  Cover Credits: eBook Launch (http://ebooklaunch.com/)

  No part of this eBook may be reproduced in any form without expressed, written consent from the author. The material in this story may feature graphic depictions of a sexual or adult nature and is intended for a mature audience only. All characters in this story are fictional and of the legal age of consent for any activities they engage in. Any resemblance between characters, places, or things in this story and people living or dead, actual places, or events, is purely coincidental. It's fiction, I made it up.

  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be copied and given away, or copied and sold, to other people. Got that? No copying, please! If you would like to share this book with another person, it would be really nice if you purchased an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use, then please consider purchasing your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  #63032A

  Jan Stryvant Books:

  The Valens Legacy

  Black Friday Book 1

  Perfect Strangers Book 2

  Over Our Heads Book 3

  (In the works) Book 4

  Shadow

  Head Down

  Sean groaned as someone shook him awake, he'd fallen asleep over the kitchen table, again, while studying his father's notes. He still hadn't figured out the key to the encryption spell on the tag that held the silver protection spells. But he understood the spell at least, and he also understood that there was no way he was beating it. He needed the key, so he could tarball it, and he needed it soon.

  "Roxy's awake," Daelyn told him. "She wants to see you."

  Sean ran from the kitchen, almost stumbling he was in such a rush. Running into the bedroom he dropped to his knees and slid to a stop by Jolene, who was sitting on the edge of the bed.

  "Roxy!" Sean said and putting his arms around her, carefully, he leaned over the bed and hugged her. Her eyes were red, he could see she'd been crying, and she looked exhausted.

  "Are you okay! How do you feel? Is anything wrong?"

  Roxy sniffled a few times, and put her arms around him, "It was terrible, Sean, the pain, it hurt so much. I, I was sure that I was going to die. Jo told me you gave me your tag and saved my life."

  "You should have had it in the first place," Sean said, his own eyes tearing up, "I, we, almost lost you! I'm sorry, Hon, it was all my fault! I should have been paying more attention!"

  "Jo told me you killed the man who shot me?"

  Sean nodded, "Yeah."

  "Good," Roxy growled and Sean hugged her close again.

  "I recognized him," Sean told her, "he was the same one who killed Sampson, he was one of the people who tried to kidnap me."

  Roxy looked at him shocked, "What was he doing there? I thought that was the gang that went back to Europe?"

  Sean shook his head, "I think the Ascendants hired the Lithos, so they'd take the blame. I talked to your father; he got quiet after I told him."

  "You talked to my dad?" Roxy said and sniffled a bit.

  "Once I was sure you were out of danger, yeah," Sean nodded. "I didn't want him to worry about you."

  "Thank you, Hon," Roxy said and sniffled again, pulling him closer. Sean heard a 'click' and looking down he saw that she'd taken the tag off her necklace.

  "Here, take this," She told him.

  "I'd rather you kept it for now."

  "Hon, I'm not going anywhere, not for a while, I'm too tired. I need to sleep. Go, talk to your friend Chad. Tell him what happened, and see what he says."

  "Yes, dear," Sean said nodding his head. Taking the tag from her fingers he attached it to his own necklace, and then bending over he kissed her and just held her until she fell back asleep.

  "Is she going to be okay?" Sean asked Jolene softly, after he'd let go of Roxy and turned to face her.

  Jolene nodded, "Yeah, she'll be fine. She cried a little when she came to and you weren't here, she was afraid you'd been killed. She didn't realize that she'd been out for over a day."

  Sean sighed and nodded his head.

  "So, you going to your friend's house?"

  Sean nodded, "If Roxy thinks I should go, I'll go."

  "Well, take a shower first; you look like crap, Hon."

  Sean nodded, and slowly got to his feet.

  "I'll drive," Daelyn volunteered.

  "No," Sean shook his head slowly, "I'll take the van. You stay here with Jo and keep an eye on Roxy."

  "But, Sean," Daelyn started to protest.

  "No. If anything happens, I need the two of you here. I'm just going to talk strategy with Chad. My killing someone changed the plan, I'm sure. I want to see what he says."

  "Well, take your phone at least, and one of the burner phones. I'll leave mine on."

  "You're underground, Dae. I don't think I'll be able to reach you."

  Daelyn grinned, "I rigged a repeater last night. All of the dwarven halls have them."

  "Oh," Sean said and nodded slowly, he should have guessed.

  "We also need to see Sawyer," Jolene told him, "and I need to talk to a few people about what they've heard. But it can wait until tomorrow."

  Sean nodded. "Maybe then we can find out more about who I killed."

  "So, that's everything that happened," Sean said to Chad, after having recounted the events of yesterday morning.

  "How have they reacted to what you did?"

  Sean shook his head, "I have no idea, but I do know that it got around. We've been a bit busy taking care of Roxy and making sure she's okay. So we haven't checked in with any of our sources."

  Chad nodded, "Well, you've drawn first blood now; they're going to be upset."

  "I've drawn first blood?" Sean growled, "They've been attacking me for weeks now!"

  "Exactly! They've been attacking you. Now you've attacked them! This is the first time you've been proactive, the first time you've taken the fight to them. They're not used to this and they're not going to know just what to do yet. It'll take them a few days at least to organize, to realize that they're vulnerable. You just took out someone important; they're going to be panicking."

  "I took out a guy who only had one arm! How important could he be?"

  Chad smiled, "Sampson took this guy's arm off less than three weeks ago, and he's already up and walking around? Doesn't that sound a little peculiar? Like maybe someone pumped a lot of magic into the guy to save him?

  "Look, it's obvious he was important, and was there to oversee your kidnapping. You've already said as much. Then he leads the charge against you and Roxy at the coven house?"

  Sean nodded slowly as he listened to Chad explain it, it made sense.

  "So, they're off balance, and don't know what to do. That means we attack again, doesn't it?" Sean asked.

  Chad nodded, "Of course! But you don't attack directly, they'll be expecting that."

  "Well, if not directly, then what?"

  "Look, the point of this exercise is to isolate these Ascendant clowns and the Gradatim losers from the rest of the groups, right?"

  Sean nodded, "Yeah, that's why you said to leave Vestibulum alone, even though they tried to grab me once. So, you want me to attack McConnell's people?"

  "No, let's stick with one target for the moment. You know that those Totis Viribus people are siding with the Ascendance folks, and you know that the Sorceress group wants the head of Totis dead, so why not do them a favor?"

  "Kill him? Kill their leader?" Sean grow
led. He liked that idea. So did his lion.

  "No, grab him, and deliver him to the Sorceresses. Let them deal with him. It heats up the war between those two groups, the Totis people will be more focused on them than on you, because you didn't kill him."

  "What about the Sorceresses?"

  Chad shrugged, "Hopefully it'll put them in your debt, which at the very least means they'll stay out of the fight and at the best, they'll be on your side.

  "But regardless of that, the Ascendance clowns lose one of their supporting groups and all the other people out there are going to see that supporting the Ascendants makes you a target."

  Sean nodded and looked at his watch it was getting late. He'd arrived here after the sun had set and it was after ten now.

  "So I go get Preston, the head of the Totis group, and then take him to the Sorceresses group."

  "Tonight," Chad said with a nod. "Right now they all think that what happened was a terrible accident. This is going to be enemy action. This is going to show them that you're serious, and you're taking the fight to them."

  Sean had to agree with that, Chad was right. "How do I let the sorceresses know I'm coming?"

  "I suspect everyone is going to have guards out from this point on."

  "That won't make getting Preston any easier," Sean pointed out.

  Chad laughed, "You know what they say: Go big...."

  "Or go home," Sean finished. They'd used that one more than once in their gaming sessions. "Well, I better get going; I need to think about this for a while."

  "Email me when you're done, use the account John set up. You're probably going to need to lay low for a few days after this one."

  Sean nodded and getting up, headed out to the van.

  It took Sean an hour to get to Preston's house. It wasn't really all that far away, only about twenty minutes really. But Sean wanted some time to think about this. He sent a page to Daelyn to let her know he would be a few hours yet, and he thought about having her or Jolene come and help him. But who he really needed was Roxy, and Roxy needed to rest.

  Besides, it was time he started dealing with these things himself. Action was what was needed, as Chad had said, it was time to put the enemy on notice. If Sean wasn't willing to get out there and lead from the front, show that he could do what needed to be done, and do it himself, no one would ever take him seriously as a threat. That meant they just might target the girls, and he couldn't have that!

  They'd checked out all of the leaders' homes back when they'd been checking out the coven houses on Tuesday. This Preston guy had a nice house, but the neighborhood wasn't as upscale as the other council leaders', even when compared to the leaders of the minor councils that they'd driven past.

  The word that Jolene had gotten from Sawyer was that Preston tried to live large, but often fell short. Hence the problems with his former, and now dead, wife.

  Thinking about that got Sean going again. This guy hadn't just tried to kill Sean, but he'd used that attempt to get rid of his ex-wife, settle a few old scores, and then taken out a few innocent people who had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Yeah, the other two groups helping him, the 'Tall Men' and the 'Sorceress Guild' had joined because they'd had their own scores to settle, but this Preston guy had been the one to make it happen.

  And he'd killed the two from the Sorceresses' guild because they'd balked at killing his wife. Apparently she wasn't a magic user, just some showgirl, and Sean got the impression that the sorceresses didn't like the idea of targeting a defenseless mundane. In Sean's book, that was points in their favor. He might not like that he was a target now, but he accepted it, he was out to change their way of life, possibly destroy it. But the mundanes, they had no part in any of this. Messing with them was just wrong.

  Sean parked the van about a mile from Preston's house. He'd copied the cloaking spells from Daelyn's 'Cuda and had been able to apply them to the van, without too much difficulty, he'd just found the part of his tarball that altered the physical aspects and disabled it. So he wasn't worried about anyone finding the van, their eyes would just sort of overlook it, as he'd pulled it off the road a little ways and parked it behind some brush.

  That done, Sean shifted into his full lion form and started off to his target's house. As Preston was no longer married and didn't have any kids, Sean suspected that there wouldn't be anyone else at the house on a Thursday night. But still, he'd take his time and make sure.

  He got there before midnight, and finding a nice place to settle down and watch wasn't hard, Sean just carefully jumped up onto the roof of one of the neighbor's houses. Settling down next to a dormer, in the shadows cast by a street light, he got ready for long wait.

  Sean could see that the Preston wasn't alone; he was apparently 'entertaining' someone for the night. There were also two men downstairs in the house, bodyguards most likely. Sean wasn't too worried about them, but he was a bit worried about the woman Preston was cavorting with in bed.

  Crossing his paws he settled his head down on them to watch, drowsing a little as he waited for the two of them to finish playing and fall asleep. As Sean kept watch he noticed that the guards would take turns going outside to have a cigarette. Taking a break on the back porch, they'd disarm the alarm on the door, go outside and have a smoke, then go back inside and arm the alarm again.

  He found it interesting that Preston had an alarm system on his house; he'd gotten the impression from Jolene that most magic users disdained the use of technology. But he had his way inside now; he could ambush the guard having a smoke, then just deal with the one inside.

  When Preston and his 'guest' finished their fun, Sean was rather surprised when the woman got cleaned up, dressed, and left!

  Preston was sound asleep on the bed as she let herself out of the room and went downstairs to where the two guards were.

  When one of them escorted her out into one of the cars in the driveway and then got in with her and drove off, Sean sat up in surprise. This was going to be easier than he thought!

  Stretching, Sean moved back from the edge of the roof of the neighboring house, then taking a couple of steps he ran to the edge and leapt across the gap between the houses, making sure to land lightly on the roof of Preston's house. Hopefully any noise he made, the guard downstairs would attribute to Preston in his room.

  Heading over to the part of the roof just above the door to the back porch, Sean shifted into his hybrid form and waited.

  He didn't have long to wait, the remaining guard came out and Sean just dropped down on top of him, driving him down to the ground and stunning the guard. Pinning the guard to the ground, he used one hand to trap the guard's hands above his head while he used the other to choke him until he passed out.

  Once Sean was sure that the man was unconscious, he stripped off the guard's shirt and ripped it into strips. He used one of the strips to gag the guard and then bound the guard's hands and feet with several of the others. After that he relieved the guard of his pistol and several magical items.

  One was a ring that cast a paralyzation spell, so Sean pocketed that one. Another was a medallion that seemed to be hooked to an alarm. Sean quickly tarballed that spell for later study and tossed the medallion into the bushes. The other ring the guard had was some sort of healing device. Sean pocketed that one for later examination as well.

  Opening the door he moved quietly inside. Preston had some rather nice stuff, Sean noticed, but he had pretty trashy taste in decor, the place reminded him of one of the old casinos Sean had worked as a busboy when he was in the tenth grade. The place had been old and out of style in the sixties, Sean suspected. In the twenty-tens the place just looked like a low-grade whorehouse.

  Finding his way upstairs, Sean opened the door to the master bedroom and Preston was on his back, snoring up a storm, stark naked.

  Looking around, Sean found a pair of socks, a belt and pants. Taking one of the pillows he took the pillowcase off it. Then working quickly, he balled up a
sock, stuck it in Preston's mouth, then used one of the legs of the pair of pants to make a gag as he rolled the confused and now struggling Preston onto his stomach. Tying the gag off quickly, Sean pinned his arms to the bed with his knees and put the pillowcase over his head. Then seizing his arms, Sean pulled them tight behind his back and used the belt to tightly tie his wrists together. Next he used the other pants leg to tie Preston's ankles together.

  Putting his hand on the struggling man's back, Sean called up his monitor spell and the one he used to check for enchantments. Sean was rather surprised to find nothing there, so he cast a sleep spell and smiled and Preston fell into a deep sleep.

  Taking a moment to check Preston's bonds, Sean raided the man's night table for the items that were there, putting them in the other pillowcase. Found two more belts, which he used to bind Preston a little tighter, then throwing him over his shoulder, Sean cast a regular protection from scrying spell on his captive and went out the way he'd come in.

  Taking his captive back to the van, Sean set him carefully in the back, so as not to wake him up, and then drove the thirty minutes all the way over to the east side of town where the Sorceresses had their coven house and guild headquarters.

  He parked about a mile away, because he didn't want anyone getting a description of the van with its new paint job. Then grabbing his captive, he threw Preston over his shoulder again and started jogging for the coven house.

  Preston woke up along the way, and apparently wasn't all that happy with his current situation. Not that there was anything he could do about it.

  "Hold it right there!" A woman's voice rang out.

  Sean stopped; he was about fifty yards from the entrance to the grounds, just on the edge of the property. Chad had been right; there were more than a few guards and the gate that had been open before was now closed.

  "Is that him?" Another woman's voice called out.

  "You know of any other lion-weres in Reno?" Sean called back.