Immortals After Dark 10 - Demon From the Dark

something to point me in the right direction."
    Things no one knew? Where to start?
    Though Carrow was a daughter of Bacchus--not literally--and an impulsive hellion, she was also wicked smart. Folks never saw that coming. Also a shocker? There was a method, and a purpose, to her madness. She didn't raise hell for hell's sake.
    Carrow's most guarded secret? It breaks her heart every day that her parents don't return her calls.
    They hadn't called for years. Mari had once walked in on Carrow sobbing over the loss.
    Mari gazed around at the Valkyrie, uncomfortable divulging anything private about Carrow. For all these females knew, her best friend had an enviable life--friends, money, parties.
    Only Mari and their mentor, Elianna, knew the pain Carrow carried. The party-girl witch who always had a smile on her face was rarely happy. "Very well, Valkyrie. Carrow has an emotion-based power source. She feeds off happiness specifically, but she can't seem to, uh, generate it herself. She's always thinking about how to find more. Like someone on a diet will always think about food."
    Nix squinted at the ceiling. "Carrow is in an environment that she hates worse than anything."
    "The woods?" Mari cried. "She can't stand the outdoors!"
    "And yet personal preferences rarely figure in my visions, favorite Wiccan-type person."
    "Tell me, Nix, why was she taken there? Who took her? Has anything like this happened before?" Nix had been around for three thousand years. She'd seen a lot. "Have Loreans ever been abducted like this?"
    "Yes," the soothsayer answered, adding in a whisper, "by the Order."
    "Care to extrapolate?"
    "No."
    "Tell me who they are!" No answer. "Is it the military?"
    Nix narrowed her eyes at Mari. "Define military ."
    "You know, soldiers, army, et cetera."
    Nix squinted again. "Define army ."
    "At least tell me if they're human!"
    "Define--"
    "Shut it, Nix!" She pinched her forehead, then gazed up at the soothsayer. "I can't stand the thought of Carrow out there away from the coven." What if she was somewhere alone and friendless? Because Carrow's childhood had been so seriously screwed up, she didn't handle being alone well.
    The soothsayer chuckled. "Ah, Nixie plays. The Order, also known as the Deceivers, the Summoners, the Collectors, and the Mortals Who Walk on Two Legs, except I made up that last part."
    "What do they want?"
    "They want all the freaks dead. Funny. I don't feel like a freak. Unless le freak, c'est chic?" She shrugged. "To be fair, they only rise up whenever immortals do."
    "Man, if there's one thing Carrow hates, it's being punished for a crime she didn't commit." Luckily, that didn't happen often, as Carrow perpetrated more than her share of crimes. Her last offense? Stealing a cop's horse to ride into Pat O'Brien's. Carrow's defense? She'd needed an accessory.
    Mari had once asked Carrow why she so readily got into trouble with the law--the public indecency and intoxication, the vandalism, and so on. After all, Carrow could harvest power without jail time. "Is it just to get back at your parents?"
    Carrow had answered, "At first, yes. Now it's just tradition. ..."
    When Nix said nothing, Mari grew still. "Immortals haven't risen up, right, Valkyrie?"
    "Have we not?" She frowned. "I'll have to check my inbox. But I'm fairly certain we were going to, maybe, just a jot. Like against industrial polluters and people who take candy from babies. Those who drive slow in the left-hand lane and men who wear Members Only jackets, naturally."
    Mari gaped at the other Valkyrie. Not all of them looked surprised. A couple raised their chins. "Have you all gone as crazy as Nix?"
    Though few in the Lore dared to cross her, if anyone would, it'd be her half sisters.
    Nix continued, "Things came to a head with this Order a few years back when they overestimated their firearmy might, and made an incursion against us. Even with their technology, all were massacred. 'Not to be borne!' they said. So now they study us for weaknesses. I can't fault them, really. If humans presented any kind of mystery, we'd probably vivisect them as well."
    Vivisect? Mari swallowed. Dissecting while the subject was still alive. Her voice broke when she asked, "How do I get to Carrow?" When Nix merely shrugged, Mari vowed, "I'll go to the mirror, Nix."
    Mari was a captromancer. She could travel through mirrors, could touch them to focus her powers, and could gaze into them to divine secrets. Slight problem with the latter. Though