A Den of Tricks (A Shade of Vampire #54)(3)

It burst like a raging firework. I yelped and dropped it, especially alarmed because I was still reeling from the earlier interplanetary spell disaster that had nearly claimed my life. My body had already healed, but my inner wounds were still fresh. Both Heron and I stared at the stick as the fire ate away at it—it popped and hissed as sparks flew out.

I glanced to my left, where the Lords and the rest of my team were standing, and noticed the frowns on the Exiled Maras’ faces.

“That’s ephelis,” Caspian said, his eyes on the rapidly burning stick at my feet. “It’s a powder we make from certain mineral deposits in the caves around the mountain. It’s highly flammable. Our craftsmen blend it into a paste and make those sticks out of it. We use them to blow up sections of stone… It’s how we built the levels of Mount Azure.”

“So it’s a local explosive,” I concluded.

“Yes, and that’s a major problem because we only have one workshop that manufactures these things, and its ephelis reserve is meant to be under lock and key,” he replied, then snapped his fingers at one of the Correction Officers waiting at the bottom of the stairs. The uniformed Mara came up, and gave Caspian a brief nod. “Go check in on Master Dresdel. The explosives came from his workshop.”

The Correction Officer obeyed and rushed downstairs to one of the lower levels of the city. Heron and I started digging through the rubble and cleared out another handful of melted sticks.

“These didn’t ignite all the way, I’m guessing,” I said, looking at Caspian while pointing down at our finding. His nod confirmed my suspicion. I shifted my focus back to the rubble at our feet. “This was very sloppily put together, then. Had the detonator been more accurate, these would’ve substantially amplified the explosion.”

Heron found the tip of a slim black tube, and tugged it until it revealed a small piece of what must have been a mechanical device. There was another tube attached to it, but it led nowhere, as the other end had been torn in the explosion, and the flames must have burned through the rest.

“This must have been a part of the detonator,” Heron said slowly.

He then glanced around, his jade eyes looking for other traces of the tube. I gripped the burnt end of the detonator tube and sniffed it. There was something rubbery in it, with a faint note of sulfur. It was enough for me to start tracing its remains around the center of the explosion. Heron noticed me moving toward the back of the house, and quietly followed.

“Stop,” he said, then bent down and retrieved a solitary piece of the same detonator tube. “Yeah, you’re going the right way.”

“Good. This has to lead somewhere. There’s definitely a main mechanical detonator, a shock tube of sorts. Air pressure was used to ignite the one in the house. I’m sure it was detonated remotely, but it wasn’t well made,” I replied.

“Which means that whoever did this isn’t exactly an expert with explosives,” Heron muttered, watching as I walked closer to what used to be the kitchen door leading out to the back garden.

“And that could also mean that they may not be experts at concealing their tracks, either.” I nodded and picked up the scent of more burnt tubes.

Heron found another fragment, this one longer. The farther we got from the center of the blast, the better preserved our evidence was. Soon after that, we found a junction piece—two slim shock tubes, one of which came from House Xunn, tied up into a thicker one.

“Follow the main shock tube,” I suggested to Heron, “and I’ll follow this second one.”

He nodded and scoured the back garden, its grass and flowers burnt down, embers still glowing in the fractured remains of the wooden gazebo. This had once been a corner of comfort and peace, and it made my stomach churn to see it like this.

I traced the second tube to House Kifo. There was another detonator buried under the pile of wood and stone that had once been the kitchen. I pulled it out of the rubble as Caspian stared at me and the object, apparently in a stupor.

“You mean to tell me the second explosion came from my house?” he said, almost out of breath. Harper stood next to him, her eyes wide with shock, her brow settling into a concerned frown.

“It appears so.” I shrugged, sniffing the melted device, then looking down. “But this was also poorly put together. There are several intact sticks of ephelis at the bottom. I can see them from here.”

“Found the main detonator.” Heron came out of the woods behind the tattered stables facing House Xunn, holding another, larger mechanical device in his hands. The main shock tube was still attached to it, and it covered several yards in length. It had been built with a pump, from what I could tell at first glance. “It was twenty yards behind the stables, at the base of a tree.”

“Remote detonation.” I nodded slowly. “Just as I thought. This was planned, but it required knowledge of both the Xunn and Kifo households to plant the explosives. If this was retaliation for what we did in the gorges, then their timing was way too good.”

“True.” Heron came by my side, and we both looked at the Lords and the rest of our team. “They only had what, three, four hours since we left the Valley of Screams?”

They all mulled over the information for a while. Heron and I continued to look through the rubble of the Kifo mansion for anything else that could be of use. We then moved our search into the woods, where Heron had found the main detonator.