I was as ready as I could be. I knew where I was going and had enough to reasonably make it there shy of transportation. I wasn't sure of exactly where in the city I was in but I could figure it out. I left a note on my table to let Lynda know I was going to get that part of me that missing part of me. If I focused on ebb and flow of the power within my body I could feel the place where power was siphoned off to reside in the pool of power that was held in those pages. I wasn't sneaking even if I was working a spell to dampen the sound of my footsteps. I walked with purpose towards the front door, hope in my heart no one would stop me. The extravagantly decorated halls held no one I could see. Down the stairs and it seemed I would make it out scott free.

I lay my hand on the knob, the wards that protected the house buzzed under my fingers. I didn't have a key to the wards but I had reworked them from the breach, otherwise I would have had to use a more forceful approach. I might not have made it out the doorway with how quickly I had seen Lynda react to the first breach. The wards disarmed with a click in my mind and I stepped out into the night. Darkness had truly fallen now and streetlights buzzed overhead illuminating a familiar motorcycle and rider.

Kyra sat on the machine facing me. She didn't pretend to be here for another reason. She met my eyes and a sad smile came to her lips. “You need a ride?” she asked. It wasn't a question and we both knew it. She didn't wait for an answer and simply tossed me the keys. I caught them as I descended the steps. She met me at the bottom of the stairs and handed off the helmet. “I already know you aren't going if someone else is going too. I also know it will only get more dangerous if you wait. So go before they figure out what you are doing.”

I put the helmet on and met her eyes. “Thanks I know I can always count on you.” I pulled her in for a hug. We held the moment before I let her go and moved to mount the bike.

Her words stopped me before I could crank my steel steed, “ Thank me by waking up, you aren't keeping your head in the sand anymore but you are missing something more even before some self proclaimed god started fucking with you.”

I stared at her. I thought she had been referring to my memories before but…

I shook off the statement and brought the metal beast to life with a roar. It rode like a dream. I had forgotten that she had built every part of the motorcycle. Between the magical reinforcements and the other features. It boggled my mind how she got so many magical parts to move in concert. I tentatively extend my senses into the bike as I drove and found, to my shock, it ran entirely on magic. I berated myself for the stray thoughts when I should focus on my current business.

I had to leave my grimoire in a place that shouldn't be disturb and where I wouldnt come across it. It wasn't as simple as putting it a safe deposit box, any chance my wards would interact with a regular person was a risk to that person. It was apart of me, i couldn't afford to make protections non lethal to breach fully without not protecting a literal back door into my soul be unprotected. I couldn't leave it in an abandoned building between someone finding it or the building being gone by the time I came back for it. Burying it would ground out my protections eventually leading to magic getting pumped into the earth and causing nearly limitless problems. So I had left it in an old abandoned church cemetery. Looking back, maybe I should have left it anywhere else. I had tested my wards to last 5 years without breaking down so it should be fine and contained without ambient mana twisting the place.

I drove for nearly an hour before I made it. A corroded wrought iron fence surrounded the unkempt grounds. Weeds and thorns seemed like a sea that had swallowed the weathered headstones. A chilled wind blew against my face bringing the smell of ash. The haphazard placements to the stones told me there would be plenty of broken fragments to trip me up below the waves of gently swaying vegetation. This was a very bad idea but i needed everything to survive this, cult; assuming they worshiped that Nathan Temple like he was some kind of god.

I let my reservations fall away and focused my will. I had a mausoleum to find, and I would not let anything stop me.