by B N Miles
Her aura washed over him, along with three others. They all were different colors and tasted slightly off from each other. The Dryad from the library’s was familiar though, and while they were all anxious, hers was somehow more… scared.
He glanced back at Cassie again. She grinned at him.
“So much for that plan,” she said.
“Plan’s still on.” He turned forward again and summoned his magic. “On me.”
And he pushed forward through the entrance.
15
Magi didn’t need their hands to touch the priori. A lot of them did anyway, because it helped them concentrate on the memgram, but Jared always found the idea of using his physical body to touch a non-physical force just seemed absurd.
So he stepped out of the cave entrance with his hands on his head. Cassie came just behind him. As they stepped into the sunlight, his mind went through the familiar memgram, hardening the surrounding air in a protective bubble that shimmered ever so slightly in the beautiful late day sun.
It took him a long moment to adjust to the light. He felt Cassie press up close behind him.
“Stay where you are,” the voice said again. “Down on your knees.”
“Is that necessary?” Jared asked. “You know who we are, right?”
“Down on your knees,” she said.
Jared hesitated but did as she asked. It wouldn’t matter. “We’re with the Meta Marshal Service. Do you have any clue the kind of shit you’ll call down if you do this?”
He blinked as his eyes cleared. Ahead of him, in the dense forested area around the mouth of the mine entrance, he could see four figures, each leaning against a dirt bike. He had no clue how they didn’t hear them pull, but figured the bikes must have been warded. They were probably the same ones the dryads rode to ambush the transport. Each figure wore black riding clothes, thick denim jeans and leather jackets, and held semi-automatic rifles pointed directly at Jared and Cassie.
The girl from the library was the only one not wearing a helmet. Her hair streamed down her shoulders as she stared at the pair of them. Her eyes were bright and there was a hint of loathing in her expression, like she was doing something particularly disgusting.
“It’s too late for that,” she said. “The shit’s already hit the fan, so to speak.”
“Give us Ferric. Tell us where the artifact is. We can work out a deal. We can—”
“Shut your mouth,” she snapped. “You have no clue what you’re talking about. Give you the artifact? Do you know what we went through to get it? Do you even know why?”
Jared shook his head. “I don’t.”
“Of course not.” She sneered at them. “All you humans care about is the Accord. But you’re not just a regular old human, are you?”
Jared sighed. “Don’t do this.”
“Tie them up,” she snapped. “We’ll leave them out here to rot.”
One of the other figured stepped forward. “You’re not going to kill them?”
She shook her head. “We’re not killers.”
The other figure took off his helmet. He had short hair, dark eyes, and that same greenish-cast skin. “Jesslene,” he said.
She stepped toward him. “Don’t use my fucking name,” she growled.
He winced. “We can’t leave them alive.”
She stared at him for along moment. “We’re not killers.”
“Yes, we are.” Another of the figures stepped forward and raised his weapon. “Sorry, Jessalene, but fuck this.”
He opened fire.
The bullets smashed into Jared’s shield. He dropped his hands and struggled to his feet. Cassie was right behind him, and he could feel her anger rising.
“Wait,” he said.
The bullets kept coming, but he closed his eyes and let the priori flow through him. He renewed the shield, made sure it didn’t break down and let a bullet slip through.
“Hold your fire!” the Dryad named Jessalene screamed. “Hold your fucking fire, Ferric!”
That was him. Jared looked at the man unloading his rifle on the shield and knew that was him. Same height, same build. He held the single memgram in his mind, and reached for another.
A landscape wide and long, desolate and frozen, the air itself vibrating with the cold, and a single released breath turning to frost, then snow, then ice as hard as rock.
Two impossible, contradictory images, held in the mind at the same time. It was hard, incredibly hard. Jared had been worked within an inch of his life when he was younger to develop this skill. But every Magi of his family could do it, and had been able to do it for generations. It set them apart from everyone else, even if it cost them so much.
His second memgram unfolded like a flower, blooming him with energy and power. It was similar in size and shape to the first, which was why this was even possible, but altered. The glass was man-sized, a certain distance away, and came together like ice. He snapped it in his mind, forced the energy outward, directed and shaped it.
The air around Ferric’s legs crackled with light then snapped solid, casing him in ice. He screamed and his rifle went quiet as he struggled to move.
“Jessalene!” he growled. “He’s a fucking Magi. Kill them now!”
Jared struggled to hold on to the two memgrams. If he dropped their shield, they’d be unprotected, and if he dropped the ice, they’d lose Ferric. He struggled with the energy still flowing through him, but embraced it like a lover, let it caress him, tease him, drive him wild with power. It felt so fucking good to touch the priori, he didn’t know why he ever stopped, why he ever closed the flow of magic and became just another human.
Cassie stepped up next to him. “Jared?”
“Struggling,” he said through clenched teeth.
“I’ll handle it from here, love.”
He barely registered her words. The twin spells, the two outlets of power, were raging through his body. He saw her take off her clothes out of the corner of his eye and watch her body morph then shift into her wolf form.
“Goddess damn you, Jessalene!” Ferric shouted. “Stop waiting. Kill them!”
Gunfire started again. Jared didn’t know who was shooting, if Jessalene had changed her mind, or if Ferric had reloaded. Jared struggle to keep his magic flowing, keep control of the priori. He felt the bullets smash into his shield as he worked to renew it.
Then Cassie burst through. It felt like a whale breaching water. He gasped as she flew forward, roaring a terrible scream.
Bullets flew at her as she ran at the group. The others had regained their composure, all but Jessalene. The Dryad girl stumbled away toward her bike, her weapon thrown on the ground. Jared watched Cassie pounce on one of the Dryads, her teeth ripping the man’s hand clean from his wrist as she spit it out again, the weapon clattering against a rock.
But Ferric was firing his rifle right at her. She took a bullet, another, and Jared realized with a start that she was far from invulnerable. Cursing, he had to make a choice, as Cassie roared in pain and whirled on the Dryad.
He pulled his magic from Ferric. The ice around his legs shattered and fell away. He stumbled back with a gasp. Jared groaned, fell to a knee, and dropped the shield in front of him. He’d been forgotten in the giant monster fox attack.
As Ferric stumbled back, he brought his weapon up again, but this time Jared snapped his memgram into place and hardened the air around Cassie. The bullets slammed into the shield.
The Dryad underneath her screamed in pain. The last Dryad dropped his weapon, got on his bike, and hit the gas. Cassie turned to him, swiped at him, but just missed. She howled and whirled away from Ferric as he kept firing at the shield Jared managed to control. Cassie streamed blood as she ran at Jessalene, but her body began to twist again, and she shifted back into her human form.
Jared didn’t understand it. Cassie turned human mid-run and stopped just in front of Jessalene, completely naked and beautiful. The Dryad looked too surprised to do anything but tilt her head. Cassie looked
at her as Ferric’s rifle ran out of bullets again. He threw the thing down and got on his own bike.
“Jessa!” he shouted, started his engine, and followed his other fleeing companion.
Jared’s ears rang from the gun fire. He couldn’t hear what Cassie said, or what Jessalene said in reply. But the Dryad started her bike and turned it, riding off after Ferric, kicking up dirt in her wake. Cassie stood there, naked and gorgeous, practically glowing in the sun, and watched them go.
The priori dropped away. He felt it rush from him with a gasp of pain. He fell forward onto his hands and almost wretched, but kept it together. He was a fucking Magi, after all, born to wield power most humans took for granted.
It still felt like shit.
“Jared.” He looked up as Cassie knelt next to him, still naked. Her perky breasts were gorgeous, her nipples hard, her dewy smooth skin glistening in the sunlight.
“They shot you,” he said.
She shook her head. “Shifting heals my body,” she said. “It was just pain.”
“Fuck.” He let out a breath and his eyes roamed her body. The Need was screaming at him, begging him to touch the priori again, or at least to sate its ceaseless hunger.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Fine. Two streams… it’s hard to maintain. I was using a lot.”
She let out a breath. “You let him go.”
“They would’ve killed you.”
She smiled at him. “Oh, Jared.” She touched his face. “I’m made of stronger stuff than that.” She stood and pulled her bottoms on, then her top. He wished she’d stay naked. He wished she’d come over and straddle him, ride his cock, make him—
Fuck, he had to concentrate. He took deep breaths, gathering himself, shoving the Need away, trying to reach that stillness again.
Ten feet away, the last remaining Dryad pulled himself toward his bike. Jared got to his feet, walked over, and stepped down on his chest. “Don’t move,” he said. “You’re under arrest. And very, very fucked.”
Cassie stood nearby, grinning, as the Dryad cradled his bleeding stump.
16
The local MetaDept swarmed the scene like locusts. Jared sat to the side with Cassie, both of them exhausted from debriefing over and over again. Wyatt had called twenty times and Jared had to explain what happened fifty different ways before they were finally allowed to rest.
“What’ll happen now?” Cassie asked.
“Not sure.” He sighed. “Wyatt’s pissed I let you shift.”
“You didn’t let me do anything,” she said, tilting her head at him.
“Yeah, I know that. But—”
“No buts. It’ll be fine. I’ll speak up for you.”
He snorted. “Yeah. Okay.”
“Really, I will.”
He watched her and shook his head. “I don’t know why.”
“Yes, you do,” she said, her voice soft. “Come on, Jared.”
He didn’t answer. The Meta Cops took pictures of every casing, of every footprint. They’d found the severed hand, and the rifle thrown off into the underbrush. Nobody seemed surprised when Cassie explained that she was a Shifter.
“Good news,” the local Meta detective said as she wandered over. She was a stern woman in her forties, hair up in a tight bun, wearing dark pants and a dark blue button-down blouse. Her makeup was simple but precise, and she had a no-bullshit look on her face, probably the product of coming up in a male-dominated field. “You two are done for now.”
“What’ll happen to the Dryad?” Jared asked.
“We’re going to treat his hand… arm… whatever it is now. We’ll stabilize him and then you can ask some questions.”
Jared nodded. “Thanks. I’d appreciate that.”
“Your story checks out, by the way. Fucking Dryad clans. Can you believe they’d ambush cops like this?”
Jared stood and shook his head. “I really can’t, Detective.”
“Call me Mindy,” she said. The girly name surprised Jared, but he didn’t say so. “I suspect we’ll be working together on this, Jared. Robert Clyde is my partner and he briefed me on you.”
“Oh really?” Jared shook his head. “Sorry to hear it.”
She laughed. “Me too. Listen, go to your motel, get yourself cleaned up, and come into the station in the morning. We’ll have to go through your story one more time, but then the fun can start.”
“Thanks, Mindy.”
“Sure thing.” She nodded at him then looked down at Cassie. “And as for you…”
“She comes with me,” Jared said.
Mindy looked surprised. “She’s a fugitive.”
“She’s a deputy of the Marshal Service,” Jared countered. “And invaluable to this case. I can’t have you guys haul her off right now.”
She looked shocked and Jared couldn’t blame her. As far as she knew, Cassie was another escaped convict, just like Ferric.
“I understand she helped you in this, Jared, but—”
“Take it up with my boss.” He put his hand out and Cassie took it. He helped her to her feet. “For now, she’s under my watch, and we’re heading back.”
Detective Mindy stared at them but got herself together. She shook her head. “I’m not going to make a scene,” she said. “But it’s a bad fucking idea, taking her with you, Officer.”
“I know that, Detective,” Jared said. “But I’m doing it anyway.”
For her part, Cassie beamed the whole time, stars almost literally in her eyes. “Have a nice evening, Detective,” she said.
Mindy shook her head and walked away to join the other cops. Cassie took Jared’s hand and squeezed it.
“You stood up for me.”
“I did,” he said.
“Why would you do that?”
“Because Wyatt told me to keep you close. And because we need to talk.”
She frowned at him and tilted her head. “That doesn’t sound good.”
He gave her a flat look. He’d been holding this in since it all went down and now his annoyance was threatening to spill over. Between all this shit and the Need gnawing at him, he was ready to break something out of frustration.
“Come on,” he said. “We’ll talk back at the hotel.”
She followed him as they approached a local for an escort back. He shrugged and lead them back along the path until they hit a nearby road. From there, they got a lift back from a uniformed cop. He dropped them out front, waved, and headed back to the scene.
Jared couldn’t wait to get inside. They went right into the motel room and he shut the door behind them, sliding the chain into place. Cassie walked over to her bed and collapsed into it with a sigh.
He lingered near the door and watched her carefully. He took a few steps toward her and she looked up at him, maybe sensing the look in his eyes. But she didn’t recoil or turn away.
“Get up,” he said.
“Jared—”
“Get on your feet.”
She slowly stood. He got close to her, putting his hands on her hips. His Need was screaming at him, pushing him, driving him mad with her. She parted her lips and tilted her chin up toward him as he took the hem of her shirt and lifted.
“Jared,” she whispered. “If you need this… I can help you. I’ll help you.”
He took her shirt off. He threw it on the floor. Her perky breasts pressed against him and he wanted to palm them, tease her, feel her hard nipples, but he ran his hands along her back.
And didn’t feel the tracking device.
“Shit,” he said with a sigh. He dropped his hands and stepped away as Cassie covered her breasts with her arms.
She looked mortified, but he didn’t think she was embarrassed because of her nudity. He shook his head and had to walk away from her, or else risk doing something stupid. “Explain,” he said.
“It’s not what you think.” She stooped and grabbed her shirt.
“I think you took the tracker off.”
“I di
d,” she said. “But not to escape. I mean, I could’ve ran after the fight, right?”
“Then why is it gone?”
“It fell off when I shifted,” she said. “But I scooped it up in my mouth. And when I changed back, I still had it under my tongue.”
Jared stared at her. “You talked to her.”
She nodded. “I did.”
“And we lied to the cops about that.”
“We did.”
“Why?”
She grinned. “I put the tracker on her.”
“You did… what?”
“I walked up to her and told her that I knew she didn’t want to hurt us, that this all got out of hand. And while I talked to her, I put the tracker on her bike.”
Jared stared at her. “No you didn’t.”
“Yes, I really did.” She grinned. “Look, if we had told the locals that, they’d insist on getting the tracking info and catch her themselves. But we don’t want that.”
“And why not?”
“Because she doesn’t want to hurt us,” Cassie said.
“She was shooting.”
“She wasn’t, actually.” Cassie took a step toward Jared. “Look, she was terrified. You could feel it, right? She didn’t want to be there, she didn’t want to be doing that. I could see it all over her.”
“She was still there. She still threatened us.”
“But she didn’t want to kill us.” Cassie shook her head. “Come on, Jared. I have a feeling. I know… I know you don’t trust me yet. I can’t blame you. But I have a good feeling about her. I think if we can track her down, she’ll help us find Ferric.”
He laughed. “There’s no way in all the hells that she’ll turn on her own clan mate like that.”
“She will,” Cassie said. “You have to trust me.”
Jared stared at her.
“Shit,” he said, turning away. He was struggling after all that priori use. Opening two channels, holding two memgrams took a lot out of him, and left him even more shaken with the Need. It would be even longer until he was himself again, and now he had to work this complicated case with a rogue prisoner while fighting back this damned curse.
