The Horned Mage: Books 1-5

by Hayden Harper

  “Ready?” I asked the girls but they were already transforming, immersing themselves in green flames and stepping out a moment later as giant wolf-dog-monsters. I wondered if they’d have been so eager to transform if their clothes didn’t go with them. Victoria probably wouldn’t have cared, she’d been a shapeshifter for years. With Lexus…who knew?

  I held out the borrowed clothes. “Okay, girls, smell time.”

  The horse-sized canine’s exchanged a glance full of feminine irritation but stepped forward to sniff the clothes. Then their noses went to the ground and they began sniffing, making their way first up the bleachers to where we’d all been sitting Friday night.

  It was quickly apparent that they weren’t having any luck. The giant wolf-dog that was Lexus lowered her ears and tail in dejection. That was anticlimactic. I glanced at the clothes still in my hand. I didn’t know either of these girls, didn’t really care about either of them for that matter, but I had kind of wanted to find them. I couldn’t say why, it just seemed like something I should do. I imagine it’s the same way a dog feels when it sees a car go by and has to bark and chase it. Compulsive.

  That’s the only explanation I can give for what happened next. Compulsively I reached for my magic and it leapt at my touch, rushing from me to leap into my girls. Both of them flared with internal green energy and let out three bone-chilling howls in tandem.

  Their noses went to the bleachers and then they were off. I raced after them, barely keeping pace with their rushing forms. They’d caught the scent and now that they had it, it called to them, pulling them like iron to a magnet with me tied to the both of them. We flew across the ground, heedless of what was in our path. We circled the school and then dove into the woods that surrounded everything, tearing northward until we reached the freeway. We didn’t cross, staying in the woods off to the side, running parallel to the road, hidden from sight.

  Adrenaline coursed through me, an excitement that was becoming more and more familiar. I’d first felt it the night I’d gone after Lexus’ necklace, tracking it down at the meth lab run by Deirdre’s pet drug dealers. Little pieces of this feeling had resurfaced during our morning runs when I’d chased Lexus down before throwing her into bed. I was on the hunt and it felt good. Electrifying even.

  I should not have been able to keep up with the girls, but my limbs moved with a mind of their own, heedless of things like physics or fatigue. I was flying, keeping pace with them, and the vegetation seemed to shape itself around our passing to give us the swiftest route to our destination. This was powerful, primal magic and it drove us with reckless abandon until we finally slowed, instinctively knowing our targets were nearby.

  We passed an exit and I realized just how far we’d come. I didn’t know how long we’d been running, but we were over twenty miles north of town. I hadn’t done a great job of timing myself on my morning runs, but covering this much ground should have taken several hours. We’d started in the middle of the afternoon and the sun was only just now getting ready to set.

  I wasn’t even winded.

  Had I been growing stronger and faster with my curse broken or had this been the effect of whatever spell I’d cast back at the high school? I would definitely be testing that out later. Hopefully the same forces that brought us here would help us get back. I was not looking forward to a twenty plus mile hike down the highway in the dark.

  But the spell wasn’t done with us yet. I followed the girls to a backroad just off the highway until we came to a rundown gas station-cantina set up. It didn’t look like it was open but an eighteen wheeler with a corrugated storage trailer had parked itself in the back. The truck stood out to me. It was too new for this place and though it had clearly been on the road, it was too well maintained to have been left here for long. But if this place was closed down, then why would a trucker stop here? There was a truck stop just south of town—no need to find somewhere like this to park.

  Without speaking I took the lead, the girls falling into step on either side of me. We moved silently, our footsteps not even a whisper on the ground as we crossed the parking lot and took a look inside the gas station. Empty and dark. The shelves made me think of the bones of a hollowed out carcass without the usual snacks and paraphernalia lining them.

  The girls shook their heads and continued on around back, toward the cantina. It was dark inside but I tried the door anyway. Locked.

  I stepped back and gestured at it. “Ladies first.”

  Victoria, recognizable by the dark saddle pattern and mask on her back and face, gave a chuff of amusement, and then slammed herself into the door. I’d half hoped she’d break it clear off the hinges but the lock gave way first and the door simply swung wide. Lexus hurried in after her and I followed.

  No alarm sounded, which was fortunate since I hadn’t even thought to check for one first. The inside was dark, a little dusty, but not completely unused. The bar off to the side was clean and a couple of tables had chairs seated around them instead of stacked on top. Cigarette butts littered the floor near the bar from which hung….

  I blinked, trying to make sense of it. It looked like someone had hung old bras and panties up along the edge alongside worn dog collars and leashes. It was all kind of grungy, especially the dog stuff. My stomach tightened and churned. I’ll readily admit that there is something sexy about lingerie and collars and all that kinky stuff—this wasn’t sexy. This wasn’t lingerie. The panties were all practical wear, no lace or trimming. One of them even had a little cartoon kitty on it. Likewise, those leashes and collars were the kind meant for actual dogs. This was real, not some fetish-wear, and the implications made my stomach hurt.

  Something sounded from a room in the back.

  The door to it looked too new for this building and once more out of place. Lexus leapt at it and something gave with a clang. Gasps and screams echoed from the other side but the door held. Victoria gave it a try and the door shuddered. Lexus followed right on her heels and the door popped open in a cloud of sheetrock dust.

  Inside looked was a renovated party room. It had been lined with old towels and bare mattresses but it was the girls that caught my attention. They ranged in age from preteen to maybe early twenties, nearly two dozen of them. Most of them were Latina but there were a few Caucasian and black girls in the mix. All were in various states of undress and pulled back to the far side, as far away from the door as they could get. Daisy and Carina were holding some of the younger girls behind them.

  The room reeked of sex, body odor, and fear.

  “Come on,” I said. “We’re leaving.”

  “No,” shrieked several of the girls. Another called out, “You’ll make it angry!”

  I frowned. “It,” not “him.”

  The exit door slammed shut, despite the damage Victoria had done to it, and a high pitched giggle echoed through the building.

  Daisy stepped forward, positioning herself between whatever was in the cantina with us, giggling, and the rest of the girls. “This place is haunted!”

  “Shit,” I groaned, and everything went dark.

  Chapter Five

  “Who the hell haunts a gas station?” I asked the sinister giggling that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.

  Lexus made a sound in her throat.

  “Okay, yeah, this is technically a cantina,” I said to her, eyes scanning the empty room and finding no one. “But it’s attached to a gas station. I mean, come on. That’s pretty lame.”

  A chair stacked on one of the tables flew through the air of its own accord and smashed into me hard enough to take me off my feet and shatter the ancient furniture. As soon as I hit the ground the dog leashes from the bar whipped free, striking like lightning, the metal bits punching deep into my flesh before the things wrapped around me like snakes, binding my arms to my sides. They squeezed, biting into my skin with way more force than they should have been able to produce.

  The giggling tu
rned manic but was almost lost amidst the screaming girls in the room behind me and the three chilling barks from Victoria and Lexus.

  Tables flew through the air at them and the cu sith smashed through them, snarling and snapping at the air. One of the leashes found its way around my throat and began constricting my airway. Now that just wasn’t going to do.

  Green fire leapt to life in my hands and roared over my body, incinerating the leashes in a flash, and unfortunately, my shirt in the process. I leapt to my feet, ready to throw around some more fire, then realized my shirt hadn’t been the only casualty; my hems of my shorts’ legs were on fire.

  I quickly beat at them, trying to get the flames out while the giggling turned into full blown laughter. This thing was laughing at me.

  Anger coursed through me and green flames returned to my hands. “Where are you, you little shit?”

  A chair flew at me. I blasted it with fire. The burning debris still crashed into me and knocked me flat on my ass once more.

  Okay, lesson learned. Fire was good for warding off attacks from flesh and blood things because they didn’t want to get burned. Inanimate objects weren’t likely to be completely burned away before reaching me. Fire was for playing offense way more than defense. But how the hell was I supposed to go on the offensive against this thing? I didn’t even know where it was.

  More random objects flew at me and I scrambled away across the floor, feeling significantly less badass than I had only a few moments before. I managed to avoid another chair but took a musty coaster to the face. A coaster. A freaking coaster. Oh yeah, I was not nearly as bad ass as I’d thought.

  Victoria, recognizable by the saddle pattern on her back, leapt at the wall, clawing through it to the wood beams beneath like it had been made of sand. A shadow detached itself from the general darkness there and raced along the wall and up to the ceiling.

  “There you are, mother fucker.” I let fly a blast of spell-fire.

  The shadow dodged and my flames splashed across the ceiling, lighting it on fire.

  “Dammit.” But even as I cursed, Lexus leapt up onto the bar and opened her mouth, releasing a jet of spell fire from her throat like some kind of canine dragon. Her blast caught the shadow dead on and the laughter turned to shrieking.

  I stared at her. Oh, right. The girls could breathe fire now.

  I started to cheer and then the entire bar was ripped free of the ground, catching Lexus in the gut as it jerked up and swept across the entire cantina, destroying every table in its wake and smashing me and Victoria into the wall. It ripped back, striking the stunned Lexus again before reversing once more.

  I threw up my hands and blasted it with fire. Victoria opened her jaws and added her own blast to mine. The bar ignited, then so did the alcohol still contained inside of it and the bar exploded.

  Burning splinters stabbed into me and those that were too big simply smashed me into the wall. I felt several things crack behind me and pink insulation material fell atop me like snow. Only to go up in flames the second the burning debris made contact.

  Immediately I was being smothered. Green flames exploded around me, shielding me from the heat but it wasn’t the fire that was killing me; it was the smoke. The air was so thick with it and other tiny bits of crap that trying to get oxygen back into my just-squashed body wasn’t happening.

  I tried to get to my feet and more objects smashed into me. A beer bottle smashed into my antlers and rained broken glass down on me even as the impact jerked me sideways.

  The girls from the party room were screaming. I had to get them out.

  “Lexus,” I called, or tried to call through my coughing, “Victoria!” I jerked a hand at the direction of the imprisoned girls.

  Fire and a wall of smashed tables had blocked them in. We needed to get them out before they roasted. The fire might not be hurting us, but they sure as hell weren’t immune to it. And again there was the smoke to contend with. Finding the shadow in all of this was going to be next to impossible.

  My girls seemed to understand my command and both Cu Sith threw themselves at the barrier trapping the would-be-slaves, smashing through it and continuing on through. I didn’t know what they were doing but that wasn’t nearly as important as keeping the shadow off of them. Fortunately, I had an idea of where it was going to be.

  Sure enough, it tried to race after the girls into the room, slithering along the wall. I let forth another blast of flame and caught it square on, earning a shriek that made my ears ring. Something hit me from the side. From behind. From the other side.

  I felt more than heard the sound that followed from deep inside the party room turned slave quarters. For a moment the already thick air become heavier with more dust, and then a gust of fresh air washed inside, pushing back the cloud of smoke even as it fanned the flames higher.

  Victoria and Lexus had smashed through the wall.

  Why not? At the right spot it wouldn’t be much more than wooden framework and sheetrock. And it wasn’t like there was any power coming to this place so any wires worked into the walls wouldn’t have been an issue. Hell, the way we reacted to fire and heat, would getting electrocuted even slow them down?

  It didn’t matter. The girls—all of the girls—were out. Now I needed to follow suit.

  No sooner had I started running than my legs went out from under me. My face slammed into the floor, only for me to be dragged by my ankles into the air. I craned my neck to look at the ceiling. The shadow hovered there, twisted into a face filled with jagged teeth and glowing eyes. A poltergeist.

  Fuck. This wasn’t just some ghost. No wonder it had been kicking my ass.

  Poltergeists were to ghosts what werewolves were to regular wolves. Sure both were dangerous, but one was a hell of a lot more likely to rend you limb from limb. And I wasn’t certain how much good my fire was actually doing against it. Sure it had screamed every time one of us had hit it, but I honestly couldn’t tell from this angle if it had been hurt at all.

  I guessed there was no time like the present to find out. I called fire to my hands and let fly from both palms straight into the poltergeist’s grinning face. It shrieked and I fell, blasting it with fire until I hit the ground and once again had the wind knocked out of me.

  My flames cut off but the damage was done. The poltergeist, as well as this stupid cantina was completely torched. Wait, my brain said through a haze of pain, it’s also a gas station. Gas explodes.

  I bolted. Every ounce of pain and fatigue forgotten in my mad scramble to get outside and way from the inevitable explosion that was bound to follow. I don’t actually remember the next few seconds but suddenly I was outside, collapsing in the parking lot. Victoria and Lexus were still in canine form when I looked up, standing in front of the huddle of girls as if defending them from something. I followed their canine gazes over…and up.

  I had hoped that I’d never see Deirdre She in her snake form ever again. That hope was thoroughly dashed by the massive serpent raised before the girls, poised as if to strike. Easily the length of three school busses, there was no doubt in my mind that Deirdre could tear through Lexus and Victoria like tissue paper.

  The massive snake’s head turned to take me in and then jerked back. I saw recognition in those cold eyes followed by a flash of unadulterated rage.

  The air grew heavy, clinging to me like a sticky cloth. Deirdre flicked her forked tongue out and the air coalesced, the moisture in it suddenly concentrated in an enormous wave that crashed forward across the parking lot, ripping me from the ground and slamming into the burning building behind me. I was carried along with it, unable to breath or even tell up from down as I was driven backward.

  I hit something and stopped moving. The water receded and I sank to the floor, hurting in ways I hadn’t known I could hurt. My ass had been well and thoroughly kicked.

  I struggled to rise to my feet. It took me three tries but eventually I made it. The cantina was fille
d with a steam so thick it was all but impossible to see through. Still, I found my way out. I was too stunned and exhausted to even consider what might be waiting for me outside.

  But when I got there Deirdre wasn’t waiting for me. The sound of sirens reached my ears over the calls of girls and the bark of giant dogs. Lexus, identifiable by her all white coat ran up to me. Her fur was matted with dark stains in several places but she moved all right. I almost fell into her.

  She shifted herself beneath me and I couldn’t tell what she was trying to do until Victoria came up behind me, grabbed me by my shorts, and lifted me up and onto Lexus’ back. The back of my shorts ripped away, caught on her fangs as she released me, and I held on for dear life as Lexus started running, flashing my bare ass to all who watched us go.

  I fell onto Lexus’ back, holding as tight as I could and turned my head to the side, unable to focus on where we were going. We were going so fast and I was so tired that I almost missed her.

  Deirdre She stood in the woods, all but invisible against a narrow tree. Her arms were crossed and her face was a mask of cold fury. A certainty came over me then, a piece of understanding that could be nothing but cold, purest truth.

  Deirdre She was going to kill me.

  Chapter Six

  “So,” I said the next morning, spread out by the pool on a lounger beside both Lexus and Victoria. “Last night did not go as expected.”

  We’d slept in the nude but had thrown on some clothes to come out to the backyard, more out of habit than necessity. Between the privacy fence and Eleanor being gone we could have stayed naked and it wouldn’t have bothered anyone. But none of us was feeling the naked vibe. We were sore and tired. The thought of our usual morning run hadn’t even occurred to us. Despite our exhaustion we were still up at our usual hour and found we couldn’t go back to sleep. So we’d tossed on comfortable clothes and come out to the pool for breakfast and…I don’t know what.