by Lauren Dane
Three humans, from what Rowan could see.
“Happily.” It had been a few days since she’d beaten anyone silly and she certainly hadn’t since they’d killed several people she’d loved. She had some feelings to work through.
Once Genevieve pulled away the barrier, Rowan went in low, knocking one of the thugs against the other, sending them both sprawling.
The last one, still standing, managed to get in a kick to her kidney as she scrambled to her feet. Pain sent bright shards through her for a few breaths as she landed a punch to his dick that had him bending in pain. “I’ll be getting back to you,” she promised.
She didn’t have time to focus on Genevieve and the sorcerer, so she just kept at the human muscle. The two on the ground had managed to get up and attempted to fumble for weapons.
Dick punch managed to stumble her way and she had to be impressed—just a little—that he kept going. Instead of wasting his time on weapons, he came at her with some decent hand-to-hand skill.
He got a few jabs in while she had to circle to keep from getting shot, including one to the face. She hated being punched in the face. It meant everyone could see that she’d been dumb enough to get punched in the fucking face.
“Stupid assholes,” she snarled as one of them shot at her and it went wide. She darted in, used the hilt of her blade to knock him in the temple twice, sending him to the dirt in an unconscious heap. She could kill the others, but she figured one of them might be good to keep alive to question. Might as well be the fucker who tried to shoot her.
Dick punch was back in her business again, coming at her with fists the size of pit bull puppies as she managed to keep herself upright—just barely—as she ducked and stumbled out of reach.
Beyond, where they’d been standing, the working circle loomed with something seriously awful inside. The stench of it hit Rowan in the solar plexus and she had to tamp down the need to vomit in response.
“What the hell have you freaks been up to anyway?” she snarled. “Can you even get that smell out of your clothes? Gross.”
That seemed to push the buttons of the other one, non dick punch guy. He waved his gun around, shooting several times and missing.
She looked at dick punch. “Is he like that all the time?”
“Bitch!” gun boy shouted and tried again. This time he didn’t miss as the white hot pain of the bullet hitting her calf zinged through her.
“Piece of shit,” she growled as she zigged past dick punch, only half avoiding a grab and wrench of her arm that nearly pulled it from the socket.
Rowan used the momentum to spin, kick him in the dick again and slide over to gun boy quick as a wink. She gave him an elbow to the chin to knock him off balance as she used the hilt of her blade to hit his wrist, breaking it and knocking the handgun from his grip.
She kicked it away and as she held his gaze, twisted so that she was able to slice up his body from hipbone to shoulder. Deep enough to damage him totally.
His agony filled scream made Rowan smile as blood painted the air, along with pain and magic.
Surprise was on his face, as well as panic and fear as he held his hands against the bleeding. Uselessly. “You can’t put your guts back in now.” Rowan shrugged with a smirk.
Inside her, Brigid rose bright and full of wrath. Drawn by the violence in the air. Rowan let dick punch see Her as she came for him.
“I told you I was coming back to you.” She moved slowly at first, to give him a sense that maybe he could defeat her—and because her leg hurt. And once he’d relaxed a tiny bit, she sped up, faster than she’d thought she could go and leapt on him slicing his neck from ear to ear and then leaving him to bleed out on the ground behind her, next to his friend whose guts were hanging out as he died.
Rowan turned to Genevieve, who was having some sort of magic war with the sorcerer.
And oh was she winning. He looked tired. Haggard even, as if each spell drained him further.
And Genevieve? She glowed with her magic. A bright beacon in the middle of the desert.
The sorcerer appeared to have some skills, but Genevieve seemed to draw power from everything around her. And it came to her easily as she toyed with him. Batting away his offensive spells with a casual wave.
After stanching the gunshot wound and tying a long piece of cloth around it to slow the bleeding, Rowan found zip ties in her car and used them on the unconscious dude so she could question him once they’d finished up. Once she was sure he couldn’t escape, she stationed herself nearer Genevieve, in case she was needed.
* * *
“Tell me, sorcerer, where is it you draw this magic from? I know it’s not yours,” Genevieve called.
Everything around her seemed to lock into her command. The earth sent her magic, as did the air. The scrub and rocks. A skittering lizard and a low flying nightbird.
All at her bidding.
Never in her long life had she experienced such a depth of accord with the power that fed her magic. It roared through her, sure and strong.
“Fuck you,” he returned from his place behind the car.
A place she could easily touch him with her magic but hadn’t yet. Just to lull him into a false sense of security.
Rowan stood off to her right; ready to move when she might need to. Watching Genevieve’s back. A kind of sisterhood she rarely experienced. And appreciated all the more.
Genevieve threw aside her shields to let her senses take in as many aspects of the scene as possible. The voices rose, argued and then cooperated with a speed that left her a little dizzy.
The scent of blood permeated everything. Pain from the working and from the fight Rowan had just been in. She’d been shot but Genevieve could sense the pain in her leg had settled into a dull ache. Nothing vital seemed to have been damaged and her aura was bright. Steadfast. Strong.
Nothing from the two humans Rowan had killed. Not even a slight pulse of life that the dead usually carried for an hour or so after death. The human Rowan had tied up had an aura that was threadbare in places. Ragged. Humans had their own wear and tear but this was excessive and Genevieve wondered just what he’d done to use himself up like that.
Nothing but stench and pain from the working circle. Another strange thing. At most scenes of a magical working, there was usually always leftover magic. Like lint on a coat.
But it was simply null. A dead spot. All magic there had simply been sucked away. The sorcerer she faced though, the magic he’d gorged on was smeared all over him. Wasteful and irresponsible. There were rules about the use of magic and the gathering of power.
Also interesting and unquestionably deadly were the trails of the sorcerer’s life essence that floated away from him. All in the same direction. Northeast.
Someone or something was deliberately siphoning not just magical power from the sorcerer, but his very life. A heady boost to the recipient.
And Genevieve doubted this sorcerer had any idea.
“Tell me, pretender, do you know every time you use one of these stolen spells, it takes power from you? Little bits and pieces of your life. Where does it go, I wonder? And did you agree to such a high price to use this magic?”
Given the shock on his features, she bet he didn’t.
Idiots who thought this kind of power was something anyone could have? Or that anyone deserved it?
It took blood and flesh and centuries to learn and wield magic the type this young sorcerer used. And he may have achieved it if he’d done the work and made the sacrifices. In time. But he rushed to the end, thinking he was entitled to things he simply did not understand.
And now some other creature was siphoning his life from him because he’d gotten cocky and greedy.
Genevieve didn’t feel bad for him. Theirs was a world of rules and the reason for obedience was right in front of her. Magic wasn’t parl
or tricks and levitating feathers. It wasn’t love potions and good luck spells. It was so much more.
Magic users let the power flow through them to achieve the aim of the working. But this sorcerer had borrowed it and it took part of him along with the spell.
“You couldn’t possibly understand what I’m doing!” he yelled. “You’ll all be sorry when we’re done. You crossed the wrong people.”
Genevieve waved a hand again, this time striking him with her power, leaving a mark across his face as if she’d slapped him.
“Fool. I’m seven hundred years old. I’ve been studying magic and magical paths since I was a child. You are nothing but a tool of the one using you.”
She examined him, committing all the details to memory. She and the Conclave Senate were going to hunt down this cabal and burn them to ash because this perversion of magic could not be tolerated.
He froze, caught in her power because he’d looked too close. “Did you know the word sorcerer came from this act? A magical being using power to ensorcel another. Charm and persuasion. Charisma. Here I have you all caught up in me.” She took a step forward and Rowan adjusted her stance.
And two more steps until she’d whipped away all the wards he thought protected him. Would have protected him against Rowan. Maybe if he got very lucky. But against her?
She laughed and knew it sent a tremor of power over the whole area. It pleased her that after so long on her own—so long at the mercy of others—she’d found this new joy. A purpose. Passion to protect those she’d vowed to always defend.
Earlier at the meeting in Los Angeles, she’d taken the power to make this choice. Declared they, the Conclave Senate, the ultimate body of all magical practitioners worldwide, would join with Hunter Corp. to call for war.
There’d been a power struggle. Witches liked the long game and the big picture. They liked to wait stuff out. But sometimes it was time for action and this was one of them. Genevieve had managed to overcome the voices of protest and sway the rest to her perspective.
It wasn’t over. But for the next little while, Genevieve got her way. She liked getting her way so she’d continue to build her case so strongly no one else would be able to overrule her.
And after learning about a spate of missing magic practitioners and an uptick on the magical black market—which had been ordered shut down just a week before—of some seriously deadly and very old spellcraft, Genevieve and the rest of the Senate couldn’t ignore the problem any longer.
* * *
Rowan had thought she couldn’t like Genevieve any more until that laugh. It was a fucking fantastic laugh that said, Maybe I’m totally going to kill you or maybe I’m totally going to kiss you.
Instead of taking over, Brigid poured power into Rowan. Into her ability to withstand magic. Rowan waited, ready for any sign that she needed to jump in.
That’s when she felt them approach. Heard the motorcycles, scented ozone as the air changed. As if a storm was coming.
Genevieve didn’t take her eyes from the sorcerer as she addressed Rowan. “They’re not going to harm us.” She reached out and touched the sorcerer, who was toast at that very moment.
Rowan watched the split second when he realized what had happened. When he knew he was doomed. He blanked and fell to the ground.
“Hold, Rowan,” Genevieve ordered and then called out in a dialect of French she hadn’t heard very often. An old one.
Darius walked forward then, held out a hand as everything went utterly still and silent. He lit from within for long moments and then turned to Genevieve.
He answered Genevieve in that same dialect before she switched to something else Rowan had read but never heard spoken. First Kingdom Egyptian. Which she only knew because Genevieve murmured it to Rowan.
“She is eager to examine the vehicle. May we set this aside for a moment?” Genevieve asked him in English.
When he nodded, Genevieve turned to Rowan. “Let’s go through this together. His body and whatever effects he has on his person are safe for you to collect. I’m going to look over the car and everything in it.”
“I need to contact David,” Rowan said as she pulled her phone out but Darius barked a no in her direction. “And why not?” she demanded.
“I don’t want anyone else out here.”
“This isn’t going to work out for me. This whole you being all bad boy biker giving me orders. I mean, no joke it’s hot and all. In a way. But I don’t need your permission. I’m on a hunt. And I had leave to be here. I need my valet so we can gather all the evidence that might help us find out who’s behind this.”
To prove that, she called David and told him where to meet her after she pinned her position on his map program.
Naturally he’d bring Clive. She figured he’d find some way to make it seem as if Clive figured it out on his own. Her husband and her valet were in cahoots to protect her and while it agitated her, it also was sort of sweet.
And at that moment, very useful.
As Darius continued to glare at her, Rowan went to her SUV and while she was behind the door, she checked the makeshift bandage she’d put on her leg and noted everything was holding and the bleeding had stopped.
Then she grabbed a flashlight and some baggies and pretended she wasn’t dying to know what the hell was going on between Genevieve and Darius as she headed to the sorcerer to search his body.
Money in a gold clip. Montblanc. Elegant.
No wallet, but she’d check the car as he was in shirtsleeves and suit trousers. If he wore a suit, perhaps it was in the car, in his suit coat. He probably didn’t want to get whatever the fuck stench from his magic circle on it. Asshole.
“I never agreed to Vampires,” Darius snarled at Rowan as she stood and headed to the dead guards, not letting herself limp.
“This one comes with the territory. It’s his city too. And he’s with me,” Rowan told him, trying to stay calm. Darius was something altogether outside her experience. He most likely could kill her in moments if he chose to. She was powerful, but Darius—and Genevieve—were in another universe.
She couldn’t show weakness or let her guard down because she had to keep Darius busy enough not to kill her husband.
Because Clive was coming toward them at a high rate of speed and she felt it in her belly.
Darius had known before she had, which was fascinating. Rowan wished she could ask him all about whatever his powers and talents were, but she knew that wasn’t going to happen.
She was carefully digging a wallet from one of the human muscle’s pockets, when Clive arrived about three minutes later.
He paused as he landed, looking all effortless and shit. Carefully, he avoided looking Darius in the eyes as he nodded just the right amount so he’d be seen as respectful instead of coming out here to start a fight.
In addition to being punched in the face, Rowan also hated the politics and ego jerking supernatural beings had to go through every time they got near one another. It was ridiculous but she had no choice but to suck it up because that’s how they all avoided a war.
Darius sighed heavily and Genevieve smirked.
Clive, assured he had leave, approached her, his gaze raking over her face and then dropping to where she’d been shot. Then he narrowed his eyes and looked sexy.
“Explain,” he told her.
So she did while he struggled not to order her to take some of his blood or at the very least get off her injured leg.
“We need to take this prisoner in for interrogation,” Rowan told Clive to give him something to think about other than clucking over her leg. She’d had a place for such things. A place to interrogate and torture if need be. But that was before her security and safe locations had been blown. Now she’d need to borrow someone else’s interrogation space.
“Die Mitte has facilities for such an endeavor,”
he told her, anticipating such a need.
“Good idea.” Rowan approached Genevieve and Darius where they stood over the prisoner. “Hey there. I need to transport this one so we can do a little rendition. Can I just toss him into a trunk and be done or is there some magical stuff I need to do first?”
“I’ve already spelled him. He’s unconscious now and will be until I decide otherwise. I’ll be questioning him with you as he’s got some explaining to do for his misuse of magic. The Conclave tends to look down on such behavior.”
“Many hands make light work and all that jazz,” Rowan said as Clive hefted their prisoner up from his ungainly sprawl on the dirt before tossing him into the opened trunk.
“Can this be cleaned up? This working circle?”
“It’s going to take a while. Something this dark takes time to undo. The ground will be null for years to come.” Genevieve knelt just outside and sniffed, eyes closed. “I’m going to call in some of my people, if that’s all right with you,” she said to Darius. “This working will take more than one caster.” She stood. “The energy of the spell keeps re-sparking and awaking. Then it seeks magic to steal.”
“Fucking delightful,” Rowan muttered.
“These sorcerers must be taken down,” Genevieve said. “This is an abomination and magic working like this is dangerous to us all. Whoever is at the head of this will be feasting on more power than they should ever attempt. It’s like a disease, spreading and killing all those healthy ties to the elements and other paranormal creatures.”
“Like magic rabies?” Rowan asked, slamming the back of the SUV closed after getting the prisoner secured.
David, who’d only just arrived, laughed but everyone else was too damned old to get the joke so Rowan and her valet shared a look.
Genevieve spoke quietly to Darius for a few moments and then rejoined the rest. “He will keep this scene safe until I can return to cleanse it.”
Oh how Rowan wanted to make a snarky comment but it certainly wasn’t the time, so she swallowed it. Instead she said, “Okay. That’s helpful of him.” She’d bug Genevieve later on about the whole situation.
