Master of Shadows

by Angela Knight

Andrews sneered. “Arthur Pendragon is Celtic trash. We are the descendents of Anglo-Saxon warriors. It’s our job to preserve our ancient bloodlines.”

  He might be the descendent of warriors, but Arthur was a warrior. Carl remembered the look on the vampire’s face—that royal fury and steely determination. “Declaring war on King Arthur is a good way to get a lot of people killed. That’s not preserving your bloodlines.”

  “Warlock will not let our people fall to the Celts,” Andrews said, a fanatical gleam in his eyes. “He will lead us to victory, first over Arthur, then over the politically correct weaklings of Modernity. That’s our destiny.”

  Tanner eyed Carl and asked in a silky tone, “Are you losing your nerve?”

  Rosen swallowed, recognizing the danger he was in. If Tanner told Warlock he wouldn’t play ball . . . “Of course not. I just want to make sure we’re doing the right thing.”

  Tanner rose and sauntered over to the bar to pour himself another whiskey. “Of course we are, Carl. Vote with us, and unborn generations of Chosen Direkind will applaud your courage.”

  “Or vote against us,” Andrews added in a low, nasty voice, “and your own grandchildren won’t even know your name.”

  “Don’t worry.” Carl had to stop and swallow before he could add, “You have my vote.”

  Tanner smiled. “Of course we do.”

  “Before they left, the Magekind magically altered the bodies of the Green family to make it appear they had been shot,” Justice told the members of the Council of Clans. “Given Jimmy Sheridan’s beheading, we didn’t want another set of deaths from a blade.”

  “No, we wouldn’t want that,” Andrews said snidely.

  Justice ignored the comment. Andrews and Tanner had been making snarky little asides through his entire report on the murders. “Judging from the article in the paper this morning, the police have concluded the Greens were the victims of a home invasion.” He paused and scanned the council. Almost all of them avoided his gaze. Shit, that wasn’t good. “Are there any questions?”

  Justice braced himself for another grilling about his every move during the investigation. He’d already answered a blizzard of such questions, but if he knew the council, they’d probably ask the exact same ones all over again.

  “No,” Rosen said, “I think it’s all fairly clear.”

  “Indeed it is,” Tanner said. “I move the council fire William Justice from the post of Wolf sheriff.”

  “Seconded,” Andrews said, smirking.

  Yeah, Justice had figured something like that was coming. He asked the obvious question anyway. Damned if he’d roll over for the bastards. “On what grounds?”

  Tanner assumed a sober expression completely at odds with the sadistic pleasure in his eyes. “You knew Arthur was suspected of involvement in these murders, and yet you called the Magekind to the scene, corrupting the evidence . . .”

  “Corrupting what evidence?” Justice demanded. “I needed an expert in magic to evaluate the scene. The only ones I had access to were Magekind.”

  “The Magekind are our enemies!” Andrews snapped. “You’ve been consorting with our enemies!”

  “They are not the enemy! They . . .”

  Rosen banged his gavel. “That’s enough, Justice.”

  “A motion has been made and seconded,” Andrews said. “I’m calling the question.”

  “We haven’t even started debating this yet!” Elena protested. “I think Justice has legitimate points . . .”

  “Yes, we’re all aware of your affection for Justice’s . . . points,” Andrews said.

  Her jaw dropped. “How dare you!”

  “Oh, don’t pretend outrage, Elena. We all know you’re involved with the man.”

  “What we all know is that Warlock bought you off . . .”

  “There is no such thing as Warlock!”

  “Tell that to the Chosen who have been worshipping him for fifteen hundred years . . .”

  The meeting went downhill from there.

  FIFTEEN

  Justice walked toward the office building’s exit feeling numb. Elena had been the only member of the council to vote against firing him. He’d turned in his badge and weapon, and they’d kicked him out of the meeting.

  Now they were probably voting to declare war on the Magekind.

  Pushing open the front door, Justice stepped out into the parking lot as he dug the enchanted cell phone out of his pocket. Tristan answered on the third ring. Justice told him the news as he headed for his car.

  Listening to the knight swear, he scanned the lot warily. The office building was located well off the main road, and thick woods surrounded it. It would make a dandy place for an ambush—and Justice wouldn’t put it past Tanner and his cronies to arrange one.

  “You do realize they did this just to shut you up and get you out of the way,” Tristan said.

  “That did cross my mind, yes.” He clicked his key fob to open his car door. “I . . .”

  Justice broke off, hearing a metallic slither behind him. He’d hung around Tristan long enough to recognize the sound of a sword being drawn. He spun.

  The stranger wore black plate armor that threw off faint sparks of magic as he moved. He grinned at Justice through his open visor in a sharklike revelation of teeth. “Yell for help, boy. Bring Tristan running. I want to kill him. And I’m really looking forward to eating that pretty little girlfriend of his.”

  Justice threw the phone at the assassin’s head.

  Dice ducked out of sheer astonished reflex as the cell spun past his ear. Even as he recovered and lunged into an attack, magic exploded around his target. Dice braced, expecting the cop to shift to werewolf form and attack him.

  Instead, when the magic faded, Justice had become a huge black wolf. Whirling, he raced away, running like a jackrabbit in long, soaring bounds. Dice swore and transformed into a wolf, knowing he’d never catch the man otherwise.

  “Shit!” Tristan rolled out of bed. “We’ve got trouble,” he told Belle. They’d been in the early stages of foreplay when his phone rang.

  Belle gestured, conjuring the new armor around them both. Hers was constructed from the same dragon scale design, except without the strengthening blood spell. “Another murder?”

  “Not if we get there in time.”

  But when they stepped through Belle’s dimensional gate, there was no sign of anyone in the parking lot. “Where the hell did he go?” Belle said, scooping up Justice’s cell and glowering down at the little object. She’d almost stepped on it when she’d come through the portal.

  The case was cracked, as if he’d thrown it. Her stomach knotted as she imagined everything that could have happened to the big cop.

  “I don’t know, but I can track him.” Tristan closed his eyes and called his own magic. It burst around him in a display of golden fireworks. Belle blinked away the dazzle.

  One of the abilities Magi rarely used was the ability to shape shift, a trick they usually reserved for healing particularly deadly injuries.

  Tristan makes a gorgeous wolf, Belle thought. His thick fur was the same shimmering gold as his hair, and he was enormous, with an elegant tapered muzzle, pointed ears, long legs, and saucer-sized paws.

  No sooner had he put his nose to the pavement than he set off at a brisk trot. He’d obviously caught a scent.

  “Wait, Tristan!” Belle shouted. “Let me call for backup!”

  But instead of pausing, he broke into a lope, apparently afraid Justice was a dead werewolf if they didn’t move fast. He was probably right. She ran after him as she dug out her own cell. “Morgana?”

  Justice ran hard through the thick woods, leaping brush and ducking around trees, his Direkind night vision rendering the light of the quarter moon almost as bright as day.

  The assassin crashed after him, bulling through the brush rather than around or over it, a furry guided missile intent on ripping him apart.

  Justice had no intention of being ripped. He ran faste
r, knowing he’d better not get caught. The killer was the biggest damned wolf he’d ever seen. The beast looked like he weighed five hundred pounds, with massive shoulders and a head easily three times the size of Justice’s. And his claws looked like straight razors.

  Luckily, all that mass meant he couldn’t run as fast as Justice. But if he ever caught up . . . Well.

  A fallen tree blocked the path. Justice soared over it—and saw a patch of something wet gleaming just below his paws. He twisted in midair, but his forepaws hit the slick mud and slid right out from under him. He went down in a tumble of long wolf legs, found traction as he skidded beyond the mud, and clawed his way back to his feet . . .

  Too late. The assassin fell on him like a thrown car, slamming him into the earth so hard he saw stars. Before Justice could wrench free, the beast bit into his shoulder. Justice yelped in agony.

  Twisting like a fish, he caught one of his foe’s thick forelegs in his jaws, and crunched down until he tasted blood. The killer only growled and locked his teeth tighter.

  I am so screwed, Justice thought, pain searing his senses like a blowtorch.

  King Arthur was in Davon Fredericks’s apartment, pissed and glowering. Davon could barely bring himself to care. Arthur and the healer sat facing him in the apartment’s tiny sitting area; he’d dragged the chairs back into the room in their honor. “Petra tells me you’re refusing to let her treat you.”

  “I murdered a man, sir. I really don’t want to feel good about it.”

  “I have no intention of making you feel ‘good’ about your situation,” Petra told him tartly in her sweetly lyrical voice. Petite, darkly lovely, the East Indian woman’s hair fell around her shoulders in a shining black cloak. “I just want to treat your clinical depression.” Her black eyes narrowed in irritation tinged with genuine worry. “You’re a doctor, for God’s sake. You know what kind of effect depression has on the brain. You . . .”

  “A patient has a right to refuse treatment.”

  “Look, kid,” Arthur told him impatiently, “you’re not an American citizen anymore. You’re a Magus, and that means you follow orders. My orders. And I’m ordering you to let Petra treat you. You’re no good to me like this. You . . .”

  Suddenly a man’s voice sang out, “I’m a lumberjack and I’m okay!”

  “Excuse me. I’ve got to get this.” Arthur dug the cell phone out of his pocket. “Yes?”

  His ringtone was a line from Monty Python?

  But then Davon’s sharp vampire hearing picked up the conversation, and he forgot all about Arthur’s taste in entertainment.

  “The Council of Clans just fired Justice,” Morgana Le Fay’s voice snapped. “They threw him out, and Warlock’s assassin jumped him in the parking lot. Now Justice is running for his life, and Tristan and Belle are chasing him and the killer. Through the woods. In the dark. I’ve got our people meeting in front of the building to organize a search. We have to get to them before the bastard eats them.”

  “I’ll be there.” He handed the enchanted phone to Petra. “I need a gate and my armor.”

  As Petra conjured Arthur’s gear, a wild plan flashed through Davon’s mind. He surged to his feet. “Let me go with you.”

  Arthur glanced up from checking Excalibur’s scabbard. “Petra says you’re suicidal. Forget it.”

  Davon caught Arthur’s forearm. The vampire looked down at his hand with a lifted brow. Davon refused to move his hand. “I need this, sir. I need to redeem myself.” He pointed to the gleaming suit of plate armor standing on a rack in the corner of the room. One of the new Majae had created it just that afternoon, hoping to cheer him up. “I even have armor.”

  Arthur’s hard black eyes searched his, then softened. “Dammit, all right.” He poked a finger in the center of Davon’s chest. “But you’d better not make me regret this, or I’ll have your ass on a stick.”

  Petra’s magic washed over Davon, and he was abruptly clad in the new armor. Rolling his shoulders under its unfamiliar weight, he watched the Maja conjure a gate in the middle of his Spartan apartment. His stomach clenched in a combination of excitement and dread as Arthur led the way through the wavering portal.

  They emerged into a crowd of armored agents, muttering and jostling. Arthur immediately moved off to start bellowing orders.

  Everyone was too busy listening to the Magus’s battle plan to notice when Davon made his way through the crowd to the cream brick office building. When the teams started trooping off toward the woods, he opened the double glass doors and slipped inside.

  Acute vampire hearing detected the rise and fall of arguing voices. Davon followed the sound.

  “Arthur refuses to hand the killer over,” one man shouted. “We have no choice except to declare war!”

  Which sounded like his cue. Davon swung the door open and stepped inside. Thirteen heads turned toward him, and jaws fell as they took in his armor. He straightened his shoulders and forced himself to meet their incredulous stares. “I’m Davon Fredericks,” he said, ignoring his hammering heart. “I killed James Sheridan, and I’m surrendering myself to you. You don’t have to go to war.”

  But as he stood there, he wondered why three of the councilmen looked so incredibly frustrated.

  Belle raced through the dark after Tristan’s bushy blond tail. It was a damned good thing her night vision was almost as acute as his, or she would have face-planted in a tree trunk a dozen times. As it was, she had to ignore the slap of branches across her face as she ducked and twisted and leaped like a deer.

  She just prayed she was fast enough, because the assassin had caught Justice. Growls, snarls, and yelps of combat sounded from somewhere ahead of them. They had to get to their friend before the killer ate him.

  Suddenly the darkness seemed to open up into a clearing just ahead. Unfortunately, she was concentrating so hard on Tristan’s flicking tail, she didn’t notice the tree trunk that lay across her path. Belle hit the obstacle hard enough to knock the breath from her lungs.

  Tristan sailed right over the tree, hit a patch of mud beyond it and damn near skidded right into Justice and the killer.

  The ex-cop had transformed into his biped Direwolf form, the better to rake and claw at the huge thing that held him down. The killer had shifted back into the creature they’d fought at Emma’s, and was doing his damnedest to eat Justice like a burrito.

  Justice had no intention of being eaten. He’d locked both huge hands around the thing’s jaws and forced them away from his neck, holding the beast’s head at arm’s length with sheer brute strength.

  “Let him go!” Magic exploded around Tristan as he shifted back to human form. Armor sheathed his big body, and he held a great sword in both hands as he stepped forward, heaving the giant blade up.

  Only to stop with a muttered curse. Belle saw why; Justice was squarely in the path of his blade. He couldn’t kill the Beast without hurting the cop.

  So Belle flung a fireball at the two werewolves.

  As she’d known it would, the blast splashed off Justice’s magically resistant hide, while setting the killer’s fur on fire. He reared off the cop, roaring in pained outrage.

  “Get away from him, Bill!” Belle yelled, but Justice was already scrambling clear. As he moved, she saw something liquid go flying.

  Blood.

  Justice was hurt. His black fur was slicked to his ribs in the moonlight, though it was hard to see how bad the damage was.

  As he jumped clear, Belle shot another fireball at the assassin. This time he snapped the blazing globe out of the air like a Scooby Snack and gave her an evil grin. “Yum.”

  Well, merde.

  Opening his fanged maw, he exhaled a searing blowtorch gust of flame. Belle barely got a shield up in time.

  Taking advantage of the monster’s distraction, Tristan darted in and swung his sword at the Beast’s head. The thing twisted with surprising agility and hit the flat of Tristan’s blade, knocking it aside. “Okay,” the creature said.
“So I’ll eat you now and the girl later.”

  He lunged, sinking those gatorlike teeth in the scale armor covering Tristan’s chest. Belle heard the crunch of the scales cracking, and agony stabbed her like a dagger in the heart.

  Oh merde, she realized, I forgot that thing eats magic. And the armor is magic—my magic.

  Tristan felt the killer’s lethal teeth sink into his armor as if it were a candy apple. The scales crackled, but by some miracle, they still kept the assassin’s teeth from sinking into his chest.

  Which was a damn good thing, since the monster’s bite would probably kill him in seconds.

  Belle gasped, a strangled sound of pain. Oh, Jesu, the mail’s blood magic is linked to her. He had to get the bastard off him before the assassin did serious damage.

  Gritting his teeth, Tristan smashed his sword down on the beast’s skull with all his strength. Blood flew in a red rain, but not nearly enough. By all rights, the blow should have shattered the thing’s skull. As it was, the killer growled and shook him like a dog with a rat. The world jerked back and forth with nauseating force until it was all Tristan could do not to vomit. The armor crackled as if the bastard’s teeth were breaking through.

  Tristan started hacking at the Beast. Blood flew and the thing growled, but Tris had no damned leverage at all.

  “Give me a sword!” Justice bellowed, presumably to Belle.

  The Beast slammed Tristan down on the ground so hard, stars wheeled around his head. The killer’s jaws began to work, trying to chew through the armor.

  Magic sizzled across his skin from some blast coming way too close. Belle’s throwing fireballs again, Tristan thought, smelling burning fur.

  The monster jolted, jerking its massive head up, tearing its jaws free of his armor with a brittle crunch.

  Whirling, the Beast lunged, teeth snapping at Justice and his new sword.

  Tristan wanted to spend a few minutes just lying there breathing, but he was a Knight of the Round Table. He forced himself to roll to his feet, pick up the sword he’d dropped, and go after his foe before the thing ate one of his friends.