Master of Shadows

by Angela Knight

  She spun and ran on soft, silent paws, darting through the kitchen toward the swinging door into the dining room. Sliding to a cautious stop, Miranda pushed the door silently open.

  The short counter with its cash register stood facing Flo’s front door. Which was a damned good thing, because that meant she could come up behind the two armed robbers who stood with their backs to her as they struggled to open the register.

  Hannah lay on the floor at the men’s feet, her breathing harsh with agony and effort. Blood pooled on the floor around her as she stared blindly at the ceiling.

  Dying. She was dying.

  Miranda’s thoughts flew to Hannah’s two children, who would probably be sent to live with that abusive bastard Eddie if she died.

  Oh, hell no. No way was Miranda going to let that happen. Not to Hannah, gentle Hannah, who adored her children and blueberry pie and watching SpongeBob SquarePants with the kids.

  Miranda stepped up behind the two robbers, grabbed each man’s head in a hand, and slammed their skulls together before they even realized she was there. She dumped the unconscious duo on the floor and shifted into human form.

  Two transformations so close together were agonizingly painful, but she gritted her teeth and ignored the muscle spasms. All she cared about was saving Hannah.

  Miranda dropped to her knees beside her friend, swallowing hard at the bloody hole in the woman’s chest. “Hannah? Hannah, can you hear me?”

  “Randi? Is that . . . you? Thought I saw . . . monster.” The pool of blood around her torso was getting wider, and the hole in her chest produced a sucking, bubbling sound. Oh, not good. Not good at all.

  “No monsters here, doll.” Miranda spread her hands and prepared to cast the healing spell.

  And hesitated. If I do this, Warlock will know. Healing a gunshot wound this bad was major magic, and it would take time. She’d be lucky if she finished before her father’s assassins showed up to kill her.

  And they would. She’d run away after killing not only her stepfather but also the werewolf Warlock had sent to rape and impregnate her. That was the kind of defiance the wizard would consider punishable by death.

  Well, tough, Miranda thought grimly. I’m not letting Hannah die. Taking a deep breath, she let her magic roll from her hands to cover her friend in a glowing wave of sparks.

  The shimmering blue whiplash wrapped around Dice’s torso, sending hot-white agony jangling through his body like an electric shock.

  “Failure is not acceptable, dog!” Warlock snarled. “When I send you on a mission, I expect you to accomplish it! Instead, all you’ve given me is failure!”

  He decided he had nothing to lose and dared to protest. “Arthur and a whole pack of knights were on the way. I couldn’t fight that many.”

  “Then you should have killed Justice before they arrived!” the wizard thundered. “You . . .” He broke off, his eyes widening slightly as if listening to someone Dice couldn’t hear.

  What now?

  “Well, well, well.” Warlock smiled slowly. “My darling daughter. I knew if I waited long enough, you’d use your powers.”

  What? Dice blinked. Daughter? Warlock had a daughter? Who’d he rape?

  “It seems you have an opportunity to redeem yourself, boy. Go kill my daughter for me.” He smiled in a chilling revelation of long white teeth. “And make it as painful as you can for as long as she lasts.”

  When the cavalry arrived, Davon opened his mouth to curse. Then he remembered Reverend Sheridan and swallowed the juicy phrase, contenting himself with a frustrated glare.

  A veritable parade of armored Magekind agents charged through a dimensional gate into the sanctuary, swords and shields in their hands.

  Yelping in dismay, the werewolves started shifting to Direwolf form. Magical detonations rolled over the sanctuary as panicked werewolves jumped up from the pews.

  Great. Just great. His heart sank as he wondered how many people were going to get hurt in this mess.

  “Davon!” Belle leaped onto the stage and strode over to him.

  Cocooned in chains, he watched her with resignation. The witch made one of those dramatic sweeping gestures, and the steel links rained around his feet, each abruptly disconnected from the others.

  “What have these bastards done to you?” Belle frowned up at his bruised face and touched his swollen eye with a delicate finger.

  He felt the tingling heat of a spell, and the pain faded from his battered face. More importantly, feeling flooded back into his numb arms. “Thanks, Belle,” he growled. Then he moved her gently out of his path and strode toward his target, who still dithered on the stage as the knights streamed into the sanctuary. Tanner’s eyes were wide with panic as he watched the armored fighters.

  “Let me guess,” Davon growled. “You’re all for war until somebody actually expects you to do the fighting.”

  Tanner wheeled at the sound of his voice—right into Davon’s truly beautiful right cross that laid him flat on his back.

  The doctor shook his stinging fist. He’d scraped his knuckles, but it was worth it. “All right, you lot!” he roared, the fury in him suddenly overflowing its emotional dam. “Listen up!” He turned toward Belle and Tristan, who’d joined her on the stage. “And that includes you two.”

  The rest of the knights spread out, a wary wall of armor, crouching behind lifted shields. His gaze slipped past them to the werewolves, most of whom had already changed. The females knelt, their arms curled protectively around crying children. The males stood over them, obviously determined to defend their families to the death.

  The sight of all those kids only added to Davon’s frustrated rage. “Now, what the hell do you people think you’re doing?” he asked the werewolves. “You brought your children to this? Are you out of your minds?”

  “We didn’t know the knights would come!” one woman cried, her voice surprisingly deep and growling. Even so, it quavered.

  “You knew I’d been accused of murder!” He shook his head. “Well, fortunately for you, there’s not going to be a fight. The Magekind do not put innocents in the line of fire.”

  “Davon, you’re in enough trouble,” Tristan barked, annoyed. “Would you shut the fuck up?”

  “You’re in a church, Sir Tristan!” Davon snapped back. And damn, it felt good. He looked out over the crowd as several people escaped out the sanctuary’s rear doors. Nobody moved to stop them. He ignored them. “Merlin gave you people a gift, even if you do call it a curse. It’s an honor to carry his magic . . .”

  “Who the hell are you to preach to us, murderer?” somebody shouted.

  Davon froze. “Yes.” The word emerged in a low voice, and yet somehow it seemed to fill the room. “I did kill an innocent boy. That’s why I surrendered myself to your justice.”

  His dark hands curled into fists. “But since I’ve been your prisoner, I haven’t seen any justice. I’ve seen cowardice. I’ve seen corruption. I’ve seen people who’d better pray neither Merlin nor Jesus ever comes back to Earth.”

  “That’s enough!” Rosen snapped.

  “No, it’s not! Come over here, Carl. Let everybody take a sniff while you lie and say you weren’t paid to vote for war.”

  The chairman took an angry step toward him, then hesitated, eyeing Tristan. The knight stood just behind Davon wearing an evil grin. “Nobody paid me! And there is no Warlock.”

  Davon looked out over the audience. “Take a deep breath, folks. I can smell the stink from here. Can’t you?”

  “Are you going to listen to a murderer?” Tanner shouted. “He cut off a boy’s head—from behind! Like a coward! And he has the gall to accuse us of anything?”

  “I was under a spell,” Davon snarled. “Though you’re right—it doesn’t matter why I killed that child. It doesn’t matter that I thought I was saving other children.” He stalked up to Tanner through the blinding red haze of his rage. “But the difference between us is that I killed because I thought it was my duty.
I didn’t sell other people’s blood for money.”

  He poked a stiffened index finger into the werewolf’s chest. “If you take these people to war, you will be just as guilty of murder as I am. But you’ll do it deliberately, because you have no more conception of honor than a dog.”

  “Kid sounds like Arthur when you get him on a roll,” Lancelot observed in the boiling silence.

  “Shut up,” Gawain told him. “I’m enjoying this.”

  Tanner growled, the sound dropping into a throbbing rumble as magic detonated around him. A heartbeat later, he loomed over Davon, better than seven feet of fur and claws. “You little fuck,” Tanner snarled, “you’re a dead man.”

  He lunged. And Davon thought, One bite and it’s all over . . .

  Miranda dropped her hands to the floor and sat there, so weary it was all she could do to breathe. Healing the damage the bullet had done had left her dangerously drained.

  Hannah opened her eyes and blinked up at her. “Randi?” She licked her lips and frowned. “Randi, what happened?”

  “Robbers.” Miranda pulled her shoulders back and managed a smile. “Robbers happened. They must have hit you on the head or something. When I came in, you were unconscious.”

  “Really?” Terror widened her eyes, and she tried to sit up. “Oh, man! Are they still here?”

  “Don’t worry about those guys.” Catching her friend by the shoulders, Miranda gently pushed her back down and sent magic rolling with a flick of her fingers. A moment later, both men lay beside the register just out of Hannah’s sight, trussed up in electrical cord. “They’re still out cold,” Miranda said brightly. “They were trying to figure out how to get the register open when I walked up behind them and hit them in the head with that big ol’ heavy mop we use in the back. Boom goes the dynamite, et voilà—unconscious idiots.”

  “Wow.” Hannah lifted her head with an effort, obviously still dazed. Miranda might have healed the worst of her injuries, but she still wasn’t clicking on all cylinders. “That was really brave. You saved my life.”

  Alarmed, Miranda said hastily, “Oh, don’t be melodramatic. I hit the silly bastards with a mop. Big deal.”

  “It is a big deal,” Hannah insisted. “People get on CNN for that kind of thing.”

  “More like America’s Dumbest Criminals. Look, the one thing I don’t need is fifteen minutes of fame . . .”

  “Oh,” Hannah said wisely. “You’re running from someone.”

  Miranda blinked at how close this was to the mark, started to deny it, then changed her mind. “Yeah, I am. I’ve got this ex-boyfriend who put me in the hospital a time or two.” Almost true, except for the boyfriend part. And the hospital part; she’d had to heal herself.

  “I know what that’s like.”

  “I know. Thing is, he swore if he couldn’t have me, nobody else could, so the one thing I don’t want is airtime. So don’t say anything about me to the cops, okay?”

  “But how will I explain the robbers?”

  “Say you hit ’em. Then you can be the hero. You’d probably enjoy fifteen minutes of fame. God knows you deserve it after the crap you put up with.”

  Hannah looked doubtful. “Well, I don’t know . . .”

  “What a pretty lady,” a male voice purred just before the sense of power hit Miranda: huge, dark, and as threatening as a hurricane. Her heart shot into her throat as she whirled to see a man move out of the kitchen as silently as a snake.

  He was tall, better than six-five, and his shoulder-length brown hair was streaked with gray. He had angular, sharply cut features that might have been considered handsome—until you saw his eyes. They were cruel and black, and magic burned behind them, blazing hot with glints of werewolf orange.

  “Warlock sent you.” It wasn’t a question.

  His mouth twitched into a smile, as though he found her funny. “Yeah. Seems you’ve really pissed Daddy off, little girl.”

  “Who the hell are you?” Hannah demanded.

  Panic stabbed Miranda. “Go to sleep!” she snapped, and her friend’s head dropped back so fast, it bumped the floor. She’d probably have a lump in the morning, but that was better than being dead.

  The assassin grinned, and Miranda snarled at him. “She’s got no part of this. She’s just a human. Let her be. I haven’t told her anything about Warlock.”

  He shook his head. “You didn’t get that soft streak from Daddy, that’s for damned sure.”

  “No,” Miranda said. “But I did get this.” Reaching into the Mageverse, she seized the magic, dragged it into her soul, and sent it blasting into the assassin’s face.

  The bolt picked him up like a paper doll in a tornado and blew him through the swinging kitchen door. He slammed into the solid steel freezer unit and slid limply to the floor.

  Miranda whirled and bolted, banging through Flo’s front door into the night beyond. The killer wouldn’t waste time hurting Hannah if Miranda wasn’t around to watch. He’d come after her instead.

  And with the kind of power he had, he’d kill her.

  Miranda raced across the dark, empty street and down the first alley she came to, then zipped left up a side street, then right down an alley barely wide enough for her shoulders.

  Her objective was to put as much real estate between her and the killer as she could. She’d need time to work the spell she had in mind, which meant she had to hide and shield herself.

  Flo’s wasn’t located in a particularly nice part of Derry, South Carolina—not that there were many nice parts of Derry, South Carolina, aging textile town that it was. The route Miranda chose took her into a section that was even worse. Graffiti marked every building she passed, some written in the code used by the local gangs, some just poorly spelled obscenities. Half the streetlights were dark, and windows were broken out or boarded over. The smell of rotting trash was so strong she wanted to gag.

  She swallowed hard and ran on, knowing she hadn’t put enough distance between her and the killer.

  Normally her father sent his Bastards to discipline those who’d displeased him. But when Miranda extended her senses, she could detect only one magical creature in the area—the one she’d just blasted halfway across the restaurant.

  He was already coming after her, and he was moving fast.

  Miranda figured she had one chance at survival: La Belle Coeur. She’d been trying to come up with a way to contact Belle since she’d accidently blasted the Maja.

  Fortunately, Miranda had touched the witch’s mind once before, during that disastrous tea party a month ago. If she concentrated on the memory of that mental contact and gave it all the power she had, she might be able to make contact. Maybe. If she got lucky.

  She’d hesitated to try it before because that kind of psychic bellow was just the sort of thing Warlock was bound to notice. But since that was a moot point now . . . Time to find a hiding place and launch the spell.

  And pray.

  Davon watched fanged jaws shoot right for his throat. One bite . . .

  A big hand fell on the edge of the gorget that protected the back of his neck, gripped it, and jerked him backward.

  Tanner’s teeth snapped on empty air the instant before Tristan’s shield hit the werewolf hard across the side of the head, sending him spinning. “Bad dog!”

  But seven-feet-plus of fur, fangs, and temper does not add up to wimp. Tanner caught himself and lunged at Tristan, his yellow eyes crazed. The knight spun into a kick that would have done Jackie Chan proud and landed an armored boot upside the werewolf’s skull. Tanner staggered backward, shaking his head hard, blood flying from his muzzle.

  “Stop it!” Reverend Sheridan cried. “This is a church!”

  But no one was listening. Women and children wailed in fear over male shouts of rage and wolf howls of fury. Fights had broken out between the knights and the werewolves, mostly fists and feet, but it was only a matter of time before somebody bit somebody and somebody else used a sword. Then the shit would really
hit the fan.

  Davon turned his back on Tristan and headed for the preacher. “Sheridan!” he shouted, bounding down from the stage. The reverend gave him a panic-stricken look and backed up, looking as if he was trying to decide whether to transform.

  “No!” Davon yelled. “I don’t want to fight. We’ve got to stop this before somebody gets killed!”

  A complex expression crossed Sheridan’s face—relief? Fury that it was his son’s murderer trying to come to his rescue? It was hard to tell.

  And it didn’t matter anyway. Davon caught the man by the shoulder and drew him toward the front of the sanctuary. “Stop it! There are kids here! Somebody’s going to get killed.”

  Sheridan added his deep bellow. “Break it off! Now!”

  Nobody paid them any attention at all—except for Belle. The Maja studied them for a heartbeat and nodded as if coming to a decision. One hand swept in a graceful gesture toward the sanctuary’s soaring ceiling, and a blast of fireworks exploded over their heads in a thundering salvo. Everybody ducked for cover with yelps of alarm.

  “This is over!” Davon shouted into the sudden silence. “There are too many children here—one of them’s going to get hurt.”

  “We’re not giving you up, killer!” a werewolf roared back.

  “I’m not asking you to. I came here for justice, and I’m not leaving. But the rest of the Magekind are.”

  “Kid . . .” Tristan began.

  “I’m not a kid,” Davon snarled. “But I did kill one, and his family deserves justice. And if you keep trying to take me back, somebody’s going to end up dead.”

  It was so dark even Miranda had trouble seeing a damned thing. A dog had turned over a garbage can, scattering reeking debris the length of the alley.

  Perfect.

  Both the smell and the shadows would help hide her from the killer long enough to give her a few more crucial seconds to cast her spell.