Everyday Evil: A New Adult Urban Fantasy Harem Adventure (The Horned Mage Book 4)

by Liam Lawson

  Sure there were meth dealers and let’s not forget that human traffickers occasionally passed through town, but if my experience was any indication, the setups for those tended to be outside of the town proper, hidden on or around private property and kept out of sight. If you didn’t know they were there and nobody told you, you’d go right past them. Which was kind of the point and it kept the cops trolling students for traffic tickets and guarding empty hospital rooms because they had nothing better to do. Easy cushy job for them, problematic for us.

  One of them appeared to be sharing a mildly amusing anecdote, but their expressions were more glazed than animated. There had to be a donut joke in there somewhere.

  “Does anyone have a Plan B?” I whispered.

  Absinthe pulled me back and stepped up to the front, pulling Nicole with her. “Be upset,” she whispered at her, then glanced at Scarlett and me. “We’ll distract them. You get in there, grab what you need, and run.”

  Without another word she marched herself and Nicole out into full view of the cops and made a b-line for them. Nicole caught on quick and burst into tears.

  “Where’s my mom?” she wailed.

  I actually stood there for a full three heartbeats in stunned appreciation. I’d really thought we were screwed there. We still could be. There were, after all, four pairs of eyes and we weren’t exactly inconspicuous. The hospital didn’t exactly bustle with activity. We were on the third floor and most of what I’d seen of patients and visitors had been on the floors below us.

  The hospital hallways on this floor basically made a giant square. Scarlett and I would need to double back to come down the hall from the other side while the cops were distracted by Nicole and Absinthe. Risky as all hell but I guess that’s why she picked Scarlett and me for it. We were easily the fastest in the group, especially Scarlett, who ran track competitively.

  I wish she’d given us more heads up though. Damn. Wait, was she mad at me? Initiative or anger…double damn. I needed my head in the game—not be distracted by how I may or may not have fucked up the best things in my life. Wow…the girls were the best things in my life. I loved them. And I might have seriously hurt them by doing what I’d done with Nicole. I might have just destroyed my relationship with my sister and confidante.

  Fuck. I couldn’t spare the focus to pick at this problem and bury myself in morose indecision again. I had to act. One problem at a time. Or in my case one crisis at a time.

  Scarlett and I moved as quickly and unobtrusively as we could around the hospital floor, circling around behind the officers. We were in synch, predators on the hunt. I felt like a ninja or super spy. This wasn’t so impossible. About halfway around the building, when we were on the opposite side of the building from the cops, Scarlett threw me a look.

  “So, your sister, huh?”

  And so much for one thing at a time.

  “Adopted sister,” I clarified. “No blood between us.”

  She made a sound that could have meant anything. “You’re both taking it well.”

  I swallowed. “Yeah, well, we’re kind of in crisis mode. I don’t think it’s really hit either of us yet.” And maybe, maybe despite all my confiding in her, Nicole didn’t fully believe or understand what had happened between us and how she had changed. How we were now bound together.

  “Are,” I took a deep breath and swallowed down my nervousness. “Are you okay with it?”

  She visibly choked down a laugh. “Kind of late to be asking now, isn’t it?”

  Fair enough.

  Further conversation became impossible if we wanted to avoid being caught. And if it put off that particular conversation I owed Scarlett and Absinthe then all the better. Was I being an emotional coward? Absolutely. Frankly it was a miracle that my girls hadn’t ripped me to pieces the second they saw Nicole’s new eyes.

  Or maybe they couldn’t? My power might not let them have an opinion on the subject. No, that wasn’t right. They definitely had opinions about what had happened. But how much of their reaction was them and how much was my magic? Dammit not all this again. Why did I have affinities that entered such a fucking grey area? Oh, right, because I was a fucking fae-demon-human hybrid. Maybe in a week I’d get another letter from the scientists at the lab saying they’d found an evil kitchen sink somewhere in my lineage too.

  We poked our head around the corner to the hallway with the cops. Nicole was balling in the middle of the floor a few yards down from the room Caroline had been staying in. She screamed and wailed and clung to two officers simultaneously while Absinthe harangued the other two for not doing a better job. And for being cops. And for being incompetent. And insensitive. And…damn, she was really letting them have it. One of the cops’ ears had turned such a bright shade of red they looked in danger of catching fire. God, I hoped that wasn’t what was waiting for me after we got Caroline back.

  The two of them did such a good job distracting the cops that it took little more than a casual, if quiet, stroll to get to the room unnoticed and slip inside. A window opposite the door had been slid open so that a breeze could carry through a protective screen, erected as much to keep patients in as the bugs out. It overlooked the parking lot and the woods behind it. There were worse views to be had.

  The room itself was completely sterile, smelling faintly of ammonia, old people, and that special hospital cold smell that couldn’t be found anywhere else. I’d expected the room to be empty. I hadn’t expected it to be this clean. There was no sign of the clothes she’d been brought to the hospital in, either because she’d been wearing them when Albert kidnapped her or because the hospital staff had thrown them away. This…this had been done since Caroline had been taken. Didn’t that go against some kind of crime scene procedure? Dammit. There was nothing of hers left. They had even changed the sheets.

  I didn’t have a werewolf or cu sith’s nose, but I could tell that there was nothing left in the room that could give us Caroline’s scent. The only sign that anyone had even been in here was a cheap vase of flowers from the gift shop at the front of the hospital that looked like every other generic bouquet they had on display.

  “Dammit,” I swore under my breath.

  Scarlett scowled and lifted the clean sheets from the bed, pulling them up to her nose. She took a deep breath, then sagged. Lowering the sheet she shook her head. No scent.

  A surge of red hot rage surged up inside of me, burning my eyes and flinging green sparks from my shaking fists. I spun, aiming a sparking fist toward the cheap bouquet of flowers, the need to break something overpowering my common sense—and I froze, only a few inches away from smashing the vase into the wall. There was something behind the vase. A reddish brown something that looked sickeningly familiar.

  I moved the vase aside and came face to face with the eyeless Colin. The fetus stared up at me from the bedside table, its bulbous face impassive bordering on nonplussed. Slowly I picked the macabre thing up and held it out to Scarlett.

  Her entire face wrinkled in revulsion and she shook her head, refusing to get close.

  Oh for fuck’s sake. In three steps I crossed the room and was in front of her, holding the fetus up for her to smell. She backed away. I followed, still holding up the dead baby.

  “Get that thing away from me,” she said in a hiss. “That is fucking disgusting, Caleb.”

  “I don’t care if it’s disgusting,” I said. “Can you get her scent off of it? She was clutching it to her the entire car ride up here.”

  For a moment I thought she might be about to puke. “I don’t—”

  “Hey! What are you kids doing in there?” One of the cops allegedly on guard duty had poked his head in through the door.

  “What the hell is that?” he demanded, catching sight of Colin. He stepped into the room. From the movement behind him I could tell the others were about to follow suit. We had only an instant to act and three options to choose between.

  Option one; we freeze and play nice with the officers. We
weren’t technically doing anything wrong. Unfortunately we’d be delayed for who knew how long and they might try to take Colin from us. We needed the taxidermied fetus to find Caroline and we needed to find her and Albert before the cops. There was too much at stake.

  Option two; we play hardball and force our way past the cops. Who all had firearms. And if we weren’t in trouble before, we sure as hell would be after a stunt like that. There was no way we wouldn’t be recognized. My antlers were kind of distinctive. None of us needed to be charged with assaulting an officer. Even if we succeeded in rescuing Caroline, we couldn’t care for her if we were all in prison or fined into poverty.

  That left us with option three. I didn’t like option three. I really, really didn’t like option three. But I took it, exchanging a glance with Scarlett. Something past between us and my intent carried over to her like a warm caress.

  We moved at the same time, breaking into an all-out sprint. We reached the window at almost the same time, Scarlett a half-second ahead of me. Which was perfect. She leapt through the window, hurling her athletic body with all of her considerable strength through the screen. It gave way with a clang, popping free of the window as she passed through. I followed after her, one hand grabbing her shoulder.

  I had an instant to regret my actions as we fell and I was struck by the sensation of leaving my stomach behind in the hospital. The parking lot rushed up at us. We screamed.

  Green fire flowed out of Scarlett’s mouth and enveloped the both of us. The shoulder I was holding onto grew, muscles expanding and reshaping as fur sprouted beneath my grip, brought on by the magical flames. A second later, Scarlett was in her massive cu sith-werewolf form, all whitish-green and shaggy with an emerald light glowing from inside her body and I was clinging to her back.

  We hit the pavement.

  And didn’t die!

  The breath was knocked out of me, but somehow I didn’t lose my grip on her fur. For her part, Scarlett barely seemed to notice. She crouched low, absorbing the impact as if the fall was nothing, and then launched herself into a sprint with me holding on for dear life.

  A second later we were followed by the sound of more shouting and two figures came flying out the window after us. Absinthe was grinning like a maniac as the wind whipped her dark hair and leather jacket behind her. Green fire spread from her mouth, engulfing her body and transforming her.

  Nicole wasn’t grinning. She looked terrified. Did she not know how to transform? Of course she didn’t! None of us had told her anything about her new abilities. Her new magic might not even be developed enough yet for her to transform at all.

  A second later she screamed as the ground rushed up at her…still in human form.

  Chapter Eleven

  She wasn’t transforming. She wasn’t transforming!

  Green fire erupted from her mouth as she screamed, engulfing her only feet from the ground. She hit the parking lot asphalt still burning, emerald flames roaring up in a torrent. And then they were gone, leaving a horse-sized canine standing in a crouch where the flames had been. Nicole was covered in pale fur, lit from within with a greenish light. Unlike Scarlett, whose fur was a solid coat of that paleness, or Absinthe who had a darkened mask and saddle pattern, Nicole’s ears and tail were tipped with darker fur, as were her legs, giving her the appearance of socks.

  The new wolf-hound shook her head and staggered, clearly disoriented. Absinthe, who had landed gracefully and, like Scarlett, launched herself into a run, circled back and nipped at Nicole’s flank. Nicole yelped, then ran. Awkward and gangly at first, then with speed and grace. I almost didn’t hear the swearing of the officers at the window overhead. So much for discretion.

  Scarlett slowed when we reached the woods, allowing the others to catch up with us. Miraculously, I hadn’t dropped Colin during the near-suicidal leap out the window. The fetus was tucked under my arm like a football and, sadly, with about as much regard. We came to a clearing and I signaled for us to come to a stop.

  I didn’t realize how much I was hurting until my feet hit the ground. There had been so much going on that it was easy to forget all that I’d been through just before all of this happened. That massive jolt when we hit the ground had seemed like nothing more than a speedbump at the time. Now, it was telling my body that I’d been through a wood chipper. Injuries from our tangle with Angelo Cabal and his undead creatures were flaring up and I was suddenly sore in my legs and lower back.

  We’d discovered that I healed faster with sex, and I’d had some awesome bouts of that, but I was definitely going to need more after this. I grimaced away the pain and shoved those thoughts down with it. Focus. I needed to focus on the problem at hand. I held up Colin.

  “It’s not bedsheets,” I told the girls as they circled around me. It occurred to me that if they wanted to rip me to pieces, there really wasn’t anything I could do about it. They were enormous in this form, equipped with lethal teeth and my spellfire only healed them faster than their werewolf regeneration.

  “But it was down in that prison with Caroline for who knows how long and she carried it on her the whole ride up here. Think it’ll work?”

  Absinthe was the first to come forward and sniff the fetus. Flicking her ears in agitation and somehow conveying a look of complete canine disgust, Scarlett followed suit. Nicole looked back and forth between the two, then stepped forward to follow their example. It was clear she had no idea what she was doing or taking part in. We really hadn’t don’t a good job explaining how everything worked. She had to be processing a whole lot right now.

  I reached for my magic and it leapt to my command, eager to set us once more on the hunt. I swear it felt giddy. Magic wasn’t supposed to have feelings. At least, human magic wasn’t. Now that I knew my heritage and considered my affinities, they made sense. Sex, fire, and…hunting. My fae parent was some kind of hunter. Trixie, Soraya’s contracted pixie companion, liked calling me hunter. And fae magic was supposed to be different than human magic.

  The magic burst from me, twisting itself into a spell, and lashing all of us to it. As one, the girls raised their heads and let out three long howls. Once, hearing that sound would have frozen the blood in my veins and sent me scurrying for a place to hide. Now it made my heart pound with excitement and my body grow hot. I grew hard, excited in more ways than one. A grin had spread across my face, bearing my fangs. I could feel that they’d grown even sharper than my last check in the mirror.

  As the last howl left the girls they took off and so did I. We knew where our quarry was and the world narrowed down to us and them, creating a path that urged us along it. It was as if the ground itself pushed at our feet, springing us forward with each and every step. Obstacles simply melted and flowed around us, either because the magic made us that fast or because it was warping the world around us to create the fastest possible route. We ran and I ran with them, somehow keeping pace with creatures built for speed and endurance. No matter how fast I pumped my legs, I should not have been able to stay with them and yet I did.

  A thrill settled over me and I tasted iron. The spell was taking us to Caroline but we knew Caroline was with Albert. Our real prey. No longer a victimizer but a victim. He just didn’t know it yet.

  The woods gave way to familiar territory and soon we were rushing across a street in a neighborhood I knew. We passed the house I’d been staying in only a few weeks ago and entered the park Scarlett and I had taken to running in back when it had just been the two of us. Trees, streams, picnic tables, and a gazebo passed by us in a rush as we headed deeper in.

  My phone rang.

  The noise was so unexpected I nearly stumbled. For a moment the magic faltered. Then it reasserted itself, righting me and refocusing me on my prey. Albert. He was waiting for us at the end of this hunt. We would rend him limb from limb and feast…no. There would be no feasting. That was messed up. The thought was jarring enough that the ringtone of my phone was able to once more penetrate the haze. The magic l
atched onto it and somehow I knew who was calling.

  Still running and caught up in the spell, I answered the phone. “Hello, Albert.”

  “That’s Dad to you,” said Albert.

  “Yeah, no.”

  “You took her from me,” he said. “Both of them. Nicole doesn’t have my eyes anymore.”

  I grinned. No, she had my eyes now.

  My grin died. How did he know her eyes had changed? Nicole hadn’t seen him since the morning we’d discovered Caroline. Her eyes had still been pale blue then. Hell, her eyes had only changed a few hours ago at the park. Which meant that he had to have seen us since then.

  He’d called Nicole exactly when we’d arrived at the police station. Had he somehow been watching us?

  “She was never yours,” I said, stalling for time. If he’d seen us, he’d been in town for a while. He’d had time to plan something. What was his endgame?

  We ran, leaping a log that had fallen over the path. The magic holding us together vibrated with savage joy. We were almost there.

  “You were never mine,” Albert snapped. “They were, but you weren’t. I thought I could make you a part of what Nicole and I shared, and then I saw how you looked at each other. I shared her with you and you tried to take her away completely.”

  Nicole had told me he’d orchestrated what had happened between us when I’d first joined the Marshal household, but hearing it confirmed by him made me feel slimy. It tainted a beautiful memory. One that I’d had to keep secret but it was no less beautiful for it. And now…my magic screamed at me that we were upon him.

  “I have Caroline,” Albert was saying. “And I have—“

  “Hey Albert,” I interrupted. “Fuck you.”

  We rounded a bend and there he was. The path led up an incline that then became a large wooden bridge passing over a stream in a rocky ravine. Albert was on the bridge and he wasn’t alone. Caroline, as expected, was with him.