Twenty-Sided Sorceress 3 - Pack of Lies

by Annie Bellett

  “The hall is sealed,” Eva said, fear and anger clouding her face and making her look meaner and uglier than ever. “This is a place for wolves. You are not welcome here.”

  “Am I not?” Aurelio asked before Alek or I could respond. He looked around at the assembled alphas. “I am wolf. I am alpha. This woman once prevented me from pledging to Ulfr’s Peace. I will not be turned away again.” His eyes dropped to the elaborately carved stone. “He was my friend.”

  A shorter speech than he’d given Alek and I, but it worked. Murmurs of “Softpaw” and “Bitterroot alpha” rippled around the hall.

  “The Peace? It does nothing for us. It has neutered us. We are wolves. We are alphas. Do not be stupid.” Eva strode forward, spitting onto the stone.

  Freyda stepped out of the group as well, following Eva, outrage in every line of her body.

  “Eva Phillips,” Alek called out before Freyda could speak. He raised a hand, his gesture and words commanding immediate silence. “You are a murderer and a liar. I am here to bring you to justice.”

  “Justice? You know nothing of what we were, cat. Once we were feared, respected. The Council gave us real power, ultimate authority. There was a time when they spoke to us directly instead of feeding us vague visions and unhappy dreams. I will be the alpha of alphas and there will be no Peace. Let the Council come and stop me.”

  “I am still Justice,” Alek responded, moving forward with the stalking grace of a hunting cat.

  Aurelio and I backed off. Freyda looked at Alek and she, too, moved backward, until just the two of them stood on opposite ends of the stone slab.

  “So the Council sent you?” Eva mocked.

  “No,” Alek said.

  From the soft exclamations all around me, I wasn’t the only one surprised by this revelation.

  “But,” he continued, pulling his feather talisman out of his sweater and holding it so that the silver caught the dim light filtering in through the upper windows and glinted, “I am still a Justice. The scales will balance.”

  Eva’s eyes widened, and she snarled at him, flicking her hand in a “now” gesture.

  Movement and a soft cry from the upper gallery dragged my gaze away from Eva. I recognized the two green-eyed brothers from the parking lot by Liam’s body the day before as they stood up in the gallery, machine guns in their hands. Every man and woman near them also pulled out a machine gun.

  The hall had just become a barrel, and we were the fish.

  Alek roared; the same deep coughing sound as earlier at the Henhouse reverberated throughout the hall. It was an impressive sound coming from a human throat, human lungs. Around me bodies turned from human to wolf, dropping from two legs to four, until I was standing at the edge of a sea of wolves. Beside me a huge black wolf with a wide white streak down his back crouched and growled, golden eyes focused above. Aurelio. I stepped in closer to him and looked up.

  In the gallery, the men and women holding machine guns had stayed human as well. I squinted, making out earbuds and the lines of a cords running from their ears. No wonder Eva had gestured to signal them. One of the brothers held a gun that looked more like one of the paintball rifles we used. It made me nervous, though I didn’t know why.

  Eva was still human as well. She laughed. “Thank you. Saved me the trouble of forcing them to shift later.”

  Alek glared at her and snarled. “I challenge you, Eva. You want the old ways? Then let us fight, tooth and claw. We shall see who is right.”

  “You are a tiger,” she said. “Hardly a fair fight.”

  “I am still weak from your poison,” he said.

  “Good point,” she said. “That reminds me.” She gestured again, pointing at Alek and making eye contact with the brother holding the air rifle.

  “No,” I yelled in warning as I threw my power at Alek, trying to shove him aside. I recognized the gun now. It was like the ones some of the scientists used when tagging wolves out in the River of No Return Wilderness. A tranq dart gun.

  Only I knew it wouldn’t hold a tranquilizer.

  The dart stuck him in the shoulder instead of the neck as my magic shoved him sideways. With a snarl he ripped it out and threw it down, then shifted immediately and sprang at Eva.

  She pulled a small cylinder from her pocket, gripping it in her hand before she shifted as well. She wasn’t that big a human, but her wolf form was massive, thick with muscle and covered in sleek red fur.

  Tiger-Alek dwarfed her, but his leap missed as she sprang sideways. Around the edges of the hall the wolves pressed backward against the walls, giving the two Justices room. One wolf tried to climb the stairs, snarling up at the shifters with guns. A gun cracked, impossibly loud in the hall, and the wolf fell back, screaming in pain.

  Alek and Eva circled each other. He kept lunging and trying to grab her, but she was too quick, leaping out of reach and circling around, snapping at his legs and forcing him to twist and turn. She was waiting, I saw—waiting for him to weaken. My hands tightened into fists and I wanted to fry her where she stood. Alek’s pale eyes caught mine, and I held back. He had made me promise that Eva was his. This wasn’t my fight, unfair though it was.

  I had to trust him. He had shifted before the poison had gotten deep into him. He could take her. I hoped.

  Beside me, Aurelio moved away, stalking along the edge of the wolves, heading for the stairs. I hesitated for a moment, worried about Alek, but gave myself a mental shake and followed Aurelio, turning my attention to the gunmen above.

  The brother with the dart gun noticed us moving, and nudged his brother. I hoped I was close enough and sent a bolt of lightning streaking into him. The lighting arced between them and blasted both brothers off their feet, smashing them back into their companions. My spell was weaker than the one I’d thrown at the men outside, the lightning dying out before traveling to more than the two of them. Fatigue turned my legs to lead and my head felt about ready to explode, but I threw another bolt into the gallery, then another, striking as many as I could.

  The remainder started trying to shoot me, but automatic weapons aren’t exactly accurate. I threw up a shield, trying to angle it so bullets would skip off at an upward angle, away from the wolves trying to back away from me.

  “Get out,” I yelled at them. “The side door, go.” But no one was listening, their attention either on the gallery where Aurelio had gained the stairs, or on the tiger and wolf fighting in the center of the hall.

  The alphas meant to see the fight through. Idiots.

  Aurelio and his white wolf companion ripped into the gunmen above me, and I dared not throw more lightning around. The gunfire stopped as the few remaining found they had more pressing, and toothy, problems. It looked like Aurelio had things in hand as three more brave alphas flowed up the stairs and joined in subduing the last of the gunmen.

  I staggered against a bench and sat heavily, trying to breathe through my exhaustion, my gaze returning to the fight. Wolves around me were turning back to men and women, taking up seats again. They all gave me wide berth, leaving me with a perfect front-row seat.

  Blood ran down Alek’s flank, staining his pristine white coat. There was blood on his mouth as well, and a wound gaped in Eva’s right shoulder where his teeth had found purchase. She glanced up at the gallery and snarled. Alek took advantage of her distraction to spring, his tail whipping back and forth as he landed on her, pinning her partially beneath him. His jaw snapped closed just above where her head should have been as she shifted to human and then back to wolf in a blink, avoiding the killing blow. Her jaws sank into his foreleg, and he twisted, ripping into her injured shoulder again with his teeth. She rolled out from under him, fur and blood dripping from her mouth.

  Alek didn’t let her go far; his were teeth still locked in her shoulder. He tore free a huge chunk of fur and flesh, revealing the white of her bone before a curtain of blood covered it. So much blood, spurting from severed arteries. She was too hurt to continue. She had to be. I l
eaned forward, holding my breath, waiting for Alek to deliver the killing blow.

  Eva screamed, scrabbling away from him. She couldn’t stand, however, instead crouching low on the stone slab, her blood gushing down and slowly painting the knotwork engravings crimson. She became human again, her hand still clutching whatever she had pulled from her pocket before the fight.

  Alek shifted back to human as well. His face was gaunt, his eyes filled with rage and pain.

  “It is over,” he said. “I find you guilty of murder, Eva Phillips. I find you unworthy to wear the mark of the Justice.”

  She laughed, her eyes darting around crazily. “It’s a stupid charm I bought from a stand on the road,” she said. “My feather melted away like ice in sunlight the night I killed that stupid wolf bitch. The Council has already turned on me. But the Peace will never succeed, even if I die. The Council is sick. This way of life is over. We will find a new way.”

  “I am here. The Council is here through me,” Alek said. “It does not matter. You will die by my hand.” He walked toward her cautiously, not trusting her. I applauded that.

  “No,” she said, spitting blood. “You’ll all die by mine.” And she raised her hand, revealing the silvery object. It looked like a pen, but with a button on top.

  I’d watched enough action movies to recognize that. A switch.

  “I had Wulf buried with a little something extra,” she said, still cackling as blood frothed from her mouth.

  I didn’t stop to think, to breathe. I hardly knew I was moving, only that I wouldn’t make it to her in time. Grabbing my d20 talisman with both hands, I threw my magic out and anchored it like a tether to the bloody stone beneath Eva’s body. Then I pulled. The tether yanked me forward and I went flying across the floor and slammed into Eva as she pushed down on the button.

  “Get out get them out go go please go,” I was screaming as I threw my arms around her, wrapping my magic all around us and the stone, pouring every ounce of myself into the shield.

  I couldn’t see if Alek obeyed before the world exploded.

  There was pain, but it was the kind of pain that because abstract very quickly. Like being cut deep with a very sharp blade. The ache is there and intense, but it doesn’t feel real. The cut looks like it has happened to someone else and your body tries to tell you that this isn’t your limb, that isn’t your wound.

  This won’t kill me. But it felt like dying. My eardrums exploded, my head ringing like a million bells. Darkness threatened, but I fought it back with my power, pushing against unconsciousness, embracing the blinding pain. I couldn’t feel Eva in my arms anymore. I wasn’t convinced I still had arms. My world became a thought, narrowed down to a single desire.

  So much pressure. White hot, molten, bubbling up against me like lava. My shields strained, the power in me waning, drained too far.

  Keep the shield up. No more family, no more friends are going to die because of a bomb. Ever. Not if I still live to stop them. Never. Again.

  Something inside me broke loose. Like a joint popping back into alignment that I hadn’t known was out until it set itself again.

  The lava turned to warmth. The pain disappeared. I floated in a sea of power, breathing in it, channeling it into the shield as though I had the universe itself at my fingertips. I breathed in flame, inhaled the pressure of the explosion, and breathed out magic, pure, unfamiliar power that was both mine and not mine.

  If this is death, I thought, I don’t mind it so much.

  “Not death,” said a gentle, masculine voice in my head. “But you aren’t ready yet. Go back to sleep.”

  And then the power slipped away and the warmth faded back into heat.

  There was something hard and smooth as glass beneath my body. My head pounded like a motherfucker. For a long second I just breathed, amazed that I could, afraid to move in case the blinding pain returned. I tested by wiggling my big toe.

  It was there and intact. I felt it scrape against the smooth surface beneath me. My hands were underneath me, my talisman pressing against my palm. I opened my eyes and blinked a few times, trying to figure out where I was. Glassy red stone curved upward from in front of my face, as though I lay in a steep bowl. I rolled onto my back and my foot hit something that clattered on the glass as it moved.

  Above me the roof of the great hall looked intact. I moved my eyes as Alek appeared at the lip of the giant bowl I lay in.

  “Jade?” he said, his voice and face filled with disbelief and then joy. He slid down beside me as I sat up.

  “I’m okay,” I said. My voice sounded like I had smoked a few too many packs of cigarettes and I coughed, trying to clear my dry throat. A memory of breathing in fire, of bathing in flames and having more power than a god flickered through my mind, slippery and unreal. I pushed it away and looked around.

  There was no sign of Eva. At my feet was Samir’s dagger. It had survived the blast, which didn’t surprise me. My clothes, not so much. I sat in a depression in the stone floor about eight feet across and three or so feet deep. The stone was blood red and melted smooth like glass. Alek crouched down beside me, but didn’t touch me.

  I climbed slowly to my feet, taking the hand he offered. Other than being totally naked, I felt fine. My body looked fine—not a burn mark or wound on me. My hair fell over my shoulders, waist-length and glossy, as though I’d washed and combed it recently. I reached up and felt for the shorter bit where Haruki had shot off part of my hair, but that was gone. Twisting my leg, I looked at the back of my thigh. No sign of that wound, either.

  “Huh,” I said, bending and picking up Samir’s knife.

  The hall was empty, the great doors thrown wide open. Beyond I saw shifters milling around. Aurelio and Freyda stood side by side on the porch, just outside the doorway, talking with their heads together.

  I took a deep breath. “So, that’s over, I guess.” I tried on a smile and looked at Alek.

  “No,” he said. “But our part is, I think.”

  I tried to climb up out of the bowl, and slipped. Alek’s arms came around me and he lifted me up. Fucking hell. Not again.

  “Put me down,” I demanded as he jumped easily out of the bowl.

  “You can barely stand,” he said.

  “But I can stand,” I said. “This happens, like, every fucking time. I pull off big magic, knock myself on my ass, and then you show up and carry me home. Fuck that. This time I am walking out of here on my own two feet.”

  His lips twitched and the concern in his eyes turned to humor. He set me down, keeping a steadying hand on my elbow.

  “Would you like a shirt, Lady Godiva?” he asked, his smile turning into a smirk.

  I looked out at the gathered crowd and then down at my naked body. My hair was doing a Godiva thing, covering my breasts if not much else. It was definitely a sign of my exhaustion that I had forgotten in the last twenty seconds that I was sporting the emperor’s latest wardrobe malfunction.

  “Yes,” I muttered. “Shirt might be good.”

  He gave me his sweater. I pulled it on and it covered me nearly to my knees, the sleeves falling over my hands. I rolled them up and picked up Samir’s knife again. Good enough. I turned to Alek and gently touched the purple and black bruises on his arm and shoulder.

  “You okay?” I said, looking up at him.

  “I will live,” he promised me, bending to kiss my nose.

  “All right,” I said. Squaring my shoulders and trying not to lean on his offered arm too heavily, I walked out of the hall on my own two damn feet.

  I passed out cold about thirty seconds later, but that’s besides the point.

  Freyda became the new alpha of alphas, Alek told us later. Aurelio and many others pledged their blood to Wulf’s sword, but some of the alphas left without pledging and there was still a great deal of suspicion around who had sided with Eva or not.

  It seemed the future of the Peace was still in the air.

  Eva was dead, assumed vaporized in the exp
losion. Wulf’s body was now sealed beneath the depression I’d created with my power, though I guessed it had been vaporized as well.

  I told my friends my version of events, leaving out the weird experience in the middle of the explosion. I didn’t know what to think of it. My power felt normal after a day of sleeping and eating vast quantities of Rosie’s French toast. No strange warmth, no sudden desire to inhale flames.

  Haruki’s memories lurked in my mind, his knowledge waiting for examination, but I had had enough of fire for a while and left them there. I left my shop closed for a few days, too, choosing to stay at the Henhouse.

  I pretended it was because I needed to recover and make sure all my friends were healed, but the truth was, I was afraid to resume my life, afraid of what might happen now that people knew what I really was. I didn’t believe for a moment that what had happened at the Den would stay quiet among the supernatural residents of Wylde.

  It was Harper, as usual, who made me go home and return to work. Harper who nagged me into resuming my normal life.

  My shop felt musty, but aired out after we propped the door open for a while. It was Thursday morning and nobody came in, which wasn’t unusual. The college would open for classes in just over a week, so I figured business would pick up then. I didn’t mind the quiet.

  Harper was camped out in her chair, playing Hearthstone and swearing at the RNG gods. I sat up on my stool, a full box of unopened Magic: The Gathering booster packs in front of me, debating if I should just open them and sell the individual cards to keep the packs intact. I kind of wanted the mindless work of sorting them, and the little bits of happy discovery that came from each opened pack as I looked to see what the mythic or rare card was.

  “Shouldn’t you have the blinds down, just in case that assassin comes back?” Harper asked, glancing at the front windows and open door.

  “He’s not coming back,” I said. I’d neglected to tell my friends about Haruki and how it had ended. There had been too many other things to say, and the moment had passed. No one had asked about the assassin all week, either.