*Hang on,* she said. *I think there’s a car coming this way.*
Steele’s place was at the end of a long, tree-lined road that wound up through the bush to the clifftop. There were no other houses along that road, so if Syl could hear a car there wasn’t anywhere else it could be going.
*You should leave now, before anyone sees you.*
*Keep your fur on. No one’s going to take any notice of a cat.*
*Is it him? Don’t let him see you. He knows what you look like.*
*Relax, would you?*
A burst of laughter caught my attention, so I made sure to laugh, too. Didn’t want Tegan thinking there was something wrong. Becky and her partner had just finished and ripped off their blindfolds. Everyone was laughing at the look on Becky’s face as she saw how much slop had ended up down the front of her garbage bag.
*Hey,* said Syl. *What’s he doing here?*
*Who?*
She cried out in fear, a wordless mental shriek.
*Syl!* I leapt out of my chair. Everyone stared.
Tegan jumped up too. Despite her size, she could move fast. “Lexi? What’s wrong?”
*Syl! Syl! Are you hurt? What’s wrong?*
But there was no reply. Syl was gone.
7
“Lexi! Are you ill? What’s the matter?” Tegan’s urgency finally penetrated my consciousness, and I dragged my mind back from its scattered points.
Everyone was staring at me.
“I’m fine,” I mumbled, pulling off my garbage bag. “Fine. Just remembered … something really urgent.” I was half out of the room already, fear propelling me as I made my excuses. “So sorry! I’ve got to go.”
Norma followed me out to the car. “Are you sure you don’t need help?”
That was alphas for you, always trying to run everybody else’s lives. She meant well, but there was nothing she could do for me.
“Sorry to run out like this.” I started the engine, but she still stood there, frowning at me.
“You know, there’s a rumour going around that you’re an earthshaper,” she said.
“What?” Talk about a blast from the past. I’d been run out of Newport when a very similar rumour started circulating. “Why?”
She shrugged. “People talk. You know how it is. There are quite a few theories about how you managed to find those boys. That’s one of them.”
“Damn.” But this was a shaper town, in the heart of shaper territory. No one would spit on me in the street here, or smash my windows, for a rumour like that. No one would beat my brother to a pulp and drag his broken body away on my account.
I shuddered at the memory and threw the car into reverse.
Norma stepped back. “I’m just saying—try not to draw any more attention to yourself.”
I looked at her—really looked at her this time—wondering what she was really saying. Did she suspect my secret? Was she trying to warn me not to draw Steele’s attention? Damn the rumour mill. I didn’t want anyone looking too closely at me. Particularly not Jake bloody Steele.
“Thanks, Norma. Sorry, but I’ve got to run.” I shivered again, hoping those words didn’t turn out to be prophetic.
“Take care of yourself.”
She stood in the drive and watched me until I rounded the corner and was lost to view. I drove fast, the little car hurtling around the corners, but as I approached the last bend before the road straightened out and ran in a long line up to Steele’s massive gates, I slowed.
What was I going to do there? I was no match for a shaper.
I pulled over and stared out the windscreen at the verdant bush. My mind coursed out through the green, passing through those gates as though they didn’t exist, hunting, hunting. Tiny minds lurked everywhere: lizards sunning themselves on the rocks of Steele’s extensive gardens, sparrows hopping over the long green swell of the lawn in search of food. Cockatoos screeched in the towering gums, and a pair of rainbow lorikeets darted madly through the trees, swooping and soaring. I should have done this straight away, but I’d been so panicked that my first thought had been to get here as fast as possible.
I found no cat mind, no animal life at all inside the house—not even a mouse within the walls. The place was sterile. Dammit, why couldn’t the man have a pet? I called the birds to me instead, and sent them winging towards the windows.
Why couldn’t I find Syl? My hands tightened on the steering wheel. Was she out of range? But I’d gotten here so quickly. In human form? That one was so unlikely it wasn’t even worth considering. Which left me with much more unpalatable choices: She was unconscious. She was dead.
Split between half a dozen consciousnesses, I searched the estate, peeking in at the windows, watching for movement anywhere. Nothing. If only I’d linked to Syl’s sight like this, and seen whatever she had seen just before she screamed. What’s he doing here? Who? And what had he done to Syl? But I’d been trying to stay present at the baby shower, so no one would realise what a freak I was.
The housekeeper was still working in the large open-plan kitchen. If something terrible had just happened here, it certainly hadn’t disturbed her. I sent the birds circling wider, higher. Through their eyes I saw my own car, idling at the side of the road, but nothing else moved.
Syl had said someone had pulled up in a car. What’s he doing here? Where was the other car? Nothing was parked in the driveway now. Where had he gone?
I let the birds go, and shrank back into my own skin. What should I do now? I put the car into gear and made a U-turn. All the way home, I scanned the streets for a small black cat, or maybe even a lithe girl with her long black hair in a neat plait down her back, but I saw nothing.
At home, I unlocked the door with shaking hands.
“Syl?” I called, but no black cat came to wind itself around my legs.
I strode through the apartment, but there was no one there. It was getting dark. The kitchen window was partly open, as always, so that Syl could come and go. I looked across the road at the lights of the pub on the corner. Alberto would rise soon.
That animal scream of fear echoed in my head. I had to speak to Alberto right now. I had to know what Jake Steele was doing in town.
And then I had to track the bastard down and get Syl back.
I took off my pretty skirt, and changed into dark jeans and a black sweater. Tied my hair back in a ponytail so it was off my face. Once it was fully dark, I’d head back out to Steele’s house and see if I could find any traces of Syl. Maybe it hadn’t been him who’d hurt her, but it had happened at his house. That made him at least partly responsible, and confirmed all my bad opinions of shapers. Back in Crosston, folks I’d known said the only good shaper was a dead one—though they didn’t say that too loud.
Down the stairs I went, and back out into the street. The lights outside the pub glowed a soft welcome. Nothing could be seen of the lights inside, since Alberto had altered the décor to get rid of windows and install the double entryway. No drinkers spilled out onto the footpath from open doors, like most other pubs I’d been to. But then, I’d never been to a pub owned by a vampire before.
It was something of a tourist attraction for the town, in fact. Berkley’s Bay didn’t have a lot to offer in the winter months, but in summer it came alive with holidaymakers fighting for a place in the sun. Lots of visitors came for a drink or a meal at the famous pub, hoping to get a glimpse of its owner.
They often went away a little let-down. Alberto carefully cultivated an urbane persona. In person, he was disappointingly, resolutely, ordinary. Sometimes I wondered if he was hiding from something, too. Most vampires liked to make more of a splash. Disappointed visitors had to be content with the wild stories that circulated about his power. For the price of a beer, plenty of locals would be happy to tell stories of how he’d lifted a truck off a woman pinned in the street outside the pub, or his ability to dissipate into smoke, or appear out of nowhere. These tales tended to get wilder as the number of beers consumed rose,
so I was never sure how much, if any, to believe, but they kept the tourists happy.
Alberto wasn’t behind the bar when I pushed my way through the inner door, and I sighed in frustration. I tried again to reach Syl, but I’d been trying almost constantly since I’d lost her, and this time was no more successful than the others. It was like niggling at a sore tooth with your tongue. It hurts, but you just can’t stop doing it.
A group of guys clustered around the tables in front of the big screen TV, watching the end of a football game. Joe was among them.
“Party over already?” he asked.
“I left early,” I said. “Have you seen Syl anywhere?”
He shook his head. “She’ll show up when she’s hungry.”
That was the trouble when your “cat” refused to come out as an actual person. Nobody took her disappearance seriously.
“What about Jake Steele?”
Joe raised an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you’ve succumbed to our councillor’s charms? Lucas will be devastated.”
“Lucas barely knows I’m alive,” I shot back, but without my usual humour. It was an old conversation between us. Joe had been trying to set me up with his younger brother, Lucas, almost from the moment he’d met me. “His great interest in me only exists in your head.”
I left Joe to his football and ordered a mineral water from the day barman. Settled on a barstool, my hands flat on the cool surface of the bar, I let my mind expand, spreading out through the town, touching little glowing sparks of life. I left the lesser ones, the lizards and scurrying insects. There was a limit to how many minds I could inhabit at once without losing track of them all. I tickled the minds of any dogs and cats I found, sending them searching. Cats were better for this sort of thing, since they were usually freer to roam than dogs. I found birds, too; birds were better still. No one ever looked up, or thought anything of a bird perched in a nearby tree or hopping along a windowsill. They were practically invisible. But it was late in the day for the birds; they were all focused on finding shelter for the night, and hard to divert to my purposes. I stared blankly between my fingers at the surface of the bar, focusing on pushing farther and farther, taking hold of more minds than I’d ever handled before in my panicked need to find Syl.
My creatures scurried, prowled and flew, prying into corners, peeking through windows. They found black cats for me, and every time my heart would rise with hope, only to plunge back down when I realised it wasn’t the right black cat. I looked into the faces of a dozen dark-haired young women, but none of them were the right woman. Lost in my exploration, I forgot where my body was.
I jumped when someone spoke right next to me. My hand jerked, spilling water onto the gleaming surface of the bar.
“Mind if I sit here?”
It was a guy about my own age, maybe a little older. I hadn’t seen him before. His leather jacket said city dweller, as did the shine on his shoes. He was smiling, waiting expectantly by the stool next to me.
“It’s a free country,” I said, turning my shoulder slightly so I faced more towards the guys watching TV. There were plenty of empty stools; why did he have to sit right next to me? If he tried hitting on me, I’d go join Joe. I wasn’t in the mood for dealing with guys who fancied their chances. Besides, I could hardly string two sentences together, I was so distracted by the search going on outside these walls.
He ordered a drink, then turned so his knees brushed against me. “Did you watch the game?”
He gestured at the TV, where blokes in tight shorts and football jerseys were hugging each other in a frenzy. Joe was cheering, so I guess his team had won.
“I’m not much of a fan.” I glanced at my watch. Where was Alberto? My creatures hadn’t found any sign of Steele yet, either. I watched the door that led down to the cellars.
“You’re the one who found those kids the other night, right?”
I looked closer. Did I know this guy? Had he been in the pub that night? He didn’t look familiar.
“Yeah, that was me.”
“How’d you do that?”
“Just got lucky.” If I had a dollar for every time I’d said that lately, I’d be ordering one of the pub’s fine steak dinners tonight instead of eating reheated pizza.
“Really? That’s not what I heard.” He leaned closer, close enough for me to smell the spirits on his breath. “You can tell me. You’re a shaper, right? Some kind of weird shifter, maybe? I bet you’ve got a nose like a bloodhound on you.”
“Nope. Just lucky.” I said it more firmly this time and started to slide off my stool.
His hand shot out and closed around my upper arm. “I think you should tell me.”
I jerked my arm, but he only tightened his grip. I pinned him with a killing look, wishing I had one of my knives on me. Hadn’t thought I’d need one for a baby shower. “I think you should let go.”
“You know, you don’t want to count on being lucky like that again. Finding someone you’ve lost, I mean.”
My breath caught. Did he mean Syl? Who was this guy? I searched his face: tawny, animal-coloured eyes. Broad, flat nose. Shaggy blonde hair falling in his face. A shifter of some kind? He smirked at me, giving nothing away.
I glared at him. “If you have something to say, just say it.”
“This guy bothering you?” Joe loomed at my shoulder, looking bigger and meaner than usual.
The guy let go, and I rubbed my arm, scowling at him. Had he taken Syl? I’d teach him to mess with my friends.
“Why don’t you take a hike, buddy?” Joe continued. “I think you’ve had enough.”
The guy slid off his stool, looking Joe up and down, the smirk replaced by a sneer. He was nowhere near Joe’s size, but it didn’t seem to faze him. He leaned forward and sniffed at Joe.
Yep. Definitely a shifter. But what kind? Most of them knew better than to take on a werewolf.
“Go back to your kennel, dog. Nobody cares what you think.”
He pushed right into Joe’s face. If he thought that would make Joe step back, he was wrong. Joe shoved, hard, and the guy staggered back a pace.
He snarled, his face rippling as he did. Oh, Lord. No wonder he wasn’t afraid of Joe. The guy was a lion.
I nearly fell off my stool in my haste to get away. Joe snatched it up, bringing it around as the lion roared. What good was a barstool against a lion? But there was no point shifting. Joe’s wolf wouldn’t be any match for it either.
The lion gathered itself to spring, the powerful muscles in its hindquarters bunching, its tail twitching in anticipation. Joe backed up, never taking his eyes off the beast.
Then a dark blur flashed between them, knocking Joe out of the way. The barstool clattered to the floorboards and the lion went down in a flurry of tawny limbs. It gave a strangled yelp, and then the only sound in the room was the awful slurping sound of a vampire feeding.
Alberto crouched over the beast, his face buried in its massive neck. I shrank closer to Joe. I’d never seen Alberto feed before. It wasn’t pretty. No one in the pub dared move or speak, afraid to draw the vampire’s attention.
Before our eyes, the lion shrank back into the form of a man, sprawled on his back, one arm outstretched, fingers clutching at nothing. His heels drummed on the floor, then fell still. His fingers relaxed.
At last Alberto lifted his head. His mouth and chin were covered in blood, gleaming wetly in the light. The shifter’s neck was a ruin, torn and shredded. Blood covered his clothes and leaked down onto the floor, forming a small but spreading pool beneath him.
The door swung open, admitting Jake Steele. He stopped short at the scene laid out before him, his gaze taking in the overturned barstools, the ring of silent onlookers, the vampire crouched over his victim on the floor. And all the blood.
“Zeus’s balls! What’s going on here?”
8
Flames sprang to life in Steele’s clenched fists and shivered up and down his arms. The little tableau froze as everyone star
ed at the fire licking over his skin. Neither Joe nor I dared move a muscle. Alberto, unblinking, watched from his crouch over the body on the floor. Shadows stirred and flocked around him, sucking the light from the room.
Slowly he rose, wreathed in darkness, and faced the flaming shaper. Steele was the only light in the room, flaring bright as fingers of shadow reached hungrily for him. It was easy to forget what Alberto was, when he served you a drink or chatted about the latest town gossip. Now his face was lost in shadow, the genial bartender I knew gone. All of a sudden the wild tales that circulated about him seemed a lot more convincing. Those looming shadows were terrifying. My heart pumped harder, and I wondered if he could hear it. Never before had I been afraid of Alberto.
If Steele was intimidated by the vampire, he didn’t show it. “Who’s that? Why did you attack him?”
Alberto nudged the body with his foot contemptuously. “He’s a shifter.”
Behind me someone cleared their throat. I dragged my gaze from the confrontation as Mayor Johnson came forward, his massive belly preceding him. He’d been one of the crowd watching the football.
His chins wobbled a little as he cleared his throat again. The man’s self-importance grated on me.
“I saw what happened. This gentleman turned into a lion, and Mr Alinari attacked him.” He cast a resentful glance at Alberto. “Just as well it’s off season. This kind of thing is very bad for business. Tourists don’t like it.”
That was another reason I didn’t like him, if I’d even needed one after what he’d done to Holly: his open dislike of Alberto.
The swirling shadows dissipated as Alberto laughed. “Trust you, Johnson. Bad for tourism? So is starting brawls in the pub. He should have read the sign.”
Steele’s eyes flicked to the sign above the bar. “No shifting on the premises?”
“By order of the publican,” Alberto finished, his usual urbane smile now firmly back in place, though the effect was rather spoiled by the blood staining his chin. “My pub, my rules.”
Stolen Magic (Shadows of the Immortals Book 1) Page 7
