“I see.” Steele released his flames and I breathed a sigh of relief. Looked like there wasn’t going to be a showdown today. Who would win a battle between a fireshaper and a vampire? Shapers were generally considered to be all-powerful, but today I’d seen a side of Alberto I hadn’t known existed. How could anybody move that fast? And where had those swirls of darkness come from? I’d never heard that vampires could do that. Maybe the rumours were right, and he really was something special.
Steele moved closer, bending over to inspect the body on the floor. “Lion shifter. You don’t see those too often. Who is he?”
Alberto shrugged. “No idea. Never seen him before.”
Steele raised his voice, looking around at the silent crowd. “Anybody know this guy?”
Nobody did.
Steele quirked an eyebrow at Johnson, who was still hovering anxiously. “One of your tourists, perhaps? I doubt he’ll be paying you a return visit.”
“Is he dead?” Johnson asked.
He certainly looked it. He was very pale—which was hardly surprising, given that there seemed to be more blood outside his body than in it. His throat was a bloody ruin; I was trying not to look too closely at that. It turned my stomach.
Steele crouched by the body. “No. See that? That gash is starting to heal.”
“I’ll have him taken into custody, then,” Johnson said.
“What for? The crime of being attacked by a vampire?” Steele looked up at Alberto. “Like to tell me what happened? Other than that he shifted? Why did he shift?”
“He was about to attack Joe here.”
Steele’s attention swung to Joe, who looked very uncomfortable to find himself in the spotlight. “Oh? What was the problem?”
“The guy was being an arsehole,” Joe muttered.
“Not usually considered a crime, either.” Steele rose to his full commanding height and looked at Joe stonily.
“He was being an arsehole to me,” I said impatiently. And I think he kidnapped my friend. But that part I had to keep to myself. At least if the shifter wasn’t dead I might be able to find out what he’d done with Syl. “Joe saw he was bothering me and came over to help. The guy didn’t take too kindly to that, so he shifted. He could have killed us both.”
“You’re a wolf, aren’t you?” Steele asked Joe.
Joe nodded.
I hoped Joe wouldn’t cop any flak for this, though if anyone was going to get into trouble it should be Alberto. Shaper law was simple: don’t do anything to piss off the shapers. Many things that would be considered crimes in the human territories were brushed aside here, as long as no shaper was hurt or inconvenienced. Their police force, the provosts, handled mundane crimes, but the bigger issues were dealt with by the shapers themselves, and their justice was swift and without appeal.
Shifters were normally given the leeway to police their own internal squabbles. Since this guy was a shifter himself, he’d probably have no recourse against Alberto. Or Joe.
But there was that famous shaper unpredictability to consider and, as the Master of the South-East, Steele was the ultimate authority here.
He turned his cool blue gaze on me. “What was he doing to you? Did he physically attack you?”
“No. He was just talking.”
“Asking questions?”
“No.” It was none of his damned business anyway, but it bothered me that Steele somehow guessed he’d been asking questions. I felt no compunction about lying. “Just trying to pick me up.”
His eyes searched my face, as if he knew I was lying. Uneasily, I wondered if shapers had some way to tell. Then he picked up one of the barstools lying on the floor and snapped off its metal leg. I jumped at the sound and the unexpectedness of the action. What the hell?
Fire ignited in his hands again and danced along the piece of metal between them. I took an instinctive step back.
“I hope you’re going to pay me for that,” Alberto said coolly.
“You can put it on my tab.”
The metal glowed red-hot, though Steele handled it as if it weren’t superheated. He bent the metal bar into a pretzel shape. It bent as easily as if it were made of soft clay. A few molten drops splashed onto the wooden floor and sizzled. Alberto frowned.
“That, too,” Steele said, then he crouched down by the unconscious lion shifter again and rolled him roughly onto his face. He jerked the guy’s wrists together behind his back and fitted the pretzel shape over them, moulding it until it formed a perfect set of unlockable handcuffs. The cuffs didn’t appear to harm the shifter’s skin in any way—which, considering the metal still glowed a dull red, showed Steele’s extraordinary control of his fireshaping. Or maybe that was his metalshaping. It all seemed connected. No wonder he’d made it onto the council so young.
He hoisted the unconscious shifter over his shoulder as he stood, heedless of the blood.
“No need to bother yourself,” he said to the mayor, “I’ll take him with me.”
Johnson didn’t ask what Steele was going to do with him—Steele clearly outranked him—but I sure wondered. Why was he, one of the most powerful shapers in the country, bothering with a lowly barroom brawl? Was he protecting the guy? He’d had a funny look on his face when he bent down to inspect him. I wasn’t convinced that he didn’t know who he was. Was the shifter working for him? Maybe they were both working for Anders.
My head spun as the horrible possibilities mounted. I folded my arms across my chest and eyed him with suspicion. Now I was even more anxious to check out his home. Would I find Syl there?
Without another word Steele walked out, leaving everybody gaping after him. Alberto was the first to move.
“Excuse me,” he said. “I need a change of clothes.”
He needed a shower, actually. There was even blood in his hair, which was stiff with it and standing up at odd angles. He looked quite unlike his usual debonair self.
“Are you okay?” Joe asked as Alberto disappeared through the door marked “Private”.
“Fine. You?”
“Yeah, I’m good.” He was still staring at the door into Alberto’s private rooms. “Never seen Alberto in action before. Wait until I tell Holly.”
I was about to suggest it might not be the best thing to describe to a pregnant woman, but then I gave a mental shrug. They were both werewolves. The look of admiration on his face told me he had a different view of such things than I did.
“Thanks for helping me out there,” I said.
“No problem.” He smiled at me. He had a kind face—not particularly good-looking, but kind. “I’ll walk you home, make sure you don’t run into any more trouble.”
I rolled my eyes. “What kind of trouble am I going to get into crossing the street? No one’s going to jump me between here and my front door.”
“A pretty girl like you can’t be too careful, you know.” He frowned at me, mock-serious, as he held open the door. I knew he was just talking shit, to calm me after the bloody scene in the pub. He was a good guy. “What you need is a nice young man to look after you.”
“Is that right?” He meant Lucas, of course, but I was barely listening. If Steele had Syl, things were going to get ugly. There was no way I could take on a shaper directly. “And I suppose you know just the person?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.”
It was a cool evening, but at least it wasn’t raining. A sprinkling of stars twinkled down on the bustling epicentre of Berkley’s Bay. A few cars sat outside the pub, but we were the only people on the street. All the shops were dark. We crossed the road, our footsteps echoing on the pavement, me already planning the best way to get into Steele’s house without being seen.
“Werewolves make great partners, you know,” he continued. “Loving, committed—did you know they mate for life?”
“I believe you may have mentioned it a time or two.” I watched in a fever of impatience as he fumbled his keys out of his pocket and unlocked the street door. Couldn’t he g
o any faster? Pretending I had nothing more in mind than an evening in front of the TV was killing me. “But only if both parties are werewolves, so it doesn’t really concern me, does it? If I recall, they’re also excellent providers and good in bed.”
He grinned, his teeth very white in the streetlights. “Smoking hot. Just ask Holly.”
“I think I’ll take your word for it. She might actually tell me, and I don’t think I need the details.”
He laughed as I followed his broad back up the stairs to our shared landing.
“Well, thanks again. I’ll see you around.”
He paused with his hand on his own front door. “You want to come in? I think we’ve got some leftover lasagne for dinner.”
“No, I’m cool.” I let myself into my apartment and looked around for Syl. There was no sign of her, but I hadn’t really expected any. At the front door, I listened for a moment to make sure Joe had gone inside, then slipped out onto the empty landing again. Finally. I could hear the rumble of his deep voice talking to Holly behind the door of Number 1 as I headed back down the stairs. I wasn’t interested in Lucas the werewolf. A certain fireshaper and his dodgy pet lion held all my attention right now.
***
Déjà vu. Here I was wandering through the dark bush again. At least it wasn’t raining tonight. I trod lightly over the leaves and pebbles. No bushes rustled; not even a twig snapped as I passed. A cat padded silently alongside me—not Syl. This one was a ginger tomcat that I’d found and called to me as I left the road for the shelter of the trees. I wasn’t going to waltz up the road to Steele’s house and demand answers; I needed to be sneaky about this, so I’d slipped into the bush and circled round to approach the property from the rear.
I walked confidently, linked to the cat’s senses, enjoying my enhanced abilities. My night vision was sharper, and I moved with more agility than normal, light on my feet. Cats were great for this sort of work. I’d used them many times in the city. More than predators, they were the ultimate sneaks—fast, quiet, and able to get into places no one could imagine.
It was cold, but I was moving fast enough to keep warm in my long black shirt and pants. The bush was alive with small creatures, and some not so small. I felt a wild deer passing off to my right somewhere, and the tiny minds of small rodents and the creatures that hunted them sparked in my inner sight, lighting up like the stars that hung overhead.
The moon was out too, only three or four nights from full by the look of it. The darkness didn’t bother me, and the moon was an old friend. I’d ranged under her light many a night before this, though usually my work had been done in dark alleys or across city rooftops, not out in the wild like this.
My companion and I slipped through the fence that marked the shaper’s boundaries, and ghosted through the bush until the trees thinned and we found ourselves at the edge of his wide, rolling lawns. The house lay sprawled in the centre of its open space. Facing us was the long wall of glass, slightly fogged with moisture, that marked the location of his indoor pool. Beside it was the entry he’d led me through the night we’d staggered out of the bush with the two lost boys.
The lower storey was massive; the next level was only half the size, and each room seemed to boast a balcony. I could hardly enter through the door this time—the lawn in front of it was floodlit. I couldn’t see into the dark rooms on the ground floor, but anyone inside would be able to see me.
I considered those balconies again. Most of them were just as exposed as the back entry, but a couple on the side had trees conveniently placed nearby, and the floodlights didn’t cover that area. My companion and I circled around through the cover of the bush until we were opposite one of them.
I left the cat licking its paws under a flowering shrub and sprinted across the open space, feeling horribly exposed. I fetched up against the bole of a wide gum tree, heart hammering. No one shouted or shot at me, so I let out a deep breath and waited for my racing heart to calm.
The gum might have been more of a challenge to my unaugmented body, but linked to the cat I had no problem. I leapt off the ground and ran nimbly up the trunk, pausing to listen on a wide branch that overlooked the balcony. Still no alarms. I padded out along the branch and leapt down lightly onto the balcony. The door wasn’t locked, so I slid it open and stepped inside, making sure to leave it open behind me in case I needed a quick exit later.
By the light of the moon, I could see enough of the room to guess I was in the shaper’s bedroom, the one that Syl had been describing just before she disappeared. There was the bed, as enormous as she’d said. Surely half a dozen people could have slept comfortably in that monstrosity. Why on earth did he need a bed that big?
I pulled a small flashlight out of my pocket and moved silently across the carpet to another door. Beyond was a dressing room bigger than my whole bedroom. My flashlight swept across shirts, folded in neat colour-coordinated piles, rows of shoes, and an assortment of jeans hanging from the rail. Nothing that might give me a hint of why he was here, or where he had stashed Syl.
The other door off the bedroom concealed an en suite bathroom that boasted a marble spa bath and a shower big enough for ten. I closed that door and crept toward the one that opened into the hallway. I stood, listening and sending out my awareness, feeling within the house for any animal life that I could use.
Nothing. The house was quiet, so I slipped into the hall, moving slowly, checking each room that I passed. All were bedrooms or bathrooms, but none were occupied.
I halted at the top of the stairs and probed my link to Syl, just in case, but it was still silent. Dammit. Why couldn’t she have been up here? Now I’d have to risk going downstairs. I set one foot on the top step. The staircase was wide and curved straight down to a marble foyer in front of imposing double doors. Outside those doors lay the driveway and the road to freedom. Inside was only mounting danger. Every step down that staircase left me more exposed. If someone came into the foyer, there would be nowhere to hide.
Now my black clothes were a hindrance. I stood out against the stark white walls like one rotten tooth in the middle of a smile. Only my fear for Syl drove me on.
My hearing, like my sight, was still augmented by my link to the ginger tom lurking outside in the bushes. I strained my ears for the slightest sound, jumpy as a cat on a hot tin roof. Two hallways led off the foyer. Down one I could hear voices, though I couldn’t distinguish what they were saying, or even what gender they were. The sound was no more than a murmur behind closed doors. From my observations outside, I knew that the kitchen was down that way. To my right was only silence, so I chose that direction, stealing down the hall on nervous feet.
The first door was an office, with a laptop sitting on the large desk that dominated the room. I hesitated. It wasn’t as good as finding Syl, but if I could discover what he was doing here … Maybe just a quick peek. When I opened the laptop with my gloved fingers, the screen lit up. Excellent. He was still logged in. No messing around with passwords.
I set my flashlight down on the desk and considered the glowing screen. Where to start? Emails would probably bear the quickest fruit, but which might tell me something about his motives for coming here? It could be any of them.
Best to just start at the top and check the most recent. As I scanned down the list my gaze fell on a name I recognised and my blood ran cold.
Erik Anders.
Those cold dark eyes. The cruel twist to that mouth, which only smiled at someone else’s misfortune.
“I need you to acquire this,” he’d said, as expressionless as if he’d just asked me to pass the sugar.
I still remembered the shock that had burned through my body, leaving me cold and shaking in its wake.
“You mean steal it,” I’d said, barely managing to control the tremor in my voice. How could he possibly expect me to break into the home of the First Councillor, the famous Ruby Adept, and steal something? It was a death sentence if I was caught.
“It
doesn’t belong to him anyway,” he’d said, as if that made it all right.
I’d stared into those cold eyes and realised it was a death sentence regardless. Whether I did it or not, whether I succeeded or not, there was no happy ending for me in this story.
If I failed, the Ruby Adept would kill me.
And if I succeeded … Erik Anders would. He couldn’t leave me free to tell of what I’d done. I might as well put a gun to my head on the spot and save myself some trouble.
“It’ll cost you,” I’d said, desperate to find a way out, a way that didn’t end with me dead in an alley somewhere. I couldn’t say no, now that he’d told me what he wanted. That way ended in the alley, too. But if I bargained and made him think I was taking the job, that might buy me enough time to make a run for it.
His lip had curled. “Name your price.”
I’d picked an outrageous sum. Predictably, he’d counter-offered something pathetic, and we’d settled in to bargain in earnest, while nervous sweat ran down between my breasts and soaked the fabric of my shirt.
Why was Steele corresponding with Anders? They were both on the council, so maybe it wasn’t unusual, though Anders was only junior compared to Steele. His secondary element was water, which was odd for a fireshaper. Fire and water were such opposites, the two sides of his power warred against each other, weakening both. Normally such a shaper wouldn’t be considered for a council seat, but he had plenty of the right kind of friends, so he’d finally managed to slime his way in. His email could be nothing more than two councillors discussing council business.
The subject line said “Re: Stolen altarpiece”. That made my heart sink almost as much as the name of the sender. I clicked to open it, and that was when the lights flicked on.
9
Steele stood in the doorway, hand still on the light switch. “By the gods!”
I leapt up, shoving the chair back violently, but before I could even take a step a ring of fire leapt up around the desk.
His eyes narrowed. For a fireshaper, he had one hell of a chilly expression on his face.
Stolen Magic (Shadows of the Immortals Book 1) Page 8
