by Cherry Adair
He glanced from face to face. “Before the rest of you tell me what the fuck’s going on in there,” Duncan said through his teeth, “where’s Serena?” he demanded of MacBain, who today looked old, pale, and very frail. Duncan ran a hand around the back of his neck and moderated his tone. “Is she inside?”
“The lass was here for a spot of tea,” MacBain said, shading his eyes against the glare. “She has now departed.”
Duncan’s dropped his hand. His jaw hurt from clenching his teeth. There was no point rushing MacBain. The man didn’t respond well to pressure, and when MacPain didn’t want to talk he was like the goddamned Sphinx. “Did she mention where she was going?” Five minutes ago he wanted her here, but if here was where his brother was in a fight to the death, Duncan would prefer she was anywhere else.
There wasn’t a breath of wind on the warm, sunlit air, but he felt forces gathering about the castle that he couldn’t see or hear. A strong, icy, invisible current of evil seemed almost tangible as it eddied and spilled around the ancient stones of Edridge Castle.
His senses were now stronger, more attuned than they’d ever been. His vision, he suddenly noticed, was extraordinary. He could clearly see a spider weaving its web in the stones beside an attic window, high in the eves. He could hear the faint rustle of insects in the lawn twenty feet away. And the erratic beat of MacBain’s old heart. Duncan’s vision and hearing had increased tenfold, yet layered over his new superpowers was the thick unnatural silence that he would be experiencing without them.
Another thing he realized as he waited for MacPain-in-his-ass to spit it out—his body was getting battle ready. Culver wasn’t here. Couldn’t be here. Yet Duncan was experiencing the same physical manifestations he did when he was about to go into danger.
“The lass was on the telephone earlier. Her godfather, I believe,” MacBain told him, glancing around as if he expected Serena to suddenly materialize beside them. “She was teleported—Somewhere.”
Two excellent bits of information. Henry had recovered, and Serena was with him in Germany. Duncan would have to be satisfied, for now, knowing she was safely out of the way. He glanced from Fitzgerald to Tremayne to Stone. Culver, like Serena, was going to have to wait. His brother needed him now. “Fill me in on Gabriel’s situation.”
Alex Stone did so. He included the fact that Verdine had morphed into Duncan and strolled right into the castle, and the dining room where Gabriel had been waiting for him. Duncan hoped to shit his brother hadn’t been fooled for a second.
When Stone was done, Duncan shook his head. “I don’t know what Verdine’s story is, but he isn’t the killer. Trey Culver is.”
“Culver? No way. Not according to your brother or the rest of us,” Tremayne inserted flatly. “We saw him, Duncan.”
What the fuck was going on? “Culver also has the ability to morph. Not a fucking coincidence, I’d bet.” Duncan’s gaze followed MacBain’s to the open front door. The pervasive silence throbbed against his eardrums like an extra heartbeat. “If there’s a battle going on inside, it’s damned quiet.”
Fitzgerald pushed back his straw Stetson with a well-practiced thumb. “I expect it’d be a damn-sight noisier inside that room.”
Duncan suspected there was some sort of isolating shield preventing them from hearing whatever the hell was going on in there. A chill raced up his spine. Was it deathly quiet because the battle was over? Was his older brother alive? Christ—“I’m going in.”
As it happened he couldn’t go in. He teleported into what felt like a tungsten steel wall, and ended up on the wrong side of the door, unable to get inside. No matter what he tried, Duncan couldn’t penetrate the shield.
Helpless, he stood outside as his brother fought for his life. There was nothing he could do. Not a damn, fucking, thing. After several minutes, the others joined him. Ready. Willing and able to help. But equally powerless to do so.
“I’ll fetch refreshments,” MacBain said, shuffling off down the corridor to the library, and the drinks table, before anyone could stop him. Duncan leaned against the wall opposite the sealed door, bracing a foot behind him. Good. He didn’t want the old man this close to the action.
As badly as he needed to be with Serena, as urgently as he had to seek out Culver and have his own battle to the death, Duncan stayed outside the dining room with the other three T-FLAC operatives and waited. And waited. And waited.
Eventually he experienced a small…pop. Almost like going through an air lock. “It’s over.” He shoved open the door.
Chaos.
The room had been destroyed as if a hurricane had blown through it, leaving devastation in its wake. His brother was sprawled on the floor across the room. “Gabriel!”
Dead? Duncan shimmered to his side, then crouched to place two fingers beneath his chin. “Alive. Thank God,” he told the others, who came at a run.
Stone called in a cleanup crew while they waited for Gabriel to come out of it. He wasn’t too banged up, Duncan noticed with relief; nothing a few weeks wouldn’t fix anyway.
Duncan propped up the wall, waiting for his brother to wake up. Finally he leaned forward and snapped his fingers next to his brother’s eardrum. “Hey, bro, time’s a’wasting, I have people to see, and butts of my own to kick. Wake the hell up, would you?!”
Gabriel’s eyes opened and he struggled to a sitting position still looking a little—okay, a lot—shell shocked.
“I should kick your lazy ass for napping on the job,” Alex Stone said with a grin, giving Gabriel a hand up. “Jesus. You look like hell.”
“You should see the other guy,” Duncan muttered. His eyes met Gabriel’s. “Scared the crap out of me when nobody could get into the room. You okay?”
“It was an…interesting experience. Is he dead?”
“Hell yes,” Tremayne assured him. “Simon went off to do some hocus-pocus with the bastard’s head. Lark and Upton took the body off for some kind of wizardly cremation.”
Duncan grabbed his brother’s arm as he staggered to his feet. “You okay?”
Gabriel gave a negligent half shrug and a slight, not now, shake of his head. Explanations would have to wait. Duncan released his arm, but gave his older brother a lift of his eyebrow, a look that demanded explanations. Details.
“I don’t know how the hell you pulled that off, big brother.” Duncan acknowledged the delay nonverbally, but he was studying Gabriel like a bug under a microscope. How had he done it? “The odds were stacked against you. Big time.” He gave Gabriel a sharp, penetrating look. “How do you account for that?”
“He was twice as strong as I was. I shouldn’t have been able to get anywhere near the son of a bitch.” Gabriel rubbed the back of his neck as he glanced around the chaos of the dining room. “Shouldn’t have been able to best him. Yet here I am.”
Gabriel’s power appeared to be supercharged, too. Strange. Exciting. Inexplicable. And clearly, Duncan’s presence had not negated Gabriel’s powers. To the contrary, they’d been strengthened. Meditatively he touched the Medallion. This was a discussion for when the dust settled.
Now that he knew Gabriel was okay, he wanted to assure himself that Serena was, too. Then he had to deal with Culver.
“You can give me details later. But we are going to have to analyze this business with Verdine.”
“There’s someone higher than Verdine,” Gabriel told him flatly, his gaze straying across the room. “A whole fucking lot higher, and more powerful.”
“You read Verdine’s mind? Give me a clue as to where to look for the son of a bitch?”
“I’ll have to sort through the swill.”
“Make it quick, bro.”
“Yeah. I hear you,” Gabriel said, uncharacteristically distracted. He turned and walked off.
“Immediate debriefing at HQ,” Sebastian said, at the same time Stone yelled, “Yo! Where are you going? The Council wants to talk to you right a—Where’s he going?”
“In the morning,”
Gabriel said without turning, lifting his hand up to one of the stiffly painted portraits, he brought Dr. Cahill down to stand beside him. He kissed her then swept her up in his arms.
The men parted to let them through as Gabriel carried the Doctor across the train-wreck of a room. They met MacBain half way.
“Och! This mess is unconscionable,” the old man muttered, kicking aside a chunk of mahogany paneling in the middle of the water-logged, smoke damaged carpet with his highly polished black shoe.
Tsking, he picked up a glass from the floor, and placed it, just so, on the heat buckled silver tray where the drink listed to the side when he lifted it. “This will take me at least a m-—Oh, aye. Now that is a neat trick. Is it here to stay?”
The room was completely back to normal. Nothing broken, nothing awry. No sign that anything other than a quiet candlelight dinner had ever happened there. Duncan shook his head and grinned. Hot damn. It was as if nothing had transpired.
Gabriel glanced from MacBain to his brother, and then back to the woman snuggled in his arms. “I have no freaking idea. MacBain? Politely escort our guests to the front door. Then remove the bell. I’m not at home.”
They gave Gabriel a moment to get out of the room before Duncan and the other operatives grinned at one another. “Did you see his expression?” Fitzgerald chuckled.
Yeah, he had. Duncan knew how that expression felt from the inside, too. “Wizard Council’s going to want details,” he responded, more concerned than amused by his brother’s lover-like demeanor. Reality was pounding on his door, and time really was a’wasting. He had his suspicions about the identity of Verdine’s boss.
“Since you’re apparently head honcho now,” Stone said, green eyes intent on the chain of office still around Duncan’s neck, “he’ll report to you, right?” He shook Duncan’s hand. “Congratulations, by the way.”
“Thanks. Let’s go get that drink MacBain offered; then I have to make tracks.”
They started filing out, Duncan in the rear. “It’ll have to be a quick one, I—” The door slammed shut in his face, followed by a pop as if he’d been pulled from deep water before decompression.
He turned slowly. Trey Culver was lounging against the end of the dining room table. He shot Duncan an affable smile as he pushed away. “We’re just going to fuck up the room all over again. What a shame.”
Duncan remained by the door. “If you have a point,” he said calmly. “Make it before I kill you.”
“Figured it out yet?” Trey started jabbing and feinting, bobbing on the balls of his feet like a prizefighter. As if they’d really do something as innocuous as duking it out. “You don’t know the half of it, asshole.”
MacBain was going to have his ass, Duncan thought as he shimmered the furniture out of the room. He had no plans for dying today. He had unfinished business to deal with.
But more important than his own mortality was the knowledge that if Culver won this battle, he would have unbeatable powers. More powers than any wizard had ever possessed in all of time.
No matter what the cost to himself, he couldn’t allow that to happen.
“Why don’t you go ahead and tell me how fucking clever you think you are?” he taunted as he shot a bolt of lightening at the other man’s chest. The fiery spear bounced off Culver’s protection spell, leaving him unaffected and still grinning.
Duncan had no intention of torturing the son of a bitch. Not that Trey didn’t deserve it. It was just a waste of time. Just as Gabriel had had to kill Verdine, it was Duncan’s job to exterminate Culver. It was fucking inconceivable that two rogue wizards had been preying on the wizard population right under their noses for weeks—maybe longer—without detection.
One down. One to go.
Death was the only option with Culver. Not only would it put paid to the senseless killings of wizards, but with their leader dead, Red Mantis would crumble as well. Two carrion with one stone. If Culver wasn’t eliminated, he would kill again and again, gaining more and more power.
Of course, Duncan thought realistically, Culver might very well be invincible now. He wasn’t sure if the Curse had been broken or not. At least, he thought as he circled his enemy, waiting for an opening, it appeared his brother Gabriel had come to terms with whatever it was that Fate had handed him.
Just because things had gone well so far didn’t mean they’d continue to do so. He had no idea if or when he might suddenly be rendered powerless without warning. Christ—
Without his original wizard powers he would no longer have the amped up strength afforded him by his position as Head of the Wizard Council either. Hell, he’d no longer be Head of Council.
How long did he have one way or the other?
He had to end this thing with Culver fast.
“I’ve fucked you every way to Sunday, Edge. Fucked your girl. Fucked T-FLAC. Fucked with your head. I win. B-bye!” Trey lobbed an arc of electricity at his head.
Duncan shifted out of the way. The arc of silvery lightning followed his movement like a heat seeking missile. It seemed to come at him in slo-mo. This was the proof of the pudding. Either the electricity would bounce off him, or he was dead.
A split second later, the shaft hit the Medallion, making him stagger, but not touching him. In the blink of an eye it boomeranged back at Trey. This strike pierced Culver’s protective shield with the sound of a cannon blast. Stunned, the other man had to fall back a few quick steps to keep his balance.
“You can’t beat me, Edge,” he panted, his eyes manic, his color high. “Not fucking possible. I’m fifty times stronger than you could ever be.”
“If that were the case, I’d be dead right now.” Duncan extended both hands and fired off a barrage of fireballs faster than the human eye could count. Culver quickly erected his damaged shield, but the fiery orbs cut through it like hot knives through butter. “Math was never your strong suit, asshole.”
“You’re only ten times stronger against the three of us together, dickhead.” Gabriel appeared to Duncan’s right. His brother Caleb materialized to his left. Without a word they spread out in front of Culver.
“Christ. What the hell are you two bozos doing here?” They’d cancel each other out for sure, Duncan thought grimly. He and Gabriel hadn’t, but he sure as shit didn’t want to test to see if his elevated powers made that bit of the Curse redundant. He’d soon find out.
“You’ve been in here having fun far too long,” Gabriel shouted as a bombardment of small, sharp, silver knives flew through the air directly at them, so fast it was hard to see what they were. He waved a casual hand, and they turned around and aimed for Culver like a school of sardines, glinting in the sunlight pouring through the arched windows.
The tiny silver projectiles quivered in Culver’s protective shield for several seconds before disappearing.
Duncan grinned as Gabriel shot a claymore sword in a spinning arc at Culver. He wished he had a couple of minutes to enjoy working together with his brothers for the first time ever. Not going to happen of course. But damn, having them at his side felt amazing.
“Curse’s lifted,” Caleb did a running jump, used a wing-backed chair as leverage, and somersaulted behind Culver.
Culver’s manic laughter carried on the wind as he shimmered up to the ceiling, out of the way. Clearly he hadn’t heard what the middle Edge had said. “I’ve dedicated most of my life to this moment, don’t spoil it by being stupid.”
He materialized a swarm of bees that circled Duncan and Gabriel in an ever buzzing, stinging mass. Duncan vanished them a second before they could do any real harm. “You think you’re going to kill us? Are you fucking nuts?” Duncan said with a laugh.
“This is what I wanted all along,” Culver shouted, sounding slightly crazed. “The three of you together. The three of you, each stronger than before because you couldn’t keep your dicks in your pants! Christ. This is priceless.”
And suddenly Culver’s motivation over the years became crystal clear. “Yo
u waited until all three of us amped up our powers.” Duncan did a roundhouse kick, surprising both himself and Culver when his booted foot connected with the other man’s jaw, knocking him on his ass. Culver slid across the floor on his back. “Killed the other poor SOBs to gain their powers in the hope you could kill us and take ours?”
“He’s not that much of an idiot,” said Caleb, hauling Culver to his feet before his shield was up. Pulling him forward, he delivered a strong knee strike to the other man’s face. “Is he?” He had to raise his voice over Culver’s scream of pain as his nose was crushed by the force of the blow.
Culver broke Caleb’s grip by jettisoning his opponent across the room without warning. Caleb went flying through the air to crash into the stone fireplace. It only took his brother a few seconds to shake himself off and come running back for more, Duncan saw with pride.
“What about Verdine?” Gabriel demanded, circling Culver with slow measured steps and animal grace. He was about to morph and pounce.
Trey wiped his bloody nose with his forearm, his eyes glittering as he kept his eye on first Gabriel, then Duncan, then Caleb. Since they had him circled, he had to keep moving, turning his body to see where they were. “The moron actually believed that we’d eventually be partners in power,” Culver grinned. “Asshole was so fucking greedy, he had no idea I was using him. Double the killings, double the powers, and in half the time. You gotta admit that was fucking brilliant.” Trey bragged as he started duplicating himself.
One Trey Culver was bad enough—but ten? Fifteen?
“You found—” Trey one asked, “How many?” Trey three taunted. The fifth one added, “Four?” Another offered, “Five bodies?” The smiles on each of his identical faces were pure evil, tinged with madness.
Yet another Culver, this one perched on the heavy iron chandelier in the center of the room said matter-of-factly, “Between us we sliced and diced more than twenty-two full, class one, two, and three wizards.”
A Culver seated at the other end of the long table inserted, “Assimilating their powers as we went.”
