Alright, perhaps comparing it to prison was overstating things a bit. The adhesionist wolves had set up in what had once been a one-stop shop for all things health-related, like juice detoxes and plastic surgery. The huge, fifteen-story building was a doomsday prepper’s wet dream. It had its own water filtration system, a gym, and more food than the average grocery store. Dedicated work on behalf of the wolves had allowed them to grow more in a central courtyard garden, despite the silty soil of the island. The whole complex was surrounded by a tall fence.
Bly’s lips pulled back from her teeth and she let out a soft snarl. She started forward, shoulders hunching downward and vertebrae already grinding in anticipation of the change. I shot out an arm, stopping her before she could stalk forward to rip the throat out of our host.
The air whooshed from her lungs and she choked out a soft cry of protest. Guilt flashed through me as she struggled to draw in a breath. I needed to get a handle on Valerius and soon. I hadn’t meant to hurt her. How long until I misjudged an action and killed someone?
Dom pushed between Gerd and the pair of us, an easy smile hoisted onto his face. “Come on, there’s no need for this. We’re all on the same side.”
Gerd’s dark eyes cut between Dom and the wheezing Bly. “These savages have been fighting us from day one. We can’t trust them. Tell them to stand outside the gates and we can talk.”
I grimaced at Bly, who was bent double, wheezing at her shoes. I really hoped I hadn’t hit her hard enough to temporarily paralyze her diaphragm. Dom had shown me how to do it once, but I’d never had to employ it on anyone before.
“I’m not sending them back out there,” I said coolly. “We have to work together, or we’re all going to die. I’ve been trying to tell everyone this for the last day and a half. If you’d all quit your posturing for one goddamned minute Dom and I will explain how to get off this rock and back to the mainland. You do want that, don’t you?”
“And why exactly should we trust you?”
An excellent question and not one I had a satisfactory answer for. According to Bly, Valerius’ presence was a wild, oppressive force of nature. The wolf responded to it in panic, the same way it might to a hurricane or firestorm. The wisest thing you could do was run from it, rather than try to fight. You certainly didn’t buddy up to it. Bly had only submitted to my authority because it was their best chance of survival.
Dom’s eyes swept the room, giving the wolves on both sides solid eye contact. “You’re right. You don’t have any reason to trust us or each other. But you’re going to. You don’t have much of a choice. The vampires are planning to reignite the atolls with magic. Do you know what that would mean?”
The blank stares he received from many of the wolves told me that most of them had no clue what Dom was talking about. He pursed his lips and amended his statement. “The chain of islands, one of which we are on, are going to blow sky high sometime this month. I don’t know about the rest of you, but that’s not the way I’d like to die.”
A nervous murmur ran through the room. Wolves on either side of the dividing line shuffled uncomfortably. Fear was a potent germ, and it was spreading like wildfire through the room. A distinctly canine whine escaped someone near the back of the room.
Gerd silenced the wolves with a low, bass growl before turning his attention back to Dom.
“How do you propose to stop it? There’s no way off of this island. Many wolves have tried and failed. The vampires offshore pick us off like ducks in the water.”
“We won’t be swimming out,” I said, speaking directly to Gerd for the first time since we’d set foot in the room. “We’ll be taking a ship.”
“The vessels on the south side of the island were beached. Their hulls are barely scrap metal. I doubt they’d even be seaworthy.”
I smiled grimly, though it was more a vicious baring of teeth than anything else. Gerd took a step back from me, disquiet in his eyes. I knew what he must have been seeing.
When Valerius manifested my eyes were as black and empty as a night sky, with only the occasional twinkle of a star to reassure one they weren’t looking into the void.
“You didn’t have two mages on your side. I think that we might be able to pull this off if we time it right.”
Gerd’s second in command was probably a spare man underneath all of his hair. Half of his wiry frame was made up of inches-thick layers of the stuff. The uninformed might have mistaken it for a partial transformation. After receiving giant, hairy hugs from a great uncle who was more bear than man every Christmas, I knew it was a curse of his human genetics, not the wolf.
“Even if we were to go along with this cockamamie scheme, how do we know there’s anything better out there? The fuckers on the mainland wrote us off and dumped us here to die.”
The glare Gerd turned on his second was hot enough to braise steak at fifty paces. He’d definitely been military at some point, and probably someone of significant rank.
“We’ve talked about this, Kinan,” he hissed. “It has to be better than here.”
Kinan’s answering stare was flat and unfriendly. He seemed to share the separatists’ attitudes, if not their behavior. Gerd and Kinan strained toward each other, muscles jumping on the back of their necks, where hackles would have been if they’d shifted.
I cleared my throat, drawing their attention back on us before testosterone levels could reach DEFCON 1.
“And if I told you we could get the Trust to overturn the quarantine? Would you be willing to try our escape plan then?”
“They won’t,” Kinan snapped. “Not with lupine virus spreading. There’s just contempt, neglect, and death. That is all there’s ever been for our people. That’s all there will ever be.”
“Wrong,” I shot back, stepping across the line. Dom held me back, afraid that Kinan might take a snap at the hand I extended toward him. “There is something waiting for you. There’s a cure to the virus.”
For an instant, the room was still and quiet, without even the shallow breaths of the bodies around us to break the silence. Then the room erupted into shouts.
At least half of them decried me as a filthy liar and a vampire plant. This rather vocal group demanded Gerd take my head off and bury it to make my death stick. I had to admit, the visual was enough to make my backside clench. Would Valerius only reanimate my head, if it were to become detached? Or would I wander around like the headless horseman, my talking head stuffed under one arm? Christ on a cracker. These were not questions I wanted to be asking myself right now.
“Is it true?” Bly demanded. Her forceful tug at my elbow successfully drew me out of my horrified reverie.
“It’s true.”
“Why didn’t you tell us that earlier?” she hissed. “Perhaps our alpha wouldn’t have fought you if he’d known.”
In truth it had slipped my mind. Being faced with a giant raging werewolf with a hard-on for murder had made that very important fact fly right out of my head.
“You think he would have believed me?” I shot back.
Bly’s mouth hardened into a thin line and her eyes dropped once more to her shoes. “Probably not.”
Gerd had to shout to make himself heard over the uproar in the room. In the end, he tipped his head back and let out an ear-splitting howl that split through the din more effectively than an air horn.
He stalked toward me, his loping stride growing more lupine with every passing second. He was pissed.
Dom’s hands shot out and stopped the alpha werewolf before he could get within arm’s reach of me.
“Back off,” he said quietly. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if you lay a finger on either of those girls.”
Gerd shoved Dom back a few inches in answer and got into his face.
“Where is the cure?” he snarled.
Ah, well…that was the million-dollar question wasn’t it? Landon hadn’t debriefed me on his destination before Dom and I had le
ft New York. We’d had about three minutes to speak with my former boss before we’d made a mad dash through a portal and toward the Trust headquarters in Hamburg. The details of what happened afterward were muddled, on account of my second untimely and painful death.
“New York,” Dom answered. “Or at least, that’s where she was when we left. It’s entirely possible that Landon moved her to a secondary location after we departed. It’s what I would have done in his position.”
“Landon?” a female voice echoed, deep within the adhesionist crowd. The muffled voice sounded familiar, though I was having a hell of a time trying to place it. “Landon Johnson? Of Johnson and Conley?”
A thin, graceful werewolf pushed her way to the front of the crowd, followed by a taller and well-muscled silhouette. She was pretty, in a girl-next-door kind of way. Her dark, sleek hair had been in braids the last time we’d met. Now it hung around her face in lank curtains. Apparently, the soap left something to be desired. She had a full mouth, a long nose, and cheekbones most girls would kill for. The man flanking her was her physical opposite. Broad where she was thin, muscular where she was mousy. His hair was swept away from his face in a ponytail that was longer than mine.
“Jay! Kaya!” I exclaimed. “When did you get here? And why?”
“Do you know them?” Gerd demanded.
Jay ignored the question, offering me a panty-dropping grin. Despite our circumstances, and the recent slaking of my libido, that smile still made my stomach flip. Jay and I had nearly jumped into bed together not too long ago. Ye Gods, had it only been a week or two since then?
Dom noticed my reaction, and his tone came out sharper than it had been before.
“Yes, Nat, do you know them?”
Jay answered before I could. “Nat saved my sister’s life not long before our entire quarantine zone was deported. I trust her, Gerd.”
I wasn’t sure how much the approval of a relative newcomer was going to help our case, but I was grateful for the defense.
Gerd’s eyes narrowed and his gaze bounced between us twice before the tension slid out of his shoulders. “If this is a vampire trick, the blood is on your hands, Jay, not mine.”
Jay nodded once. “I can accept that. Nat isn’t going to let us down. We may not have known each other long, but she stuck her neck out for my family. I won’t let that debt go unpaid.”
Dominic stepped closer to me, sliding an arm around my waist as the two groups of wolves settled into less territorial postures. The gesture probably ought to have offended me, as it was done as an act of blatant ownership, rather than an intimate moment between us. But I couldn’t summon up the proper outrage. My clock was ticking rapidly down to zero and I wasn’t going to waste countless hours fighting with him about it.
Gerd inclined his head toward me. “What will you need?”
I smiled wearily.
“I don’t suppose you have an engraving pen?”
chapter
10
IN THE END, WE MANAGED to haul two Monterey Clippers out of the sand and raise them up on planks. The work was slow-going but at least it was underway. The omnipresent fog actually worked to our advantage, shielding us from prying eyes. The vampires would have to come perilously close to shore to spy on us, and with the destruction of the island so close at hand, I doubted they’d be anywhere near, just in case I detonated early.
The small fishing vessels were pathetically unarmed and I didn’t like our chances if we found ourselves facing off against one of the ironclads. Ashby would love to blow us out of the water. Just picturing the vampire’s smirking, too-attractive face made me want to hit things. Unfortunately for me, outlets for my anger were in short supply.
It had been agreed that until I figured out how to control Valerius, I shouldn’t be performing major feats of magic.
So we’d been taking it a little at a time, enchanting the pieces of the ship one by one, rather than using my magic to power them outright.
Engraving pens had been in short supply but power tools had been abundant. For the last several days I’d been clumsily etching runes into scrap metal with a drill. The sigils never turned out pretty but they’d proved functional, so I didn’t think anyone would complain.
I offered a recently completed metal plate to Kaya, who took it with a smile and sauntered over to where the nearest clipper stood. Gerd’s second took it with a grunt of acknowledgment and fixed it in place.
Kinan had apparently been a welder before the disease had really taken hold. Without his expertise, the project would have taken longer still.
I wiped the sweat off my brow with my oversized work-gloves, glancing at the shimmering sigils staining my shoulder and collarbone. I had three, now. One for each time I’d died and been revived. The first, after Dom’s bullet pierced my heart, when I’d been sloppily sewn back into my corpse and resurrected. Second, for the shootout in Hamburg, and third, when Valerius threw me from the top of a Ferris wheel. I nearly collided with a power saw when someone bumped me earlier, but managed to pivot last minute. Each Aztec symbol was like a magical brand, binding Valerius to me. He was gaining more power, and I had no idea how to stop him.
The marks rippled and shimmered in the low light of Kaya’s flashlight. After the near-death via saw, Jay had assigned her to be my gofer and ever-present source of light. It wasn’t a glamorous job and I suspected it was a ploy to keep her out of danger. I couldn’t blame him. My sister was quite capable, and I’d still have stuck her with a nothing job if she’d been on the island. It was in the nature of an older sibling to be fussy and overprotective.
Kaya’s bobbing light returned and she sat down next to me with a sigh. “I wish I was going along. Jay gets to do all the fun stuff.”
“This isn’t a trip to Disneyland, Kaya. Anyone who comes with us could die. We’re going up against vampires. Hell, I wouldn’t like our odds if we were facing down an armada of humans. Have you ever seen what submachine gunfire can do to the body?”
A shudder ran down my spine before I could get a handle on it. I’d suffered my share of trauma over the years and had a plethora of unpleasant images to keep me up at night. The wartime stills were probably the worst.
Kaya’s full mouth turned down into a frown. “It has to be better than this island. I can’t believe anybody wants to stay here. It’s so dark and foggy and there’s hardly anything left to eat.”
“We’re not going to leave you hanging, I promise. We’ll locate Elle and bring her back to administer the cure to everyone. Then we’ll all get off this island for good. Once we prove to the government you’re no longer dangerous, they should have no reason to keep you quarantined. And even if the U.S. won’t listen, there are plenty of European nations who might. Politics is a huge PR game. Someone will offer aide.”
Kaya shrugged. “I’m not worried about that, honestly. I know you’re going to come through, Nat.”
Something was clearly bothering her. Goosebumps dotted her arms and she looked pale, even beneath the naturally golden cast of her skin.
“What’s going on Kaya?”
She rubbed at her arms furiously and shivered. “I don’t know. I just have a really bad feeling that if I stay something bad is going to happen.”
Huh. I’d thought the impending sense of doom was just me. I rubbed at my own arms, though I didn’t seem as physically susceptible to the cold as I’d been before.
“Most of the danger will pass once Dom and I are gone. The vampires will chase us, not you.”
The bloodsuckers wouldn’t risk going inland with so many rabid wolves on the loose. If we were successful, they wouldn’t know we’d escaped until the island failed to blow itself up in a timely fashion.
Kaya shrugged noncommittally and lapsed into silence.
I’d never been the sort of woman who felt the need to fill lulls in the conversation with endless chatter. It displayed a sense of insecurity with one’s one thoughts that I’d never ex
perienced. But now that a primordial demon was renting out my headspace, I felt less and less comfortable sitting alone with mine. My dreams had only gotten worse. Not only was the demon talking to me, but it was also starting to sound persuasive.
“You never did tell me how you got here,” I remarked, watching as Kinan welded the last plate into place on our clipper. We’d be through by nightfall and ready to set out in the morning if all went according to plan.
“You didn’t hear?”
“I was a little busy you know,” I gestured to my body. “Dying and being chased by vampires. Fill me in. What happened?”
“There were reports of a recent outbreak in the quarantine zone east of us. No one knows if it was true or not, but the city wanted evacuations done just in case. All the New York zones are empty. They were moving on to Connecticut and Maryland’s quarantine zones the last we heard. The vampires that steered the ships let us listen to the radio. I think they got a kick out of watching us worry.”
“But none of the recent deportees have the virus?”
Kaya nodded. “Gerd and Kinan scooped us up from the beach as soon as humanly possible. We lost four of our packmates to the separatist wolves before we could be escorted inside the gates. Gerd has been watching our radar for incoming ships since then. We’re expecting a lot more wolves. We would have tried to make it to the beach to pick you up, but Delsin and his wolves were running interference. And the vampires’ ships are running a tighter perimeter than usual. I’m glad you made it out okay.”
Quiet indignation bubbled in my stomach and I gave myself just a moment to indulge it. I’d been meditating practically non-stop since my newest reawakening. The more hold the demon had on me, the less I trusted my own feelings. When I wasn’t etching runes into metal I was busy breathing and reciting times tables. The concrete and cool rules of mathematics had proved the most effective against Valerius.
Algerone Lamonia had planned every step out from the beginning. I’d always considered myself a relatively smart woman. It pissed me off to have been so thoroughly outmaneuvered by a bloodsucking asshole who considered frock coats the height of fashion.
Agent of Magic Box Set Page 27
