by K. F. Breene
“What?” I asked, relaxing. Nothing good came of panicking, especially in horrible situations that you had no idea how to escape.
“You are coming without a fight?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. I can’t really get a reading on you. Your former magic was nothing special, if what I’m sensing was yours, which I’m inclined to believe it was, but now you have this enormous power seeping out of you. How’d that happen? I mean, hell’s bells, man, this kinetic magic has really thrown me for a loop. This is a first for me, and that doesn’t happen very often. I’m just soaking it in for the moment. I’ll tell you one thing, though. There is no way that demon is a four. No way. Fours can’t impart, or even harness, this type of magic. Not any fours I’ve ever heard about, anyway.”
“Come. I will take you to my—”
“Leader? Please say leader.”
A blur of movement made me flinch. Darius appeared beside me and immediately raked the air with his already extended vampire claws. Magic crackled and sparked when his claws came into contact with it. He ripped me out of the sky and tossed me behind him. I tumbled to the ground.
He slashed at the mage. More magic sparked and fizzled, Darius’s vampire magic in the form of claws, and probably fangs, able to counteract the mage’s kinetic magic.
Thank heavens.
The man jerked away, back-pedaling until he hit the wall. He lifted his arms to block his face, throw a spell, or use his newfound kinetic magic.
“Keep his arms down!” I hollered, jumping to my feet. “He has to move them through the air to direct his magic.”
“Stay back,” Darius growled at me, pinning the mage’s arms to his sides.
“Yeah, right.” I stepped to the side of Darius and cocked back my fist, intending to deliver a blow to knock the man out.
The punch didn’t land.
Despite Darius’s vampire strength, the mage somehow managed to rip his arms up and shove his hands through the air.
Darius flew back, cracking into the wall. He rose and hissed before his body erupted into the swamp thing (a.k.a. his monster form)—faster, stronger, and more lethal. That would help, but I wondered if it would be enough. This guy had gotten a powerful gift from a mighty demon.
I felt the push of air closing around me. The man was ready to haul me away, and judging by his shifty-eyed glance in Darius’s direction and his hop-steps toward the door, he wanted to do it fast so as not to battle an elder in monster form. I didn’t blame him, but I also didn’t intend to be taken.
I ripped my sword up. Sparks erupted from the edge of the blade, as if I’d struck it against stone, but it made it through the nearly solid air, unraveling the effect much like it would a spell. The man growled, a truly demonic sound, and jerked forward to grab me.
I dodged the grab and sliced up with my sword, intent on cutting through any newly solid air. Instead, my blade caught his wrist. His severed hand went flying across the room.
Oops.
He howled, clutched his wrist, and broke for the door.
“Don’t play with air, and I won’t lop off body parts,” I said by way of a half-felt apology, and lurched after him.
We ran out into the night. That cold power throbbed within me again, begging to be used. I didn’t know how, though. Not without focused concentration, which was impossible, given the circumstances.
Darius zipped by me, way faster in a race, and stopped further up the sidewalk, still in his ghastly form, waiting for the mage to run into him. The mage flung his hands up—or arm and hand, at any rate—and cut right, into the street. Headlights washed across his body and brakes squealed.
“No, no, no!” I yelled at the car.
The mage stopped, staring at the headlights, frozen in place.
“Run, you moron! Darius—”
Darius flashed after the man, grabbing him and shoving him to the side of the road before he could become the car’s new hood ornament. I ran after them. The car had finally come to a stop, directly in my path, so I leapt up and ran across the hood. It was mighty cool.
“Let’s get him out of here,” I said before an invisible hand swatted me.
This time I went flying across the hood of the car, face first, and fell off the other side. That wasn’t as cool.
Air closed around me like a big fist. I reached for my sword, which had fallen to the ground two feet from me, but couldn’t get it before I was lifted into the sky.
The cold force within me throbbed harder, almost painful. I gritted my teeth and closed my eyes, trying to connect with it. Trying to figure out a way to lift a rock and beam that danged mage in the side of the head.
A scream rent the night. I fell, landing awkwardly and crumpling to the sidewalk. Disorientated, I dazedly grabbed my sword and climbed to my feet. Someone gasped as I shook off the pain and started forward yet again.
Darius stood in human form in the street, naked, holding the now-limp mage by the back of his shirt. Before I got there, the shirt ripped at the neck and shoulder, making the mage drop a little lower in the air. The girls from the car that had nearly mowed him down gasped again.
“Tell me you merely knocked him out,” I said to Darius, limping as I worked around the hood of the car. My ankle was a little out of sorts from my haphazard landing. “Tell me he’ll wake up and give us information.”
“I do not like to lie to you, Reagan. I lost control when he had you in the air. I need to feed. I told you that.”
“There is no way it’s my fault you lost control, so don’t even try to pin it on me.”
“I am simply reminding you of what happens when you hold me off.”
“Do you also want to be a dead body? Is that what you’re after? Keep it up and I’ll add you to the pile.” I braced two fingers to the mage’s neck.
“Is he okay?” one of the girls asked with a quivering lip. The other was already crying. Their distress was evident from their lack of questions regarding the fact that a naked man was holding a potentially injured man in the air by his shirt. With one hand. And no visible strain.
No, they weren’t based in reality just now.
I deflated. “Nope. Damn it!” I turned around, seeing a row of lights and people emerging from their houses. “Well, this all went horribly wrong. Drop him and get us out of here. Fast. We don’t need anyone to take pictures of our faces. Send some vampires out here tomorrow to make those ladies forget their own names, let alone the fact that they saw a monster kill a guy.”
“I will not appear in photos.”
“You are really hard to get along with right now, do you know that? Let’s hit his house really quickly before we leave. Hurry, before the cops—” A siren wailed in the distance.
Without warning, he scooped me into his arms and raced up the street, faster than thought. We were breaking so many magical rules it wasn’t funny, not to mention that we’d killed a mage whom the Mages’ Guild, his circle, and—most recently—a demon might employ and/or like. My second night in Seattle and already my enemies were stacking up. I had a gift.
Chapter Twenty
“Are you sure this is your chosen course of action?” Darius asked me as we pulled up near the mage bar to meet Callie and Dizzy.
Instead of going in himself, Darius had given me ten minutes to run into the mage’s house and get the stuff I couldn’t live without. Eleven minutes later, he’d dragged me out. After that, we’d stopped by the hotel so he could get some clothes on, and now here we were, ready for a beer and hopefully some good news.
The beer was the only sure thing.
“Yes. Callie isn’t great at making friends, and Dizzy is weird at the best of times. He might make friends, but he doesn’t inspire the kind of intimacy that will get someone to spill their secrets. Hopefully I can be the go-between.”
Darius shook his head as he exited the car. I pushed the door open and gingerly stepped on my ankle.
“Would you like me to carry you?” he asked, walking around the car to me
.
I snickered. “Funny.”
His expression was serious.
“The reason I let you carry me the last time was because we had to flee the scene of a crime. That was about speed, not a tweaked ankle. Give me a break.”
“Do you heal at a faster rate than humans?” he asked, shutting the door for me. He adjusted his satchel around his shoulder.
“You keep forgetting that I am human.”
“Do you?”
“Yes,” I said grudgingly.
“Why do you detest the side of you that isn’t human?”
I took a deep breath and paused at the bar door. “I’m sure my dad is a really swell guy, but he rules the land of evil. Of monsters. I don’t want to be reminded of that part of my genetic makeup.”
“Many demons actually do good. Spread love. Pleasure.”
Oh yeah. I’d forgotten about that new knowledge.
I shrugged. “Mainly, though, I only knew my mom. She raised me. Made me what I am. I want to identify with her, and she was human.”
“Human, but with the bloodline of the gods. In essence, she was more than human, more than a mage, like you. On either side, you are extraordinary. There is not one piece of you that is mundane. You should celebrate that.”
“I like mundane. Mundane keeps me safe.”
“You would not have been able to hide from what you are for much longer. You should be thankful you found me.”
“I didn’t find you, you arrogant ass. You stalked me. And why should I be thankful? Because the shifters will think I’m the enemy, or because I’ll get to be a feeding trough soon?”
“Because I can protect you in a way few others can.”
“Let me guess, this is going to lead into a conversation on bonding.”
“Well, since you brought it up…” Humor danced in his eyes.
I held up my hand, unable to stop myself from smiling. “No.”
“You say no now, but just wait. Your mind will change.”
“Nope.”
“I will rock your world. You will never be satisfied with that human cop.”
Those damn tingles washed over me again. “You’ll get blood, and that’s it. I’ll stand very still and rigid while I fulfill my promise. Then I’ll make your life hell. Somehow.”
He pulled the door open, his honeyed eyes delving into mine. “You already make my life hell,” he whispered. “In the best of ways.”
The man had a way with words—I’d give him that. “You probably banged your way through the nobles of France when you were a human,” I muttered, entering the dimly lit interior of the half-filled bar. “Even though women weren’t supposed to sleep around back then.”
“Women have always had the same desires when it comes to pleasure and passion. It is society that changes,” Darius said, stopping beside me. “Simply because it was declared wrong in the time, does not mean it didn’t happen. I deflowered a great many behind the veil of secrecy, and they loved me for it.”
“Oh, ew. Tone it down, Casanova. And I doubt they loved you for tarnishing their reputations.”
“Behind the veil of secrecy, I said. I have always been discreet, and I have never lacked for partners, single or otherwise, experienced or not—”
“Please stop.”
“I celebrate a woman who knows her desires, and who demands to have them fulfilled.”
“Seriously, stop.”
“Do you demand to have your desires fulfilled, Reagan?”
Not the tingles! “I demand that you shut it down, and to achieve that end, I’ll shoot you in the leg again like I did in the paddock. Is that what you’re after?”
“So violent.” He gave a dark chuckle. “You have passion in spades, ma puce. I can’t wait to experience it.”
“I don’t know what puce means, but it sounds dirty,” I muttered. I pulled up my leg, snatched a knife from the holster around my ankle, and stabbed him in the side. Just as quickly, I pulled it out of his body, wiped the blade on his expensive shirt, and shoved it back where it belonged. His side would heal, but his shirt was ruined. I knew he’d care more about the latter.
He barely flinched. His reaction was another dark chuckle.
That hadn’t worked out how I’d hoped.
“Ready?” I asked, stalking forward.
“Always,” he replied, the velvet of his voice only easing marginally. He definitely did need blood, and if I wanted him to knock off all this ma puce stuff, I couldn’t even flinch when giving it to him. Nor could I display all this passion he thought I had rolling around in my body. It would be like a handshake, as far as I was concerned. A tight-lipped, stony-cold handshake between acquaintances. That was all.
Nodding to myself, because I knew this wouldn’t be the last time I needed the inner pep talk, I scanned the occupants of the bar for Callie and Dizzy.
“Dude, did you just stab that guy?” asked a young man with wide, disbelieving eyes. He wobbled against the wall he was leaning against, obviously drunk. That brown bottle in his hand wasn’t his first, or even third.
Drunk men had a habit of flapping their gums. Especially younger drunk men when confronted with a woman wearing skintight leather. My choice of clothing wasn’t only good for battle.
First things first.
I pointed at him, my hand too close to his face. “Are you human?”
“What?” He tried to move his head before bringing his hand up to bat away my finger.
“He is, yes,” Darius said, his gaze moving slowly around the room. “One that badly needs a shower.”
“What’s your problem?” the drunk guy asked, pushing upright. His eyes found the bloodied spot on Darius’s shirt. “Oh shit. Dude, you’re bleeding!”
I walked away from the man because he’d only get more disruptive, and checked out the lay of the land. Tables hugged the wall on my right, and there was a small throughway between those and the barstools pressed close to one side of the square bar. To my left, more stools lined the bar, leading to a larger open area on the other side. I knew I’d find more tables back there, maybe a booth or two, and wondered if there was a pool table in the back. Judging by the crowd, the other side of the bar was more popular. It probably had more shadows and less humans. Less humans because the magical folk would scare them away from hanging around.
That was where I needed to be. With the scary folk. They didn’t tattle when you hung them upside down and demanded information. And I needed to demand information at this point. Because what was up with a mage holding me off the ground with air? That type of thing didn’t go unnoticed, not even in New Orleans.
When I turned the corner, I did indeed see a pool table with one guy bent over the green. Another guy gripping a cue stick stood off to the side, watching the shot. A few others hovered around the table with them, and several more people were spread out across the back area. Among them, sitting by themselves at a table, were Callie and Dizzy.
“They certainly did not make friends,” I muttered, stopping at the top of the bar.
The bartender, a brick of a man in his early thirties, slowed when he came our way. His eyes took me in for a second before pausing on Darius. His expression hardened.
“I’d like a whiskey, please,” I said. “Jameson.”
The bartender leaned against the bar. The muscles on his arms bulged and his hard gaze never left Darius’s face. “You shouldn’t be here, pal.”
“I’m going to take a wild stab here, but…shifter?” I lifted my eyebrows at the bartender. Like vampires, shifters didn’t smell like their other forms.
His gaze flicked to me. “I don’t work for Roger, but I don’t mind chipping in when these bloodsuckers come around.”
“I have as much right to be in the Brink as you do,” Darius said eloquently. “In addition, I am working in connection with the human police department. We are trying to rid your town of mages who are killing people in order to call demons. Or would you rather the death toll rise?”
; The bartender scoffed. “Isn’t that a little like the pot calling the kettle black? You kill humans all the time. Why should you care about a few more of them dying?”
“I do not kill them. I share a mutually beneficial relationship with them, which they are free to end at will.”
I grimaced, because the ending it at will part wasn’t always true. Take my situation, for example—I couldn’t get rid of the bugger, and I hadn’t even engaged in a mutually beneficial relationship. I’d tried not to engage in any kind of relationship at all.
The bartender scowled. “Is changing them into swamp monsters what you call a mutually beneficial relationship?”
“You’ve got a valid point, there, Sir Bartender.” I knocked on the bar. “Be that as it may, he’s not changing anyone now, and he’s not feeding on humans. I spoke to Roger about this a couple months ago. Darius is helping me solve a case. Despite my hopes to the contrary, he’s helpful.”
“These things only look out for themselves,” the bartender said.
“Usually, yes. However, earlier today he broke me out of a mage’s demon-powered magical hold. How the holy hell that mage was able to suspend me in the air without his hands, I do not know, but that is not a power you want running amok in your city, trust me. There is some serious shit going down, and you can take the uncharacteristically high pitch of my voice as proof. I don’t normally get rattled, but any demon that can impart that much power is…really not good. Not good at all.”
I took a deep breath before continuing. I’d been constantly in motion since all this happened, so there’d been no time to think or worry. But now, explaining it, the gravity of the situation was hitting home.
That mage had wielded a power I couldn’t easily counteract, and he hadn’t even been possessed. That meant that the demon who’d imparted its power was definitely mighty, and quite possibly something I couldn’t handle.
What had I gotten myself into?
“Anyway.” I put both palms on the bar and leaned toward the guy, because he was something I could handle. “The vampire’s claws work on that demon-inspired power, which means he needs to stick around. If you have a problem with that, get Roger on the phone. I’ll deal with your alpha, not you. Otherwise, serve me up that whiskey, because I need to talk to my friends.”
