by Susan Conley
He stood for a moment staring at the rubble, then motioned absentmindedly to where she hid behind the car. “Mona, you may come in now. You did adequately in your challenge.”
What the. . .? That better not have been a test of her skills and reactions. Yes, she was tired of him pushing her to solve theoretical problems, when there was significantly more practical work they could be doing. Like restoring the wards around the Buffalo pack’s neighborhood, which she’d been told not to touch, despite the fact that her fixing them in the first place was how Smythe had found her. Instead—except when a spell was threatening to expose Folk or harm someone—they’d spent the last four months with her memorizing rune families and his quizzing her on theoretical scenarios.
Although a spell to crush her was hardly theoretical. Mona shivered at the memory of the slabs crashing together.
His statement didn't make sense. One, he could not have se the spell himself; Warders were unable to bing magical energy and create the runes needed to make spells, they could only see and manipulate workings others had made. And two, the taint of the magic was evil. Forget about saying evil was a state and not a being; the magic had been drenched with pure malice of thought and action. Just like the spell on Raine.
And three, hello? What happened to it being her fault? He might be safe, nothing had breeched the walls, but something very screwy was going on here. Either she could go in and get dragged into whatever mess Smythe had brewing inside the walls or stay out here and avoid getting blamed for the problem. Right, stay it was.
“Mona?” His querulous voice rose at the end, sounding like the schoolmaster he was.
She didn’t budge from her spot.
Smythe rocked, buffeted by the wind as he stood waiting. The sprites seemed displeased, which only firmed her resolve to stay where she was.
“You’ve been enough trouble already, running late and creating this mess.”
Yep, there it was, the pile of blame being heaped on her doorstep.
Reaching out, Smythe manipulated the remaining rune and the pile collapsed back in on itself, leaving the ground more or less level. Like she needed further indication that Smythe, frail as he was, could take care of himself.
Smythe tugged his jacket straight, then dusted the hem. “Once you are over your tiff, you are to study chapter six, parts ten through twelve. Lessons, however, are suspended until such a time that I feel you have shown sufficient remorse for your actions. Contact me when you are ready to discuss improving your attitude.”
He turned and shuffled back in, thudding the gate closed behind him. Thankfully he left the lights on.
Suspend lessons until she showed remorse? She wasn’t a recalcitrant teenager and didn’t appreciate being treated as one. Mona counted to twenty, just to be sure he wasn’t going to pop out again, then scurried around and got into her car, shivering and thoroughly chilled.
What the hell had just happened? No matter how she twisted and replayed the situation in her head, she could make no sense of why the Warder would say the trap had been a challenge. Blame her, yes; downplay the danger, yes again; but to say he’d set the spell as a challenge?
Who the hell challenged a Warder? And why?
She had no clue.
One thing was clear—Warder Smythe was fine, no matter who or what had set that spell outside his gate. He’d shown no worry or concern. Things looked to be under control inside the complex, then. His adding the “contact me” also helped ease some of her worries, although she couldn’t say why.
Knowing Smythe, there was the possibility that the sections he’d assigned held a clue or two. Of course, she’d need to shift through a lot of crap to find them. She wouldn’t know until she got back to her copy of the encyclopedia at her house.
At the entrance ramp onto the highway, the battering her body had taken made itself known, her arm a constant siren of pain and her legs pulsating throbs. Her body started shaking. Exhaustion? Adrenaline drop? Didn’t matter, best to head back home and get some sleep either way. No, wait, go to Nic’s. At least he’d be out. She could grab an hour or two, then head up to meet with Raine.
• • •
Sitting on the couch, mug in hand, Mona eyed the phone on the opposite side of the coffee table. The device might as well been a mile away. Mona’s right elbow thrummed with pain and both knees were stiff with a heavy cushion of swelling. Thank the goddess her elf blood meant she’d healed some already. She’d felt alarmingly like a human hockey puck when she’d gotten out of the car. Now she was just bruised, battered, and effing sore.
She didn’t remember much after she left Smythe to sell his hot air of an excuse to the thin air. Driving back down to Buffalo. Stumbling in through Nic’s front door. Landing on the couch, unable to sleep as shivers wracked her body. Calling Raine to check in, assuring each other they were fine and could wait to meet until the afternoon. As the panic receded, the hope that she’d have enough time to sleep and heal vanished faster than jerky at a shifter picnic.
Her cell phone rang, the loud blaring trumpets of a military march echoing in the living room. No excuses, she knew she needed to answer. It might be Raine, or even Smythe or the Pack with an emergency.
Ignoring the pain, she half stood to reach across the table.
The phone rang again in her hand. A shock buzzed through her fingers. Golems take it! Fumbling, she switched the phone to her other hand, shaking the tingling off. She glanced at the caller ID—no name and not a number she recognized.
She press talk and took a deep breath. “Hello?”
“Mona!”
A sour ball lodged in the pit of her stomach. Raine was frantic, and frantic wasn’t good with the spells she had on her.
“Mona? Are you there? I need to see you!”
“Are you okay?” She pulled herself forward and sat on the edge of the couch.
“Yes, but something’s come up. I’m not sure I can stay here.” Raine sounded a tad calmer.
“Get out of there!”
“No, I have a little time, I’m sure. Please, just come and meet me here, okay? I’ll feel safer leaving if I’m with you.”
Mona didn’t like Raine waiting, but getting Raine more frantic by arguing with her wasn’t going help. “Where are you?”
“At the motel behind the Seneca Nation Casino.” Raine audibly swallowed. “Mona, I remembered things about these guys. Things that’ll help you stop the hurting and killing of Weres.”
That explained why they were after both of them. “If you think you need to leave before I get there, don’t wait.”
There was a pause.
“I’m scared.” Raine’s voice was soft. “For me, for the baby. I—I’ll try to calm down, but get your butt out here, okay?”
Mona had already picked up one of her brother’s snowboarding jackets. She tucked the phone under her chin and slid one arm in, biting her lip to keep her moan of discomfort to herself.
“On my way. Just promise you’ll leave if things get hairy.”
“Yes. I—”
An automated voice came on asking for more money. Raine hung up.
Mona blinked at the phone in her hand. She pressed redial but was told the line did not accept incoming calls.
The urgent plea in Raine’s voice pulled at her. A premonition, a worry, definitely something she’d seen in the spell on Raine told her this was not good, not good at all. Hurriedly, she opened the front door and headed out to her car.
The wind whipped past her and froze her nose solid within two steps. Shivering, she tossed her ruined clothes in the back and looked at the sky. Another storm was building up over the lake.
Mona couldn’t wait to complete her training so she could finally do some traveling. On her brother’s advice, she’d put off exploring the country until she had a steady income or a portable skill. Being a Warder was clearly a portable skill and there were Folk enclaves all over the United States. Of course, she’d have to avoid the southern plains—witches held sway
there—but there were so many other places she could go. She’d start with the larger ones, typically located near Elfhaven portals, like here and the one near Reno. The idea of being somewhere warm was very appealing right now. She’d heard there was a small community outside San Antonio, too. Visions of dry scrub and Joshua trees along with the smell of sunscreen danced in her head as she rushed through the lowering gloom and across Grand Island.
Twenty-two minutes later, Mona showed her ID and picked up the spare keycard Raine had left at the front desk. She’d healed more on the drive over, rotating her shoulders and left leg as much as she could to help speed the process.
The maid’s cart was in front of the door and the room was bare. Not good, not good. Looked like Raine had already left.
Mona flashed the card and went in. Raine’s things were gone. More importantly, no imps were hanging around; they’d abandoned the place, too. After nodding thanks to the woman who’d ignored the whole thing, she noisily ran back down the stairs and out to the lot.
Shit, shit, shit!
She jogged around the building. Careful of her still sore knee, she slowed to cross the several frozen slick spots. No sign of Raine’s small vehicle. Mona pulled out her phone and tried calling but got no answer.
Which meant she could be almost anywhere. Crap.
Okay, what to do. Mona went back to the warm lobby, trying to guess where Raine might have gone. There’d been no magical residual in any of the spaces she’d checked. Raine’s room, the lot, the lobby—all were bare. So she had to assume Raine had left of her own accord. The clerk came out of the back room, frowning at her. He’d been a snit about giving her the keycard, despite her showing the proper ID and the clear note from Raine she’d seen on the desk.
Mona stood and crossed to the counter. She handed him a credit card. “I’d like to put my friend’s room on my card please.”
“Room number?” the clerk asked as he tiredly clicked on a keyboard set below the counter. As if he hadn't just given her the third degree when she'd asked for the keycard.
“Two-sixteen.”
He glanced down at the screen and back at her. “Two nights already paid for. You want to do more?”
“Oh, no, thanks. Didn’t realize she’d handled it. Can you tell me when she did? We seem to be crossing messages here.”
“Sorry, can’t.”
Can’t, won’t. She didn’t argue with him. A couple of minutes one way or the other weren’t going to help her figure out where Raine had gone. And she had been here when she’d called, Mona was sure of it.
Not knowing what else to do, she headed to the lobby doors, with the vague idea of maybe going back to the mall to see if Raine had returned there.
Mona paused in the tiny vestibule, having heard the rear exit open. Maybe that was Raine. She turned to check. The bulk of two large Weres shadowed the hall, the essence of Folk and evil leeching out ahead of them.
She followed her instincts and ran, skidding across patches of ice on her way to her car. As she expected, they gave chase. Good, she needed to get them out of here and following her before they hurt mortals or exposed their magic. Mona wasn’t sure which would be worse at this point.
She was backing up when they reached her. One tried to come around, hand aiming for her door handle. There was no doubt he was strong enough to rip the door open. Gunning the motor, she shot back, skidding across the icy lot.
The car spun three-sixty, clipping one of the goons hard enough that he thudded over the hood, his back slamming into the windshield before he tumbled off. The other backpedalled out of the way. She watched in her review mirror as he yanked his friend upright. The motel clerk stood by the door and was yelling at all of them, furiously scribbling down something—likely her plate. Mona eased up on the brake and tapped the gas. Her two assailants were already climbing into a Jeep double-parked in the fire lane.
As soon as she was in control of the steering, she hightailed it away from the lot. The Jeep wasn’t far behind. Not good; she wanted them to follow her, but not this close. Her heart beat frantically and her hands shook. The trick was to not get caught, she had no illusion about the amount of harm the two would inflict if they got her in their grasp. The little bit of self-defense she knew wasn’t going to help against a pair of hulking brutes. Try as she might, images of becoming battered and bloody played in her mind, sending panic coursing through her.
Mona hit yellow lights on every intersection, causing her pursuers to blow through the reds and finally attract the attention of a cop. Either her timing was excellent or the imps were helping.
They slowed down and she kept going, quickly losing sight of the cop’s flashing blue lights in her rearview mirror. The distance meant they were less of a threat—now if she could just convince her panicked self of that.
South, over Grand Island toward the Folk enclaves near Lackawanna, seemed the best option. She’d agreed to Raine’s request not to tell the Buffalo pack last night, but with unknown Weres chasing her and probably Raine, she’d be damned if she went anywhere else. There was no doubt in Mona’s mind that these two were the same toughs she’d seen lurking at her place last night. Somehow they’d learned she’d helped Raine and were now coming after her.
The combination of the increasing rush hour traffic and sleet made driving more treacherous with each passing minute. She’d made it across the two bridges to the island without a sign of pursuit, but the Jeep showed up again as the Buffalo Skyway began, and the road started its rise over the surface streets. Dry-mouthed panic and a frantic heart were back full force. Dividing her attention between the incline ahead and her rearview mirror, she watched them swerve in and out of traffic, gaining on her.
Jerking her attention back, she found a solid wall of ice pellets heading her way and cars slowing down as it approached. She hit the brakes, the antilock mechanism kicked in, and the car stutteringly decelerated. Somehow the Jeep managed to pull alongside her on the left, tinted windows hiding the brutes’ faces. A window lowered just enough for the tip of a gun to peek out. Any hope that she’d survive an encounter with them fled.
Mona jerked the wheel hard and bashed into the Jeep’s side panel, sending it sliding across the skyway to the opposite side. Car horns blared and vehicles spun out as the wall of precipitation hit. Not waiting for them to sort themselves, Mona pulled over to the right shoulder and started backing up. Wheels humming on the safety treads, she only spared a few glances ahead to where the Jeep was still going forward on the far left, and the rest of the traffic was still snarled. Thankfully no one seemed to be injured, although at least one vehicle wasn’t going to be moving anytime soon.
Going backwards down the incline was slow, the road behind, difficult to see due to the angle. The icy precipitation didn’t help. But so long as she was heading away from the Jeep and that gun, she didn’t care about her speed.
The itch of a large and forceful spell being worked made her stop. A huge ripple of magic, like a distortion of heat in the frigid air, arched out from the ground below the skyway to the wind turbines along the Lake Erie shore. The angry red tone color was all too familiar.
The immense metal and concrete structures shuddered on their bases.
Holy Goddess of the First Tree! Mona didn’t know when a working of this size could have been set. She was fairly certain that she’d have seen that amount of magic on her way up and changed it, Warder restrictions be damned. Although, shit, if it’d been set down into the ground again, she may not have seen the markings from the elevated road.
The urge to help hummed in her veins. To shield Folk from mortals, or mortals from Folk, didn’t matter at this point. Saving lives did.
Leaving the car running, she got out and ran around the front to the Jersey barrier at the side of the road, ignoring the honking. These people were in far more danger than just the traffic jam the Jeep had caused, and she needed to do something to protect them.
No time to read everything, Mona concentrate
d on the symbols that shone the brightest. She flipped the rune controlling movement to the side, slowing the working down. Then, before the spell fully took, she turned the size one upside down, halving the area it encompassed.
With a sense of dread and futility, she watched through the sleet as the spell took hold. With a loud bang and a flurry of sparks a blade from of one of the turbines sheared off. Glowing and unnaturally spinning like a drill bit, the huge metal spike arced slowly toward the skyway. There was no way to hide this, even to the mortals.
Car brakes screeched and metal crunched as the few cars that had managed to straighten out halted, trying to avoid the oncoming projectile.
People abandoned their cars and started to run back down the highway, screaming and carrying children, slipping and sliding on the slick roadway, desperate to get away.
Jostled and cursed at, Mona stayed where she was, watching, waiting. Finally a symbol rose to the top of the spell. Motion. She might be able to pull the rune out and lessen the amount of damage from impact. An impact that would happen soon—very soon.
Perhaps she could tweak the location of the target. She followed the trajectory, only to see the Jeep-boys were out of their car and running along the opposite edge toward her. Still off a way, they were already aiming their guns at her, ignoring or oblivious to the danger hurtling toward them.
Time was running out. Mona tapped the symbol, stopping the blade’s spin and slowing momentum behind the blade to the weight of free fall. Something must have alerted the men, because they stopped and looked back over their shoulders, turning fully around in the next step, guns braced and aimed at the new threat.
With no way for her to get off the overpass in time, she needed the protection her car afforded. Counting seconds, as if she had a clue when the blade would hit, she hurried back to her car as fast as she dared on the slippery slope, worried she wouldn’t make it in time. As she climbed in, the road shuddered, rocking the chassis. She turned off the engine.
The sound of nails scraping a blackboard magnified a hundredfold shrieked out as the tip of the blade ground against the concrete. Covering her ears, Mona leaned into the steering wheel.
