“It’s in the blood,” he interrupted. “Stag has a sample of all its employees’ blood. It’s the major requirement to bind them.”
She shivered.
He must have noticed. “It’s significant magic. Few wizards can do it. Even fewer risk it, since magic talents might band together and come after them. Fear incites a mob. But Stag has someone, unidentified, on their staff who can do so.”
“Okay.” She tried to keep her voice steady. Learning that someone could bind her magic—in effect, take her talent from her by preventing her from using it—was freaky. Also freaking her out was the knowledge that even without magic, Nelson would still be free to come after them. People didn’t need magic to be evil and nasty.
Maybe Marcus read her silence or he guessed her worries. They were kind of obvious. “Once Nelson’s magic is bound, he can be tried and punished by the ordinary justice system. He’ll go to prison for kidnapping my parents.”
“Oh.” Her breath escaped in a rush of relief.
“That’s why I need to capture him, now. Can you check his location, please?” He flicked on the interior light.
She fumbled with the map, her magic taking a few seconds to settle and focus. “Nelson is still heading this way.”
“Good.” Marcus snapped off the light.
She reached up and switched it back on. “You wanted me to find his den. You asked earlier.”
He glanced at her. “I didn’t think you could. The way you answered…I was going to wait till Nelson stopped moving. You could give me his location and I’d go in. You’ll be okay. I’m going to set wards around the SUV just as soon as we get to somewhere private.” Which would mean going off-road. No wonder he’d bought the tough all-terrain vehicle. “Hold off searching for Nelson’s den till we’re stopped.”
He turned onto a dirt track and she understood why he’d suggested she wait. The way the suspension jolted, she wouldn’t be able to read the map. She switched off the cabin light.
After twenty minutes, he stopped between two cottonwood trees that grew close together with a third at a short distance.
She concentrated on Nelson. “He’s still travelling steadily. We’ve got perhaps two hours.”
“I’ll set the ward.”
Marcus set two wards. For the first, he walked a short distance from the truck and marked a perimeter ward that took in the trees and a space around the SUV. Within the vehicle he could see Sadie bent over the map, concentrating on finding Nelson’s den. Marcus rubbed his chest. His heart ached, not in a bad way, but in intense, disbelieving hope and love. That he was no longer dying of his phoenix blood addiction seemed less of a miracle to him than Sadie’s acceptance and forgiveness of all that he’d done. She’d been passionate in her defense and claiming of him.
He dared to hope that she even loved him.
He could have sent her with his parents to be guarded by Stag mercenaries while he tracked Nelson. That he hadn’t even asked her to use her talent to find her own safety reinforced how much she meant to him. He had to be the one to protect her.
And she hadn’t objected to coming with him on this hunt.
He set the second ward into the SUV, making it mobile. It took a wallop of magic to embed the ward into the frame of the vehicle, but nothing could enter the vehicle without an invitation from Sadie or him, and the ward would deflect any attack.
He opened her door and lost his train of thought. Her smile had a tendency to do that to him. She looked tired and very beautiful. He caressed her face and treasured the soft kiss she pressed into his palm.
“I can’t find the den,” she said quietly. “But Nelson is nearly here. About forty minutes away and heading slightly to the north of us.” She pointed at the location on the map spread out over her knees. “The roads will give out soon, so unless he goes off-road, I think he’ll travel the last distance to his den on foot.”
“As a werewolf.” That worked with Marcus’s plan. “When I’m close enough, I can sense the signature of his magic, of the spell that works his transformation.” He could track Nelson without further assistance from Sadie. He concentrated on her. “I’ve set a perimeter ward. It’s solid. However, if something goes wrong and Nelson gets away from me and somehow manages to break the perimeter ward, the SUV—” He thumped the side of it. “—has a stronger mobile ward embedded in it. Stay in the car and drive. Drive to wherever your talent finds safety for you. I’ll find you.”
“Okay.” She bit her bottom lip.
He bent and kissed her. “It’ll be okay.”
Their lips clung a moment, breaths mingling, before he pulled away. He stripped quickly, laced his boots and wrapped his clothes around them, setting the bundle at a short distance from the SUV but within the perimeter ward. Then he transformed into a griffin. Although he mistrusted its instincts, it gave him mobility. He could intercept Nelson faster. His lion claws were clumsy, but at the second attempt he managed to snag his bundle of clothes. He launched into the air.
Below him, Sadie got out of the car and waved at him.
The cool night wind carried wild scents to him. He dived over the SUV in farewell before flying north.
Chapter 18
An owl’s vision at night would have been more useful than the griffin’s eagle eyes, but the moon and stars provided some illumination and Marcus also tracked Nelson via the magical signature of his wizard’s magic. He found Nelson in werewolf form running across the plain.
The werewolf ran fast, surefooted, agile, and lethal in the power of its movement. It was obvious that Nelson ran with a destination in mind.
Marcus stayed high, out of range—he hoped—of a werewolf’s senses and examined the grassy plain for Nelson’s likely destination. A den hollowed out of the dirt mightn’t be visible from the air, especially at night. However, an abandoned house up ahead with half its roof gone and the remains of the fence that had enclosed a garden lying toppled over, might appeal to a wolf that yet retained part humanity. Marcus couldn’t sense any magic around it. No ward. Was it Nelson’s den or not?
It didn’t matter.
Someone with different magicks to his might fly ahead and transform back into human, dress and wait for Nelson in the werewolf’s own den. But Marcus’s primary, original magic was telekinesis. In one of the ironies of his life, the medical studies he’d been forced to abandon provided the basis for his lethal use of telekinesis.
A werewolf was an unknown body, but the principles for dealing with him were obvious: brute force to disable and shock Nelson into confusion for a few crucial seconds, and then, the critical blow.
In the past, Marcus’s telekinesis had been limited to his visual connection to the objects he sought to move. Now, the griffin form significantly extended his visual range. If the night went as he hoped, he’d be able to disable Nelson from this distance.
As the werewolf loped across the plain, Marcus sent out his magic to grab a fallen tree branch Nelson had just passed. The magic lifted it and sent it slamming into Nelson’s hind legs. The old wood and the werewolf’s femurs both snapped.
A howl that was part scream tore through the night, the stuff of nightmares. Nelson fell, tumbling as his speed propelled him forward even as his legs gave out. Before he could recover or form a thought for a defensive spell, Marcus raised the larger remaining piece of branch and hit Nelson’s grotesque werewolf head. Then he levered the werewolf over, belly exposed, unsure if Nelson was unconscious, but not wanting him to see the griffin’s descent. With his nose in the dirt and his ears ringing, hopefully Nelson couldn’t hear or smell him either even if he was semi-conscious. Just how thick were werewolf skulls?
Swooping low, Marcus assessed the sprawled, limp form.
Nelson seemed unconscious.
Hating the cruelty of it, but needing confirmation, Marcus nudged one broken leg with the branch.
Nelson didn’t twitch or tense, nor make any noise.
Unconscious, then. Marcus landed. His griffin beak bur
ned. So did his paws. The form wanted to rend Nelson. The griffin didn’t care about fairness, justice, mercy or any other human consideration. This was the enemy, someone who would and had hurt those Marcus cared about.
It was too risky to stay in griffin form. Controlling its instincts was fraying his concentration. He shifted to human and studied the slack unconsciousness of the werewolf’s body.
Even in four-legged form, the werewolf wasn’t quite a wolf. There was a thick brutality to the head that made the beast a weapon rather than a natural creature. It’s tongue lolled out from between yellowing teeth to rest on the dirt.
Broken legs wouldn’t constrain the wizard’s ability to use other spells, and there was no guessing what spells Nelson had committed to memory and ability. Rendering Nelson unconscious gave Marcus breathing room, but not a complete solution. Keeping an eye on him, Marcus dressed and set about creating one final ward for the night. This one wouldn’t keep others out, but would keep Nelson and his magic in.
Since Marcus couldn’t be sure how much magic Nelson could push through a spell when he was desperate, Marcus had to sink all of his magic into the containment ward. It felt as if he pulled the magic from his own bones, but also, which was new to him, from the air. The magic drifted to him, sucked into his center and burned a path through him to flow through his bones before wrenchingly joining the magic that formed the containment ward.
When the ward finally glowed from bronze to silver, then, flaringly into gold, Marcus shut off the flow of his magic. The ward was set. Nelson wouldn’t go anywhere till Marcus released him.
The question was, did Marcus have enough energy to go anywhere himself? His initial transformations into griffin form had burned off excess magic from the fever in his blood. Now the fever wasn’t a problem, but the magic in him was depleted. He was cold and exhausted, his movements heavy. He undressed again, clumsy and slow. He wanted to return to Sadie and her warmth, to her care and passion that felt so much like love.
He pushed the transformation and all the feathers and fur of his griffin form rippled in a wind of magic. The streams of magic from the air didn’t wrench painfully through him for this magic. Instead, they felt gentle and restorative. He barely remembered to hook the bundle of his clothes before he launched into the air, powerful wing muscles carrying him up and up.
He circled to survey Nelson. The werewolf lay as he’d left him.
Let him die in the wilderness, the griffin urged, wordless and compelling.
No. I need answers. Nelson knew the name of the client who was after Sadie’s amulet. He had to know it. The man was a sociopath, but that meant he calculated odds. He must have judged that the client had the firepower to balance going after the Aurelius family.
Once Marcus had an answer to the question of the client’s identity, then the Stag mercenaries could bring Nelson in for judgement.
Exhausted, but confident that Nelson was contained, Marcus banked and flew back toward the SUV and Sadie—just as the perimeter ward he’d set to protect her shattered.
Sadie watched Marcus in his griffin form head north to intercept Nelson. When her straining eyes lost him to the darkness, she scanned the flat plain that surrounded her. The wind rustled the leaves of the cottonwoods that sheltered the SUV. It was lonesome out here.
Her arms goose pimpled and she rubbed them. It was cold and she was worried for Marcus. That was all. “I’ll feel better in the car.” If she got really cold, she suspected that the car had heated seats. She could switch those on. “Such luxury,” she mocked herself.
Relief unknotted some of the tension in her stomach once she was inside the SUV with the doors and windows closed—and yes, locked, despite Marcus’s ward. She knew he’d set them, but she couldn’t sense them, so the ordinary security of the locks made her feel safer.
She checked the map and Nelson’s progress. Then she focused her finder talent to find Marcus. Their paths were converging. She would track both until—
The burn phone rang.
It could be Vanessa or Marcus’s parents or Lou or even someone from Stag headquarters.
“Hello?”
“Sadie Howard.”
Sadie froze, her gaze lifting from the map to stare around at the surrounding land. She didn’t even think about it. Her hand just raised up and switched off the SUV’s interior light. There was something in the unidentified male voice on the phone. Something gloating and anticipatory, almost predatory. “Who is this?”
“If I was a vindictive man, I’d want to make you pay for ramming my van.” Nelson’s partner! “But I’m a businessman, so I’m willing to let bygones be bygones and negotiate some business.”
Sadie was glad she’d sat in the passenger seat. Unobtrusively, she opened the glovebox. Marcus had left his gun in it. Minervalle School had drilled its girls in handling guns. She snicked the safety off. “What business do you and I have?”
“I looked into your background, Miss Sadie Howard. You have quite a reputation as a picker. If someone wants a particular antique, you’re the one who can find it for them. Nelson, now he was fixated on your partner, Marcus Aurelius. A scary bastard.”
You have no idea. She waited. The man talking to her wasn’t making idle chitchat. He was building up to something.
“Seems to me that someone is determined to acquire a particular amulet. You found it for Aurelius, but whatever he’s paying you, the bounty for the amulet is more—even split in half.”
Her grip on the handgun tightened. She forced her muscles to relax. Slow and easy, ready not tense. Marcus’s wards would hold. If they didn’t…what had he said about the man who’d been holding his parents hostage?
The van driver was a surveillance mage. Evidently, the man had put that talent to good use and followed them. It couldn’t be coincidence that he’d phoned after Marcus had flown away. He’d been watching and waiting for his chance to confront her alone. Was he working with Nelson or had the two parted ways?
“I don’t want to tangle with a werewolf.” She didn’t have to fake the strained note in her voice. She was frightened. Marcus had dismissed the surveillance mage as of little account, a disposable ally whom Nelson had picked up and used before discarding. But hadn’t he said that the man was a bounty hunter? The guy might be more of a threat than Marcus calculated.
Uncannily, his next words mirrored her thoughts. “Don’t you worry about the wolfman, honey. Aurelius and he are going to tangle. Now, it’s just you and me, two ordinary people. I’m not going to underestimate your skills and you’re not going to underestimate mine. I’m going to have that amulet.”
How had he hidden himself from Marcus? In griffin form, Marcus should have seen him from the air.
Unless…
She concentrated, trying to hear the background sounds through the phone and also lowering the window of the SUV a fraction. There! Sound travelled through the night. A vehicle was approaching.
Marcus might have been suspicious of a van travelling along the road they’d left behind. But if the van driver had abandoned the van and acquired a different vehicle—as they had—would Marcus have worried about a truck in which an apparent rancher could be travelling home from town?
The noise of a vehicle grew louder.
She closed the window, unsure if having it open might weaken the ward Marcus had sunk into the SUV. Terror rose in her, her heart slamming heavily in her chest. Having to wait here, like a sitting duck, sent tendrils of panic snaking through her mind and body. She climbed over from the passenger seat to the driver’s, gun in one hand, phone in the other.
Even if she was willing to give up the amulet to the man approaching, his talk of splitting the bounty fifty-fifty was a lie. For his own safety, he couldn’t leave her alive. He knew Marcus’s reputation. He had to be counting on grabbing the amulet and getting out fast, before Marcus’s return. He couldn’t have been close enough to see Marcus transform into a griffin or Marcus would have sensed his magical signature. So van man�
��s surveillance magic had to be tracking Marcus, himself.
I wonder what he thinks of Marcus’s flight path? Sadie bit her lip to stop a nervous giggle. She could see headlights now, on low beam, the size of the darkness behind them indicating a pickup truck.
It stopped just beyond the perimeter ward. “So, here we are.” Van man was invisible behind the glare of his headlights. “I don’t have much time, honey, which means you have ten seconds to make a choice. Either you bring me that amulet and I’ll transfer you fifty percent of the bounty.”
“Betraying your partner, Nelson, isn’t wise,” she interrupted.
“Aurelius beat him before. He’ll do it again.” But there was tension in the voice. “Ten seconds and I better see you getting out of the SUV and walking to me or I’ll come and get the amulet. Ten seconds. Hand it over or I’ll rip it from you. Nine seconds.”
A tremor shook her. She felt useless, her finder talent no more than a party trick. It couldn’t help her in this situation.
The headlights of the truck switched to high beam and van man added a spotlight. Dazzled and blinded, Sadie slid down in the seat. Marcus! But she doubted either of them were telepathic, even in her extremity of fear.
She heard the truck’s door open. She wished, how she wished, that she could sense if the perimeter ward held, but she couldn’t even see. As soon as she raised up above the dashboard, the truck’s lights blinded her.
“Time’s up.” Someone knocked on the SUV’s driver’s window.
Sadie screamed.
Her vision burned from the too-bright light, but she dimly glimpsed the shadow of van man outside. She heard him try the door handle, a click and a fumble. But she’d locked the door. She’d locked it and she had a gun.
Somehow van man had broken the perimeter ward. Life or death. His or hers.
She leaned back toward the passenger seat to have room to maneuver and fired the gun. It was a nightmare of sound and that blinding light. She heard the window glass shatter and fired again. One, two, three shots as adrenaline raced through her. She forced her finger to release. Don’t panic fire. The magazine only had fifteen rounds. If she’d missed the man with her first shot, he’d have ducked down. If and when he returned fire or opened the car door, then she had to empty the magazine.
Phoenix Blood (Old School Book 1) Page 17
