Duo (Stone Mage Saga Book 2)

by Raven Whitney

  “Screw you, you pretentious prick,” Toshiro growled, baring his fangs at Liam.

  “This is why you never made the cut.” Liam walked carefully closer.

  With the hand that was bracing him against the ground, Toshiro reached into his pocket for something too small to see and threw it before he fell to the ground.

  Liam brought his sword up broadside in front of his face and tensed.

  “Gotcha,” Toshiro said, his voice a quiet, wet thing.

  Liam cursed and pulled something invisible from his leg. Only when he cast it aside did it glint in the sun, revealing it as a metal rod like a needle.

  Toshiro rolled to his back and started to laugh, though it sounded more like he was choking.

  Liam walked over to him, and stomped his foot onto Toshiro's chest. “What'd you poison me with?”

  “Gimme the mage and we'll talk.”

  Liam put his sword to against Toshiro's neck.

  Ice crept up my spine knowing Liam had been poisoned. We couldn't afford to lose him. I couldn't lose him.

  Running across the field, I snatched up the tattered Hawaiian shirt Toshiro wore when he arrived and held it up over his head.

  “Tell him or I drop this on your face,” I threatened, fear thickening my voice.

  Liam raised his steely gray gaze to watch me. If I didn't know better, I would say there was approval there.

  I lowered it closer to Toshiro.

  “Get closer, Stone Mage, I dare you.” Toshiro opened his mouth to flash his fangs. Up close, they were a lot bigger. “Just a little bit of your blood and I can heal enough to steal you.”

  I let the shirt slip from my fingers.

  Toshiro screamed in agony as tendrils of foul-smelling smoke slithered into the air. “Moonshade!”

  “Shit,” Liam cursed, the air leaving his lungs. He raised his sword above his head and swung downward.

  I jumped and turned away as Toshiro's head was cleaved from his shoulders. I had seen more than enough of that to last a lifetime.

  “We have to get moving.” Liam ushered me and Lexie into the Jeep.

  I snagged the heavy bag full of potions and tossed it into the backseat next to Lexie. Liam shut the back hatch where Grandma lay unconscious on top of the other bags as he passed it. He climbed into the passenger seat and gestured to me to drive.

  “I'm going to pass out in a few minutes,” he said. “I need you to get me to my hotel room. In my case is a vial labeled 'essence of heliotrope'. If I'm not conscious, you'll need to pour some in my mouth and do the same for your friend in the back. There should be enough for two doses.” His speech was starting to slur just as Grandma's did before she blacked out.

  “Where do I go?”

  He reached into the pocket of his blue jeans and pulled out a hotel key card, still in its paper sleeve.

  Taking it, I read the address and hit the gas. It wasn't too far from here, but he wouldn't be awake. I drove as lead-footed as Lexie to get us there in time, but Liam's head was starting to droop.

  “How long do we have to get this to you guys?” Lexie asked.

  Liam mumbled something incoherent. Not good.

  “Go faster,” Lexie barked as I wove through traffic and ran a red light for the first time in my life. I winced at the chorus of honks and prayed there weren't any cops nearby. I had no idea what would happen if we got pulled over with two dying people, a horde of weapons and bombs, and a giant eyeball in a box and didn't want to find out.

  I passed the key card to Lexie. “When we get there, you go run in and get the thing he wanted. We can't carry them in and can't leave them alone.”

  “Got it.” She took the card as the hotel's sign came into view.

  We almost fishtailed into the upscale hotel's parking lot. I slammed on the brakes and Lexie bolted from the car while it was still moving.

  “Liam,” I urged, shaking his arm. “Grandma!” All I could see of her was a red head that wasn't moving.

  Anxiety and adrenaline made my whole body shake and I was almost in tears. There wasn't anything I could do but hold myself together and wait for Lexie.

  The moments that passed took seemingly forever, but eventually, the sight of Lexie's bright blond hair bursting through the doors took my breath away.

  She went to the back for Grandma first since she was poisoned before Liam.

  I half-fell out the door and held Grandma's head with my shaky hands for Lexie to pour half of the vial of bright violet liquid in her mouth. I held her as upright as I could and tilted her head back.

  Lexie went to Liam in the front seat.

  “Got him?” I called out. Please, good God, let us have gotten here in time. I couldn't watch my friend and my grandma die, too.

  “Yeah, he's sitting up,” she answered.

  In my arms, Grandma coughed violently and lurched up to cling to her knees. The tears I'd been fighting finally won and I cried as I rubbed her back.

  Moments later, Liam did the same and if I weren't sitting down, I would have fallen.

  Grandma moved to get to her feet. Using the edge of the car as a support.

  “Um, do you want me to come back later?” a young man's voice from behind me had my stomach dropping to the ground.

  Busted.

  7

  Yes, dear.” Grandma gave the young bellhop her brightest smile, though her voice sounded like a lifetime chain-smoker swallowed a toad. “Would you give us a moment to collect our things?”

  He nodded and went back inside for a trolley.

  “Close the bags,” Grandma said.

  Liam climbed carefully out of the car, using Lexie's arm for balance.

  This moonshade poison must be something really bad. I'd seen Liam fight and win with gaping holes in his body as though they were barely there, but a nearly invisible needle had come close to killing him.

  Grandma walked with jerky motions to Liam.

  “Who are you?” she demanded.

  “It's okay, Grandma, he's a friend.” I climbed out of the car to where they stood on the passenger side.

  “Liam Burnett, venator,” he answered. “I'd show you my vows, but my arms aren't working very well right now.”

  Grandma scrutinized him, glaring head-to-toe. “And how do I know I can trust you?”

  “Because I trust him,” I answered for him. “He helped me escape.”

  The steel that filled Grandma's eyes was so foreign in a face that had always held looks of kindness and joy and the occasional soft disapproval. Those same eyes delivered a fatal warning to Liam, even though she didn't say it aloud.

  “Lexie, turn him around,” Grandma said, leaning herself against the side of the car.

  Lexie looked confused and Liam rolled his eyes, but both complied. What was Grandma doing?

  “Constance, dear, lift the back of his sweater to the back of his neck.”

  I hesitated. This felt really weird, never mind the violation of personal space. I wasn't going to strip Liam, a man I barely knew, in a hotel parking lot.

  “Just do it,” he said.

  Still unsure about this, I reached for the hem of his black wool sweater and undershirt. He jumped a little when I touched his bare skin.

  “Your hands are bloody cold, Ms. Flynn,” he complained, though I could hear a hint of a laugh in his voice.

  “How'd you know my name?” I asked, smiling a little. Thinking back to our time in the pits, I don't think I ever told him. That was kind of embarrassing.

  “I didn't,” he answered. “Made you awfully difficult to track down, Ms. Constance Felicity Flynn.” He enunciated each of my names like they were a prize he'd earned.

  I lifted the back of his sweater to reveal the carved muscles that rippled on his back. Wow, if he was attractive covered in grime and sporting a hobo beard, he was breathtaking now that he was clean and shaved.

  His dark blond hair was clean and trimmed, though it still looked on the shaggy side. The filthy beard was shaved from his square
jawline and the bruises that had decorated his high cheekbones and boxer's nose the last time I saw him had healed, leaving his lightly tanned complexion unmarred.

  Grandma scrutinized the tattoos on his back. She paid no mind to the snarling Irish wolfhound on the back of his right shoulder that was so realistic, it looked like he was about to jump out at you. She focused on the vertical lines of ornate, archaic script that extended from his left shoulder blade to the bottom of his ribcage.

  “Why did you track her down?” Grandma asked, still suspicious, but not on the brink of trying to stab him.

  Standing without Lexie's help now, he turned carefully back around and grabbed the still ajar passenger door, but didn't put any weight on it. He used his free hand to pull the sweater back down, but not before I caught a glimpse of the front.

  A crimson pentacle sat between his defined pectoral muscles, directly over his heart. A gecko filled in with tribal-like swirls crawled upward along the V-line of his left hip. His washboard abs flexed as he pulled the hem down.

  His eyes held a mischievous, almost victorious glint. He'd caught me staring.

  My cheeks heated and I averted my gaze, looking anywhere but at him.

  “Do you want me to come back later again?” the bellhop asked nervously. Poor guy looked so awkward. Though I suppose from an outsider's perspective, this was a very strange scene.

  “Take the bags to my suite,” Liam told the young man.

  Before he could ask which, Lexie passed him the key card that was still in her pocket.

  While the bellhop struggled to load the heavy, clinking bags onto the cart, everyone went silent. A surprised and almost fearful expression crossed the boy's face when he picked up the one with the orbs.

  I passed a worried glance to Grandma. Was it dangerous for him to be handling a mountain of tiny firebombs and who knew what else?

  She shrugged a shoulder, seemingly unconcerned.

  Well if anybody knew whether or not this could be catastrophic, it would be the woman who made all of the little magic grenades.

  The young man loaded the box with the giant lava newt eyeball, the final item, and walked into the hotel.

  “You're welcome to stay with me until we can get them into hiding.” Liam released the car door and started for the inside of the hotel, but he stumbled on the curb.

  I reached out and snagged his arm just in time.

  He righted himself. “Thanks.”

  “No problem,” I answered, threading my arm through his so he could lean on me for balance. Behind us, Grandma did the same with Lexie.

  I passed the car key to a valet and followed Liam's instructions to get to the room.

  The room was a large, tastefully decorated suite with two bedrooms, each with their own bathrooms, that connected to a central shared space with couches, a TV, a small dining nook, a kitchenette, and a balcony.

  “Wow,” I said. “Why'd you get such a big room if it's just you?”

  “A page booked this, not me.” He gestured for me to set him down on one of the sofas. I helped him get his legs onto the white cushions so he could lay out and not have to keep himself upright. Lexie set Grandma on the opposite one and did the same.

  “What's a page?” Lexie asked.

  He thought about that for a moment like they were so normal, he'd never considered having to explain it to someone. “They're kind of all-purpose secretaries. They do everything but fight— organize paperwork, deliver messages, expedite this and that, make travel arrangements for venators in the field.”

  “You never answered my question, Mr. Burnett.” Grandma stated.

  “What was that again?” he asked, rolling his head to look over at her.

  “Why did you hunt down my granddaughter?” she repeated, growing irate again.

  “Oh, yes.” Liam fished a piece of paper out of his pocket and held it out to me. “I came to deliver her bounty for killing Unus.”

  “I get a bounty?” Something about his statement sounded odd to me. Sure, Unus was a big-time criminal who— now that I thought about it— probably had a bounty on his head, but it wasn't as though I actively hunted him down or anything. I didn't even kill him on purpose.

  “Yes, Unus came with a roughly five million US dollar bounty on his head.” He waved the scrap of paper until I took it from him. “This is the information to the bank account with your bounty in it.”

  My cheeks flushed with a strange embarrassment and I accepted the paper, but then the meaning of his words set in and my jaw hit the floor. “Five million dollars?” I could hardly even conceive of that much money. Five million dollars could pay off Mom's medical bills, both mortgages on the house, the one on the shop, and all of my student loans with still more money than I could fathom spending left over.

  Liam gave me that indulgent and slightly condescending look that parents wear when their child gets ecstatic over the Tooth Fairy's quarter. Then something occurred to me:

  “Is the Tooth Fairy real?” Even as ridiculous of a question as it sounded on its head, this was a brave new world and I just had to know.

  And with that, all eyes were on me.

  “Um,” Liam sputtered, taken aback and looking at me like I was going mad. “No, the Tooth Fairy is not real.”

  “Santa?”

  “No.”

  “Bigfoot?”

  “No. Those stories are based on the rare human sighting of a half-shifted shapeshifter.”

  “Loch Ness Monster?”

  “No. Again, that story probably got its start from a human spotting some kind of aquatic shifter in the loch.”

  “Easter Bunny? Are there giant bunny shapeshifters?” That thought made me peculiarly giddy.

  “No and no. With the exception of elk and horses, all shapeshifters are predatory species.”

  Lexie walked with a dramatic caution toward me and placed her cool hand on my brow, as though checking to see if I was running a fever. “I think she's starting to crack,” Lexie fretted, though whether she was being serious or sarcastic, I couldn't tell.

  I gave her a sour look in return and looked down at the piece of paper. It was just folded sheet of notebook paper with numbers scrawled in a messy script, yet it held the power to make so many problems in my life go away.

  I handed the paper back to Liam. “Would you find a way to get this to my parents? They need it right now more than I do.”

  He looked me in the eyes with a curious expression, like he was trying to figure out if I was being serious or not. Approval flashed through his eyes for the briefest moment and he accepted the paper back, returning it to his pocket. “I'll see to it that they get the money.”

  “And that they actually use it,” Lexie chimed in.

  I looked over to her.

  “Come on, honey, do you think your parents will accept millions of dollars showing up out of the blue with no idea of where it came from?” she asked. “Especially when I've offered to bail them out of debt more times than I can count. And they know I'm not a crazy mob boss or random banking error they could get arrested for taking advantage of.”

  She had a good point. My parents had always been proud people who would object to having their problems taken care of by anyone's hand but theirs.

  “That won't be a problem,” Liam responded. “I can call in a favor from an old friend and they won't think anything of it.”

  With those words, it felt as though a huge weight was lifted from my shoulders. The relief took my breath away and made it so much lighter at the same time. I knew there was still a good chance that Lexie and I would still be brutally tortured and murdered at the hands of a madman bent on world domination, but knowing that my parents wouldn't get kicked out of their home put tears in my eyes.

  Wordless, I knelt down and wrapped my arms around Liam's broad chest.

  It was like hugging a very nice-smelling tree.

  He froze like a deer in the headlights and I suddenly felt very awkward.

  Backing up, I s
niffled and wiped at my eyes. “Thank you. That really means a lot to me.”

  “No—” he sputtered. “No problem.”

  Lexie cleared her throat, biting her lips to keep from smiling at my utter lack of social aptitude. Reminded of personal space, I stood and stepped back.

  “So why is a venator delivering a bounty? You have pages for that,” Grandma inquired, still watching his every move. He'd proved who he was, hadn't he?

  Turning his attention back to my Grandma, he responded, “Yes, but after all that we went through together, I felt I owed her enough respect to deliver it in person. And as I'm not currently assigned any task, I did.” And just like that, he was Mr. Cool and Confident again.

  “If it's all the same to you, as soon as I'm back on my feet, we'll be heading off.”

  Liam looked Grandma right in the eye. “Are you sure that's a good idea, Ms. Gwennaby Dillon?” The way he said her name made me think he was really saying something else, something that was almost a threat.

  “Wait a sec, you know my grandma?” I asked. She hadn't introduced herself, so how else would he know her name?

  “No, not really, but I've seen her around once or twice from afar,” Liam answered. “My father works directly under the Triad, where her father works.”

  “The what?” Lexie asked.

  “The Triad are the executors of the Circle. Her father is one of the two men and one woman who rule all of magekind.”

  Grandma looked like she'd swallowed a bug.

  I was in awe. So she was a sort-of princess. It was strange because she never acted haughty or entitled like some of Lexie's peers. She worked in a coffee shop, swept floors, cleaned the bathroom, and a lot of other very un-princess-like things.

  Why would she keep something like that a secret from me? Maybe she just hadn't had an opportunity to bring it up, but the way she was giving Liam the evil eye made me think that she hadn't wanted me to know.

  “Yes,” Grandma bit out. “We are waiting for the Pax to organize a retrieval and send a team of venators.”

  He gave her a strange, almost confused look. “Well you have a venator right here and I have a few more days of leave before my next assignment comes in. Why don't you stick with me until then? The room is paid for for another few days. You never know who else could come out of the woodwork in the meantime.”