Oh, God, he thought Jase was dead and he didn’t want her to see the body. Squaring her chin, she grasped his hand and looked straight into his eyes. “Together.”
The one word had been enough. He nodded and pulled her closer, though still slightly behind him, where he could shield her body with his own. Some abstract part of her brain that wasn’t occupied with Jase and imminent danger was warmed by the gesture.
She was surprised when Ric didn’t head up the wooden staircase, but instead moved to the small window of the garage itself and peered inside.
He swore, snapped his fingers and handed her his magically appearing phone. “Star six. Now.” He made an arcane gesture, humming under his breath.
She’d never seen him look this grim, not even when he’d told her she was an elf. She opened the phone and hit the asterisk and the six. Greg’s gravelly voice answered before it had even started to ring.
“Yo.”
“Greg, this is Meagan. Apparently we’ve got a problem here.”
“What’s going on?” The softness left his tone, was replaced by a razor-sharpness a person could cut herself on.
“Trouble.” Ric spoke loudly enough to be heard over the phone even though Meagan still held it to her ear.
Ric’s eyes never left the glass. “George might want to get over here.” He might have said more, but at that moment Meagan’s phone chirped and they both jumped like a cannon had gone off.
Ric pulled Meagan’s phone out of her pocket. After checking the number he flipped it open, announced without a hello, “Aidan, we’ve got trouble.”
There was a brief pause, during which she watched Ric’s knuckles turn white and his breathing go shallow.
“Son of a bitch! You have got to be kidding me!”
Meagan heard Greg’s voice shouting from the phone she still held limply in her own hand, but she didn’t know what to say, so she didn’t say anything, just tried to breathe.
“No!” Pause. “Shite, shite, shite!” There was more, but she couldn’t comprehend it.
Meagan gulped and lifted Ric’s phone back to her ear.
“Uh, Greg?”
“Yeah?”
“Ric’s swearing at Aidan, in Welsh, or something. Apparently, there’s some sort of problem. Another one.”
“No shit, Sherlock. Where are you right now?”
“Standing outside my garage.” She dragged in a breath, fighting back tears. “R-Ric saw something inside. I think it’s…Jase, but he h-hasn’t said.”
“Tell Ric to sit tight. We’ll be right there. Aidan’s goon squad is pretty good, but mine’s better.” Hmm, maybe the rumors of organized crime ties hadn’t been all that exaggerated. Right now, she could only be glad he was on her side.
She turned to relay the information to Ric, who had finished swearing at Aidan. She was just in time to hear him finish.
“Do what you can and for goddess’s sake, stay in touch. Meanwhile, since your staff is off-limits, where can I find a healer I can trust?” There was a brief pause.
“Well, fuck me sideways.” He flipped the phone closed, handed it back to Meagan and wiped his sweat-dampened hair out of his eyes with the back of his hand. “Could you please call your friend Elise and ask her to come over? I’m pretty sure Jase isn’t dead. Yet.”
Chapter Eleven
Meagan stared at him with glassy eyes, but she blinked hard and traded him phones. Obediently, she dialed Elise’s number and waited for an answer. Meanwhile, Ric pulled her onto her back porch, away from the garage.
“Elise? This…” She gulped back a sob that wrung Ric’s heart. “This is Meagan. Ric needs to talk to you.”
She shoved the phone at him, and sat down on the concrete step, resting her chin on her fists and biting hard on her lower lip.
“Ms. Sutton? Ric Thornhill here. There’s been trouble and Aidan Greene tells me you’re the best healer in the area. Could you come over to Meagan’s house right away?”
He heard her suck in her breath, but her voice stayed taut, controlled. “Is Meagan okay?”
“Meagan is fine. It’s Jase Monroe. And, I’m not sure, unfortunately. He’s in some kind of magical trap. All I can tell you is that I still sense life force. But not much.”
He saw Meagan stiffen and blink back tears.
“On my way.”
“Elise has a daughter,” Meagan interjected. “We can’t ask her to come here if it will put her or Adina in danger.”
“Owain already knows about her connection to you,” Ric told her as he handed back the phone. Elise had hung up without further comments. “You gave him the name of the gallery, remember?”
“Shit.” She leaned into him as he sat beside her and wrapped an arm about her shoulders. Her breath hitched before she asked, “Why aren’t we going in there to rescue Jase?”
“Because right now he’s in some kind of stasis,” Ric admitted. “Apparently he set off a trap that was probably waiting for you. I’m not the world’s greatest mage and I don’t want to try to disarm the trap until we have a healer standing by for him and a back-up bodyguard for you, in case the trap backfires on me.”
“Got it.” Her voice cracked, but she soldiered on.
“And there’s something wrong at Aidan’s which is why he can’t send anybody to help, right?”
“Right.”
“Care to explain?”
“I’d really rather wait and do it once, if you don’t mind. And right now, I’m kind of busy watching for further trouble.”
“Got it.” After a long, nearly painful silence, she swallowed hard, her butt wiggling on the step. “You said my house was still warded, right?”
“Yeah.” He was proud of how well she was holding things together, though he could see the effort it cost her not to ignore his advice and run to her friend.
“Can you play watchdog from inside?”
“I suppose. Why?”
“’Cause if we’re going to be here a while, I’d really like to use the bathroom while we wait.”
The Novaks arrived about five seconds before Elise pulled up in her shiny blue Beemer. With Meagan’s Mustang, Jase’s car, Greg’s truck and Ric’s Jag all in the driveway, it looked like she was having a party. Ric was actually glad Meagan had suggested moving inside, as it would reduce the probability of curious neighbors wandering over to join the fun. They’d have to move to the garage as soon as he had the troops fully briefed, but hopefully by that time he’d have been able to construct some sort of look-the-other-way spell. Meagan wanted to come home after the council meeting and it wouldn’t do to have the neighbors trying to burn her as a witch.
Greg shot a suspicious look at the elegant gallery owner, but politely held her car door open after seeing Ric nod his approval from Meagan’s front porch. The three of them had barely entered the room when yet another car screeched to the curb and a tall, male part-blood emerged and strode across Meagan’s lawn to join them.
“Who are you?” Ric didn’t have time for manners.
The dark-haired man pulled off a pair of aviator shades and jerked his thumb at Elise. “Her brother. Desmond Sutton. Elise said you might need a wizard and I was in the neighborhood.”
“Lord, this keeps getting weirder,” Meagan groused as she hugged Elise. “I didn’t even know you had a brother.”
Ric shooed the motley crew into the living room and shut the door, gesturing for everyone to find seats.
“You’re a Wyndewin?” he asked Sutton, who nodded curtly. “Thank you, goddess, that’s the first break we’ve gotten all day. Start with a SEP spell around the property. Don’t want the neighbors thinking Meagan’s having a huge party and maybe they should come over to join in.”
Sutton nodded, stepped back out onto the porch and shut the door. A few seconds later he reentered. “Done.”
“What’s an SEP spell?” Meagan asked.
Desmond Sutton replied. “Somebody else’s problem. Making six cars invisible would take a lot of magical po
wer, but it’s fairly easy to give the whole thing an aura that makes people want to look the other way.”
“Got it,” she replied. “Sort of like ‘these aren’t the droids you’re looking for.’”
“Exactly,” Ric replied. “Now can we get down to business? Preferably before the bad guys return and try to kill the lot of us?”
“Let ’em try.” Greg’s growl was practically a laugh.
“No,” Sutton barked. “The goal here is simple extraction. Once we get the non-combatants out of danger, you fang-faces can go hunting to your heart’s content.”
Ric didn’t much like Sutton taking charge, but he was right. George, however, snarled at the mage and Ric saw Meagan glance in surprise at the feral sound. Sutton responded with a derogatory, “Down boy!”
Greg had to physically restrain his brother from leaping across the room. Time to intervene. Opening his throat, Ric sang a high note with more than a touch of compulsion in it. Finally, everyone shut the hell up.
“Have a seat.” He didn’t actually sing the command, but he pushed a hefty note of bardic power into it. Though Sutton’s eyes narrowed and George pouted, they all sat.
“Here is what we know so far…” Without pausing for breath, he filled them all in on Meagan’s history, the council vote and Owain le Faire. He explained what he’d discerned about the magical trap in Meagan’s garage.
“They’ve also attacked on another front, trying to block Meagan from reaching Underhill. The portal at Aidan’s home has been tampered with. Gunter, one of Aidan’s security staff, tried to use it this afternoon and the end was extremely messy.”
Even though they weren’t touching, Ric felt Meagan’s horror and sorrow at the senseless death of the bodyguard, whom she’d only met the day before. He reached across the back of the chair he stood behind and squeezed her shoulder, wishing he could offer more comfort. The connection between them had grown so strong, so fast, that her roiling emotions threatened to swamp Ric as well.
He didn’t have time for that, not when Meagan’s life depended on him and this rag-tag group of defenders.
There would be time to mourn later, once she and Jase were safe.
Her spine straightened as she drew herself together. He gave her shoulder one more squeeze and continued.
“Since only key members of Aidan’s team have access to the portal, the traitor must be someone close to him. We can’t rely on any of his people. Once we release the trap and hopefully heal Jase…” he nodded at Elise, “…then we need to arrange a safe house for him and probably the rest of you until this whole mess blows over. Greg, can you handle that part?”
“Monroe will be safe,” Greg vowed with a feral grin.
“Your man messes with my pack, he’s going to seriously regret it.” Ric didn’t doubt him.
“And Elise and I will have a sudden urge to visit our parents in Vancouver,” Sutton decreed. “Our uncle lives there with them, making three retired Wyndewins, plus the two of us. No one’s going to get through those wards.”
Probably not, unless… “You should know, Aidan thinks they’re using blood magic. They found a dead homeless man on the edge of his estate.”
“Son of a bitch!” Now even Sutton looked perturbed.
Good.
“What’s blood magic?” Meagan asked.
Elise replied succinctly, in her cool, elegant manner, “It’s pure, fucking, concentrated evil.”
Her brother was more explicit. “The sacrifice of a living being to fuel a spell. It’s been banned by about every arcane society for at least two thousand years.”
Meagan didn’t understand much of what was going on, but she’d figured out that the bad guys weren’t playing games. The danger was real, to her and to anyone close to her. Apparently Owain hadn’t figured out yet that Jase’s lease allowed him use of the garage and he’d put his trap for Meagan in there.
“The good news,” Desmond Sutton announced to the group gathered on Meagan’s driveway a few minutes later, “is that this trap was designed with a part-blood in mind. The magic is designed to bind a half-Fae, not a full human. Which is probably why Monroe is still alive. The blast of negative energy would have likely killed Meagan.”
George growled and the vicious sound sent a chill down Meagan’s spine. Elise’s brother glared at him.
“Since the magic is elven in nature, the bard probably has the best chance to unravel it without it blowing up in our faces. I can lend support and power. Elise, you stand by.” He turned to the Novak brothers. “You two are on lookout duty. This could be a giant distraction, so keep an eye open for trouble. If the bard and I do blow ourselves up, get the women the hell out of Dodge. Keep them safe until Aidan Greene or the Wyndewin Council comes up with another alternative.”
Both brothers managed short, quick nods. Greg cocked his head at Ric, whispered something in his ear, before disappearing behind the garage. A few moments later, a large, black wolf appeared.
“What the hell?” Where had that come from? And why didn’t anybody else look surprised?
Ric squeezed her arm lightly. “That’s Greg. His eyes and ears are better in that shape, not to mention his nose. He’s going to patrol the yard, watch for trouble.”
“Oh.” A werewolf. Of course. It made as much sense as anything else had in the past few days. “George too?”
Ric nodded. “He wants to be there for Jase, so he won’t change unless it comes down to a fight.”
Wow. A gay werewolf. That’s something you didn’t see on the late-late show. Wasn’t anyone what they seemed?
Ric and Desmond agreed that the side door to the garage was probably a safer entry point than the overhead metal one in front. Elise had dragged some votive candles out of her oversized purse and placed them in a circle around the garage, filling in the area between them with salt, straight out of the pour-spout can. Next, she pulled out a giant Ziploc bag full of dried greenery and added a layer of that as well. Finally, a larger candle was lit right in front of the door and Elise used it to ignite a small bundle of dried herbs, which she laid on the sidewalk. The musky scent of burning sage filled the air.
A neighbor walked by on the street and Meagan managed not to wave. The young woman with the baby stroller walked blithely by, apparently unaware of the commotion in Meagan’s yard.
Elise joined hands with Ric and her brother and the three of them chanted softly, led by Ric’s beautiful baritone, while Meagan stood by her favorite oak tree several yards back, flanked by Greg and George. She managed, barely, not to pet Greg on top of the head, which came to her waist. George gripped Meagan’s hand in his, clearly as worried about Jase as she was. She squeezed back.
“I’m sure he’ll be okay.” She wasn’t sure why she was whispering; it simply seemed like the thing to do.
“He’s got to be,” George whispered back.
“Does he know…” Meagan’s voice trailed off. Her eyes never left Ric. He finished the chant, broke ranks with the Suttons and sent Meagan a reassuring smile. She smiled back, or tried to, anyway. It probably came out more like a grimace. Ric was literally putting his life on the line for Jase. She’d never been more frightened in her life.
“That I’m a werewolf? No. Not yet. That information is pretty much reserved for permanent life partners.”
“And on a need-to-know basis, I guess.” She tipped her chin at the scene before them. “Like now.”
“Yeah.”
Elise came and joined them, sliding in between Meagan and Greg. She took Meagan’s hand and rested her other on top of Greg’s furry black head. Together they watched as the two men disappeared into the garage.
“I can’t believe that all this time you were a halfling and I never knew it,” Elise murmured. “And you’re Aidan Greene’s cousin. What a small, small world.”
“And you’re a witch. An honest-to-goodness spellsand- magic witch. How come I never knew about that?”
“Need-to-know,” Elise replied with a soft laugh.
“I’m not much of a witch, mind you. I’m a healer and I do okay with protective magic, but Des is the one with the power in the family. If anybody can help your bard unravel the trap, it’s Des.”
“He isn’t my bard, Elise,” Meagan countered wistfully.
“Not really.”
“Baloney. The currents flowing between the two of you could scorch lead. That kind of heat—well, it only comes along once in a while. You need to hold on to it, if you can.”
Meagan heard the sadness in her friend’s voice, knew there was a story she wanted to hear, but this wasn’t the time. She heard Ric’s soaring voice through the thin walls of the garage and she squeezed tighter on the two hands she held in hers. The others, too, lapsed into silence to wait.
After a few minutes, the song intensified to a crescendo and the garage erupted in a crack of what looked like lightning. The side door burst off the hinges, came flying out into the yard. The glass pane cracked in the single, small window and the metal garage door rattled and bowed. There was a moment of dead stillness, utter silence, before Des Sutton’s booming voice called from inside, “Elise! Now!”
Meagan and George were right on her heels as the healer dashed into the shuddering structure. Tools, glass and other debris littered the floor and protruded from the wall. As Meagan’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, she heaved a huge sigh of relief to see Ric sitting on the cement floor, leaning on Jase’s now even more battered weight bench. Jase was draped limply across Ric’s lap, but his eyes were open and he smiled weakly at Meagan and George. Elise raced to his side, knelt beside him and laid her hands on his temples.
After a few seconds, Jase’s ashen skin began to resume its normal rich color, while Elise grew pale. Finally she lifted her hands and smiled at Jase. “There. Good as new.”
She tried to get to her feet, swayed and was caught by her brother, whose own face showed a number of small cuts and bruises. George reached out to help Jase to his feet and crushed him in a bear hug, which Jase enthusiastically returned.
“Are you all right?” Meagan dropped to the floor next to Ric, her fingers trailing across an angry abrasion on his left cheek and tracing a huge lump on his right temple. A heavy crescent wrench lay next to his hip and he was surrounded by shards of wood and metal.
Motor City Fae Page 14
