I walked over to the fence and felt a dark magic barrier protecting the property.
Happiness flowed through me. The ward wasn’t particularly strong, which meant that the sorcerer living on the farm wasn’t that strong either. If I can figure out a way to sneak in, I should take him without much trouble.
Then I returned to my car and left. It would be better to come back this evening and watch the house for a while before making any attempt to get the wards.
That meant I had most of the day to kill. So, I visited a famous place nearby Mom had taught us about as kids when we were little. Coloma was a few miles from Suarez’s farm. That town happened to be the site of the first gold discovery in California. I found out that it was now a quiet state park alongside the American River. Without much to do but read, I relaxed and enjoyed the day.
In the late afternoon, I meditated to prepare for an attack that evening. By dinnertime, I was too nervous to eat, but I grabbed several bottles of lemon-lime soda from a convenience store and found a spot near Suarez’s farm where I could watch the entrance without being seen. Before making a move on the bastard, I needed to be sure he was home.
I hadn’t watched the place for long before I realized one potential flaw in my plan. A large truck with a catering company’s logo pulled into the driveway. Suarez was there, all right, and he was going to throw a party. The first truck was followed by several others. This had to be quite the occasion.
Unfortunately, when sorcerers threw parties, they typically invited lots of other sorcerers. While I was reasonably sure I could beat Suarez, what if he’d invited more powerful magicians? That often happened. They’d agree to a temporary truce so everybody could have a good time without worrying about being jumped while drunk.
Why did he have to do this tonight?
The answer came to me immediately. It was Saturday, which meant fight night. Every Saturday evening, the California Council of Warlocks staged dozens of gladiator fights, and most were broadcast on closed circuit TV. It was like Sundays in the fall for the NFL. All over the state, dark magicians would congregate to watch the matches and cheer for their favorites, like Bloody Mary.
The bottom line was, plenty of sorcerers—and a few chosen Normals who had a thirst for gore—would show up at the farm soon. That would make it easy for me to slip in, but I’d probably have to fight Suarez on another day when his stronger buddies weren’t around to protect him. But at least I could check out the layout of the house and plan an attack.
Even better, I might even get a chance to see Dana. Owners loved to show off their talent, so she should be a big part the festivities. My owners had often forced me to wear skimpy dresses and flirt with shitheads. It was good public relations. I’d even been sold twice at parties.
Then I thought of the downside of attending. Hopefully, Dana wouldn’t be forced into any disgusting situation, like public abuse. That had happened to me several times, and I still remembered each horrible experience. If it did happen, I couldn’t save her unless all the sorcerers there were weaker than me.
Although I needed to know how she was being treated, I couldn’t talk to her or help her. As soon as she spotted me, magic would force her to raise the alarm with her owner. My only chance to release her would be to defeat him in a battle. Then, I’d inherit his existing slaves, which I would free.
Chapter 9
WHILE I DROVE past the open, metal gate that led up to the mansion, I thought about whether I’d need a cover story. The stream of cars onto the property gave me some hope I wouldn’t. I’d probably get lost in the crowd.
But if Suarez happened to recognize me, I’d be in for a rough night. He would probably know who I was, so I had to avoid him. Luckily, my red hair and scars were long gone.
And if others recognized me, I could pretend to be myself. Nothing prevented a free sorceress from working as a gladiator. I could pretend I loved a gladiator’s glamorous lifestyle.
When I parked up by the house, two dozen cars were already there, and a steady stream followed me. This was working out perfectly. A guy with a giant flashlight used it to wave me into position next to a Hummer.
A Hispanic fighter with more than a few battle scars stood at the front door checking identities, but he didn’t worry me. He was there to make sure no unauthorized Normals entered. My dark magical aura would be the only admission ticket I’d need.
The Hispanic guard looked at me up and down, but I was used to that. I couldn’t be the only big person who’d show up.
Inside, a waiter offered me a glass of pinot grigio and some pastry puff that melted in my mouth. A hundred of those, and I’d have a full meal. Suarez threw a nice party. No kegs or box wines here.
I began to wander the downstairs to scope it out. If I was going to break into this place later, I’d need to know the layout. Suarez had set up a twenty-foot-wide video screen at one end of his great room so everyone could watch the fights while mingling. That’s where most folks, mostly men, were gathering.
One of the early featherweight matches was underway, and two naked, well-oiled women were punching each other rapid-fire. I never understood how men got their rocks off by watching women beat the hell out of each other. What was sexy about that? It was bad enough when men fought, but if left on their own, most women would sort problems out peacefully.
A platinum blonde in a clingy short dress walked past me, leading several people around. She had to be one of Suarez’s sex slaves, and she was offering a tour the house. That was perfect for me, so I joined her group.
We strolled out of the great room into a large kitchen stuffed with caterers. The backyard was lovely, with a redwood deck overlooking a marble fountain. Then we returned inside. The other rooms we visited downstairs were a solarium, a library, an ornate parlor stuffed with antiques, and Suarez’s office.
As we left that room, I hung back. When no one was watching, I flipped open the lock on a window so I could lift it later and sneak inside.
According to a plan that was beginning to gel in my mind, I could leave the party relatively soon and drive offsite to hide my car in the woods nearby. While the wards were still turned off, it would be easy to sneak back onto the farm in the darkness. Then I’d wait until most of the guests, and all the big hitters, had left. Then nobody could stop me from beating Suarez to a pulp.
Our blonde guide took us upstairs and showed us Suarez’s master bedroom. That’s where he’d probably end up tonight, with one or more women to keep him warm. It might be even easier to wait until every guest was gone, then burst into his bedroom while he was banging some poor woman.
While I turned the possibilities over in my mind, we visited the bedrooms his gladiators lived in, including Dana’s.
Our guide called my sister Nicole. That was her stage name, Nicole Kidmann, a takeoff on the famous actress’ name. My sister vaguely resembled the real Nicole Kidman, including having strawberry blonde hair.
Dana’s room was better than the one Tanner had given me, so Suarez had to be pleased with her work. Most of all, I hoped he treated her better than my owners had treated me. Even if that was true, this was the same basically revolting lifestyle I’d lived before my Prince Charming freed me. All slaves were treated like property, and the ones living at this house had to fulfill Suarez’s every whim, no matter how degrading or humiliating.
I shook off the chill that ran through me.
To maintain my cover, I praised everything our hostess pointed out. In the dark world, we’d pretended that slaves would stay, even if they were freed. We’d all supposedly loved our masters and our jobs. I’d told people that many times, including during interviews with reporters for the dark news media. A gladiator’s life was supposedly so exciting that I couldn’t wait to get the shit knocked out of me a couple of times a month. I’d also claimed to have adored the lunatic, bloodthirsty fans who followed the ups and downs of my career, and bet on my matches.
What a load of c
rap. But if all went according to plan, Dana would leave this world tonight, once and for all.
As the harem slave led us back downstairs, I took advantage of the chance to look over the assembled crowd filling the great room. My gaze darted from person to person until I spotted my sister. She was a few inches shorter than me and almost as muscular. We’d never fought each other because she was a middleweight. The strawberry blonde hair she wore wasn’t far from her natural color, and it’d been cut short to make it harder to grab in a battle. Thank the gods, her owners had paid to remove the inevitable cuts and bruises she must’ve received, so her skin was perfect. She wore a short yellow dress with a plunging neckline that left little to the imagination. All in all, a lovely young woman caught in a horrible world.
Dana was surrounded by a half dozen leering men, presumably fans, and she laughed and joked with them, playing the role of a happy warrior. I could almost hear her telling them how she was treated like a princess and shared equally in her winnings. I couldn’t blame her for speaking those lies. I’d said them myself too many times to count. Magical slavery made the bullshit come easy.
Now I was free, and lies burned my tongue. I’d never felt more alone, and an aching rose in my chest as I saw her so close but unreachable.
On the plus side, she looked healthy. Whatever suffering she’d endured—and I knew from personal experience how brutal that world was—healers had kept her body looking untouched. Only the gods knew how much her mind had been scrambled.
Time to go. When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I turned to leave through the main entrance. As I rounded a corner, though, I almost ran into a tall Hispanic man wearing several gold championship rings on his hands. Those rings rightly belonged to his fighters.
“Hola, I’m Antonio Suarez, your host.”
Exactly the guy I didn’t want to meet. “Hi, I’m Linda. You’re hosting a lovely party.”
I tried to slip away before the situation could get worse, but he did a double-take. Then he reached out and grabbed my arm.
“You look familiar,” he said. “Something about your face.”
I turned my head. Dana and I resembled each other most in the eyes. We’d been blessed with same emerald green eyes.
I tried to fake my way out of trouble. “Nobody’s said that before.”
When I tried to tug my arm away gracefully, he tightened his grip. “Wait, I know you. You’re Bloody Mary, Nicole’s sister.”
I was tempted to attack him right then and there, but I’d already recognized a couple of much more powerful sorcerers in the crowd. Once I beat Suarez, one of them would be standing by to take me on next.
I’d been caught flatfooted. With no other choice, I jerked my arm out of his grasp and ran.
He yelled something in Spanish, and the guard at the entrance blocked the doorway. Thoughts of becoming a slave again raced through my head. A few strides before I reached the guard, I fired off a pulse of lightning.
He staggered as it hit him in the chest, but the spell hadn’t blasted him out of the way. My magic was weaker than I’d thought.
The guard was bigger than me, but I had momentum on my side. So, I put my head down and slammed into him with my left shoulder.
Something crunched inside my shoulder. Damn, that hurts.
At least I had the satisfaction of watching the dirt bag fly through the air for a few feet before landing flat on his back. His head smacked the mansion’s tiled front porch.
“Puta,” he yelled.
To remind him it was best not to call a woman a whore when she was in a good position to get payback, I stomped on his face as I ran past him. That led to a delightful roar.
One down and how many to go? I sprinted for the cars while trying to pull my car key out of my right front pocket. That wasn’t easy. I’d bought this pair of tight slacks because they made my ass look smaller. Big mistake.
Once I managed to retrieve the key, the parking guy had almost reached me. He wasn’t magical, but he was holding that big metal flashlight.
One nasty injury for the night was enough, so I wasn’t going to run over this guy, too. He braced himself as though expecting me to mow him down. That gave me an advantage.
I waited until the last possible second and juked to the left.
I should’ve gone right. His flashlight was in his right hand, and as I swung around him, he whacked me hard in the rib cage.
Oh, that hurts, too.
He might’ve broken a few ribs. As I tried to take a breath, a stabbing pain shot through my chest. And who could run for long without breathing?
I got past him, that was the main thing, and my Accord was only twenty feet away. Using the key fob, I unlocked the doors.
When I pulled open the driver side door, a stabbing pain ran shot through my left shoulder and down my arm. I’d definitely need to find a healer in Sacramento—if I made it that far.
The car started, and I threw the shift into reverse. Gravel flew back from the front tires as I smashed the gas pedal, and I hoped I’d hit the asshole with the flashlight who had chased me.
After I left the parking spot, I shifted into drive and pointed the car downhill toward the gate.
I accelerated, barely missing some asshole in a strangely familiar yellow Ferrari. He must’ve been coming to the party fashionably late. As I shot past him, I got a clear look at the driver, Vinnie Motto. His brother had once owned me. I would’ve loved to smash into his fancy Italian driving machine, but I needed my car for my getaway. So, I contented myself with giving him the finger.
Hopefully, that’s the worst of it. I sped downhill, and my car’s tires screeched on each curve in the meandering driveway that led to the main road. Another person in a red convertible approached me, but he was smart enough to get the hell out of my way.
The driveway looked clear, but out of the corner of my eye, I someone in an old farm truck hurtling toward me from the side up ahead. He was trying to cut off my escape.
No big-ass truck was going to stop me now. Instead of slowing down to avoid a collision, I punched the gas. There was a remote chance I could blow past him before he reached the driveway.
But he was too fast. I swerved into a pasture on my right side, smashing through a barbed wire fence.
He kept coming.
I veered further right to avoid him, but a creek blocked my way. Water and mud flew up onto my windshield as I bounced through it. Even worse, my car slowed down, despite my racing engine and spinning wheels. Fuck! So close to the highway.
The truck smashed into the back corner of my Honda, popping me out of the mud and back onto dry pasture.
The stupid fucking moron had actually helped me out. A squealing sound started behind me, but the car drove forward again. I sure as hell wasn’t going to stop to find out how badly hurt my car was. Instead, I drove back through the fence onto the driveway again. The truck followed, but it took him a few seconds to get turned around.
On the next corner as I turned, a loud, rhythmic thunk filled the passenger compartment. My stomach clenched, but the tires continued to roll. If I could just leave the farm and put a few miles behind me, I might still survive as a free witch.
Up ahead, my headlights lit up the metal gate. It was closed. Dammit!
I wouldn’t get far on foot, and I had no idea where I could hide in the surrounding forest. I’d either get the car through or I’d be done.
I sped up in an attempt to smash through the gate.
Except that a guard stood in front of the gate holding his staff out as though he intended to hit me with a spell. If he was a magician, magic would keep me from hitting him with the car, but he probably didn’t know for sure if I was a sorceress. If I was an ordinary person, I could run him down, no problem.
He cast a lightning spell that looked impressive through the mud-smeared windshield, but the car shielded me from most of it. I kept driving. The fence on each side of the gate wasn’t a p
roblem, but a deep ditch on this side was. Unless I could figure out how to levitate the car, I’d never make it through the ditch.
‘Nothing ventured, nothing gained,’ Mom used to say. I hit the gas again and pointed straight at the guard.
He had enough sense to jump out of the way well before magic would’ve stopped me. I braced myself against the steering wheel and closed my eyes.
The Honda hit the gate with a deafening clang.
When I looked again, the car was in the middle of the highway, and the windshield was filled with cracks and few holes. I had to stick my head out the window to see, and I turned the wheel hard to the right to stay on the road. I gasped in pain from my throbbing shoulder and chest. Then a car raced toward me blaring its horn.
“Sorry!” I yelled out the window as the driver passed, shaking his fist at me.
When I glanced in the rearview mirror, I spotted the gate hanging at an awkward angle, all bent and twisted. The truck tried to pass through the gap, but it was too wide. Metal screeched against metal, and the truck twisted sideways, jammed tight in the entrance.
Blowing out a deep breath in relief, I left the whole mess behind and focused on getting away, far away. The hood of my car was folded upward toward me, but the engine still ran. I headed for Sacramento and safety.
Chapter 10
NOT KNOWING HOW long the Accord would keep running, I was afraid to stop and settle my nerves. It carried me down the road, and that was more than I had a right to expect. With each mile, my heartbeat slowed.
Through all that craziness, I’d managed to hang onto my crappy cell phone. I pulled it out. No service.
Just as I approached the freeway, though, I got a signal. So, after I drove onto the highway, I fumbled through my purse to find the emergency numbers Ian had given me.
I had to turn the dome light on so I could read the numbers. Being a damsel in distress, I called Katie first. Luckily for me, she answered.
Freedom (The Sorcerers' Scourge Book 4) Page 9
