From the corner of my eye I saw that Angel wasn’t there any longer. It was no surprise to see a blond squirrel’s bushy tail disappearing beneath the council’s draped semicircular table.
The strong odor of alyssum emanated from the room, which could only mean Metamorphs. How could the Dryads have missed it, even if they aren’t known for their keen scent of smell?
Light flickered from wall sconces throughout the room. The torchlight cast shadows across the dim room, giving an almost eerie feel to the place. It smelled faintly of smoke and crushed rose petals.
I gripped Angel’s dagger, and in a quick scan I saw two guards at the back of the room, and I saw that the Metamorphs had done well in replacing five of the six council members. If I hadn’t known they were replacements. I wouldn’t have known the difference.
Chief Council Member Leticia—the real Chief, not a Metamorph—looked both perplexed and upset at first glance, as if something wasn’t going right. Leticia, a Doppler, perched on a throne at the center of the crescent-shaped table, and she also represented all others of her race; the Drow and Light Elves had one delegate who served on the council for both of our races; a Siren had been voted in by the Fae to represent all fifteen-plus races of Fae; a Shifter was in attendance for all Shifters; a Werewolf was the envoy for all Weres; and a Vampire represented his kind.
In the mere moment it took me to process all of this, I saw that to the side of the council table, in a chair beside a witness stand, was a black-haired Witch dressed in a white sparkling beaded dress. The sophisticated-looking Witch had a pensive, almost confused expression. No doubt she was the real deal and had been appointed to represent all Witches in their appeal to be on the council … and this council meeting was not going according to normal standards.
And on the witness stand—
Smith.
The head Metamorph flashed me a look of complete shock; blood drained from his face. So this was how the Metamorphs were planning to get Smith on the council. He represented his entire race to gain admittance, while all of the council members had been replaced by Metamorphs with the exception of Leticia. He couldn’t lose.
But I was going to shut him down.
My rapid appraisal ended with my gaze meeting Chief Councillor Leticia’s.
“Tracker.” Leticia frowned from her center perch. “Leave at once. This session is not public.”
“These aren’t the real council members.” My voice rang through the hall as I spoke. “They’re all Metamorphs. They’ve kidnapped the real members.”
A prickle raced up my spine. I caught a flash of silver in the corner of my eye. I ducked into a crouch. A Dryad screamed from inside a wooden pillar as a dagger buried itself in her midsection. Damn. I had moved instinctively and hadn’t realized a Dryad was behind me.
I turned to see two guards coming at me from the great hall. A low growl rolled from inside me along with my fury. The dangerous white light flashed in my eyes as the poor young Dryad sobbed and sap bled from her belly. I would kill the guards just for what they’d done to the Dryad.
One of the guards had a bow, a gold-feathered shaft nocked in it. The arrowhead glinted in the light cast from the chambers as the guard let it loose. I reached up and caught the arrow, then flung it back at the guard, my air element pushing it even faster than my own power.
I pierced the guard through the heart all the way up to the golden feathers.
“What in the name of—,” Leticia shouted from her seat.
Angel transformed from her squirrel form and appeared behind the chief council member. She yanked Leticia out of her seat and pushed her under the table. “Stay down!” Angel shouted at the Doppler. “These Metamorphs will kill you.”
I was aware of everything, but it all happened so fast it was a blur.
The guard who had thrown the dagger came charging forward, brandishing a sword. The floor rocked as I ordered my earth element to shift through the stone hall floor. A crack in the stone tripped the guard. With another command my air element twisted both the guard and the blade so that the guard landed on his own sword and severed his neck to his spine.
Angel battled three of the five Metamorph imposters. Her side kick sent one sprawling across the room. She grabbed the arm of a female Metamorph and flipped her onto her back. The third, Angel grabbed by the head and snapped his neck.
At the same time I was fighting off the two guards and the other two fake council members who came at me from inside the chamber.
One guard had a gun and I flattened myself to the floor. As he missed me, I rolled toward the other guard, tripped him, and gutted him with Angel’s dagger.
A Metamorph jumped on me but I flipped onto my back, grabbed him by the head, and rammed my knee into his face. He screamed and blood and tears flushed down his face as I broke his nose and his jaw.
The fourth Metamorph had a gun, too, and he and the first guard began shooting at me.
I wrapped myself in a cocoon of my air element and called to fire.
Torch flames from inside the council chambers roared into fiery life. A dragon of fire swooped down and swallowed the guard and the Metamorph, burning them to ash as it carried them down the great hallway.
Another guard came out of nowhere.
Before I had a chance to do anything, a burst of green light came from the Witch. Plant tentacles wrapped themselves around the guard, taking away his ability to move.
A green Witch. I glanced up at her intense face. Witches never killed, but they would fight to protect themselves or others using whatever power they commanded. Hers obviously came from nature.
All thoughts and actions happened within moments.
Seven down. I glanced in Angel’s direction. Her three were down.
That left Smith.
I cut my gaze to the witness stand.
Smith was gone.
Warning chills scrabbled up and down my body.
Too late.
Fiery lead pierced my abdomen and then my thigh before I could react. Blood flowed from the bullet wounds.
Smith had slipped out of the melee and around to my side.
Pain seared me like my fire element had seared the two men.
I gritted my teeth and forward flipped twice toward Smith.
Shock was on Smith’s face as I knocked the gun from his hand, grabbed his head, and slammed my forehead against his.
“Stop. Please.” His begging only made me angrier. “We’ll go away. You’ll never see us again.”
I jerked his head down with my fists full of his hair. I rammed my knee up and into his face just before I snapped his neck.
For a moment, silence filled the chamber and the hall. Dead bodies. Blood everywhere. Cracked floor. Destroyed furniture. Burnt clothes and bones. Stench of charred flesh. Odor of rotting, molding hay.
It was over.
As my eyes met Angel’s, I started to feel dizzy. I looked down and blood was flowing freely from my abdomen.
Two Dryads left their columns and caught me from behind as I slumped.
Then passed out.
CHAPTER
“What happened to you?” Olivia eyed me up and down as I pushed open the door to our PI office; the Fae bells jingled as the door slid shut. “Get sucked in through a jet engine this morning?”
“Feel like it.” I’d taken a shower and dressed in fresh clothing, but I did feel like I’d gotten caught in a helicopter’s rotors.
I grinned when I saw Olivia’s T-shirt.
Where are we going and why are we in this handbasket?
The real Olivia.
I wanted to hug her but I knew she’d get even by shooting me with one of her eraser-loaded rubber bands.
Last night I’d made sure Adam and Olivia were okay by having a couple of other Trackers check in on them. After being shot, I couldn’t do anything until I shifted back into my human form. To say I was relieved when I was told they were okay—well, we’ll just keep it to “that’s an understatement.”<
br />
“So tell me why you look like you got chewed up and spit out in little pieces,” she said.
“I’m fine. Just a rough night tracking.” I smiled my way through my aches and pains. It’s much easier to heal when shifting from human to Drow than it is shifting from Drow to human. I’d mostly healed from my wounds, but not totally. What was more important was that Olivia was here and well. “I am so glad you’re okay.”
Olivia gave me one of her looks. “And why wouldn’t I be…?”
That made me feel even better. If she didn’t know, then nothing had happened to her at all. “Nothing.”
Olivia frowned.
I set my handbag on my Dryad-made wooden desk and a pang went through me at the thought of the young Dryad who’d been shot last night. The Healers weren’t sure she was going to survive.
“What happened?” Olivia narrowed her gaze. When I shrugged she grabbed an eraser from the stash on her desk and loaded it into a rubber band. “Tell me now.”
I held up my hands in mock surrender. “Metamorphs. They went a little crazy last night.”
“Metamorphs?” Olivia looked like she was going to laugh. “Since when did one of them grow a backbone?”
“They chose last night to do it.” I drew my phone out of my handbag, and the worry that had been biting at me all morning snapped at me. “I need to call Adam again. I haven’t been able to reach him.”
“Hold on.” Olivia pulled on her loaded rubber band. “Tell me everything first.”
Fae bells tinkled and I cut my attention to the front door. “Adam!” I dropped my phone into my bag, ran to him, and flung my arms around his neck. His leather and coffee scent was so good, so familiar, that I breathed deep before I said, “You’re okay. Olivia’s okay.”
“Hey.” Adam caught me by my waist and I winced when he pressed one of his thumbs into my abdomen, right where the bullet had gone in. “Feeling better this morning?”
“What?” I looked up at him, confused. Adam didn’t know what had happened. Couldn’t have.
“Last night you said you weren’t feeling well so you didn’t want me to come over,” he said. “We were going to watch Body Double before you went tracking.”
I laughed even though it hurt my belly.
An eraser pinged off my backside and I looked at Olivia, who’d loaded another one. “Start talking, Nyx.”
I told them both most of what had happened last night. No matter that they were two of the people I cared most about here or in Otherworld, I was sworn to secrecy about the Paranorm Center—humans were never to know about it.
“Why didn’t you call us?” Olivia asked when I finished massaging my story to the part about getting shot. She put her hand on her own handgun. “I don’t like it when you leave me out of things, and you know it.”
“That’s right, Nyx.” Adam’s voice was calmer than Olivia’s, but it held disapproval, too.
“It all happened so fast that I didn’t have time to call you,” I said, looking from Olivia to Adam. “That’s the truth.” More or less.
Another eraser pinged off of me, this time off the back of my head.
“No wonder you were worried something happened to me and Olivia.” Adam took me by my arms and ran his hands up and down them, causing a pleasant shiver to skim my body. “What happened to the real council members?”
“Two other Trackers—Ice and Joshua—located them,” I said as I rubbed my scalp. “Wiped out the Metamorphs who’d kidnapped the council members, and saved the hostages.”
“Thank God everything worked out all right.” Adam brought me into his arms and hugged me. I winced again. I hadn’t told them the part about getting shot.
“I know my job.” I wrapped my arms around Adam’s waist. “But thank you both for caring.”
I knew another eraser was headed my way and I turned my head just enough to see it and catch it. She gave me one of her looks.
Adam cupped my face in his hands and brushed his lips across mine. “I think that what Olivia’s telling you is that it goes without saying that we care about you.”
A happy sigh filled me, and I breathed him in as I rested my head against his chest before rising up to kiss him.
“Give it a rest and get to work,” Olivia said, and I turned to watch her shove another file on top of the ones teetering on her desk. “We got a call first thing. Something about a Succubus. I stuck a note on your desk. Check it out with Rodán.”
“Succubus…” I kissed Adam one more time, then headed toward my desk, which was covered in pink sticky notes. “Now this ought to be interesting.”
A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME WOULD STILL BE RED
by Elizabeth A. Vaughan
Red gave a quick tug at her black leather gloves before she pounded on the ironbound wooden door. Her breath hung heavy in the cool, misty night.
Muffled voices came from within the guardhouse. She puffed out a breath impatiently, adjusting her black cloak to cover her armor.
“Try talking first.” The High Baron had said. “Use your blade only if words fail.”
A slot opened at eye level on the wooden door. “The slave market’s closed,” came a growl. “Come back at first light.”
“Message from Swift’s Port,” Red said softly. That made the damn slaver pause, as she’d known it would.
The one eye she could see squinted at her. “Who be you?”
“What does that matter?” Red snapped. “Since I’ve never been here, and I’ve orders to deliver it direct? Open the damn door, I’m freezing my ass off out here.”
The eye blinked, and then the slot closed. There were more muffled noises, talk mostly. Three of them, from the sound of it.
Good. She could handle three well enough.
A rattle, then the door opened just wide enough for her to slip inside the hot, stuffy room.
The place was dark, lit only by flickering oil lamps and the fire in the hearth. A table, a few chairs. Red wrinkled her nose at the smell. Sweat, smoke, and underlying it all, the acrid scent that went with selling slaves.
There was a rope dangling from the ceiling in the corner behind the door. The warning bell, no doubt.
“Master ain’t gonna like it, being disturbed this late,” the man muttered as he secured the door behind her. His armor was open in front, as if he’d just shrugged into it for the watch. He was between her and the rope.
“Did the royal messenger come through before me?” Red demanded.
“Oh, aye.” One of the men seated behind her chuckled. He was in leathers, a tankard in one hand, gathering up dice with the other. “Bearing a royal decree from Queen Gloriana about ending slavery.” He rattled the dice in his hand. “Tried telling us that the High Baron of Athelbryght had returned, too. The Master gave him short shrift. He’s naked, whipped, and thrown in with the worst of them.”
“He’ll not be so pretty come market day, if he lives through the night.” The one against the fire laughed. He was also still in leathers, but with no weapon at hand. “Not with those monsters.”
Well, that made her task that much easier, now didn’t it? Red smiled, throwing her cloak back, clearing her leathers and weapons. “Your Master should have listened.”
“How so?” asked the first one.
“Because,” Red said, drawing one of her daggers, “I’m enforcing the Queen’s command.”
It was laughable, watching the muckers react to her blades. Damn fools, for letting her through the door in the first place.
The doorman went for the rope, but Red grabbed his collar as the others scrambled for their weapons. “Give them a chance to comply, Red.” The High Baron had said.
She’d give them as much chance as they’d given their “wares.”
Red jerked the doorman back and thrust her dagger deep into his thigh. He collapsed with a cry, and she spun to deal with the other two.
The one by the fire was quick, reaching for a sword. The dicer was still rising from his chair. She shoved the tab
le hard with her free hand, sending him sprawling.
The faster one came at her, snarling. Not calling for help, the fool was intent on taking her on his own. She dodged, and scored his cheek with her dagger as he moved past. He cursed, starting to turn as he reached for his face. She rammed the short blade into his lower back, punching through the leather armor.
He dropped like a rock.
The dicer was on hands and knees, scrambling for the door. Red flipped the table aside. The dice went flying across the floor as she took two steps and drove the toe of her boot up between his ass cheeks.
He collapsed with a high-pitched squeal, grabbing for his “injuries,” so to speak.
Red stood still and held her breath. There was no alarm.
“Damn you.” The one by the door had his hands clasped around his thigh, trying to stop the bleeding. He glanced up, but the rope was well out of reach.
Red knelt before him, her dagger pointed at his throat. “How many guards?”
He stared at her, and licked his lips. “Eight, counting us.”
“Near as I can figure, lady, there’s about fifteen regulars.” The innkeeper had said. “There’s always a crowd of them in here, drinking themselves stupid and harassing my girls.”
“One more chance,” Red said softly, holding his gaze with hers. “How many?”
The man didn’t blink. “Eight—”
Red shoved the dagger up through his throat, then yanked it free as he gurgled out his last. She cleaned it quickly on his clothes, sheathed it, and then dragged his body to a dark corner.
It took but a moment to set the table aright and get the other body slumped in a chair. With all but one lamp extinguished, the darkness helped conceal the details. She placed the dice on the table, rather pleased with that touch, then unlatched the door she’d entered through. Just in case. So far, so good.
She knelt next to the dice player, still wheezing, trying to catch his breath, his eyes wide.
“How many?” She asked.
“Who … who are you?” he croaked in a whisper, darting a glance at the bodies.
Chicks Kick Butt - Rachel Caine, Kerrie Hughes (ed) Page 19
