Just A Little Wicked: A Limited Edition Collection of Magical Paranormal and Urban Fantasy Tales

by Lily Luchesi

  Sorry, I thought in its direction. I didn't like scaring animals, but I didn't want to kill the trees either.

  I drew a drop from a spider who sat in her web, watching us pass. This time, I managed to leave the web intact, but I took the last of the life from a dying fly caught in the threads. It wasn't much, but I shortened its suffering by a few minutes at least.

  I was full of magic when we walked out of the trees and through the open gate.

  The headquarters were in an uproar. Men and women in uniform rushed back and forth, some carrying lights, others trying to control dogs who snapped at the ends of their leashes.

  No one so much as looked at Riley or Connor.

  "Big cat," a man was saying.

  "Shifter?" a woman asked.

  "Not a bloody native," the man said. "This way. Stay close."

  They headed off away from the compound.

  Connor and Riley kept walking to the front door, as though they belonged there.

  I swallowed hard, but followed.

  Connor flashed a badge I knew they'd had made for just this kind of venture. Riley did the same.

  The guard on the door waved them through, although he couldn't have made out any details. They must have been expecting other shifters, in animal form, not a brazen pair of fake Zeta employees walking through the door.

  I held my breath and tiptoed past. For a moment, I was sure the guard looked right at me, but he said nothing and turned away with a bored expression.

  "Up this way," Connor said once we'd reached a corner and passed around it. More lights bobbed here, many held by staff trying to open doors shut tight by the power outage.

  Riley clicked his tongue as he walked past.

  For my part, I curled my hands into fists and resist the urge to blast all of these people against the walls.

  I wanted their innards to decorate the doors and floors.

  I wanted people to slip on their blood if they came in later to find them.

  I pushed the impulse aside for now and followed the guys to a door near the back of the building.

  "Can you open it, lioness?" Connor asked from the side of his mouth. His voice was muffled by the bubble.

  "Yes, but it might make noise." Not to mention that holding two spells at once would be difficult.

  "Just do your best, sweetness," Riley said. "We'll keep watch."

  Footsteps approached and I froze. Several Zeta staff in white coats walked toward us, lights in hand.

  "What's going on," one demanded. "When are the lights going to be restored? We have delicate equipment in here. We were about the conduct a siphoning—"

  Connor held up a hand. "We've come under attack by shifters. You all need to evacuate the building as quickly as you can. Is there anyone else still here, that you know of? People stuck inside these rooms?"

  The woman dithered. "Um, I don't think so. Not staff anyway. We stepped outside when the power came back on the first time." She looked at her companions and they shrugged, but hurried past her toward the exit. She cast Connor a last look and followed them.

  I let out a soft breath and turned back to the door. I put my hands against the cold metal. Probing with my magic, I felt where it was fastened to the wall. It must slide across and the locks engage electronically. Without power of some kind, they would stay closed.

  Slowly, I worked the magic around the locking mechanism and forced it to release. With a jerk, the door slid a handspan, then stopped. A light from inside cast a line across the floor, faint, but enough to make out the guys better.

  I gritted my teeth and tried to push it further, but it wouldn't budge. Of course, an electronic door needed electricity to move. That was why I was here in the first place. Without me, the guys would have to wait for power to be restored, and hope not to be caught.

  "It's stuck." I stood back and reinforced the bubble around me. Maybe I should let it go and step back into the shadows. It was too dark there for anyone to see me, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Besides, if need be, I could snap it around the guys.

  "Time for brute force then," Riley stated. He sounded almost gleeful.

  He grabbed onto the door and pulled. I couldn't see them, but I could imagine his biceps straining with the effort. The mental image made my heart skip before I pushed it away. Opportunities for that would come later.

  I hoped.

  The door ground in protest, but slid open another handspan, then another. When it was just open enough to slip inside, Riley stopped and shook out his arms.

  "Nice work, bro." Connor said softly.

  "Thanks, mate." Riley pulled out a light and disappeared into the room beyond the door.

  Chapter 6

  The light which come through the gap in the door was moonlight.

  That was the first thing I noticed as I stepped inside.

  The second was the people lying on tables, needles in their arms connecting them to a IV drip. A sedative, no doubt.

  The equipment for a siphoning was set out on a tray beside them: needles, jars, swabs and an implement I didn't recognise.

  "I've never seen jars like that," Connor remarked.

  "They're reinforced, to contain magic." I let the bubble go. If my friends awoke, mine should be one of the faces they saw.

  Riley jumped. "Oh, there you are."

  Connor looked unperturbed. He picked up a jar and turned it around, then tapped it with a fingertip. It gave a metallic ping in return.

  Empty. Thank the gods for that, or we'd have been too late. Once a witch lost all of his or her magic, it was gone for good.

  I stepped over to the head of one of the sleeping witches. "Scarlet," I whispered in her ear.

  No response.

  I licked my lips, then slowly slid the needle out of her arm. "It's going to take time to wear off enough for her to wake," I whispered.

  Connor nodded. "We don't have much. A few minutes more but that's it." He headed over to a computer station in the corner of the room and sat. He inserted a USB drive into the side of one and nodded to himself.

  "That should do it, when the power turns back on."

  "Are these both friends of yours?" Riley asked. He stood beside Emilio, having removed his IV already.

  "We go back a long way," I replied. "Gemma isn't here though."

  "That's because I'm here," a voice said from behind me.

  I whirled.

  Gemma stood in the doorway, moonlight on her face and a glow of magic on her hand.

  I was about to thank whatever gods there might be that she was all right, but I stopped, disbelieving the look of loathing on her face.

  "You're working with Zeta?" I whispered.

  "Bingo." She stepped into the room and tossed her magic up in the air like a ball before she caught it.

  She looked toward Connor as he rose from the chair. "Your inside person is dead, just so you know," she said with mock sweetness.

  He didn't so much as flinch. "Is that right? And how do you know?"

  Gemma smiled. "I killed her myself. After she blew the generator."

  "I see." Connor sounded calm, but I sensed a surge of rage coming from him.

  "This had the stink of Tia or shifters all over it," Gemma went on. "I had to be sure. Imagine my surprise to see it's both. I don't know who has fallen to the depths more."

  "That would be you," I said coldly.

  "Now, now, that's not nice," she scolded. She twirled the ball of magic around on her fingers. "Lucky for you, I'm feeling merciful. I'll kill you all quickly. Oh, not you Tia," she said to me. "You'll be siphoned first. Imagine all those crops your magic will help to grow. You'll feed a town for a year."

  "I can do that alive," I said.

  "You know, that's what I said." She frowned. She was pretty, but her betrayal of me and our whole kind made her seem ugly. "In your case, you're too much trouble to keep alive for long. Just think how well I'll be rewarded for capturing you."

  "In case you haven't noticed, you silly
bitch, you're outnumbered," Riley remarked.

  Gemma gave a tinkling laugh. "You two don't count. You'd be dead before you shift. And Tia—poor, deluded Tia, she hasn't the power to contend with me, and she knows it." She clicked her tongue.

  I swallowed. She was right. I was strong in magic, but she was stronger.

  "Let them go." I gestured toward Riley and Connor. "Whatever I've done to piss you off is between you and me. They don't need to be involved."

  "They're shifters," she said flatly. "Zeta wants all shifters dead, so humans can live in peace and not risk having shifter offspring." She sounded disgusted.

  How had missed seeing this side of her sooner?

  "They can avoid that by not having sex with shifters," Riley said. "Personally, I don't want to screw anyone who thinks that way. Right, Connor?"

  "Right," Connor agreed.

  "Tell that to the shifters who pretend they're just normal humans," Gemma said.

  "Wow, who fucked you to make you so bitter?" Riley asked.

  "No one," Gemma replied. "I just want to be on the winning side. If you keep following Tia, you'll end up dead, and so will everyone you love." She sounded so bitter it sent a wave of guilt through me.

  "I'm sorry about your brothers," I said softly, "but we were trying to fix things."

  Gemma snorted. "All you do is make things worse."

  "I don't think we have time for this," Riley pointed out. He gave me a look that suggested he would ask me all about it later.

  "You're right," Connor confirmed. "Now, what's your name? Gemma? I suggest you get out of the way before you get yourself in a world of trouble."

  She laughed. "You're threatening me?"

  "More of a warning," Connor said. "Zeta won't let you get away with being un-siphoned. You'll be dead or enslaved before long."

  "I beg to differ," Gemma said, although she sounded slightly rattled. With a growl, she tossed a ball of magic at Connor's head. He ducked and it hit the wall behind him with blinding sparks of light. The paint on the wall hissed and sizzled, then began to drip onto the floor.

  "Missed me," Connor said, as though he hadn't just narrowly avoided ending up with his brains dripping from his head.

  Gemma tossed another ball at him, while I threw a smaller one at her. Hers grazed his arm, mine caught the side of her hair and seared off a chunk.

  "Bitch," she hissed. "I will kill you right now!" Her face scrunched up in concentration. I felt magic being pulled from every which way, flooding into her.

  Dear gods, how was she holding so much?

  Before she unleashed, I felt a hand grab onto mine. I risked a glance and saw Scarlet's eyes open. She held hands with Emilio across the space between their tables. She gave me a nod.

  I returned it and felt their magic sliding into me, boosting mine beyond my usual limits and then some. They didn't give me everything, but enough to form an enormous ball of magic.

  I threw it just as Gemma released one of her own.

  The two balls slammed into each other like lightning clashing. They lit up the room so brightly I had to throw a hand in front of my face to shield my eyes.

  Through my fingers I saw the magic merge into a larger, single ball, then burst apart like a firework.

  Working fast, I sucked as much of the magic back into me as I could before it returned to it sources.

  I felt Gemma doing the same thing, scrambling frantically. Beside me, Scarlet and Emilio drew as well, then threw almost everything thy had back into me.

  Gemma was quick, but the three of us were faster. By the time she'd formed another ball, we had made a blanket of the magic. It was rough, but it would do.

  With a hiss of fury, she threw her ball.

  It hit the blanket and was absorbed before the blanket came crashing down over Gemma. I saw her eyes widen before she disappeared under it. It wound around her, like hundreds upon hundreds of tiny strands of magic, binding and sealing.

  I gave my end a tug to make sure it was tight enough.

  "No!" Under the magic, Gemma's voice pleaded, terrified. "Please. They made me do it, I swear. I never wanted to help them. They—"

  "I'm sure they did," I replied. For a moment I considered my options, then made a choice.

  I drew the magic back and let it pass through me and into Emilio and Scarlet. I took in the excess Gemma had taken from around her and put it back.

  Then I took hers.

  I drained her until only a drop remained. Later I might regret leaving her alive and with her magic, but if I did to to her what Zeta wanted to do to me, I would be as bad as they were. Her brothers had given their lives in this fight. They wouldn't want the same to happen to her. Maybe in time she'd come to realise that.

  Gemma stood frozen for several heartbeats, then slowly sank to the floor and lay in a pool of moonlight, face ashen, chest rising and falling slowly.

  "We should get out of here," I said. "Someone would have felt her drawing magic out of them."

  "There are others in the building," Scarlet said as she hopped down from the table.

  "We have something in place," Connor said. "Someone, in fact. They'll help them out once the chaos hits."

  "But your mother—" I started. "Gemma said…"

  He gave me a faint smile. "You don't think she blew both sources of power by herself, did you?"

  "I…" I hadn't thought about it. "I suppose not."

  "Didn't I tell you to trust me?" He surprised me by giving me a soft, lingering kiss on the mouth. "We knew there was a mole, we just didn't know who. Now we do and she won't be a problem anymore."

  I glanced down at Gemma's body and nodded. "I suppose she won't."

  Riley took my hand and gave it a squeeze, then he too gave me a kiss, this one a little hotter than Connor's. "Let's get out of here before the lights come on."

  Chapter 7

  "So then I jumped a fence and ended up in someone's backyard." Declan looked more animated than I had ever seen him before. "I jumped into the pool, swam across and bolted out the gate. It confused the hell out of the dogs and I lost them then." He lifted his bottle of beer, toasted us and took a gulp.

  I returned his toast and sipped my beer.

  "We dropped off Scarlet and Emilio at a safe house," Riley told Declan.

  I listened with half an ear as he told Declan how we had walked out the way we'd come in.

  Scarlet, Emilio and I had formed bubbles around ourselves and followed Connor and Riley out the gate. By the time the lights turned back on, we were gone. The guys knew people willing to keep my friends hidden until they could get out of the city, or help with another scheme.

  Most likely the latter.

  "And the computer virus which should have automatically uploaded to their system should have kicked in by now," Connor said. He looked smug. Whether his plan to take down Zeta by wiping all their files, including years or research and names of known witches and shifters, would be effective, remained to be seen.

  Personally, I thought it might slow them down and anger them, but it wouldn't stop them entirely. It might give me a break from being hunted though, and that was something I intended to enjoy thoroughly.

  "So, how about we celebrate with a movie?" Riley asked.

  "Beer and pizza isn't enough?" Declan asked. He seemed to be positively buzzing. Being in cat form must be intoxicating, or gave him the freedom being an ordinary man didn't. Either way, it was attractive on him.

  He must have sensed me looking at him. He turned and gave me a smile. The warmth in his eyes melted my heart a little.

  They all did.

  I looked around at them all and wondered how I got lucky enough to have three guys who seemed to genuinely care about me. To my amazement, I felt the same way.

  "I could watch a movie," I said, "as long as it's not something mushy."

  Riley's grin widened. "That's my girl," he said approvingly. "We haven't watched Die Hard in at least a month." Before anyone could say anything, he jumped up and
played with the TV and a streaming service of some kind.

  Connor shrugged and went to sit on the carpet in front of the couch, pizza and beer on the table beside him. Riley soon plopped himself down beside him.

  "Shall we?" Declan rose and gestured toward the couch. He lowered himself down sideways, gave my hand a gentle tug and sat me down between his legs. I hesitated for a moment, then nestled back into his chest. He wound his arms around me.

  "This is nice," he said into my ear.

  "Mmmm," I agreed. "It is."

  "I just wanted to say sorry," he added.

  "For what?" I asked. I thought of a few things, but why make it too easy on him?

  "For being a dick when we first met. After my parents died, I found it hard to trust people. Connor and Riley were there for me, they helped me though it. If not for them, I…I don't know what I would have done."

  I squeezed his hand gently. "I know how that feels. Scarlet and Emilio helped me. Gemma too, in her own way." I sighed. I wished she'd have come to me, tried to work things out before turning on me. Maybe I should have seen the signs and gone to her, but I'd been so wrapped up in my own vendetta, I had missed it entirely.

  The movie started and for a while, we fell silent. Then Declan spoke again.

  "I saw the way they both look at you." He gestured toward Connor and Riley with his fingers. "I was worried you'd come between us. I was ready to hate you for it."

  "And now?" I prompted.

  "Now I see how they both care for you. And I…" He swallowed audibly. "I do too. Instead of tearing us apart, it's brought us closer. You're one of us now. If you want to be, I mean," he added hastily.

  "I'd like that," I said. "I care about all of you too."

  Riley twisted around, finger to his lips. "Shhh," he said, grinning behind his finger.

  "Sorry." I pretended to zip my lips and toss away the key.

  I relaxed back into Declan and watched for a while.

  After about twenty minutes, Declan started nuzzling my hair and leaving a trail of kisses down my cheek and onto my neck.

  His touch sent heat right through me, all the way to my toes. They curled.