True Colors (The Demon's Apprentice Book 6)

by Ben Reeder

  He was ready for her. Instead of trying to hit her, he caught her in midair and threw her at me. We went tumbling across the top steps and landed by the doors. As much as I liked being tangled up with Shade, this wasn’t the time. We rolled apart, and I found myself face to face with Dee and, to my shock, Mom. My mother was crouched beside my sister, evidently intent on getting her the Hell out of here.

  “Get her out of here,” I hissed, then turned to face Kain. Shade was on her feet and at my side, her fists in front of her, teeth bared. His hands were glowing, and Shade cast a worried glance my way. Even as dulled as my senses were, I could feel the dark power he was calling on, and it felt familiar.

  “What’s he doing?” she asked.

  “Calling on his patron,” I told her. “Calling on Gedeon.” I reached for the rod, and felt it fly to my hand.

  Kain’s fists burst into black flame. “You know what’s coming, little warlock,” he said. “And I can feel your strength fading. You can't last much longer.”

  “Go high,” I said to Shade. She leaped at him, and he brought his hands up. I aimed a burst of solidified air at the ground five feet in front of him, and let it bounce under his hastily made shield to hit him in the chest and knock him back to the statue I’d bounced him against earlier. This time, he got his feet behind him and kicked off the statue, bouncing under Shade’s leap and coming at me. He probably thought I’d never get a shield up in time, but he must have forgotten that my tendency was to attack before it was to defend.

  “Ictus latior!” I yelled, and caught him with a wide TK shot. It stopped him in midair, but not much more. “Obex!” I called. With his focus on me, he wasn't ready when Shade kicked him in the back, and I got a good look at his face when it plastered against the surface of my shield. He hit the ground, rolled and came up in a crouch, facing me. The shield collapsed from the impact, and Shade leaped over the leg sweep he tried, landing beside me again. This time, I didn’t get the shield up in time, and he hit both of us with twin columns of Hellfire.

  Soul searing pain drove me to my knees, and seemed to go on forever, even though I could count the two heartbeats it lasted. My back arched as every muscle spasmed, and the rod fell from my fingers. When the pain finally stopped, I slumped forward onto my hands. But even as I pitched forward, I felt stronger, as if the exposure to Hellfire had rekindled my connection to magick. For a moment, I fought a sense of panic. The absolute last thing I wanted was an Infernal connection to anything. I felt a small hand on my right shoulder, and heard the voice of a pissed off little angel behind me.

  “Leave. My. Brother. Alone.” Dee’s voice was soft, but it stopped Kain in his tracks.

  “You’re a brave little girl,” Kain said. “You’ll share his fate.”

  “I know,” Dee said, but her tone sounded as if she was talking about something very different than he was. He looked at her, then up and at something behind her. His expression changed, and for the first time, I saw something like worry in his eyes. Something like fear. I turned my head to see what he was looking at, and saw a dark form step between Shade and me, interposing herself before us. The world went quiet around us, and I felt everything fade except that welcome comfort of a familiar darkness. I looked up to see the misty black avatar of New Essex looking down at me. She laid her left hand over Dee’s on my shoulder, then looked back up at Kain and raised her right arm to point at him.

  “What are you?” Kain asked. Around us, I could see that everyone had stopped what they were doing; all eyes were on us.

  “I am New Essex,” the dark form said. “I am…” The avatar faded, revealing my mother with a revolver in her hand.

  “...Mara Murathy, daughter of Clan Mulani,” Mom continued. “I am your death.” She stepped forward as she pulled the trigger, and the revolver roared before Kain could react. It spat a foot long tongue of flame, and Kain staggered back, his eyes wide and mouth wide open. Without blinking, she took another step forward and fired again. Another step, another explosion of sound. The rounds knocked him back, and three red blossoms appeared on his shirt. Mom took another step forward and fired again, knocking him back two more steps.

  “You can’t…” Kain gasped.

  “I can,” Mom said, and pulled the trigger again. “Silver handed down from father to daughter. Not even you can survive against the power of the Mulani bloodline.” She pulled the trigger again, and Kain took a step back, then dropped to his knees. He stared at Mom for a moment, then coughed, spraying blood, then fell forward. The rest of his pack looked from one to another, uncertainty in their stances and expressions.

  “You got about twenty seconds before the rest of Clan Mulani shows up to kill your asses,” Sinbad called out. “You’ve got a couple of choices. Run or die.” They ran, and the others let them. I could see the sun glinting off the windshields of the Clan’s vehicles. My grandfather was going to be pissed. I got to my feet, every muscle aching with the slightest movement. Shade wasn’t moving too fast either, but she wasn’t looking nearly so fragile as I felt. Dee held my arm until I was upright, then put an arm around my middle and squeezed gently.

  “Mom,” I said, taking a little extra time with each step. “You okay?”

  Mom turned to me, her eyes suddenly brimming. “You’re okay,” she said. “So I’m fine, sweetie.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked. “I’ve been where you’re standing. It ain’t easy.”

  “No, you haven’t, son. I know you killed another werewolf, but he wasn’t threatening your children. This...this was the easiest decision I ever made.” She wrapped me in her arms, and I realized that she was right. King might not have been threatening my children, but he had been threatening the people I cared about most. Killing him had been a split second decision, one that maybe, I didn’t need to be carrying around quite so much guilt of my own over.

  “Shade,” I heard as Mom let me go. Brad stood on the steps, the skinwalker belt in his hands. “I’m sorry. For everything. I… Shade, this was all my fault.” Behind him, Dr. C, Sinbad and the whole crew were approaching. Sinbad looked like Zeus about to drop a thunderbolt on someone’s ass, and Dr. C looked like he was willing to help him aim it. No one behind them looked happy.

  “You’re not wrong kid,” Sinbad said. “And I’ve got a lot of reasons to want your ass dead. Give me a good reason not to kill you right now.”

  “I can’t,” Brad said, hanging his head.

  “As much as I might not want to do it,” I said, “I can.”

  “Didn't see that comin’,” Sinbad said. “But go ahead.”

  “Because I said so. You agreed to let me act as your liaison to the Conclave, and asked for their assistance. Well, let us assist.” I pointed to Dr, Corwyn. “Let him help you decide what to do.”

  “At least let Brad speak his piece, Sinbad,” Shade said. The old Were’ smiled and nodded.

  “Now you’re startin’ to sound like a leader,” he said. “Okay, let’s do this. But let’s do it somewhere else. This place feels wrong. Ain’t nothin’ good gonna go on here.” Shade shifted back from her hybrid form to fully human, naked and glorious. But this time, there was one difference. Her hair was no longer red, but had turned as black as her wolf’s fur.

  Epilogue

  ~ I see your True Colors/ Shining through.

  I see your True Colors/And that’s why I love you. ~

  Cyndi Lauper, 1986

  The sun was low in the sky by the time we all made it to the Mulani camp. Brad was chained in silver in the middle of a circle of chairs, his shoulders slumped, head bowed. I stood to his left, since this was my idea. Dr. C stood on his right, his own head down, his expression not a happy one, while Lucas and Wanda stood behind us. Sinbad sat next to Shade, and they were flanked by Dandry on their right and my mom and her parents on the left of them. Shade’s pack and the rest of Clan Mulani made up the rest of the semi-circle on either side. My grandfather looked around and leaned over to Mom to whisper something. While he spoke to
her, Dee trotted out to stand next to me and take my hand.

  “Sis, no,” I whispered to her. “You shouldn’t be out here.”

  “Yes, I should,” she whispered back. “You’ll see.”

  “Let’s get started,” Sinbad said. “Brad Duncan, speak your piece.” Brad’s head came up and he took a shuffling step forward

  “Kain came to me after prom,” he started. “He said there was a way to take Chance out of the picture and put him in his place. He would turn Chance, and I would train him while he brought Shade to heel. We’d break them both, and get what we wanted. I’d take the pack and get Shade, and he’d take over from Sinbad. But…” he paused, and his eyes closed. When he opened them again, tears streamed down his face. “Kane made me claim that I killed Tyler. But I never could hurt him. That was Kane. He never told me he was going to kill him. I didn’t even know he was dead until after Chance was turned.”

  “Kain didn’t get here until after Chance was turned,” Sinbad said.

  “He was here days before we even knew he existed,” Wanda said, stepping up to stand between Brad and me. She held up a tablet and went on. “I tracked his credit card account, and he took commercial flights under assumed names to St. Louis, Kansas City and Wichita, rented cars and drove here.” Sinbad glared at her, but she matched him, and he waved her back.

  Brad spoke again, his voice more subdued. “He had a belt, like a loup garou, but he’d harnessed the powers of a skinwalker with it. Whenever he killed a Were’, he took their wolf and used it to make himself stronger. He had other magick, too. Ask Chance and Shade, he used it to control other Weres’... me included. You all saw that he could use Hellfire, too. I...I wanted what he was promising, but…” He took a step forward and spoke directly to Shade. “When I saw what … what he was doing to you, and I saw that he was no different than Dominic, I finally got how bad I’d fucked up. I should’ve seen it sooner. I’m sorry, Shade. I...wish I could undo everything he did to you. Whatever you want to do to me...I deserve it for what I let him do to you.” He turned to me. “And for what we did to you.”

  “So, why did he have a beef with us?” I asked.

  “Kain sired Dominic, taught him the Law of the Wolf. I guess he was his favorite. But thing is, he was working with that other girl, Josie. He argued with her a lot about how she was running things. He thought it would be easier to just kill you, but she said you had to be alive but without your magick.”

  “Is there anything else anyone wanted to know?” Dr. C asked. There was silence and a shaking of heads in response. “So, then it comes down to what punishment should be handed down. What do you say, Sinbad?”

  “I want to kill the kid for what he let happen, but it seems like there’s more to the story. Officially, I say exile. If he ever shows his face back here, I’ll rip his heart out myself.”

  “The Conclave also recommends exile,” Dr. C said. “But in the end, Shade, it is your pack that was most affected. What say you?”

  Shade looked to me, her expression conflicted. “I don’t think I could be fair. I’d be okay with exile.”

  “That’s not fair!” Dee blurted.

  “Dee!” I hissed. “Not the time!”

  “Yes it is!” she said. “It’s just like what happened with you, Chance. He had a bad teacher, just like you did. But you got a second chance. You got to live with us, and you have Mom and Dr. Corwin to teach you. Who did he have? No one. If you send him away, he’s just going to do the same thing somewhere else, because no one’s going to show him how to be better.”

  Silence followed her outburst, and I cold see the rest of the adults thinking over what Dee had just said. It was my grandfather who spoke up first.

  “There is wisdom in this,” he said. “Even I can see that, and my first instinct, until recently, was to kill any thought of mercy for a werewolf.”

  “I’m not seeing it,” Sinbad said, his voice rumbling.

  “What if he goes back to Boston,” I asked. “What kind of welcome to do you think he would get? What kind of things do you think they would teach him?”

  “Nothing good,” he said, his scowl deepening. “What about you, kid?” he asked throwing the question back at me. “What do you think?”

  “I think my sister’s right,” I said. “Last summer, I stood in front of the Conclave and asked for the same thing for three other people. I may not like you, Brad, but I have to ask for the same thing for you that I would for someone else.”

  “Upon further consideration, the Conclave will support Chance’s recommendation,” Dr. C said.

  “You do realize you’re making a decision someone else is going to have to make good on, right?” Sinbad said.

  “Exile is still an option,” Shade said, “but you did ask for the Conclave’s help. And Dee’s right. If you kick him out, he could do the same thing somewhere else. And even if it isn’t done to your packs, it would be on you. You set yourself up as the father figure to every pack in a two hundred mile radius, Sinbad. Even mine. So you kind of set yourself up to handle this.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Sinbad growled. “Kid, you got a long way to go to prove to me and mine you’re serious about this. I’m going to be hard on you, and you can bet there’s going to be some punishment involved. But the little girl might be right. Maybe all you need is for someone to show you how to act right. So you got one shot. Don’t fuck it up.” He stood and walked out to Brad, turning to Dr. C. “I accept the Conclave’s suggestion. Brad Duncan will be taken into the care of my pack. We’ll try to teach him the way of the wolf. So, kid know right here and now, the wolf pack isn’t about status. There are no alphas or betas or any of that bullshit. The pack is family. We look out for each other, we protect each other, and we don't keep score of who owes what. Can you deal with that?”

  “Yes, sir,” Brad nodded. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me yet, kid,” he said. “We haven’t even started yet, and you got a long way to go.” My grandfather came to them and unlocked the shackles. Sinbad gave me a long look, then gave a quiet grunt and the suggestion of a smile before turning and leading Brad away. Mom and Dee joined us in the middle of the circle as the Mulani and the pack started to disperse.

  “Mara,” my grandfather said. “Please, you and your family are welcome at my fire. They are my family, too. At least stay for dinner. Let me get to know my family again.”

  “Oh, we’re family now?” Mom asked, a little acid still in her voice.

  “Please, Mara, let an old man make amends for his mistakes.”

  “We’ll stay, dad,” she said. Dee smiled and clapped her hands together a couple of times.

  “I need to go get my car back from the lodge,” I said. “We’ll be back in a little while.” Dr. C caught my eye before we turned to leave and pulled me to one side. Kim stood at his side, her face its usual mask of serene mystery.

  “Take the next couple of days off,” he said. “School starts next week. But more importantly, you need to be ready for your mage trials soon. Even if I wasn’t already thinking about it, after what I saw today, I would be.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Chance, you may have noticed that I usually say that I’m the acting mage of New Essex. Today, I saw the spirit of the city act to defend you and give you her benediction. The next true mage of New Essex is you. You have your work cut out for you.”

  “Great. Things are gonna get even harder. Thanks for the head’s up. You staying for dinner?”

  “For a little while. We’ll probably be here when you get back.”

  “Don’t have too much fun,” Kim said as Shade and I headed for her bike.

  “No such thing,” Shade said. The ride out to the lodge was quick since we were already on the north side of Diamond Lake. Shade took old 54 out to the highway, turned north, and in minutes, we were pulling into the road to the camp. My car had been moved down to the lodge, and Shade parked next to it. No sooner were we off of it than we were up against
the side of my Mustang, kissing like we hadn’t seen each other for a month.

  “You changed your hair,” I said, when we finally came up for air.

  “You like it?” she asked, suddenly shy, ducking her head for a second.

  “Yeah,” I said. I took a thick lock of it between my fingertips and brushed the ends against her left cheek. “I love it. And I love you.”

  “I love you, so much. I was worried, Chance. Kain kept trying to tell me that you didn’t really love me, that I wasn’t really in love with you. Some of the things he said… I didn’t want to believe them, but with the way he was getting in my head, it was like one minute, I was convinced he was right, but then, the second I wasn’t around him, none of what he said made sense and I felt bad for ever doubting you. And I-” I kissed her, trying to put into action what words weren’t big enough to say.

  “I get it,” I told her. “He was trying to do the same thing to me. But he couldn’t beat us. And we’re still here, still together…”

  “And so hot for each other. I’m glad you like the new color. I wish I could say I did it on purpose, but it just kind of happened. Today, though...knowing what you told me about wolves, that I don’t have to be an alpha or any of those other things, that I can just… be. It’s like I took off all the masks, because I get to show my true colors, and be who I really am.”

  “And… are you okay with me not being…”

  “Baby, being a mage, that’s who you really are. Those are your true colors, and I love them. When you were a Were’, nothing worked right for you. It’s not who you were meant to be. This is.” She kissed me, slow and gentle this time. Without another word, we headed for the trail to the chapel. The lodge was still too painful to spend time in. We got to the little building, and Shade unlocked the front doors. A mattress had been laid on the floor near the front window, and boxes were stacked in the corner. At the back of the chappel, a tarp covered what I was guessing was a motorcycle.