“A young djigit stopped by my room,” I said. “His name is Volodja and for three thousand dollars he will walk me deep into the mountains and show me where the bad shapeshifters live.”
“How fortunate.” Aunt B’s eyes lit up. “Would you like some company for this wonderful trap, I mean, adventure?”
“I would.”
“I’ll come,” Derek said.
“No. I get you into enough trouble as is.” Derek and I were close. If Curran did decide to pull the plug on our relationship, I didn’t want to divide the boy wonder’s loyalty. That was how the packs split, and both Derek and Barabas were just idealistic enough to dramatically exit with me. It was best to start distancing myself now.
“I’ll come, too,” Eduardo said.
“Why don’t you let me go instead,” Keira said. “You can barely stand.”
“I don’t know, all he has to do is come with us and loom,” Aunt B said.
Eduardo crossed his arms on his chest, making his giant biceps bulge. “What do you mean, loom?”
“We need you to stand there with your arms crossed and scowl,” I translated.
Eduardo scowled. “I don’t do that.”
“Just like that,” Derek said.
Eduardo realized his arms were crossed and dropped them. “Screw you guys.”
“That settles it. I’m going.” Keira hopped off the windowsill. “Besides, I owe you, bison boy.”
“For what?” I asked.
“He got hurt trying to save me,” Keira said. “When the thing pinned me down, he picked it up and slammed it on the floor. It was very heroic.”
Eduardo shook his head.
Perfect. Between Jim’s sister and Aunt B, my back would be covered. “I’ll need to check on Christopher and we’re good to go.”
Three minutes later I was knocking on Barabas’s door, with Aunt B and Keira looking over my shoulder. Barabas opened the door.
“How is he?”
Barabas’s face took on a pained expression. “So far he threw up and tried to dive in the bathtub.”
“At the same time?”
“Thankfully, no. He’s soaking. The dirt is embedded in his skin. Are you going somewhere?”
I explained what was going on. “If we play along, we can get to the bottom of who hired him. Unless it’s a one-in-a-million chance that he actually is telling the truth.”
“Be careful,” Barabas said.
We left the castle and took the winding road down the mountain. The sea sparkled like an enormous sapphire. The sun shone bright and the air smelled of salt water and the light scent of apricots. The beauty of it was so startling, I stopped and looked.
“We should go swimming,” Keira said.
We all knew that a relaxing day at the beach wouldn’t be happening, but it was nice to dream. “There are no frogs in the sea.”
“Why would I be interested in frogs?”
“Jim told me one time that he didn’t swim unless there were frogs involved. I assumed he ate them.”
“That’s disgusting,” Keira said. “You really should stop listening to my brother. And he swims like a fish, by the way. The Cat House has an Olympic-sized pool and he swims a couple of miles every time he stays over. Frogs. That man has never eaten a frog in his entire life.”
Aunt B laughed.
We started down the winding road. The gravel path smelled of rock dust. Dense blackberry bushes formed a solid wall of green on the sides. I suddenly realized I was starving. I pulled a handful of berries off the bush and stuffed them in my mouth. Mmmm. Sweet.
“Berries are always best off the branch,” Aunt B said. She wore a bright yellow dress with a white paisley design on it, sunglasses, and a straw hat. Keira wore a sundress with a light brown bodice and a wide skirt made of strips of light turquoise, white, and brown fabric. It came up to her knees and made her look five years younger. The two of them appeared to be on vacation, while I, with my sexy bruised face, big boots, jeans, and a sword, looked like I had a camp of bandits to destroy.
“What’s the connection between you and our handsome host?” Aunt B asked.
Blackberries taste much worse when they try to come back up your throat. “Uhhhh . . .”
“Uhhh is not an answer,” Keira informed me.
Andrea must not have told her about Hugh, and I had no desire to explain who my dad was. “We never met but we were trained by the same person. Now he works for a very powerful man who will kill me if he finds me.”
“Why?” Keira asked.
“It’s a family thing.”
“That explains the attraction,” Aunt B said.
“Attraction?”
“You’re that thing he can’t have. It’s called forbidden fruit.”
“I’m not his fruit!”
“He thinks you are. The word you’re looking for is ‘smitten,’ my dear.” Aunt B smiled. “I’m sure the way Megobari looked at you made Curran positively giddy.”
Hearing his name was like being burned. “Will you stop meddling in my love life?” I growled.
“I’m not meddling. I’m offering commentary.”
Ugh. “I just want to go home.”
“Not until we get all of the panacea we’ve been promised.” Aunt B adjusted her hat. “You have no idea what it’s like to lose a child to loupism. True, you’ve endured Julie’s tragedy, but I had given birth to my babies. I nursed them, I nurtured them from the time they were tiny and helpless, I fanned the tiny flames of their potential. I had so many dreams for them. Children think you are a god. You are the center of their universe, you can fix anything, you can shield them and protect them, and then one day they find out you can’t. I remember the look in my sons’ eyes before I killed them. They thought they were abandoned. That I had betrayed them. Raphael will not go through this. Not if I can help it.”
Her voice told me that the wound was still there. It had formed a scab over the years, but Aunt B still mourned her dead children. When she told me that she came on this trip to keep an eye on me, it was a white lie. She had come here for panacea and she would do anything to get it. The one bag she’d earned wouldn’t be enough. I thought of Maddie in the glass coffin. I couldn’t blame Aunt B. I would do anything to spare my child this kind of pain.
If I didn’t have children with Curran, I wouldn’t have to worry about it.
Wow. I wasn’t even sure where that came from.
“I’m glad this Volodja came to you,” Aunt B said.
“Why?” My fight must’ve made a bigger impression than I thought.
“Because some Abkhazians speak Russian. They’re neighbors. You’re the only one in our group who can translate in a pinch.”
And here I thought she was awed by my incredible martial skills. One deflated ego? Check.
We went through the streets. Abandoned houses stared at us with empty windows, shells of their former selves. On the wall of an empty apartment building, little more than a gutted carcass of concrete and steel, someone had drawn a pair of angel wings. Hope for a better future, or a memory of someone who died. We would never know.
“That must be the statue.” Keira pointed to a bronze djigit on a horse. It rose in the middle of a small plaza. Behind it sat a small café.
Aunt B inhaled. “We should go this way.” She made a beeline for the café. “He is a werejackal. He’ll find our scent.”
The café sat in the shade of a huge walnut tree, a turquoise-blue building that had seen better days.
“Bakery,” Keira announced.
You don’t say. I grinned. Back home Aunt B preferred to conduct her business over a platter of cupcakes or a slice of pie.
“Is something funny?” Aunt B asked.
“We crossed half the planet and you found a bakery.”
“I don’t see the humor in that.”
Keira laughed under her breath.
“You’re supposed to look menacing,” Aunt B told her. “You’re Eduardo’s stand-in.”
&n
bsp; “Yes,” I agreed. “Less laughing, more looming.”
Keira crossed her arms and pretended to scowl.
“We should’ve brought the werebuffalo,” Aunt B said.
We walked into the café. An older woman with gray hair smiled at us from behind the long counter and called out in a lilting language. Aunt B pointed to some things, money was exchanged, and suddenly we were sitting at a table with some pastries filled with apricots. We had been sitting still for about fifteen minutes when the kid walked through the door. He carried a rifle. A backpack hung off his shoulder. He saw Aunt B and Keira and halted.
“You have friends.”
“Yes.”
“It’s okay. Did you bring the money?”
“We did,” Aunt B assured him.
“Are you ready?” Volodja asked.
“Ready if you are,” Aunt B said.
* * *
The steep trail curved south, away from the castle. Blackberry bushes flanked the path, stretching thorny branches across the gravel and dirt. Our guide hadn’t said a word since we left the city behind about an hour ago. I did my best to turn my brain off and concentrate on memorizing the way back. Thinking about anything inevitably led back to Curran. I wanted to stab something. Failing that, I wanted to pace around. None of that would be helpful. Emotional raging just tired you out.
“How do you know where the orange shapeshifters nest?” I asked. Any distraction in a pinch . . .
“I’ve seen them.” Volodja shrugged, adjusting the rifle on his shoulder. “It’s not far now.”
I couldn’t wait to find out who pulled his strings.
“Come on, dear,” Aunt B said. “Where is your spirit of adventure?”
Midway up the trail, the magic wave drowned us. We paused, adjusting, and moved on.
One hour later the trail brought us up onto the crest of the mountain. Straight ahead the sea sparkled. Behind us, low in the valley, lay the city. A tall cliff rose to the left and within it gaped a dark hole.
“Cave,” Volodja explained. “We go in.”
“You first.”
Volodja took a step forward. The bushes on our right rustled. A dark-haired man stepped in the open. Around thirty, with a short beard, he carried a rifle and a dagger and wore a beat-up version of a djigit outfit. A bundle lay across his shoulder with mountain goat legs sticking out of it. A big gray-and-white dog trotted out and sat next to him. Broad and muscular, she had a dense shaggy coat. She might have been some type of Molosser—she looked like someone took a Saint Bernard and gave it a German shepherd’s muzzle and coat.
The hunter squinted at Volodja and said something. The kid answered.
The hunter waved his free arm. I wished I had a universal translator.
“What is he saying?” I asked.
“He is . . . crazy.” Volodja put his index finger to his temple and turned his hand back and forth.
The hunter barked something. The dog at his feet woofed quietly. I missed Grendel. I wished I could’ve brought him. Maybe he’d bite Hugh and Curran for me.
Volodja waved at him, like you would at a mosquito, and started to the cave. “We go.”
“Plokhoe mesto,” the hunter yelled.
Accented Russian. That I understood. “He says this is a bad place.”
Volodja pivoted on his foot, his gaze sharp. “You speak Russian?”
“I do. I also get very angry when people try to trick me.”
He raised his hands. “No trick. You want orange things or not?”
“We do,” Aunt B said. “Lead the way.”
“Agulshap,” the hunter said. “Don’t go into the cave.”
Agulshap didn’t sound like a Russian word. “What does agulshap mean?”
“I don’t know,” Volodja said. “I talked to you: he is crazy.”
Keira shook her head. “I don’t like it.”
I didn’t like it either.
“Come along,” Aunt B said. Her face still had that pleasant, sweet-as-sugar smile, but her eyes were hard. Suddenly I felt sorry for Volodja.
He pulled a torch out of his pack and lit it.
The mouth of the cave grew closer with every step. A few more seconds and it swallowed us whole.
* * *
The cave stretched on and on, tall, giant, vast. Stone steps carved into the living rock of the mountain led down below, and my steps sent tiny echoes bouncing up and down from the smooth walls.
“Little far,” Volodja explained over his shoulder.
“Clear as mud,” Keira muttered.
The stone steps ended. The only light came from the torch in our guide’s hand. We crossed the cavern floor to a rough arch chiseled in the rock. Volodja stepped through. Aunt B followed, and then I did, with Keira bringing up the rear. We stood in a round chamber, about thirty feet wide. Another exit, a dark hole, yawned to the right.
“We wait,” Volodja said.
We stood in darkness. This wasn’t filling me with oodles of confidence.
Keira touched my shoulder. Something was coming.
The kid dove forward, through the second opening. I lunged after him and ran into a metal grate that slammed shut in my face. The second clang announced another grate slamming into place over our only exit.
I pressed against the wall, between the two exits.
“I thought so,” Keira said.
Aunt B sighed.
We just had to figure out if this was a straight robbery or if someone had hired them to do it.
Someone shone a light through the grate. “I have crossbow,” a deep male voice said. “Silver bolts. Give money.”
“I don’t understand,” Aunt B said. “Where are the orange shapeshifters? Volodja?”
“No shapeshifters.” Volodja laughed, a little nervous giggle. “You give money and you can go. Human girl stays.”
“Don’t I feel special.”
“You trapped with us. Give money!”
“You have it wrong, dear,” Aunt B said. “We are not trapped here with you.” Her eyes sparked into a hot ruby glow. “You are trapped in here with us.”
The happy dress burst. Her body erupted, as if someone had triggered the detonator, but the explosion of flesh swirled, controlled, snapping into a new form. A monster rose in Aunt B’s place. She stood on powerful legs, her flanks and back sheathed in reddish fur spotted with blotches of black. Her back curved slightly, hunched over. She raised her arms, her four-inch claws held erect, like talons ready to rend, and great muscles rolled under her dark skin, promising devastating power. The monster snapped her hyena muzzle, the distorted, grotesquely large jaws opening and closing, like a bear trap.
Keira’s dress flew. A werejaguar rammed the grate. The crossbow twanged; the shot went wide. The metal screeched and the grate flew past me and crashed into the wall. Men screamed. A body flew, like a rag doll hurled by an angry child.
I kept my place, staying clear. There was room for only one of them in the passage and I would only get in the way.
Aunt B dashed after Keira, yanked a struggling man, and slammed him against the wall next to me. Volodja’s glassy eyes stared at me in sheer panic. He hadn’t turned, which meant he likely couldn’t hold the warrior form.
Aunt B’s hand with fork-sized claws squeezed his throat. She snapped her teeth half an inch from his carotid. A deep ragged growl spilled from her throat. “Who hired you?”
“Nobody,” he squeezed out.
“Who hired you?” Aunt B pulled him from the wall and slammed his head back against the stone.
“Kral! Jarek Kral!”
Aunt B squeezed. Her claws drew a bright red line on the kid’s chin. “What were you supposed to do?”
“He wants human killed,” Volodja struggled in her grip.
“Why?”
“I don’t know! I didn’t ask!”
Aunt B hurled him across the room and ducked into the opening. I moved to follow. Something clanged. The floor dropped from under my feet and I fell into
the darkness below.
* * *
A second doesn’t seem like much time, but the human mind is an amazing thing. It can pack not one but two short thoughts into the space of a second, thoughts like Oh shit and I’m about to die.
Rock flashed before me and I plunged into vast empty darkness, crouching in midair, trying to brace for impact.
The air whistled past me.
My ears caught a hum. My instincts screamed, Water!
I hit the sea. Like smashing at full speed into concrete. The impact slapped me and all went dark.
* * *
No air.
My eyes snapped open. I was suspended in salty water.
My lungs burned. I jerked upward. My head broke the surface and I gulped the air with a hoarse moan. It tasted sweet and for a few moments I could do nothing except breathe.
I survived. The impact must’ve knocked me out for a few seconds. My cuts hurt. Kate Daniels, extra-salt-in-the-wounds edition.
I tried kicking. Legs still okay. Arms moving. Body check complete, all systems go. I turned around. Weak green luminescence came from the moss growing in the rougher spots on the walls, doing little to combat the darkness. Still, it was good enough to see. During tech, this place would’ve been pitch-black. Thank you, Universe, for small favors.
I floated on my back, trying to look around. A huge cavern rose around me, its floor flooded with seawater. You could fit half a football field into it.
I turned and swam along the wall. I had a pretty good breaststroke but my boots weren’t doing me any favors. They sat on my feet like two bricks.
No way up. The nearly sheer walls rose straight up. A small stone ledge protruded on one side, barely four inches wide. Even if I could somehow climb onto it, I couldn’t stay on. Far above, a black hole punctured the ceiling. I must’ve fallen through it. A few feet to the left and I would’ve splattered against the stone wall on the way down.
When I got out of this, I’d have to track down Volodja and his friends and thank them for this fun excursion. Assuming there was anything left after Aunt B and Keira were done with them.
How the hell was I going to get out of here?
Something bobbed in the water in front of me, a dark bundle. I sped up. A canvas sack, watertight. Hmm.
The sack moved.
Magic Rises kd-6 Page 28
