by Mindy Klasky
“That one’s a stumbling child. A babe in the woods.”
David pretended to be shocked. “Are you suggesting a new witch isn’t worth protecting?”
“I’m suggesting,” Pitt hissed, “that she won’t last past Samhain. This is all glitter and fairytales for her now. But wait until the first time she feels Hecate’s power in her veins. She’ll run screaming for her mother.”
David thought about how Jane had pulled herself together to reject his initial terms. “She’s stronger than you think.”
“She’d better be,” Pitt said. “Because when news gets out that the Osgood collection’s been found, every witch on the eastern seaboard is going to stake a claim.”
“There’s not a witch on the eastern seaboard—or anywhere else—who has a right to those materials. Hannah Osgood died without an arcane heir. The collection was fairly found by a witch who was able to wake the familiar.”
“On the night of a full moon.”
Pitt had only just learned about Jane. He shouldn’t already know about Neko’s untimely awakening. Unless, of course, Pitt had a witch he could consult, a woman with her own familiar who was tied into the network Neko had accessed. And toad or not, Pitt was important enough in the hierarchy of Hecate’s Court to have any number of witches on his side.
David dug in. “She was fully within her right to awaken her familiar, whenever she saw fit.”
“She didn’t have the first idea what she was doing.”
“For all you know, she trained in every magicarium from London to Shanghai.”
“Tell yourself lies, Montrose, if that helps you sleep at night.”
“I sleep just fine.”
“Your witch is wild. She’ll lose the collection as quickly as she found it. And she’ll take you down with her.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Norville. I’ll be at my desk tomorrow morning.”
“The court gave you a second chance after you struck out with Haylee James. But there are no third chances in the world of witchcraft. Fail now, and you’ll never ward a witch again.”
The words cut David to the bone—his greatest fear, laid bare.
He could accept disappointing Linda. He could deal with explaining a new reality to Connor, telling the shifter he was no longer a citizen in good standing of the Eastern Empire. And Hecate knew he’d long ago grown used to his father’s disapproval.
But to never feel warder’s magic again? To never know the thrill of transporting from one place to another, reaching through the astral plane? To forget the healing, the soothing, the comfort he could summon with a twist of magical thought?
He could save himself now. He could tell Pitt he’d been mistaken. He could ask forgiveness and slink back to his clerk’s post with his tail between his legs, all in hopes of eventually working his way free from his clerk’s job some day. Some year. Maybe a decade or more in the future.
But the cottage behind him held the Osgood collection. And the witch inside was Jane.
He was willing to take the risk. Whatever it cost.
He surged past Pitt without a word.
12
Standing on the sidewalk in one of Washington’s most expensive neighborhoods, David folded his fingers over the scar that matched the one on Connor’s palm.
“There’s another one,” he muttered under his breath, trusting to the shifter’s superior hearing. He didn’t dare incline his head toward the salamander leaning against the lamp post on the street corner. A thin stream of cigarette smoke curled from the imperial’s lips as he watched David and Connor approach Apolline Fournier’s mansion.
There hadn’t been any fire-lizard spies when David tried to gain access to the salamander queen the morning before. But the skeletal guy with the glare burning holes between David’s shoulder blades was the fourth they’d seen in the brief walk from the subway. Their leather jackets marked them as if they were members of a 1950s biker gang.
“Come on,” David said, approaching Apolline’s formidable gate. “Let’s get this over with.”
David couldn’t tell if the guard was the same man he’d seen the day before. He had the same black hair, short and sleek against his smooth skull. He had the same black eyes too, narrowed with evaluation. He even had the same lean fingers, resting on the butt of his gun.
“Mr. Montrose,” he said, and he had the same gravelly voice. “Mr. Hold.”
Glaring at both of them, he turned a heavy key in a solid iron door, allowing David and Connor to pass through the gate. As the door closed behind them, five men glided from the shadows behind the green hut. At a glance, they looked like clones of the spies on the street—identical leather jackets, whip-thin bodies, and sculpted faces.
“This way,” the apparent leader said. He hesitated a moment before he added, “Gentlemen.”
David gestured for Connor to go first. The four silent salamanders immediately fell in behind them. David prayed to Hecate that he’d have time to summon Rosefire if all the fire-lizards pounced at once.
The leader opened an unlocked front door, ushering them into a black-painted foyer, complete with an onyx floor. Daylight leaked in from a trio of small windows above the door, only to be swallowed by the dank space.
The salamander leader ignored the twisting staircase that led to the second floor. He didn’t glance to the left—a formal dining room—or to the right—an equally formal parlor. Instead, he opened a pair of double doors and bowed slightly from the waist, inviting his guests to pass through to some sort of living room.
Living room. Devil’s lair. Whatever.
Blackout shades blocked a full wall of windows. Dark leather couches crouched on a textured white rug, kneeling before a chrome-and-glass table like acolytes before an altar.
A fireplace filled the wall to David’s right—obsidian slabs surrounding a maw large enough for a man to enter upright. Gold-red flames flickered from a bed of blackened stones, and the blaze was reflected off a smoked glass mirror on the wall to his left.
A man glided forward from his station beside the fireplace. His mane of grey hair was immaculately combed, and his close-trimmed beard set off stark cheekbones. His black suit melted into the gloom behind him. He nodded a curt command to the five salamanders.
The leader backed out of the double doors, closing them behind him. The four foot soldiers took up positions to either side of that escape, snapping into parade rest poses.
The man barely acknowledged David’s presence as he turned to Connor. “Mr. Hold, I presume.”
He didn’t offer a hand to shake. In fact, his right hand remained buried in the pocket of his impeccably tailored trousers.
The social slight might have been a good thing, given the expression on Connor’s face. The shifter’s jaw was set and his eyes were wary, unable to keep from glancing at the wall of fire. He failed to offer his own hand. In fact, David wasn’t at all certain his friend was capable of moving.
Well, in for a cauldron, in for a safehold. David had already put his job on the line, using this extended lunch break for Connor’s shifter business. He might as well speak up, if the Washington alpha couldn’t.
Pushing past Connor, David planted his feet on the black marble floor. He met his host’s eyes directly and said, “You have us at a disadvantage. You know Connor Hold. I’m David Montrose. And?” He kept his voice perfectly neutral, barely allowing his question to curl into the air.
“I’m John Brule,” the man said, betraying the slightest wisp of a French accent as he softened the J, as he lengthened the U in his last name.
“We’re here to speak with Apolline,” David said.
“Ms. Fournier is not available.” Brule loaded an emphasis on the salamander queen’s surname, a reminder that this summit required courtesy.
“She has something that belongs to Mr. Hold.”
“And Mr. Hold returns the favor.” With one cocked eyebrow toward Connor, Brule looked like an international jewel thief. His statement was emphasized
by a leap in the fire pit flames. Connor shied back as if Brule had swiped a torch across his face.
Brule had choreographed this confrontation like a master, knowing full well that a shifter would be set off-balance by the open blaze. Wolves and fire had been bitter enemies since the dawn of human time. But David had seen the tell-tale flicker in Brule’s arm, the barely-there tightening of muscles above his hidden hand. The salamander had some sort of remote control device in his pocket. He’d simply increased the gas feed to the fire pit.
“You stole the shifters’ Collar,” David said evenly. “Return it, and we won’t need to disturb Apolline.”
Brule’s eyes narrowed at the continued use of the salamander queen’s given name. His voice was oiled as he directed his reply to Connor, matching David’s tone exactly. “You stole the salamanders’ karstag. Return it, and we won’t need to disturb the Eastern Empire Night Court.”
That was the challenge, wasn’t it? If this dispute went to court, Connor was lost. He’d have no choice but to offer up his errant werewolves. He’d likely be locked up himself, for failure to keep his pack under control.
The alpha remained silent, leaving David little room to maneuver beyond saying, “Mr. Hold can’t bring you the karstag.”
The salamanders’ reaction was immediate—all four guards hissed their displeasure. At the same time, Brule snapped out a command: “Seize them!”
As David fought to grab Rosefire, the room filled with fire-lizards—the four guards by the door and reinforcements that rose up from the shadows. One kicked at the back of David’s knee, sending him stumbling toward the edge of the fireplace. Another dropped the hard edge of a hand on the back of his neck, spraying white-hot stars across his vision. Another blow, lower on his neck, and his arms went numb. He had no hope of bringing in Rosefire.
A third salamander picked up a poker, red-hot from the edge of the fire. He sliced it through the air like a saber, putting the full force of his lithe body behind the attack.
David dodged one slash, and he ducked under another. But he was brought up short by the whisper of an obsidian blade against his carotid.
“Move, warder,” a salamander urged, his lips close by David’s ear. “Just give me one excuse to cut.”
From this angle, on his knees, neck stretched back, perilously close to the fireplace, he could see that Connor had fared no better. The shifter’s lip had split, and the blood trickling into his beard looked black in the firelight. A salamander had one arm locked across his throat in a chokehold. Another held an obsidian blade over his kidneys, the needle tip reminding him not to attempt to twist free.
This wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair—eight against two.
Even now, David could reach his warder’s magic. He could call upon the Guardians of Water at least, asking their aid in this battle against fire. If he could stretch even a fingertip to reach Connor, he could spirit them both away, transporting them through the ether to someplace safe.
But any show of magic, and Pitt would know David had disobeyed a direct order, leaving his post in the middle of the day. He’d chosen shifter business over his work at the court.
He’d never be able to do anything else to help Connor. He’d never be allowed to ward Jane.
Brule strode into David’s line of sight. This time, Apolline’s lieutenant barely spared him a glance. Instead, he glared at Connor. “Perhaps you’ll bring the karstag to us now,” he said.
Connor’s lips curled back over red-stained teeth. “Never,” he mouthed, before the salamander behind him cut off his air supply. The knife above his kidneys pinked his dark plaid shirt.
“Enough,” Brule said, flexing his arm and making the fire leap nearly to the ceiling. “Brand them both, and take them to the pit. Perhaps a little salamander hospitality will make them more inclined to speak. And if not… Well no one will hear them scream, if they need a little…encouragement.”
David watched the closest salamander pick up another poker, this one still glowing red from its time in the fire. The writhing lizard carved into the tip looked like it was alive as the iron swung closer to his eye.
13
Wait!” David shouted.
Brule flashed a harsh hand signal to his men.
Connor tried to toss his head, but the salamanders’ restraints were too brutal. Clearly, though, the alpha was telling David to stay silent.
But he had to speak. He’d come to this parley as Connor’s second. His job—ludicrous as it seemed now—was to protect the shifter. The odds against them were laughable, but David had to say: “He can’t bring the karstag to you.”
“Perhaps he merely needs the right incentive,” Brule said. Looking past David, he nodded to the man who held the brand. “Continue!”
Even as David shut his eyes against the heat, against the light, against the poker’s rippling lizard, he shouted, “It’s locked in a moon-bound case.”
Brule must have issued another silent command. The poker didn’t pull away, but at least it grew no closer. “Moon-bound case?” Brule asked at last.
David had never heard of a moon-bound case in his life. But he was willing to make one up, right there, right now, whatever it took to keep the salamander with the poker at bay. “The shifters put it there for safekeeping.” And then, because it was always easier to sell a lie with a bit of the truth, he added, “It was locked on the night of the full moon. The shifters can’t retrieve it until the next full moon.”
That actually sounded reasonable. If the Washington Pack didn’t have a formal storage system tied to the moon’s cycle, they should. That’s what the werewolves had effectively done, in any case.
But Brule was unimpressed. His only reply was to crank the device in his pocket. Flames soared in the fireplace.
David would have flinched if his captors had left him enough room to move. As it was, he watched Connor shrink away, choosing the biting knife over the blaze.
Brule reached past the edge of the fireplace. He took his time selecting a crimson coal, discarding two small ones before settling on a burning knot the size of his fist.
David’s stomach turned as the salamander pulled his fingers out of the flames. Logic said his hand should be ruined. His flesh should be black, his bones cracked under the withering heat.
But Brule merely rubbed the coal between his thumb and forefinger, polishing it to a metallic sheen. “One month,” he said. “My orders were to get back the karstag now or send you both to the pit.”
Of course David knew salamanders were immune to fire. He’d seen proof only two nights before—the melted door of the shifters’ safe. Nevertheless, he could not take his eyes from the coal that Brule raised to Connor’s face. He couldn’t look away, even when the crimson glow illuminated the shifter’s lips, his nostrils, the shriveling edges of his beard.
The Washington alpha whined just a little, a sound almost too faint to hear above the roar of the fireplace. But David did hear. And he glanced down to see Connor’s open palm, the white line of the oath they’d sworn to each other a lifetime ago.
Connor had nothing to offer. Nothing the salamanders would value.
But David did.
“Leave him alone,” he said, the words heavy on a sigh.
Brule merely arched an eyebrow.
David managed a ghost of a shrug despite his captors’ grip. “In my pocket,” he said. “Front right.”
After a moment to weigh the risk, Brule nodded. One of his minions plunged a hand into David’s pants. He wasted no time fishing out a keyring. The tangle of metal immediately caught light from the fire—nickel and brass keys playing next to the Lexus’s sturdy electronic fob.
“You surely don’t think I can be bribed with an automobile.” Brule’s voice was so dry it was a miracle he didn’t go up in flames himself.
David merely gestured with his chin. The salamander followed his silent command, turning over the pile of metal. And there it was—etched in silver, sculpted into a lean, swirling shape
. The fire made the emblem look as if it were dipped in blood. David felt like it had been ripped from his heart.
“Hecate’s Torch,” Brule said, not able to mask his surprise. Even a salamander knew the Torch was a warder’s symbol of his bond to uphold Hecate’s law, to protect the defenseless, to preserve order throughout the Eastern Empire.
“David,” Connor said, finally breaking through his horror of the fire.
But David cut him off. “Until the Hunter’s Moon,” he said to Brule. “Keep it as a sign of our good intentions.”
Brule twisted the Torch free from the keys. He held it up to the flickering firelight, turning it so it seemed to kindle. Then he slid it into his pocket, making it disappear beside whatever device he used to control the fire. “The Hunter’s Moon,” he agreed.
He nodded then, signaling his henchmen to step back. He watched through slitted eyes as David and Connor climbed to their feet. He let them twitch their clothes into place, allowing them to draw a dozen deep breaths each.
“I’ll convey your respects to Ms. Fournier,” he said.
Fury rose in David’s chest at the thought of the salamander queen pawing at his Torch. But that desecration was better than being carried off to the pit. He’d have his Torch back in less than four weeks. A trip to the pit could—almost definitely would—last a lifetime.
Brule flicked a hand toward one of the guards, and the double doors opened to the foyer. Other salamanders worked the mansion’s front door, then the iron gate, and soon enough David and Connor were limping down a sidewalk, three full blocks from the salamanders’ lair.
“You shouldn’t have,” Connor finally said.
“What choice did I have?”
“But your Torch—”
“You’ll get your wolves under control, won’t you?” David tried to keep his words light. He didn’t want to admit, even to himself, how unbalanced he felt without the Torch in his pocket. It proved he was a man. Proved he was a warder. It was the magical ballast he needed to serve Hecate.
