The Shadow Guard

by Diane Whiteside

  “Excellent logic—but you might want to make sure he’s still here before you finish the call.”

  Her chilly tones warned him more clearly than a loud shriek could have. She nodded toward the Potomac and Jake slowly turned to look.

  Another wind gust hurled foam across the park and Jake blinked. When his vision cleared, the two strangers were gone—if indeed they’d ever been there. There hadn’t been time for them to run to the park’s edge or disappear into any foliage. They could have dived into the river, but either he or Astrid would have seen them do that.

  Ghosts could vanish like that.

  Bullshit! There was no such thing as a ghost. He didn’t do spectral apparitions, or whatever the hell the popular word was. No, they’d just been something cooked up by the light and the mist.

  Astrid coughed firmly, bringing his attention back to her. A muscle twitched in her jaw, but she was otherwise the composed warrior who’d stepped into the police garage that morning.

  “Farashas—what we call people without magick,” she said quietly, staring at the water as if watching a flotilla, “have such an imperfect knowledge of sorcerers, wizards, and so on.”

  “You can’t write off all those stories so easily.” Dammit, he knew testimony. There were too many accounts of magick for all of it to be wrong.

  She glanced sideways at him.

  “Exaggerations and lies.” She dismissed centuries of storytelling with a brief flick of her fingers.

  “All of it?” Her emphasis stripped his one escape from the job into no more than drops of black ink on a white page. All those childhood books kept in his library for constant rereading meant nothing? “That’s impossible.”

  “Argos has some of it right: They only allow a few classes of player to wield spells, while the other players must make do with mortal weapons.” She studied him from lambent green eyes.

  “So if everybody else in the world only knew about magick from rumors and a few unavoidable glimpses—”

  She shrugged and turned away from the wind. Her hands framed her head for a moment. When she tucked them back into her pockets, another braided coronet restrained her hair.

  “How the hell did you do that?” Jake roared and walked backward, staring at her.

  She caught his elbow and forced him to turn around.

  “Magick,” she said succinctly.

  “To arrange your hair?” His breath was poised like a first-year cop’s evaluation report—sometimes up, sometimes down, and always scaring the hell out of his heart.

  “Yes. It’s actually a very easy spell.” She yanked him into step with her.

  “There truly is magick.” His tongue was thick enough to choke him.

  “Yes, but we don’t use it the way your legends say.”

  “Could you make my hair long?”

  She snapped her fingers and a black strand whipped across his lips.

  “Jesus Christ, don’t do that to me!” He closed his eyes. He didn’t want to know how long it had grown.

  She chuckled and snapped her fingers again.

  Strands tickled his earlobes again, in a silent reminder that he needed to get his shaggy locks cut. He shivered and promised himself at least two beers, the minute he walked into his home again.

  “Any other tests?”

  “No! I believe you.” He’d been a homicide cop for years. He knew how to sift evidence and match theory to facts, even when a sane man would have said something was impossible.

  His stomach was doing slow somersaults, like a drunken astronaut in a new galaxy.

  Think about this news, Hammond. What difference does it make?

  “Am I a farasha?” He stumbled over the word. He didn’t need magick, although such a life could be as dangerous and exhausting as Argos said.

  “No, you’re a kubri.” Gold flecks floated in her eyes, luminous as candlelight. Christ, he could watch them for hours.

  Kubri? Was that better than a farasha?

  “I’m a sahir, a wielder of magick. There are multiple levels and networks of sahirs, but that’s all you need to know for now.”

  Had he missed something by looking into her eyes? Could she hypnotize him?

  “Okay.” Jake would not tap his toe on the pavement or drum his fingers. He was a professional who didn’t obviously display impatience, even when he wanted to yell. “If you’re a sahir, then why is it important that I’m a kubri?”

  “Kubris draw raw magickal power from the earth and the cosmos, then feed it to sahirs.”

  Raw magickal power? That could be useful. “Can a kubri wield magick?”

  “No, only sahirs.”

  “Damn.” He’d have to work through her and he couldn’t control her for shit.

  Her beautiful mouth twitched.

  “So you need people like me to obtain the most power?”

  “Correct.”

  “What if there aren’t any kubris around?” How much did she need him?

  “We recharge our power through sex with a willing partner, which is less emotionally intense—or effective, or transfer it from another sahir.” The frown lines deepened between her brows before she went on.

  “There are few kubris available, Jake. I’m only telling you this because we will try to recruit you.” Her green eyes met his without evasion.

  “Recruit for what?”

  “To have frequent sex with sahirs. The best sex of your life.” She caressed the words until they implied more pleasure than any 1001 Nights sultan had ever enjoyed.

  He couldn’t object to that, could he? On the other hand, it didn’t sound like Astrid was the only sahir he’d be bedding.

  Stupid to feel possessive about a woman he’d only spent two nights with.

  “We’ll keep you healthy, too, of course,” she added, her voice still seductive.

  “Protect me as a cop?” That could be an advantage. Maybe he’d transfer over to SWAT—or maybe not.

  “Not that part, unless you resign and live full-time in an aerie, with sahirs. Most kubris choose to do that,” she added.

  Quit—and live in a dormitory? No way!

  “Not this one! Give up being a cop, my ass. Who the hell would speak for the dead and find their killers?” He glared at her, the Founders’ Oak tree rising tall and solid behind him. Planted when Belhaven was born, it had stood witness to the tumultuous centuries since.

  “You don’t know who we are and what we do,” Astrid countered. “Or how you’d help by strengthening us. Do you have any idea how much it meant to have a kubri right there when that man was dying? I’d never have saved his life without you.”

  “You’re joking.” He crossed his arms over his chest. He wouldn’t back down for any high-flying nonsense designed solely to get his attention.

  Then he hesitated, the ground under his feet suddenly more unstable than the waves. Astrid—or Andromache—never wasted time during a game on bullshit.

  “Not a bit. That required immense power, since he was within seconds of death.” The muscles in her throat rippled before she went on. “You were incredible, Jake. Thank you.”

  Her tone was so simple that it compelled belief.

  Ice ran through his veins and his knees weakened. He needed to sit down and rethink his world.

  He rubbed his sleeve across his face to wipe the sweat from his forehead.

  “How did you do the rest of it?” he mumbled, keeping his eyes hidden. He couldn’t look into her glowing green gaze and think straight.

  “I warded the elevator cab against the shooter. After that, his gun locked up on him.”

  Wards. Holy hell, he was standing here, looking at Washington, D.C., and talking about magickal wards.

  But did anything else describe what had happened? The assassin had yanked his hand out of the elevator, then run away as if that web of purple lightning burned him.

  “How did you heal the marshal?” Maybe the next question would put a hole in her explanation.

  “My talent is battle m
agick, not healing, so I probably overdid that.”

  Delicate Astrid wielded battle magick?

  “I linked to you, summoned power through you—”

  “The memories of St. Anne’s?” They’d felt like the anchor his father always promised.

  “Yes. Do you mind?”

  “No, not a bit.” He chewed on his lip and went with his gut. He had to be going nuts. “Did you create a specific picture of what you wanted his body to do?”

  “Not at all.” She shook her head like a girl presented with too many options at the ice cream parlor. “I told you, I’m not a healer. If I were, I’d have knit it together just enough to last until the EMTs could take over. That way, nobody would suspect magick.”

  Oh crap, this was making too much sense. He could hear all the other cops and hospital staff talking now. But she hadn’t been there to listen.

  “Instead, everybody thinks we’re the luckiest dudes on the planet because so many bullets whizzed around that elevator and we only took scratches.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Shit, you honsestly are the real thing.” How could he use this news to solve the Melinda Williams investigation?

  “Told you so.” She tugged her heavy quilted coat closer. “But you can’t mention it to anybody, remember?”

  The last ledge holding his stomach up slid aside and it plummeted from his knees into the muddy ground.

  Crap.

  She started to walk back up the hill toward the city. And parking or taxis or Metro—or however she planned to leave town.

  Heat stirred back into his blood.

  He couldn’t let her go. If she could work magick for the FBI, then she could do a good deed for him, too.

  “If you’re such a powerful sahir . . .” he shouted.

  He stumbled a little over the last word but who the hell cared when everything was at stake?

  She glanced back at him, her green eyes wide with shock. “What are you talking about?”

  “If you’re such a powerful sahir, then tell me who killed Melinda Williams.” He planted his feet wide and his fists on his hips, the same way he’d stand while dressing down an arrogant rookie.

  She spun around. “That’s not how it works.”

  “Then explain it to me.” He beckoned with a single finger.

  She took a single step closer, then stopped to glare at him.

  “Finding her murderer is your problem, not mine. I look after my country.”

  “What good is that if you don’t help the little people?”

  “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”

  “Bullshit. There won’t be any many if you don’t help the few.”

  “You need honor and a framework for the many to live within, else the beasts will trample the weak.”

  “I cannot turn my back when I see injustice.”

  “That is your job; mine lies elsewhere.”

  Jesus H. Christ, he wanted to wring her beautiful, stubborn neck—then haul her back into his bed.

  “You could help me track the killer.” He softened his voice to his best interrogation room purr.

  “Have you heard anything I said?”

  “I said help, okay? Not do everything yourself.”

  “Why should I trust you?”

  “Six years of gaming together?” Jake suggested.

  She hesitated, then offered a small concession. “Good start.”

  “How about a bet?”

  “You haven’t got anything worth playing for.”

  “Sex—with me.” He put his only asset on the line. If she powered her magick through sex and the best came with kubris like him, then maybe—just maybe—he could make her fine brain stop thinking while she was in bed with him. Then she’d agree to anything, like helping his investigation.

  Lust danced behind her eyes.

  Shit, it had worked. His cock twitched happily.

  “Go on,” she said.

  “You said it’s emotionally tight when sahirs and kubris have sex, right?”

  “Correct.” Her mouth thinned for a moment. “Go on.”

  “We spend one full night together at my place. Each of us tries to drown the other’s senses with sex until somebody cries, ‘Uncle!’ Afterward, the one who wins gets the other’s help for a week.”

  She considered him, her thoughts no more discernible than the river’s currents.

  “You won’t enjoy it if I win,” she warned him. “You’ll have to work for my goals, plus spend your nights with me.”

  “I’ll take the chance. It’s the only way I’ve got to break the case.”

  “I can understand that.” A wry smile twisted her lips. “Very well, you have a bet. I’ll come to your house tonight.”

  Jake blew her a kiss and reassured his gut that such a gamble would work.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The portal outlined its triangular frame in a shower of brilliant sparks, like fireworks burning through space and time to claim territory. Astrid quickly stepped through and shut the door before the void could claim her long, black angora coat.

  A chill breeze brushed her ankles, but she dismissed it with the same haughty runes that wiped out the portal. She was here to win a new kubri for the Guard, dammit, not hesitate over warnings sent by Elswyth about the Council’s squeamishness.

  If the inquisitors hauled her in, she’d assure them she’d always met the spirit of the Shadow Council’s laws—even if not the letter.

  She spun, checking the shadows behind Jake’s house for observers. Knowing his workaholic habits from his pattern of logging in to Argos over the years, she’d arrived here long before he could have come home.

  His backyard was little more than a small brick pad, topped by a barbecue grill. Billowing shrubs, which probably flowered in warmer weather, blocked his neighbor’s view but allowed him to see the Potomac River. Even with early spring’s quarter-inch, pale green leaves, they provided more than enough cover to keep her arrival undetected.

  Perfect. Now to go fight for her prize: A week with Jake as her kubri . . .

  Her breath hitched and steam hung for an instant in the chill air. What decadent visions that thought created! A kubri’s stamina mixed with a sahir’s fire. Jake bent over her, his cock deep inside her, and his thumb rubbing her jaw in a silent request to begin yet again. Jake stretched out beneath her, his eyes wide with joy, as yet another orgasm shook them both. Jake lying half over, half under her, while his big hand toyed with her clit until magick raced like fire through her veins . . .

  The sorceress Medea would have fought the goddess Athena for him.

  Astrid shook herself until silk slithered across her breasts and her hair whipped her neck like tiny knives.

  She was here for the Guard, not herself, remember? Thinking any other way would leave her so distracted she’d lose the bet and maybe start remembering all the reasons why getting involved again was dangerous.

  Heck, why not? She’d try the simple approach first.

  Very, very carefully, Astrid whispered a simple request, then blew sparks over the doorknob.

  It glided easily in her hand, slick as cream sliding down her leg under her lover’s tongue.

  She hissed through her teeth—Dear God, not a plea for attention! —and yanked the solid panel toward her.

  A split second later, the blessed darkness indoors closed around her. Light glimmered briefly off a glass panel and disappeared into well-polished wood. She’d found her way to the library, which she’d glimpsed before from the kitchen.

  Her pulse stuttered then steadied and a single bead of sweat crept down her brow.

  Confidence, tonight was all about confidence.

  A metal rod nudged her chin.

  “Welcome to my parlor,” purred Jake. Hunger and masculine anticipation roughened his voice.

  Astrid froze in place. The gun’s sights nicked the underside of her throat and her heartbeat lurched abruptly. Jake wouldn’t, couldn’t shoot her, not when
the barrel pointed across her neck.

  He clicked something inside his pocket. The desk lamp came slowly alive, resembling the oil lantern it had once been, and revealed her adversary.

  Jake wore full SWAT gear, down to the assault rifle cradled in his arm. Blacker than the room’s shadows, it emphasized all of his masculine advantages, including shoulders broad enough to block out the skies when he catapulted his lover into orgasm. Thighs long and strong enough to set multiple deadly weapons glinting when he moved—and power hours of ecstasy for his partner.

  What a damn unfair advantage, compared to her black coat, which revealed nothing.

  Her idiotic body immediately lit like a beeswax candle. Even the fact that he’d put his M4’s safety on meant nothing. Hell, she’d come here to win, not the other way around.

  “How polite of you to arrive early.” Jake ran his hand possessively down her hip.

  Heat rippled through her skin and centered under his palm.

  “Let me go,” she demanded. At least she hadn’t squeaked, no matter how much his proximity affected her breathing.

  He had the effrontery to chuckle.

  “Or what? You’ll turn me into a frog?”

  “Yes!” she snapped. Her hands lifted into the spell’s first rune. Green and croaking would suit him very well.

  The rifle tightened against her throat and pushed her back against the wall, inches from the door into the living room. Her breasts rose and fell rapidly, until her coat and silk tank top teased her nipples like a skilful lover.

  “What good will victory do you then, Astrid, if you gain it by magick?” he asked very quietly. Ruthless logic cut through his words like a knife. “What will it mean to you? Would you expect me to honor the bargain?”

  She snapped her teeth together before her first, angry answer could brand her a liar. Of course, she’d prefer to win quickly—but it wouldn’t be a fair fight if she used magick and he had none.

  “No,” she whispered. Her body tightened and cream warmed her thighs at the first submission she’d freely given any man other than Gerard.

  “Very good, Astrid.” Approval warmed Jake’s eyes for an instant and his gun caressed her throat. She closed her eyes and fine tremors racked her body. She wanted to faint, she wanted to leap on him, she wanted to beg for more . . .