Curse of Iron

by D. D. Miers

  Tracy Mills. I squeezed him back to let him know I heard him and took a step back so our hands were barely touching. I could feel his animal demanding release. His control was perfect, giving me enough power to boost my own magic, without forcing the shift on himself. This is why you should be alpha, I thought to myself, and I felt the beast agree with me. It startled me, but I filed it away for later and focused on the task at hand.

  I buried my Wiccan magic and let my Fae power sweep through the garden, touching each flower and blade of grass as I identified the people Grayson had smelled. The garden responded to my touch and the bushes and trees bloomed like it was spring, with a sweet wholesome perfume.

  Tracy Mills was standing just off the property on the street, watching me. “Hey, detective, why am I not surprised you’re here, instead of where I was attacked?”

  She came into view at the base of the walkway but didn’t set foot on the property. “What do you mean, you were attacked?”

  I shook my head at her and turned my attention to the ward. It was simple, but extraordinarily strong, and I felt a twinge of respect for the detective’s skill and control. In her position, it could have been tempting to show off her power, remind the humans on her team she was more than they could ever be. Instead, she created the minimum necessary, but it was perfect, warding for only exactly what she needed, which was to keep me out without imprisoning those inside.

  Beside me, Grayson gestured to her, inviting her to come closer. “Detective, you’re in no danger here, but Morgan’s life is. Please rethink this vendetta of yours.”

  “You’ve been sucked in by her lies, Mr. Xenos. Don’t you remember you came to me to demand justice for your alpha just days ago?”

  “And I still want justice,” he replied as I bristled. “But I’ve seen enough to know it wasn’t her. I’ve seen the man who killed my friend and framed her. He was probably the one to later attack her in her apartment, and he did again at the gym downtown.”

  “The tests came back, Mr. Xenos. It was Wiccan magic, performed by a Fae.”

  He nodded. “I know. Like I said, I’ve seen the Fae who did it, and she barely escaped him and his gang just minutes ago.”

  “A Fae with witchcraft,” she drawled.

  I nodded. “A magicless Fae with a dark warlock.” She frowned at me realization dawning in her eyes.

  “A dark warlock? That’s against…That’s against the covenants.” She scoffed and pinched the bridge of her nose and glared at me again. “How long have you known?”

  “About the dark warlock? A couple of years. I don’t judge people based on what witches think of them, detective. But this warlock’s actions are dangerous. He’s trying to hurt the shifter coalition and get me executed. People dying matters a lot more to me than if some humans get a little magic.”

  She didn’t speak, and Grayson looked at the rising moon before giving me a glance. Time was short, and I didn’t believe the warlock would stop just because a few police were present. He was too close to his goal. My death, and I assumed, Grayson’s as well.

  I leaned into the ward again, letting my magic flow over it until I could define every element she’d used to create it. She felt me testing her, so she pushed extra energy into it. I knew I could wear her down like I had Will, but there wasn’t time for it. It was the final minutes of the deadly game I’d been forced into, and I wasn’t about to lose after almost twenty-five years of barely surviving.

  She pushed at me again, stinging my skin where it was closest to the ward, and I used the push to feed my power back at her. I spread my hands and pressed them into the ward itself, ignoring my burning palms as I fed on her magic the way I had the shifters. I poured the magic back into it, creating a feedback loop, shorting her out and collapsing the wall of energy completely.

  “I’m going inside, detective,” I panted. “It’s curious, don’t you think, you never even asked us to give you their names?”

  Grayson offered me his arm and I took it, grateful he made it look like a gentlemanly gesture, instead of the support I desperately needed to make it up the stone steps. Without a word she joined us, not touching me, but examining me with her power as I pretended not to notice.

  “That ward should have been impenetrable,” she muttered as Grayson held the door for us. “If there’s a fight coming, you need to be healed first. Even your healing won’t be fast enough.”

  “How do you know about my healing?”

  One corner of her mouth quirked up at me, but her eyes held only grief. “You and I have met before. When you were six, and my mother pulled you from the bay and healed you.”

  “I remember her.” She’d been soft all over and smelled like cinnamon and chocolate. I had prayed to Gaia I could stay with the gentle witch, but my aunt had come for me, and I’d found myself another deity to serve, one who couldn’t let me down.

  “She passed away, from an illness the doctors couldn’t figure out.”

  “You think she was killed for saving me.” I looked at her. “I thought you hated me because of the prophecy. You hate me because the covens killed your mother for helping me.”

  She didn’t reply. Her top lip was tucked between her teeth like she was fighting not to cry. She shot Grayson a look and he led the way to the back stairs to his apartment. Shifters stared at us as we passed, and their energy was not friendly. I felt their animals watching us too, demanding to be set free to hunt us. My chest pressed against my heart, my pulse racing, and I reached for the only other witch in the room without thinking.

  The moment I touched her, magic flared between us, and her fingers threaded through mine. I let her feel what I could feel, the beasts just below the skin, pacing, their human halves maintaining careful control.

  “Are we in trouble?” she whispered, and I shrugged.

  “I could not always sense them. Something in them is Fae, and when I finally was close enough, a connection was made.”

  “The wild hunt.” It wasn't a question, so I didn’t answer her. “That’s how they think the prophecy will be fulfilled, you know, that you’ll call the wild hunt and kill us all.”

  “Please. I haven’t even tried to kill Portia, and she deserves it,” I scoffed. “I’m so tired of their evil predilections being attributed to me.”

  “I’m sorry.” It was the first time a witch had said those words to me for any reason, and it stopped me cold.

  “What?”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t look for anyone else in this case, and now more people might die if it comes to a battle. I wanted you punished for my mother. I knew it wasn’t your fault she died."

  I sniffed and cleared my throat, pushing back the tears threatening to choke me. “I don’t blame you, detective. I killed my own mother, why not take the blame for yours, too.”

  Her eyes widened in shock, but before she could respond, a horn sounded somewhere in the building. Grayson grabbed my arm and hurried us out of the stairwell and into his apartment. “Something has crossed the barrier in the arena. I’ve got to go.”

  I didn’t ask how he knew, just waited for him to leave before turning to her. “Are we really going to wait here for him?”

  Tracy chuckled and squeezed the hand she was still holding. “Oh, hell no.” She let go of me before she opened the door and peered into the hall. “Clear.” I kept my back to the wall and crept back to the stairs, checking them like she had before slipping into the stairwell.

  “You’ve got my back, right?” I hissed, and she gripped my shoulder, giving it a quick squeeze. “Shit. We’re going to go down into the center of power for the shifters. I hope you sent your humans home already.”

  “Their orders are to maintain a perimeter and call in backup if they see anything go down.”

  I nodded and started down the stairs. The lobby of the building had emptied, and we made it through the weight room and down to the stone corridors without meeting another soul. No magic tingled over me as we crossed where the first barriers should
have been, and my heart raced faster.

  She tried to move ahead of me, but I shook my head and put my finger to my lips. I touched my ear, signaling for her to listen. From the cavern below us came the sounds of fighting, roars, and screams of pain muffled by the rock between us and the arena.

  With a deep breath, I glanced at her one last time, and began the final descent to the underbelly of the shifter world, praying Grayson was still alive when we found him.

  Twenty-Three

  When the sounds of the battle were ringing in my ears, Tracy pushed ahead of me and drew her gun. But I had something better. Her magic had to be saved for the moment when she had no other choice. There were the rules for supernatural police. But I had magic at the tips of my fingers, and I gathered my power to my core, exhilaration making me laugh aloud at the feeling.

  I’d never held so much magic at once, even when I’d called lightning. My power told me the shifters were mine, to control and protect. My skin felt like it might burst into sunlight, and Tracy gaped at me.

  “Holy shit. No wonder the covens are terrified of you,” she rasped, my magic pouring over her. But I shared with her freely, and her skin began to glow like Grayson’s had. Instantly, I knew what I had to do.

  The cavern was a mass of writhing bodies, mostly shifters, but I felt the warlock’s power as his people jumped from shadow to shadow, attacking and hiding again. Some of the shifters fought each other, some were not attacked by his acolytes, and I realized the barriers hadn’t been defeated from the outside but taken down from within.

  “Detective, I don’t know who to hit.” I glanced at her and back at the bloodbath below us.

  “Okay, who’s fighting with your Mr. Xenos?” I looked for him and saw his dark hair under two hyenas. I pointed, and she shot one of the hyenas in the shoulder. He squealed in pain and jumped back, looking for us, but she grabbed me and pulled me down, crab-walking to another position.

  She tilted her head at me and I nodded my understanding and moved in the opposite direction. I peered over the stone and found Grayson again, one of the few shifters strong enough to still be human, he changed just his hands, elongating his fingers into claws as he dragged the other hyena off his back and threw her against the wall.

  I found the roots behind the wall and drew them out, pinning her to the wall across her forehead, chest, hips, and legs, so she couldn’t fight her way free. I did the same to the male hyena Tracy had shot, picking him up and cocooning him to the ceiling of the cavern.

  Every time a shifter attacked Grayson, I used the roots and plants that were already around us to protect him. thinning the opposition. Shots rang out every few seconds, as Tracy moved around the fighting pit, but just as I saw the flash of her gun and a wolf yelped and fell away from Niall, I saw a man materialize from the shadows behind her position and she screamed.

  “Shit, Grayson, Get the detective!” I yelled, pointing at where she’d been across the room from me as fifty pairs of eyes turned to me. Oh, fuck. I prayed to Dana, and to Gaia, and dropped to my knees, slamming both fists into the ground as I released as much energy as I dared.

  The room quaked, and shale fell from the ceiling on the shifters below drawing cries of alarm from them. I splayed my hands over the stone, spreading my power into the stone, as much to prevent a total collapse, as to search for Will or his warlock-master.

  Niall vaulted the stone wall and crouched by my side. “Do what you must, I’m here for you.”

  “Grayson?”

  “He’s fighting something on the other side, with the human woman.”

  “She’s a witch and a detective. We can’t let her be harmed.” He nodded. “Go to her, I will fight for myself.” He frowned but nodded and raced around the outer ring. As soon as he left, I took out my athame and pierced my arm, using my blood to quickly etch the necessary symbols to keep the shadows closed to the human practitioners.

  The second I felt the spell click into place, he appeared before me. Not Will, or the acolytes I would’ve recognized from the gym, but a pale, impossibly tall man covered in the marks of his trade, from his hairline down his shirtless chest to the waist of his black leather pants.

  The tattoos squirmed over his skin like the living, crawling things they represented, and my head ached from looking at him. “I don’t even know you.”

  He grinned, and my blood chilled in my veins at the sight. Even his gums and tongue were covered in the evil tattoos, and when he spoke, miasma poured from his mouth, thick and evil. “I know you, little Fae.” I was frozen with terror, my throat closed over and I couldn’t scream for help. “You have your mother’s eyes,” he continued, and I whimpered wordlessly, the fear he generated with his magic suffocating my anger.

  “Stop,” I managed to pant, and he laughed, a low, rasping sound that felt like a cheese grater scraping my brain. I’d never felt the level of dread he induced anywhere before. He was dripping in the kind of darkness no one could be close to without feeling it, supernatural or not.

  He raised his hand and a weight fell on me, crushing me. I pressed my hands into the loose earth over the stone and prayed for a living thing to come to my aid. He forced me down to my elbows and knees, my fingers splayed over the ground, sounds of fighting dimming as my focus narrowed to not being crushed under the weight of evil intent.

  Just as I thought I would collapse, I heard a dim roar, and the weight lifted for barely a second. With the reprieve came a rush of shifter power, and I tore through his hold on me and rolled to one side of the concentration of power.

  Blessed oxygen flooded into my lungs and I screamed, my power renewing the earthquake I’d created. Grayson touched my shoulder and his beast sprang to life against my skin. I took power from him because I knew he trusted me, and I continued, taking it from every shifter in the room, calling all their beasts at once. I saw the flicker of triumph in the his black, fathomless eyes, then uncertainty as the power made my skin begin to glow. I fed the glow all my pain, fear, rage, and it became so bright I thought it might burn us all. I took more, and the glow became real pain.

  Niall pressed his furry head into my palm, and I felt Tracy at my back, wounded, but alive, and gratitude flooded through me, increasing my power, until I radiated light so bright I thought my head might explode.

  “I can’t hold it, Gray,” I whispered, hoping he could hear me and understand. “Take Tracy to safety.”

  But no one moved, and the power continued to crescendo until I couldn’t physically contain it any longer. Light sliced through the subterranean shadows, leaving only one man-shaped blotch of black against the backdrop of pure sunlight.

  There were gasps from the shifters in the ring, and screams from the warlock and his acolytes, then…nothing. I crumpled to the floor, burying my head in my arms until the pinpoints of light stopped shooting across the insides of my eyelids.

  Tracy was the first to kneel by my side, as Grayson and Niall padded softly down to their people to survey the damage. The light had broken my bonds, releasing the ones I’d strung up, but the fighting seemed completely done and I couldn’t hear any arguments, only consoling whispers between the leaders and their pack.

  When I finally opened my eyes, the cavern was still lighter than it had been. I glanced up, afraid I’d broken through the floor of the Piedmont with my stupid earthquake, but there were no holes in the roof of the cavern. Tiny spots of light rested in the nooks and crevices of the rock, like lightning bugs roosting among the stones, blinking to each other.

  “Did we do that?” I murmured, pointing at the little flashing lights.

  “One of us did,” Tracy scoffed. “The rest of us were just along for the ride.”

  I didn’t apologize to her, mostly because I wasn’t honestly sure how she’d gotten trapped in the pull of power. The shifters were mine. Not as their alpha, but as their princess, the daughter of the High King. Even if they don’t know it yet. Even if I didn’t know how to go about making them understand.

&nb
sp; Way too much of my life had been spent fearing the witches when the answer had been right in front of my stupid face. My father had never come to claim me, but he hadn’t asked me to be killed, either.

  “I’m not going to let you bring me in for killing Gideon after this, detective.”

  She sniffed at me and started to walk away. “I didn’t help you destroy the warlock just to see you executed by the elders. I think I’ve proven you can trust me.” She limped away from me, taking her phone from her pocket. “Mr. Xenos, how do you propose we take care of the wounded?”

  “Uh, we’ve got it, ma’am.” He waved to me. “How many acolytes did the warlock have? We’ve got four under guard here.”

  “Everyone’s accounted for but Shenna, Grayson,” Niall called out as he climbed up out of the pit.

  I joined them at the far side of the room. Carter, Joy, Alan, and a fighter I’d never actually spoken to were sitting with their backs to each other, their hands bound behind them. “Will’s not here?” I asked, crouching in front of Joy. “Was Will with you tonight?” She spat at me and refused to speak.

  “Will, the gym owner?” Grayson asked, and I nodded.

  “He was handling them, and the warlock was giving him orders." I glanced around. “Where’s Tracy? We need to tell her we’re missing one.”

  “She said she was going to get her team ready to get these guys. I figured we should move them up to the weight room.” Niall lifted Joy over his shoulder like a sack of dirt. “No need for them to come down here, right?”

  Grayson and I agreed, and he called two wolves over to each grab a prisoner. Their tattoos had faded, leaving behind only scar tissue, their power taken when the warlock burned. I ran ahead of them, hoping to catch Tracy and talk her into keeping me out of the report all together.

  I burst through the doors to the pool, only to see Shenna up ahead, dragging Tracy by the hair, the detective’s mouth filled with a gag. Mother fucker. I tried to call plants from the garden outside the window, but I was empty, all my energy spent on one fantastic lightshow.