by K. F. Breene
“You aren’t dead, so you clearly escaped. That’s a good sign,” Reagan said, her magic coming in thick waves, pounding into me. Twisting through my energy and seeping into my body, ready to be used should I need it.
“I am very dangerous right now,” I whispered, just so everyone was on the same page.
“That’s a good thing,” Reagan replied, just as quietly.
“When that druid was after me, I’d never had so many forewarnings come in the space of two days,” Emery said. His gaze stayed pointed in one direction, not locking on anything. He clearly knew the general area the creature was hiding, but the fact that he couldn’t pick it out, when he could spot vampires, was…disconcerting.
“I don’t like this. Let’s get out of here,” I said, ready to sprint. Fighting against a shadow didn’t appeal to me. I hated the unknown.
“Did you get him in the end?” Reagan’s fingers tightened their grip on my shoulder.
“I did get her in the end,” Emery said. “When you can see them, it’s like battling any other extremely fast, extremely capable magical fighter. Their power is in their ability to hide in plain sight, as you said.”
“Yeah, there is some serious danger nearby.” Reagan’s fingers jerked on my shoulder as she turned and looked the other way. “I used to feel like this before I could see through the vampires’ invisible sheets.”
“You can see through those?” Emery asked, his voice calm and breathing even. He was readying for battle. “That must make things easier.”
“Much.”
“Cool, yeah,” I said, picking up the pace. “Invisible sheets, yeah. Is it following us, do you think?” That foreign magic swirled in front of me before moving on to Emery, still exploratory. “It’s sussing us out. Trying to get a read on us, I think. I don’t get vicious intent from it.”
“That doesn’t mean it doesn’t plan to kill us,” Reagan murmured. “Most of them are healers and nature lovers. Peaceful folk. Only a select few get the warrior strand of magic. They don’t go into battle with rage or aggression; they do it with a sense of business economy. And even when they’re on the attack, they keep their finger on the pulse of peace. Or so I have always heard.”
“That doesn’t even make sense.” I licked my lips and realized Reagan had been right in that the slow buildup to trouble was the absolute worst. It was better when it came at you quickly, like ripping off a Band-Aid. “We need a plan.”
“The bar is just up ahead. Let’s go in,” Reagan said. “Let’s see if it follows.”
“Christopher Walken’s yoga pants,” I muttered with a tight jaw. I could feel shifter magic pulsing from the bar, claiming it and warning off those looking for trouble. It was probably something that had always been there and I just hadn’t noticed it before, but right now it was not helping keep me calm.
“Christopher Walken’s…yoga pants,” Emery said, pulling the terms apart slowly, like he was examining them.
“Just have Penny swear at our watcher,” Reagan said drolly. “He’ll get annoyed and take off.”
At the door to the bar, I took a deep breath, feeling that pulse of power. Knowing I was bringing in all sorts of trouble, and not wanting an attack from both sides.
“Why did we stop?” Reagan asked, watching the street.
I sucked in a breath and walked in. The layout was the same as it had been on my last visit—tables along the right and a large square bar to the left with an open area in the middle—but everything looked way fresher. New paint, redone bar, and the far side, the gathering area beyond the bar, looked totally new.
“Did he renovate?” I asked, choosing the right side of the bar instead of the more popular and busier area beside the bar.
“Is there a hole in the far side?” Reagan asked as we crossed the threshold as a group.
“No…”
“Then yeah, he renovated.” Her body braced as we eased farther into the bar, probably a preparation in case the watcher would surge in after us.
“Penny, can you feel any magic?” Emery took his forearm out of my grasp and grabbed me instead. He clearly expected some sort of attack, too.
“No,” I said. “Nothing out of the ordinary. Though maybe the potent shifter magic is overpowering it.”
“How about mages?” Reagan asked, glancing at Emery before looking to the far side of the bar.
“I only feel shifter magic.” I sorted through all of the various waves of magic meandering around the room. “A bunch of it.”
“As Roger calls in more people, they’ll head toward the shifter bars.” Reagan relaxed slightly, her hand loosening on my shoulder. “This will be a dead giveaway to the Mages’ Guild. Darius better hurry up with that plan, or we’ll have to go in without one.”
I shook my head, but there was no point in arguing with her. She wasn’t the one in charge. Not until she forcefully took over, anyway.
She ran her hand through the air and dissipated the concealment spell around us. Emery tugged on my arm, his eyes on the door, but he headed for the bar counter. “Watch those shadows,” he said, resting his forearm on the wood.
I backed into his body, letting my attention wander and muting most of my senses so I could focus on the magic around me. The strands and playful twists drifting and lingering in the air. It was the way I could help the best.
“Oh hey, I didn’t know you were back in town.”
I recognized that deep, gruff voice. Joe, the shifter bar owner who had given Emery and me shelter when we’d needed it the most. We’d been a danger to him, and he’d done it anyway. He wasn’t the sort to cast aside friends in need.
“No way. Get her out of here,” he yelled.
Unless Reagan was involved…
Peeling an eye open, I found yet more proof of my theory: Reagan and shifters typically did not get along. And now we were going to be thrown out of relative safety, directly into the path of whatever waited for us outside.
14
“Get her out.” Joe flung his finger toward the door as he stalked toward us, thunder clouds on his face as he stared at Reagan. He was a wolf, I remembered, and I felt the call of the forest and the thrill of the hunt as he neared. Similar to Roger, but slightly different from the feel of Red the dog. Huh. I could decipher the differences in shifter animal. I wondered if that mattered.
“Emery, what are you doing messing around with her?” Joe stopped in front of us, and I could see people on the other side of the bar turning and trying to look through the island of liquor bottles to watch the show.
“I’m trying to keep a low profile, bro,” Emery said quietly, his eyes still on the door.
“Then you shouldn’t have brought this chick in here with you.” Joe braced his large hands on the bar. His big arms bulged with muscle, leading up to a wide girth of shoulders and down to a brick of a body. Most shifters were impressively muscled, but Joe was a solid boulder.
“That is highly unfair,” Reagan said, spreading her hands in front of her. “I wasn’t the one that blew up your bar. Guild flunkies picked a fight with me.”
“You blew up the bar?” I asked her.
“Did she blow up the bar…” Joe’s voice rose an octave. People ducked out of the concealment of the back portion of the place and drifted toward the clear area at the end of the bar, emerging to catch the drama. “Yes, she blew up this bar! I just got it fixed up last month. And you want to come back and wreak havoc again?”
“Darius footed you the money while you waited for the insurance to kick in, didn’t he?” Reagan asked. “We took care of it.”
“You okay, Joe?” someone called from the far corner.
“Don’t know. I might need help tossing out some riffraff,” he said. “No offense, Emery, but you should’ve seen this place. She blew the whole side and back half off. That room you use sometimes—oh hi, Penny—well, that was gone. Blown to shit—”
“Yes, but…” Reagan put up a finger, “I would like to take this opportunity to remind
you, once again, that a mage blew up your bar. Not me. I was an innocent bystander, like everyone else.”
“An innocent bystander?” Joe’s magic flared. “You pushed those mages to do it. You practically egged them on!”
She crinkled her nose. “I think we’re remembering different events.”
His magic pulsed harder. “You think we’re—”
“Look, look, look, hey, hey—” Emery leaned in and put his hand out between them. Without missing a beat, Reagan took a step back and turned her gaze to the door. There was something to be said for two survivors working together. And then there was me, the square peg. “Ordinarily, I’d get her out of here. You know I would, Joe. But you must know why we’re here.”
Joe took a deep breath, staring at Reagan with anger-heated eyes. “Why is she staring at the door? Who has she got following her this time?”
“Oh, nobody,” she said, her attention not wavering. “Just a druid with an interest in us. No big deal.”
Joe’s face bleached of color. His gaze sought Emery’s. “Is she for real?”
“We didn’t get a glimpse, but I’d bet my life on it,” Emery said, leaning over the bar. “We’re just looking for information. I thought I would check in. Do you have any mages stopping through here anymore?”
Joe shifted, his eyes heading toward the door as well. “If you got a druid out there, you don’t want to be staying in one place. You’d best get behind a ward.”
“Wards don’t keep them out,” Reagan said. She shrugged. “Assuming the rumors are true. That’s why they make the best magical assassins.”
“We’re better off in one location without a lot of shadows.” Emery shifted a little closer to Joe, trying to catch his focus again. “Joe, the mages?”
Joe shook himself a little, fear lingering in his eyes. “Yeah, right, uh…” A line formed between his eyebrows as he tried to snap back to reality. He’d been blindsided by our ragtag crew of mayhem. “Mages—a few. I’ve had a few wander through, eyeballing everyone. They didn’t start any trouble, though. And my people left well enough alone. But the bar is filling up, what with Roger bringing in more people.” Joe paused, as though making sure Emery was in the know. “If any mages wander in now, they aren’t long in leaving.”
“Yeah.” The word rode Reagan’s sigh. “Not good. We should’ve accounted for that.”
“What?” Joe asked, his gaze drifting back toward the door.
“We gonna get service over here, Joe?” someone shouted across the bar.
“He’s talking,” Reagan called back. “Mind your manners, or I will mind them for you.”
“Don’t you start.” Joe leveled a finger at her. “Do not start a fight in my bar. Roger might have a soft spot for you, but he does not own this bar.”
Reagan huffed and glanced at Joe. Her smile grew as she took in the serious look on his face. “If that hard mug is Roger with a soft spot,” she said, returning her gaze to the door, “I’d hate to see what he’s like with an enemy.”
“Yes, you most certainly would,” Joe said.
“Do you have any information on how the Guild is preparing?” Emery asked, his voice still low.
Joe glanced behind him, looking suddenly uncomfortable. He held up a finger to the crowd that had gathered across the bar. “Just hang on a sec, will ya? Let me sort them out, and I’ll be back.” On his way around the bar, he pointed at Reagan again. “Don’t mess with anything. I’m watching you.”
“You are very jumpy, Joe. Very jumpy.” Reagan rolled her neck. “I’m getting a bad feeling.”
Emery’s eyes hazed over for a moment, and I knew it was a premonition that warned him when someone or something was about to deliver him—or me—a death blow. He frowned and wrapped his arm around my waist. “We’ve got trouble.”
Magic cocooned us, ready to rip out the second an attack struck. But nothing happened.
“What’d you see?” I asked, noticing shifters still peering at us with interest through the island of bottles. Joe must’ve told them who we were. Basically, the crew many of them would be working with soon.
“A…warning, of sorts.” He shook his head and turned to face the door before shifting to look at the wall behind us, loosely draped in shadow. “I’ve seen one like it before, but that last one was a vision of you. Back in New Orleans. They’re not like the usual premonitions…they’re just warnings. I can’t describe it. I don’t know how to get out from under them.”
“Easy, take down the Guild,” Reagan said, bristling. She glanced behind at the wall. “Something’s not right.”
“No.” Emery let out a slow breath. He rolled his shoulders. “It isn’t. We gotta go.”
“I agree. Dang. Joe looked like he was going to spill something juicy. And if I know his type, he won’t want to tell Roger. He’s got a wife and kids; he doesn’t want to endanger them by getting wrapped up in danger.”
“How…do you know all this?” Emery asked in confusion.
“What kind of woman do you take me for—someone who doesn’t learn about people before I instigate their bars getting blown up?” She stepped toward the door, looking behind her again. “Come on. Get away from that wall. I feel like something is going to bust through it.”
“I have absolutely no danger warnings,” I mumbled, closing my eyes and feeling the magic. “Did that goblin kill my Temperamental Third Eye? Because that is going to be a problem.”
“God you’re weird.” Reagan’s boots clunked on the floor as she stepped farther away.
It hit me like a shot, making my body tingle and my legs shake. My flight reflex roared to life, insisting I get the hell out of that bar.
“Never mind. In good working order. Let’s go, no time to lose.” I blinked my eyes open and lunged after Reagan, but put on the brakes a moment later, making Emery slam into my back.
Magic surged up from outside, blackened and putrid and awful. Twisted elements rolled and surged, vile intent dripping from them and infecting everything in the vicinity.
Slice. Maim. Destroy.
“Mages, and they know we’re here. That, or they are after the shifters.” I clutched Emery’s arm. “Back door. Or do we fight?”
A loud bang sounded from the other side of the bar, followed by an explosion. The building shook and people shouted. Shifter magic exploded and the sound of ripping clothes filled the air as several people changed form.
Reagan ripped her sword off her back. “We’re in it to win it, folks. Prepare for battle.”
15
“Don’t freak out, don’t freak out.” I yanked open the compartments of my utility belt and drifted off to the side of the others, the three of us making a loose triangle. The power stones throbbed in my belt, and I lifted a couple of them out and placed them on the bar. If we had to run, I wanted to snatch them as quickly as possible.
Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky sent out a pulse of power. Emery’s Plain Jane throbbed.
“Here we go,” I said, sucking in a breath as adrenaline flooded me.
Magic tumbled through the door, hot and sticky and oh so vile. It felt wrong, worked in a way contrary to nature and fused with only the most evil of intentions.
That made it weak. Unbalanced.
I started a weave to counter it, but Reagan was already there, zipping open her fanny pack, smashing an empty casing against her sword and mumbling, “Fuckity-fuck-shitty-fart.”
“What is she doing?” Emery said, glancing at the back of the bar. More shifters were transforming on the other side as magic rolled in from the front like a barbed wheel. People or animals darted this way or that, chaos reigning with the surprise.
“She’s pretending to cast a spell, remember?” I said, reaching forward to join our half-formed spells. “You’ve seen her do it before.”
“Not with the swearing. Get back,” Emery yelled, pushing the counter-spell toward the jagged, destructive thing attempting to mow down the shifters.
“We were in the wrong place at the ri
ght time,” I said, jogging a little closer to the door and turning so I had the best angle. “They were after the shifters.”
“Seems so.”
“Boy will they get a nasty surprise,” Reagan said in a singsong voice. She was in her element.
More magic flashed through the front door. Reagan pounced, hacking through the spell with her sword. The fragments of it withered away, not drifting into nature as they should’ve.
“This magic isn’t right,” I yelled over the din. “It leaves a bad taste in my mouth.”
A concussion of air blew through the other side of the bar, a silent explosion. Debris from the back area slapped the walls and tumbled across the floor. The mages were clearly trying to pose a double-pronged attack on the front and back.
“Do you feel a difference between the magic coming at the front and the back?” Emery asked, zipping off another spell across the room. “Because I don’t. Middle power level, no creativity. If they’d show themselves, I could take them down easily.”
“I’m on it!” Reagan darted out of the front entrance, clearly forgetting the freaking warrior creature that was loitering out there somewhere.
“Hurry,” I said to Emery, rushing forward with her.
Before I could make it outside, a body flew in at me. I jumped back just in time, the man windmilling his arms before tumbling into the barstools at the bar and landing on his face. Reagan’s words rolled in after him. “There’s one.”
“She’s nuts,” Emery said, spreading a spell over the struggling body. I weaved in a little of Reagan’s magic, hardening the air and making the guy lie still.
“Got more out here,” Reagan yelled from somewhere outside the door. She grunted. “I’m not so easy to sneak up on, you fecking turdswallop!” Another body tumbled through the door.
“It sounds like a really bad word when she says it.” As I helped Emery secure the newest mage, I felt Reagan’s magic drift away, too far for me to use it. She was probably chasing someone. “Right, she’s got this entrance covered. Let’s close down the back.”
