by K. F. Breene
“How’s Darius doing with the plans?” I asked, looking out at the sometimes-sunny day. Clouds drifted overhead, their color getting darker and more ominous the closer we got to the afternoon. A storm was gathering strength, gearing up to roll through.
Reagan shook her head as she turned the car down the road leading to town. “He’s frustrated. They can’t get close to the Mages’ Guild to check things out. Vlad is the master of cunning, his best people emulate him, and still he lost one of his people trying to get a peek of the front gates. They have spells all over the place.”
“He won’t accept our help,” Emery said, stalling on a picture.
“Are you kidding? And risk the biggest assets in his arsenal? No way. I offered, too, if only to cut down the spells. But the Guild’s security team is standing by in the wood near their compound, and their vampire allies patrol at night.”
“Do they know the elder behind it?” I picked at my nail, anxiety plaguing me.
Reagan sniffed. “No. Ain’t that a bitch? They’ve caught a couple of the vampires now. Vlad tortured one mercilessly, but the vampire couldn’t talk.”
Emery stilled in what he was doing and studied Reagan’s face. “Magically silenced?”
“Seems like it. I couldn’t get there in time to be sure. Vampires decay too fast after they’re destroyed. Whoever is in league with the Guild is hiding their tracks well.”
“So they don’t have to be stuck on that side if they lose?” I asked.
“Maybe.” Reagan shrugged, heading toward the freeway. “Or maybe they know how much they stand to lose if Vlad and Darius figure out who they are before they have the Mages’ Guild locked down. Vampires tend to plan years in advance. Decades, sometimes. Elders are great at maneuvering. Whoever is doing this will have thought through all the pitfalls. The question is if Vlad or Darius can find any holes in their strategy, then exploit them.”
I blew out a breath. “I don’t know anything about Vlad, but Darius seems like a formidable nemesis.”
“Vlad made Darius,” Reagan said softly. “He taught Darius how to be Darius. I’ve learned that they maneuver around each other in a subtle dance. Sure, one would screw the other if they had no other option, but both of them would like to keep from burning that bridge, I think. And yes, they are formidable nemeses.”
“We can’t wait around forever.” Emery resumed looking at the pictures. “We’ll need to crash the Guild’s party sooner or later.”
“Sooner, obviously.” Reagan chewed on her lip. “They’ve already attacked the shifters in town. They aren’t waiting around for us to get our ducks in a row. We need to get going or we’ll lose the upper hand. But we also need an angle with which to engage. Right now, I really don’t think Darius is seeing it.”
I tried to keep hopelessness from weighing me down. We’d be attempting this regardless, and negative thoughts wouldn’t help the situation. Instead, I forced myself to focus on the problem, thinking through the spells I remembered from our attack on the compound and the ones the Guild had used on us in New Orleans. Maybe a pattern existed in the way they did magic.
“It’d be easier if I could get closer and just have a feel,” I said without meaning to, thinking out loud.
“How far away do you have to be for that to happen?” Reagan asked.
“No.” Emery shook his head. “They’ll expect us to try and get a look. If we do, they’ll be ready for us.”
“With what, a color-in-the-lines natural and a bunch of mercenaries in leather capes?” Reagan looked back in the rearview at me, waiting for an answer.
“Watch the road.” I pointed, because sometimes she seemed to forget which direction that actually meant. “And…I don’t know. It depends on the power of the spells they’ve set up, I’d think.”
“No.” Emery stared at Reagan. “No. I can see that you’re thinking about it. No! Two seconds ago you were explaining why Darius didn’t want us anywhere near there—”
“I’m not Darius,” she said.
“And it is a wonder how you’re still alive. No.”
“It’s because I’m tough,” Reagan said as I said, “It’s because she’s crazy.”
“Anyway, we need to make sure the shifters are locked down.” Emery went back to looking at the pictures. He wasn’t having much luck, from what I could see.
Reagan nodded and glanced out the window. I pointed again.
“Roger is expecting us, right?” she asked. “Roger doesn’t have a sense of humor when it comes to surprises.”
Emery glanced at her. “Does Darius not talk to you about these things?”
“He does, but lately he’s been forgetting to shield his thoughts, which are basically cyclical scenarios about how we can all get into the Mages’ Guild unharmed. I have to tune him out or I’ll go crazy.”
“Roger knows, and I’m sure he passed it down. They have to be ready for the woman who chases shifters around the French Quarter with a snarl and a breadstick,” Emery said, laughing.
“Why won’t you guys let that go?” Reagan asked in exasperation.
“Besides,” Emery said, “do you think Darius would trust Penny to go waltzing in there if the shifters didn’t expect visitors?”
“She doesn’t have any more control, huh?” Reagan asked.
“A dual-mage connection doesn’t do anything to help the mages control their magic, it just increases their power level. And the”—he paused—“unity of using it.”
“I heard your unity last night,” Reagan said dryly. “So she’s more dangerous?”
“I like to think of it as…more exciting.” Emery turned back to me and winked.
“So we’re just supposed to check in with their mages and make sure the shifters’ wards and everything are up to speed?” I asked, looking out the window.
“I know this one.” Emery waved a photo while shaking his head. He huffed. “He is as old… Still there, though, obviously. He’s a real piece of work.” Emery flung it onto the dash. “He’s powerful, but he’s—”
“Write it on the back of the photo. I won’t be able to remember everything.” Reagan grabbed a pen from the console and held it up for Emery.
A smile spread across Emery’s face. “You have excellent memory from bonding the vampire. You can remember everything just fine.”
“Right. Good catch.” Reagan slammed on the gas as she pulled onto the freeway on-ramp. “Let me rephrase. Write it down, because it makes no difference to me. Strategy is Darius’s department.”
Emery laughed and continued going through the pictures. “Yes, Fast Fingers,” he said, finally returning to my question. “Our mission is to make sure Roger’s hideout is fortified. At least, that’s why Roger finally relented and handed over the location of his hideout. He thinks someone is getting through their mages’ wards.”
“Mages, plural?” I asked.
“Yes, he employs a group of them.”
“And they aren’t part of the pack?”
Reagan shook her head. “No. They have their own hierarchy and exist separately to the shifter hierarchy. But they answer to Roger as their boss. He relies on them to double-check each other’s work, since he can’t do it. Usually, that seems to work just fine. That I’ve heard, anyway. This is the first time I’ve heard him doubt.”
I brushed the hair out of my eyes, feeling uneasy. “We’re all working together, so why wouldn’t Roger just come clean in the first place?”
“The shifters and the vampires view each other as the lesser of two evils,” Reagan said. “They need each other in order to get rid of the Mages’ Guild, but they don’t trust each other. Just as soon as this is out of the way, the shifters will go back to hunting the vampires.”
“That’s kind of a misuse of power on the shifters’ part.” I loosened my seatbelt and checked in with the crazy magic rolling around my body. I’d been living with my natural magic for nearly twenty-five years. I was used to the feel of it. Now, suddenly, everything was differen
t. I couldn’t sit idle without noticing.
“Oh no, the vampires definitely deserve it.” Reagan nodded as she pulled off the freeway. “Vlad rarely asks people if they want to be vampires anymore. He makes them, then talks them around their panic. And he delights in doing it under the shifters’ noses. He is a special kind of dick, that one.”
“Uh-huh.” I really needed to learn to stay out of it. Magical people had a collective screw loose.
“Penny.” The way Emery said my name made tingles wash over my skin. Without another word, he handed back a picture.
I sucked in a breath. “Mary Bell.” It was three-quarters of her face, as if she’d turned away as the photographer took the shot. Behind her was a line of buildings. Downtown Seattle.
“And…” Emery handed back another picture, and I already knew who it would be. Sure enough…
“John.” I let the pictures fall to my lap, my stomach churning. “They really were recruited.”
“They’re both powerful, and they’ve met you personally,” Reagan said. “They’re desirable. I’m sure they are being treated like royalty. For now.”
“They have no idea what kind of organization they’ve traded into,” Emery said with an edge to his voice, reaching back for the pictures. “They might think things are fine now, but as soon as they aren’t needed for intel, they’ll have to pay their dues like everyone else. Considering how the Guild has changed, that could mean some pretty hair-raising things.”
“Mary would be used to it,” I said as I looked out the window, my heart falling. “She’s sacrificed people in the past.”
“Well then, she’ll fit right in.” I heard Emery shuffling through the remaining photographs.
I shook my head. “I thought she’d learned her lesson. And John…I wouldn’t have believed him capable of that.”
Emery’s movements slowed down until he was very still. Reagan looked over at him with a grin.
“What?” I asked.
“She doesn’t know,” Reagan said to Emery. “Darius was trying to get your dander up by having his assistant hint that Penny had an attachment to John. He was trying to force out your true feelings. She wanted nothing to do with him. You know that, right?”
“He said what?” I leaned forward, trying to see their faces.
Emery gave Reagan a hard look before turning away. “Darius is good at manipulation.”
Reagan laughed. “Very.”
Silence stretched through the car, and I let it. I didn’t feel like asking questions about whatever maneuvering Darius had done. I was still reeling from being wrong. Mary had packed up and headed to Seattle to join the Guild. John, too. They’d chosen to side with an organization that promised wealth and power at the expense of the innocent.
“They need to be taken down,” I said, my resolve strengthening. “Hard.”
Fifteen minutes later, we turned off a small road onto an even smaller one—a one-lane road with dense trees on either side. A wave of mine! rolled over me. I held out my hand to get Reagan to slow down, but Emery spoke before I could. “Stop.”
He looked out the window.
“What are you doing, bird-watching?” Reagan asked.
Emery chuckled, but shook his head instead of commenting.
“It’s like that thing vampires have,” I told him. “The way they mark their territory.”
“I know, yeah.” He leaned forward and braced his forearms on his knees.
I clicked off my seatbelt so I could lean between the seats. “Do you sense something else?”
He leaned back and looked out the window again. “A premonition, but…” He shook his head. “I keep getting these warning premonitions. They’re not about immediate danger. And, like now, it’s not even helpful. All I saw was trees. Trees and shadows.”
“Shadows…like…that druid?” I asked, pushing my magic out and trying to sense if there was any other magic nearby.
“No. The druid had a different feel about him. Something I didn’t sense just now. I only felt…danger. A warning.” Emery shook his head, clearly at a loss.
“Should we get out and walk up?” Reagan asked. “Maybe we should scout it out from down here?”
A horn blared behind us.
We all spun around in our seats. Even Reagan, who had three mirrors she could’ve used instead.
“Oh no,” I said with a release of breath. “Why did you invite them?”
“I thought you did,” Reagan said as Emery said, “I didn’t.”
“They’ve been following us. I just assumed you guys wanted them along for some reason.” Reagan shrugged.
Moss’s Lexus was behind us, with my mother and Callie in the front seats and Dizzy leaning forward from the back, waving.
“Well, this should be interesting,” Emery said.
I didn’t share his optimism.
23
“What were we going to do, stay behind, defenseless?” Callie asked as they met us between the cars.
“Defenseless? You’re dual-mages, and the ward Emery and Penny constructed is unbreakable,” Reagan said.
“Besides,” my mother chimed in, holding out a deck of tarot cards, “I brought my tools. A change of location and influence might give me a different reading. Maybe I can get something that will help Darius.”
This was clearly one of the times when she and Callie had decided to present a united front.
Reagan sighed. “Shifters aren’t as abiding as vampires. They’re a little more rough and tumble. Don’t expect to get your way.”
Callie and my mother both sniffed. Dizzy laughed good-naturedly, his version of sniffing. It was a bad sign.
“What do you think?” I asked Emery, stepping away from the others and joining him as he looked out into the trees.
“I get a bad feeling about these woods. About these shifters in general.” He slipped his hands into his pockets. “It’s almost as if there’s a shadow lurking over us here. I don’t like it.”
I let the electricity in the air run through me, but whatever sense he was getting, I didn’t share it. I felt alive out here. Happy and fulfilled. The lush landscape, unspoiled by people, was the perfect setting for me to roam.
“It has to be a premonition,” I said, taking his hand. “Should we wander through the woods? Send the dead weight to the house ahead of us?” I barely kept from looking back at my mother and the Bankses to show who I meant.
He turned and gestured me ahead of him. “No. Let’s meet with Roger and look at the ward first. We can go from there.”
“House” was a small word for the shifters’ shelter. It was a sprawling mansion, cutting into the hillside and nestled within the trees. The long, winding road up to it only had a few places where two cars could pass, with no walkways or sidewalks for pedestrians. Shifter magic pulsed from one side, then the other, as we drew closer—our progress had been noted and then watched.
The ward was more like a cobbled-together spell with odd seams and strange overlays, something Dr. Frankenstein might have produced. It had a decent amount of power, but it could be exploited in so many different places that I couldn’t do much more than shake my head.
“Nope. This won’t work at all.” Reagan took her foot off the brake and let the car roll slowly through the layer of magic. “And look, we can get in just fine. No biggie.”
Emery was quiet as we parked in a gravel area with three rows of cars. Most of them were SUVs of some sort, the majority with big tires capable of off-roading.
“This is a different sort of lifestyle than the vampires,” I said to myself as I stepped out of the car.
A large gray wolf stood up near the house, its nose twitching as it watched (and smelled) us.
“Where there is one wolf, there are bound to be at least three more,” Reagan said in a low tone, her gaze sweeping the area. “Use your magic. Get an idea of how they’re operating. All of this will be useful.”
I did as she said, feeling four more wolves lurking in the tre
es, surrounding us. Another type of shifter, a prowling sort, was hidden to our left, moving in the opposite direction. “I can feel out pretty far now,” I said to Emery.
“I can only feel close by. It looks like I got a taste of your add-on gift, but not the full potency.” He looked at the sky as my mother and the dual-mages parked and got out of the Lexus. Frankenstein’s ward swirled and glittered, thinner up top than on the sides. That spoke of an off-kilter spell. “We need to get them out of here.”
“Who? My mother and the Bankses?”
“All of them.” He turned and looked out at the trees. “Everyone.”
The door to the mansion opened and out stepped Roger in faded blue jeans and a tight white shirt spreading across his broad chest. Despite his stacks of muscle, he moved with the grace of a predator in its prime. Shoulders back and head held high, he looked like someone who owned the world—and would fight for it tooth and nail if anyone tried to take it from him. His intense dual-colored gaze landed on us.
“Well, now, he is…robust,” my mother said. I could practically hear the drool running out of her mouth.
“Mother!” I said through my teeth.
“What? I’m just appreciating the view. I’m old, not dead.”
Oh my heavens, she was so embarrassing.
Roger stepped down from the porch and stalked toward us, his large arms swinging and his power slapping me in the face.
Emery turned around with fire in his eyes, his whole body flexing, reacting to feeling potent shifter magic for the first time. Roger saw it immediately and slowed, his muscles tightening under his snug clothing.
“Oh my,” my mother said, and I nearly died.
“Whoa, whoa.” Reagan stepped between them and put her hands out. “Hey, whoa.”
“That is just normal shifter magic,” I said to Emery. “He’s a very powerful shifter. This is normal.”
“They became a dual-mage pair last night,” Reagan said to Roger. “Emery picked up a few new tricks that he clearly wasn’t expecting.” She dropped her hands and grinned. “Look at me, stopping a fight instead of starting one. Ha! It’s like I’m growing up.”
