by Mary Hughes
“I made a spell database that’s kind of like a medical symptoms search. I’ve been looking for a chance to give it a workout.”
“You and your databases.” She gave a watery laugh. “Thanks.” She meant more than just the hex.
“You’d do the same for me. Hmm. Invisible, repelling magic but not physical attacks?” More clacking of keys. “It’s a hide spell, Sophia. Masking Noah’s magic, and now the hex.”
“Yeah, but a reveal removes a hide. Why didn’t Jayden’s reveal remove Noah’s hide? It removed his own.”
“Jayden?”
“Never mind. It would take too long to explain. What kind of spell sticks through a reveal…?” She smacked her forehead. “Gabriel, your dearest sister is a couple cackles short of a full witch today.” Mason had just been talking about it. The Challenge Fight field had a hide spell—fueled and renewed by talismans. “Noah’s wearing something magical that’s supporting the hide.”
“A ring? Earring? What does he always wear?”
“I don’t know…wait. Yes, I do. His wolf pendant. Unless Jayden had seen Noah shirtless, he wouldn’t know about it.”
“Shirtless?”
Flames hit her cheeks. “Look, does your database tell you what breaks a hide-covered hex?”
“Just use the Laws of Precedence. Break the top spell first. The hide. But the hide won’t break as long as the pendant renews it. Ergo, he has to take the pendant off.”
“Right.” Could a dog remove a pendant that had shifted in with him? Arcane Animals hadn’t taught her that.
She’d worry how Noah would remove his pendant while she drove back. “I have to go. Thanks for everything.”
About to sign off, she stopped. “Gabriel. I love you.”
A sharp inhale let her know he understood. She might not survive the day. But he only said, “I love you too, Sophia. Be careful.”
She put her phone away and started for the front door.
A melodious voice said, “Wait.”
She spun. A handsome older man, his thick auburn hair frosted at the temples, stood with his powerful frame filling the doorway between the kitchen and the store.
Strangely, she wasn’t scared. Somehow the man was familiar. Reassuring.
He raised a small cardboard box, like fancy bath salts, holding it out to her. “You’ll need this.”
“What is it?”
“Loose blue chalk. Your aunt uses it to mark patterns.”
Her phone beeped again. Fifteen minutes. And she still had to navigate the barge masquerading as a vehicle back upstream, worse because she’d parked it facing east and it took a small country to do a U-turn.
She hurried to him and took the box. “Well. I don’t know what I’ll need it for, but thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” He winked one green eye.
As she trotted out, she realized that green eye’s pupil was oddly elongated. A cat’s eye.
Good grief. That was Mr. Kibbles.
She managed to get the monster truck turned around by circling the block, only crunching two Minis on the way. Not really, but it was a near thing. She screeched to a halt outside the store and ran inside.
No Jayden. She ran to the garage. No Mason, no Noah. She sprinted out the people door.
The pack already circled in the field. It goosed her heart rate.
Shifters, both wolf and human, concentrated on the center. Wolf Ivan, standing amid the tall grass, howled his challenge. A heavyweight to wolf Noah’s super-heavy, but the rat dog would be outclassed like a sack of flour trampled by a hippo.
She couldn’t see Noah. Hopefully she’d gotten here before him—
“Start!” Mason called.
That kicked her heart into race.
Ivan leaped forward. Tall grass waved in the other direction, like a tiny nuclear submarine was displacing the tillers.
Noah, plowing through the grass, too short to be visible.
Ivan the Wolf didn’t make the connection. He stopped abruptly and howled again, triumphantly, and definitely premature.
Noah leaped into view and sank needle-sharp teeth into Ivan’s underbelly.
Ivan yowled. He reared back and spun, flicking Noah off like water. The poor little dog tumbled into the grass. Ivan bounded to the other side of the ring where he fell to his back to lick his belly, whimpering.
She shouldered her way through to the front of the circle. Noah staggered to his feet, barely visible even close up.
The wound on his flank had opened again, oozing blood. His fur was matted with it and caked with grass and dirt. He shuddered on his little legs. He tried to take a step but was as stiff as a marionette.
Damn that poison. If they survived this she was turning Killer into a snake. Better yet, a politician. “Noah! Your mother’s medallion.”
Bonnie booed. “No coaching!”
Sophia gave her a hairy eyeball, the facial equivalent of the finger.
Noah yipped. When she turned her attention to him, his trembling eased and his ears perked forward. She touched her white wolf. He said, I knew you’d come.
“I only left to figure out the hex. When your mother gave you the medallion, did she do anything special?”
“Shut up and fight,” Clyde yelled.
Ivan stopped licking. With a growl he shook himself, rolled to his feet and started for Noah.
My mother kissed it. Noah turned to face Ivan.
Activated with love. The most powerful magic of all.
But there had to be a word or words. “What did she say?”
Too late. Ivan bounded the diameter of the circle toward Noah. Hunched down, hiding in the grass, Noah didn’t answer. She held her breath. If Ivan fell for the same trick again, Noah might actually win this fight.
Ivan screeched to a halt, toenails digging dirt, mere inches outside Noah’s kill zone. Life was just a bowl of fuckberries.
Outside Noah’s kill zone but not outside Ivan’s. The wolf snapped up Noah’s sturdy little dog body in huge deadly jaws.
Sophia gasped. Noah, as a wolf, had cracked the spine of a stag. What could Ivan do to a small dog?
“Stop!” Her heart hammering, she tried to burst into the ring. Hands grabbed her, held her back.
Ice exploded in her stomach as Noah squirmed and Ivan chomped—Noah wriggled loose. He fell out of Ivan’s slobbery mouth, little legs scrambling. She breathed in relief, too soon.
Noah was no cat. He hit the ground hard and lay gasping on his side for what seemed an eternity.
Ivan pounced. Sophia struggled harder against the hands.
Noah managed at the last minute to suck in a breath, tuck his legs and roll away, but he was slow and stiff. Damned poison.
Ivan spun on his paws, toenails scuffing up divots, and quickly shifted direction. He pounced again.
Noah rolled the other way. While Ivan scrabbled to change direction again, Noah creaked to his feet. He skittered to the side, but his limbs were awkward and his whole body shouted his pain.
Ivan scrambled to come around. Even injured, Noah had more maneuverability, but Ivan had the greater reach. The wolf leaped again. Noah didn’t change directions so much as prance stiffly sideways, barely evading Ivan.
Sophia shook off the hands by backing out. Once loose she ran around the circle, following Noah, her fingers pressed to her wolf so hard her skin dented. “Noah, it’s vital. What did your mother say?”
Ivan reared and spun on his hind legs, practically turning inside out before charging again. Noah shot one directed mental push at her before spinning to face Ivan.
Hide.
Ivan opened his jaws, fangs big as Noah’s face, and chomped him.
She screamed.
Noah wasn’t there. He’d dived between Ivan’s legs. Ivan followed him, trying to bite him, and
threw himself into a somersault.
Sophia forced herself to breathe. Now she could break the spell. All she had to do was get Noah to remove his medallion.
Which would reveal his wizard magic.
It hit her then, the question of why Noah’s mother had walled off his magic in the first place. That took a death sacrifice. What was so vital that she’d died to prevent anyone from knowing Noah was a wizard?
The answer stunned her with its simplicity. Its horror.
Rodolphe’s siphon. It pulled magic from shifters—just like the siphon invented by the evil wizard Phere Burgot. Worse, Burgot had created a second siphon—one that sucked a witch’s power directly from her body.
Centuries had passed and Burgot was dead by now. But maybe another such evil wizard had risen. A strong dual, having both innate magic and power?
Noah would be an evil wizard’s wet dream come true.
Things rearranged in her mind. Noah’s original alpha fight, thrust on an immature alpha, this alpha challenge—all to force him to reveal his magic?
No, impossible. Magic wasn’t detectible in a person, only on a thing or in a spell—and even that only while the spell was active. Even after Noah used his power, nobody could trace him by it…
Except his familiar.
Noah’s revealed power would call his familiar to him. If the evil mage followed the familiar… Damn it, she couldn’t remove the hide spell.
“Go Ivan!” Bonnie shouted.
Ivan ran after Noah with jaws snapping.
Noah dodged, slower. He was tiring. Then one dodge was too late.
Ivan slapped Noah with a paw like a hockey stick. The small dog flew into the circle of observers, bounced and hit the ground. He staggered drunkenly to his feet. His wound had opened completely, blood spilling.
Sophia’s heart shot into her throat, pounding frantically. Her mouth went dry. It didn’t matter who was after Noah or even why—if she didn’t remove the hex, Ivan was going to kill him now.
She ran around the circle. “Noah, take off the medallion. Hurry.” She had to believe his Canidae could shed a necklace his human wore.
He growled, started wriggling. A moment later, the pendant popped out of nowhere.
In her head, a single bell sounded, the deep, resonant gong of prophecy fulfilled.
HEART begins to beat.
Awe flooded her. She trembled—then clamped down on it. Job to do. She snapped open her third eye.
And saw…nothing. No spell shimmered into sight over the hex. She’d expected, once the hide spell wasn’t continuously fueled, that it would become visible on the etheric. Whoever had crafted the spell was powerful and subtle. Even her third eye was blind.
She grabbed her wand out of her pocket, wound up, and hit Noah with a reveal. “Revoke Hide.”
She’d pulled power without regard. The final funeral seal reverberated with the spell. Waves of pain and nausea juddered through her, bending her double.
A halo sparked around the dog and showed…nothing.
Her temples were pounding. Great galloping ghosts, who the hell could cast a spell that wouldn’t reveal? Not even Gabriel could do that.
She was officially screwed. Without a way to see the hide spell she couldn’t revoke it. She couldn’t even weaken it.
Ivan pounced. Noah twisted but didn’t get away fast enough. Ivan bounded after and caught Noah’s rump with a swat, sending him stumbling.
Noah was definitely tiring now. Eventually he’d make another mistake and then a fatal mistake.
Seeing the invisible was impossible, so what? She had to do it anyway, and she had to do it now.
A beam of sun hit her in the eye, dancing with dust.
An omen…no, a clue. Light beams were invisible, but dust revealed them. The hide spell might not be invisible if the loose blue chalk Mr. Kibbles had given her was magic.
She jammed her wand between her teeth and fumbled out the small box. Inside, a baggie with a twist tie confronted her. She untwisted, her fingers starting to sweat because it was entirely possible she was twisting the wrong way and actually making it more impossible to get at.
The wire fell apart. The baggie gaped. With a relieved huff she scooped out a handful of blue powder, sparkling in her Witch’s Sight. Magic chalk dust.
Ivan pinned Noah to the ground with one paw. Noah kept twisting, barely avoiding Ivan’s snapping jaws.
Heart hammering, Sophia threw the handful over the struggling pair.
“Hey,” Bonnie said. Sophia ignored her.
Fuzzy strands sparked blue around the dog. Added benefit, Ivan sneezed, his paw coming up.
Noah wriggled out, panting and wheezing—his bright red blood smeared along the crushed grass.
No time for subtlety. Nothing held back. What the hell. She should have died four years ago.
Time to go out with a bang.
“I sing silver, I sing gold.” She grabbed her wand out of her teeth and threw it at Noah. “Hide—revoked.”
She smashed her last dome.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Sophia hit the funeral seal so hard the dome exploded. Her full power blared free. It sang forth exuberantly, streaming after the wand toward Noah.
The magic she’d used to confine it—the death sacrifice—flew back into her. The kick was so hard it folded her in two. All the air expelled from her lungs in a shocked gasp.
But that wasn’t where she felt the brunt of it. Head, hands—heart.
The death magic exploded directly into her heart.
Her chest crushed with dark pain. Heart attack. She had maybe a second of consciousness to grab back her released power and use it to try to save herself.
A second Ivan would use to kill Noah.
A flight attendant once told her why, in an airplane, if the cabin suddenly depressurized, people were instructed to put on their own air mask before helping others. “Don an air mask, help another, save two lives. Help another who can’t help you, and you’ve only saved one.”
But in a plane, she’d have a few moments before oxygen deprivation killed. She had a second or two at the most, and so did Noah.
Her or him.
She chose him.
Her magic blasted into the flying wand just as it struck the hide spell. The wand sliced cleanly through.
Frayed ends of spell popped up as she keeled over. She lay on crushed grass, gasping, unable to breathe. Black tunneled her vision. She was heading into unconsciousness.
But as she lay there a strange thing happened. A magic wind rose, catching the frayed hide spell and unwinding it. The wrappings fell away. The hex underneath started to unravel. Strip after strip came loose.
Golden light lanced out from underneath.
Like a beached fish, she gasped on the crushed grass, wondering what was keeping her alive but even more awed by what she was seeing with the last of her etheric sight. Golden light was heavy-duty power, not simple shifter magic or even the power wielded by most wizards.
As strip after strip of hex unwound, more light bled through, brighter and brighter. Green hissed as Noah’s poison just burned away.
Her forehead broke out in beads of sweat. It looked like the mother of all primal magics was about to break free.
The hex tore. A blinding sheet of white light burst forth on the etheric. Colors danced in afterimage on her third eye, shards of blue and green and yellow.
With it burst a torrent of memory.
A small boy, dark-haired, stood in a warm kitchen. He had a cookie. He turned toward Sophia.
It was Noah.
He smiled. “This is great!”
A tall woman in a slacks and a ruffled white apron appeared next to him. Her tawny hair descended in thick waves to the band at her waist. Her eyes were the same shape as Noah’s, her nose t
he same elegant length. Their hair and mouths were different but even with the distance of memory Sophia could see this was a shifter, and his mother.
Noah’s mother raised her head suddenly, her nostrils flared. “Simon.”
A robed man appeared behind them. Sophia’s breath hitched.
It was a wizard prince.
His hair was black like Noah’s. His mouth…that was Noah’s sensual mouth.
“I hear,” the wizard said. He had Noah’s deadly stillness. “Take the boy out front…” His brows compressed and his eyes faded as if he was staring far into the distance. Then they snapped back to Noah’s mother. “No. They’re coming that way. Go out the back. Take the boy away, Hayley. Quickly.”
It was memory, colored with a child’s limited understanding. Witches had a technique to join memories with later adult perception, something like television captioning. With the last of her conscious will, Sophia synched up Noah’s for him.
“Mother/Hayley/shifter,” floated under the tawny-haired woman. “Hard man/Simon/wizard,” was under the man.
Noises came from outside. “Bad men,” the caption read. Then… “Wizards. Hunting.”
Hunting…oh God. They were hunting Noah.
Simon pushed Hayley to go, then ran the other way as Noah’s mother hustled Noah outside.
“Meeting the bad wizards,” read the caption.
It erased.
Slowly came, “Holding them off. Fighting.” The revised caption was dusted with surprise.
The memory played on. Wizards burst around the side of the house in a whirlwind of magic. Hayley grabbed Noah to her. The tightness of her grasp, the shaking of her body, told Sophia the woman knew they were dead.
Suddenly Simon appeared, wedging himself bodily between the attacking wizards and his family.
“Jumped,” read the caption, but Sophia knew that wasn’t right. Without training, Noah wouldn’t know his father had transported, a horrendous power suck and rarely done. Yet Simon had used it to get there in time, to get between the wizards and Hayley and Noah. By the way Simon staggered, Sophia knew it took almost everything he had.
Not only very powerful, he must have loved them very much.
