Dire Wolf Wanted

by Carol Van Natta

  A chill went through her. It was the tablet computer that Costigan had rarely been without. Strong instinct said to take it and hide it. Her gift for finding hidden things bonged in her chest like she’d hit a casino jackpot.

  She’d bet the house that it had the sales records she was looking for. Maybe even a clue as to the true owners of the auction operation for Díaz.

  She reluctantly let it go and stood up again, pretending to study the more cryptically marked controls.

  The sad truth was, she couldn’t share her find with the Tribunal team until she first imaged its contents. She’d lost the stars in her eyes as to the righteousness of the Tribunal some time ago. Lingram’s rogue, unwarranted attack on Díaz had just been the latest evidence.

  Besides, the Tribunal wouldn’t share it with the Imperium in time to do any good, and she owed Díaz the chance to achieve his objective.

  And if the Tribunal figured out why she wanted the names from the records, they’d put her under house arrest for the next decade.

  The equally sad truth was that she currently only trusted four people. Her sister, her boss, and Lerro weren’t around, so that left Díaz, or whatever his real name was. Hell, she wouldn’t have been using her real name if the hunters hadn’t caught her off guard and confiscated her personal wallet. Not her finest day.

  A distant-but-getting-closer yell had all the shifters turning to look toward the back entrance.

  “Ru-u-u-n! Hel-l-l-fr-o-o-g!” Kilisha’s voice.

  “Fuck!” Donovan lunged toward the two seated shifters and urged them to stand. “She must have opened the boardroom portal without the charm.” He pointed to the small side door that led to the cashiers’ office. “Close the door, then hit the red panic button. Mondo, you’re the strongest. Go with them. Protect them.”

  Rayne shouted to the wizards. “Shield or portal out, now. Hellfrog coming.”

  Kilisha’s yelling changed from a human yell to an eagle’s screech. Subsonic growling accompanied the sound of claws scraping on concrete.

  “What’s a hellfrog?” asked one of the wizards.

  “Big elven frog-thing with teeth and claws,” said the one next to him.

  “Shut up and shield!” said another.

  Donovan was shifting into his red wolf form. His aunt Celia was already on four feet, finishing her shift into a large gray wolf.

  Rayne ran to the doors to close one side and threw its bolts. Wizard magic flared behind her, but not from Díaz, so it felt like sandpaper.

  She grabbed the other door, ready to slam it. “Kilisha! This way!”

  Moments later, a charcoal-gray African martial eagle flew sideways through the single door, wingtips scraping the doorjamb as she flapped up toward the ceiling.

  Rayne slammed the door closed, but it fought her, wanting to open. She braced her back against it. “Díaz! Door!” His spell to free the rest of the shifters was coming back to bite them.

  The flare of his magic came too late to stop the hurtling hellfrog from ramming the door open and skidding onto the stage.

  Rayne shifted as she flew through the air. She regained her footing on four feet and got her first look at the enemy.

  The shiny green-and-black-spotted creature stood four feet tall and looked like a cross between a poisonous toad and a fat beetle. It had a lizard’s running legs with taloned toes, orbital eyes, and a huge wide mouth full of crooked alligator teeth. The red-lipped mouth drooled.

  Unless re-leashed or stopped, hellfrogs relentlessly pursue their designated quarry. She suspected in this case, the quarry was anyone in the facility.

  The hellfrog ignored her and the two growling wolves to its left and zeroed in on the five humans to the right, with Díaz in front.

  It launched itself toward them, only to bounce off the reinforced wizard shield.

  The impact pushed all the wizards backward. One fell off the stage and landed on her ass, three feet below. She scrambled back onto the stage.

  The hellfrog opened its jaws impossibly wide and tried to bite Díaz but couldn’t get a grip on the shield wall. Hellfrogs were stubborn, but not bright. The wizards argued among themselves about spells to use.

  To the left, the cashiers’ office door made a heavy thunking sound, signaling the dragon-proof defenses had activated.

  Donovan’s red wolf and Celia’s gray wolf snarled at the hellfrog.

  It swiveled one eye toward them, but went back to trying to get at the wizards, this time by digging at the base of the shield near Díaz’s feet.

  Rayne growled at the hellfrog threatening her mate. Under her maned-wolf illusion, she was one pissed-off dire wolf. Mine!

  The hellfrog swung its massive head toward her, then turned to face her.

  No spell she knew would kill a nearly indestructible hellfrog, but the explosives in the fairy wing might slow it down long enough for the rest of them to portal out.

  She barked a challenge, then spun to race out the back doors.

  The now closed back doors. Damnit!

  She twisted her back haunches away from the hellfrog’s leap and bite. Her thick fur and wooly undercoat meant she only got a stinging scrape.

  Stalking to her right, she put the full threat of her dire wolf into her growl. Modern mammals atavistically feared the sound of an Ice Age dire wolf on the hunt. She hoped it worked on amphibians.

  The hellfrog froze.

  Then magic flared, and its eyes glowed brighter red. It scuttled toward her, all teeth.

  She danced away again, then slashed a tearing bite on its fat haunch, drawing blood.

  It screamed in pain, but the wound was already closing.

  A weird metallic taste on her tongue sent a magical shockwave through her system.

  “Don’t swallow the blood!” Díaz’s warning penetrated her adrenalin-fueled tunnel focus.

  She shook her head to get the tainted saliva out of her mouth. Her maned-wolf illusion flickered. She let it go, rather than take time and energy to restore it.

  She feigned an attack to the left, then leaped high and over to the right. She pushed off a darkened display booth to slam her wide shoulders into its side.

  The hellfrog slid twenty feet. Its legs tangled in the pile of chains and shackles on the floor.

  Díaz’s warm magic flared. The chains snaked around the hellfrog’s body, and multiple sets of shackles clamped around its legs and torso.

  The hellfrog’s eyes and mouth glowed red. The chains and shackles glowed electric blue, sending jolting shocks through the hellfrog’s body. The dark elven magic that powered the hellfrog clashed with the auction house’s wizard magic in the ethereal plane, grating on her nerves.

  Fairy magic bloomed behind her.

  She shifted to human and ran toward the opening portal. “Myelle! We have a hellfrog!”

  She glanced to the right. Díaz crouched on the stage, concentrating on the hellfrog. The rest of the wizards crowded together in the audience section below. The sandpaper of their shield magic faded, replaced by the dust-storm feel of wizard portal magic.

  Celia began shifting to human. Donovan did the same.

  Rayne moved closer to Díaz, ready to protect him since he no longer had a shield. Only his magic on the auction-house shackles was keeping everyone safe from the struggling hellfrog. She should have thought to bring weapons when she shifted back to human.

  The fairy portal stabilized. Rayne spared a quick look to see Myelle striding through in human form, carrying a big elven-tech gun, accompanied by two human-shaped and four tiger-shaped guards, all in armor.

  Donovan rushed over and hurriedly told them about the shifters in the cashiers’ office.

  Kilisha, still in eagle form, flew through the portal and vanished.

  The hellfrog glowed red all over. More blue-glowing shackles latched onto its limbs.

  With an audible snap, the wizard portal near the auditorium seats stabilized. The pink-haired female wizard stepped through and vanished.

  T
he black-haired wizard ran to the stage. “Díaz! We can’t keep the portal for long. The room’s defenses are fighting us! Grab the dire wolf and let’s go!”

  Díaz’s eyes flashed gold. “She’s not a prize, Sutaraman.”

  The man looked frustrated. “Port now. Argue later.”

  Celia’s voice barking orders grabbed Rayne’s attention.

  “Arrest that wizard and Chekal. He works for the auction house and has her under his spell. Careful. She’s an unregistered mythic.” The accusatory tone was unmistakable.

  Celia pushed one of the human-shaped guards toward Rayne.

  The guard looked to Myelle, who shook her head in irritation and pointed toward the portal. “Escort Counselor Wong to the medic. She’s obviously suffering from head trauma.”

  The guard unceremoniously threw protesting Celia over her shoulder and trotted through the portal and vanished.

  The trembling hellfrog took one slow step toward the fairy portal, dragging the chains and shackles with it.

  Myelle turned to watch Donovan and the tiger guard leading Mondo in gorilla form and the other former captives up the stairs to the stage and toward the portal.

  The black-haired wizard still argued with Díaz. “...don’t want to share. Fuck you. Find your own way back!” The wizard stormed toward the portal, where only one other wizard remained. Within seconds, they both vanished. The wizard portal snapped closed.

  The hellfrog sent out a scream loud enough to shatter glass.

  Every shifter in the room winced in pain. The hellfrog’s threat lit a fire under their feet as they sped toward the fairy portal. One armored tiger stayed with Myelle.

  Fear tried to crawl through Rayne’s ears and into her brain, but her inner dire wolf was having none of it. She used the alpha’s trick of half-shifting and howled like she’d found easy dinner.

  The hellfrog quieted but continued inching toward the open fairy portal.

  Myelle beckoned. “Let’s go. Bring the wizard as your guest.”

  Rayne glanced at Díaz’s gargoyle-like demeanor. Hoping her intuition wasn’t about to make them hellfrog victims, she shook her head. “Nah, I’m good. I’ll find my own way home.”

  Myelle hesitated, searching Rayne’s expression.

  After a longer moment, Myelle turned and strode through the portal. After the tip of the tiger’s tale vanished, the portal winked out with a pop of air displacement.

  The red-glowing hellfrog slowly turned toward her and Díaz, dragging the weight of the blue-glowing shackles and chains.

  “So, Magister Díaz,” she said brightly, “how long do we have before the auction house’s magic fails?”

  8

  Arvik’s head pounded from the effort to channel magic into the shackles. “We have five minutes, maybe. I’m running out of steam.” Disparate thoughts splintered his focus. The wizard strike team needed purging. His inner animals wanted at the hellfrog. Rayne’s true dire-wolf form kicked ass. He vowed to be worthy of the trust she’d honored him with.

  She pointed toward the doors. “The fairy wing is lined with explosives. Could we lure it there?” Her talent for discovering things kicked ass, too.

  “No. I destroyed the trigger mechanism last night when Balton was distracted.” Back when he’d imagined he knew what was about to go down.

  She smiled knowingly as she crossed to the auctioneer’s podium. “Best-laid plans.”

  Nice that he didn’t have to explain or apologize. “If I can free up my magic, I can emergency-port us out of the facility.”

  She crouched to reach into the bottom shelves. “Then let’s go while we can.” A smile flitted across her face. “Bingo.” She stood, clutching to her chest a glittery-gold rectangle that he recognized as Costigan’s tablet. “Which exit?”

  “Back doors. The front entrance is too well protected. I need distance from our new amigo.” He tilted his head toward the straining hellfrog.

  The laden amphibian took another slow step toward him.

  She nodded, then tilted her head toward the doors. “Are they unlocked?”

  He flicked a spare bit of magic toward them. “They are now.” Both doors swung open.

  She darted glances around the space with a calculating look. “Will the chains hold without your help?”

  “Not long. They weren’t designed to work together.”

  She nodded. “Then you need to be closer to the door so we can run.”

  Before he could reply, she shifted into her magnificent dire-wolf form. Thick white fur covered an enormous wolf with wide jaws and wider shoulders, and brilliant orange-red eyes. Her head was almost the height of his human shoulders, and he was close to two meters tall. He’d been freakishly tall among his people, centuries ago. She made him feel almost short.

  She circled behind him to turn and face the hellfrog. The threat growl she gave sent a shiver up his human spine, but not of fear. He hadn’t felt a pack connection like that in centuries.

  The hellfrog swung its head toward her and screamed back. More importantly, it took one step toward her, then another.

  She bared her lethal teeth and growled again, calling it the canine equivalent of a dung-eating leg-humper. The hellfrog took two more dragging steps.

  Arvik eased right, gathering more stray magic to channel to the chains while calculating his route to the doors. For once, his inner animals gave him their cunning without arguing about eating nasty amphibians or protecting their mate.

  One of the dragging chains began melting. The drips of slag charred the wood floor beneath it.

  “Time!” he shouted.

  Rayne sidestepped farther left, luring the hellfrog with her.

  Borrowing speed from his animals, he ran around the white-hot mass of chains and through the open doors. He turned just as Rayne’s white wolf vaulted through the opening and landed behind him, scrabbling for purchase on the hard floor.

  Hastily pulling stored magic from his silver necklace, he slammed the doors shut and activated the auction room’s defenses, cutting off a rising scream from the hellfrog.

  He pivoted and started running across the hub to the admin wing. “Clinic!”

  She bounded ahead and beat him to the door, then shifted to human in seconds. He envied her speed.

  He opened the clinic door with his palmprint and magic. She followed him inside and watched while he sealed it.

  He rolled up his shirtsleeves, revealing his wristbands. “These have an emergency exit portal spell. Where to?” he asked.

  “What are the choices?”

  “Anywhere one of us has been and can picture in our mind.” He frowned. “Your people want me for interrogation, and my soon-to-be-ex colleagues want you, probably for less noble purposes. I vote someplace neutral and defensible.”

  Her mouth twisted in thought. “Ever heard of Kotoyeesinay?”

  “The Wyoming sanctuary town?” He nodded. “Yes, but they may not want me.”

  “My family has a long-standing reservation. I can vouch for you as a temporary guest.” She caught his eye. “Anything I should know about that will make them bring pitchforks instead of the welcome wagon?”

  He shook his head. “It’s… complicated.”

  A storm of wild, chaotic magic blew through the ethereal plane. The chain and shackle magic had failed. From her uneasy expression, she, too, had felt the magic blowout.

  He held out his hands to her. “Let’s visit Kotoyeesinay.”

  She ignored his hands and stepped in to embrace him instead. “I’ll picture the town’s border. You send us there.”

  Her body against his threatened to shatter coherent thought. The unmistakable scent of her arousal sent heat arrowing to his groin, hardening him. His animals leaped forward, reaching for her dire wolf.

  He couldn’t let any of that happen before he told her who he was. What he was. He hastily slammed his wristbands together behind her shoulders and triggered the stored portal spell.

  Physical and ethereal wind
s deafened him and stole his breath. He wrapped himself around Rayne, afraid of losing her.

  A holographic image floated into view—a high mountain road surrounded by evergreens and a town in the distance. Lights strobed from beach white to space black. Deep Arctic cold flushed through him, draining his magic fast. The only warmth came from the woman in his arms. Gravity sucked them into a vortex, then dropped them into freefall.

  The mountain scene gained weight and substance, like a ground rush after parachuting out of a plane. Twilight made long shadows of trees. He used his waning magic to envelop himself and Rayne in his shield to protect them from the inevitable tumble on the asphalt road.

  The air swatted them sideways.

  He desperately held on to Rayne and his shield.

  They somersaulted through the air and ricocheted off a rock wall into a bank of snow.

  Rayne cried out.

  Agony lanced through his left leg.

  His magic sputtered out. Cold settled into his bones, dulling the pain.

  Silence and darkness, then nothing.

  “Díaz!”

  The urgency in Rayne’s voice made him open his eyes. He lay on his back in cold, wet snow, looking at the night sky. Had it been this dark before?

  The silhouette of her beautiful face blocked his view of the twinkling stars. “Your calf is impaled on a deadfall branch. I can free you, but after that, I don’t have enough magic right now to power a healing spell, and I don’t think you do, either. You’ll have to shift to one of your other forms.”

  It should have worried him that she’d discovered he was a shifter, especially one with two animal souls, but he couldn’t remember why. “Where are we?”

  “One mountain to the north of Kotoyeesinay. I think your shield bounced off their shield.” Worry seeped into her tone. “You need to shift.”

  Before he could tell her he couldn’t, his inner animals outvoted him and commandeered his voice. “Break the gold chain on my neck and wrap it around my wrists.”

  She yanked the chain hard, tearing into his skin, drawing a hiss from him.

  “I’ll kiss it and make it better later.” Grabbing his hands, she bound his wrists together with the chain.