Predator hopped off his body, tail twitching in agitation. The Slayer was still staring at her through hate-filled eyes, but they were already glazing over with the pale film of death. She could smell the change as his tissues began to die. Knew that he was already finished. That he was Prey. Dead Prey.
The best kind.
She purred, grooming her bloody paws as the human inside her head sobbed. She did not understand the feeling of anguish flooding her head. This was her first kill. The blooding. It was a time of pride, not sorrow. Her mate had been avenged.
But at what cost?
The witch was watching her, leaning against her car with his arms folded over his chest. A metallic smell came off his body, which confused her for a minute.
Strange. He looked human, but smelled like lightning. The mountain lion knew about lightning. Lightning could start fires. And fires could kill.
So can witches.
He continued to stare into her eyes, showing no sign of backing down, and he was large enough that she didn't feel comfortable attacking him. In fact, just the thought of doing so left her feeling repulsed Irritated, the mountain lion looked away, pretending something in the parking lot had caught her attention. The strange human-creature was dangerous.
A witch, Catherine whispered, sounding choked with tears. He's a witch. And he is dangerous.
The mountain lion had no interest in that. She had made a kill. Her kill. Not the human creature's. She was a great hunter now. Everyone would respect her as alpha female. She began to prowl around the lot.
“Enough,” the not-human snapped, causing her to startle and look up. The hairs on her back lifted a little when she realized he was still staring at her. “We need to get to the gym. I'm not following a mountain lion in the dark.”
Predator snuffled, pleased that the not-human had acknowledged her dominance. He was a powerful enemy, which gave his concession even more value.
With a bored-sounding sigh, he made a strange speaking sound and his hands began to glow. She sniffed, taking a few steps closer. White light shot out of his fingertips, singing the tips of her whiskers, and she skittered backwards. Several feet away, she composed herself, alternately embarrassed and afraid. But mostly afraid. What the fuck was that?
“I know you're in there, savage. Come out.” He raised his hand, which was still glowing with that hot, blinding heat. “Before I drag you out.”
And then, in spite of everything horrible that had happened in the last half hour, she remembered who she was, what she was, and then Catherine found herself lying on the tarmac, naked, breathing sharply as if she had been crying—or screaming—or both.
The chill of the night air was ruthless on her bare skin, pulling it taut with gooseflesh. Her nipples puckered as she shivered, and when she looked up she saw the witch staring at them without shame.
She got to her feet, resisting the urge to cover herself. That would be giving him power, letting him know he was intimidating her. “When you're finished, kindly turn the fuck around,” she said tightly.
Now his eyes were on her face, and the look in them was positively frightening. She thought he was going to say something, but he didn't.
He showed her his back, and she thought then that his spitefulness was rivaled only by his pride.
Catherine looked at what remained of her clothing and grimaced. Almost all of it was ruined. The jeans had barely survived. Her shirt had been destroyed when her arms had become forelegs and she had torn through the fabric with her claws to free them. The same fate had befallen her sneakers, as well. Luckily, she had been wearing her sweatshirt around her waist and it had miraculously escaped the fray. She grabbed it off the ground and zipped it to her throat. Then she wondered if that seemed too defensive, and tugged it down a few inches before rolling up the sleeves.
She poked the witch in his spine, pleased when he flinched in surprise. “The gym,” she said tightly.
He nodded, just as curt. There was a flush in his cheeks that spread down his throat, though, and she was sure that if she grabbed him, he would be hard.
Well, he had made his feelings quite clear, hadn't he? Catherine supposed he was regretting the fact that he had made his desires known now. Desire, like so much else, could double for weakness. With his depravity he probably knew that better than most.
She led the witch across campus, rubbing at her arms, which prickled from the chill—or perhaps something more. During the day, the gym was always bustling with activity. Sometimes the athletes would train in the quadrangle between the gymnasium and the weight-lifting room. The water polo team sloshed around in the swimming pool that lay parallel to it, even throughout the light winter showers.
Now, though, the quadrangle was empty. There was no sound, except for the chirping of crickets and the distant roar of traffic from the freeway.
Underneath the painted steel doors was a thin band of yellowish light. Catherine bit her lip. Someone was already inside the gym. And she could smell terror—
And blood.
She grabbed his arm to still him and pointed. He nodded and quietly walked closer. Together, the two of them shoved the door open, preparing themselves for what they might see. But as soon as Catherine looked inside, she gasped. She couldn't help it.
It was like something straight out of the Inquisition. A cross had been erected in the center of the room, made from the same black wood as the athamé Alex had used. Lashed to it was a young girl crying for her mother. A witchling. She couldn't be more than eight.
“Those are iron chains,” the witch hissed.
Mr. Bordello hadn't seen them yet. He was busy reciting psalms, which she recognized only vaguely. In this context, they took on a new sinister meaning.
“The words of the Lord are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Evil will put an end to the sinner, and those who are haters of righteousness will come to destruction.”
His voice was as mellifluous as poisoned honey, as persuasive as any cult leader. That fucking bastard.
The witch blasted him with a twenty-foot high wall of water. The look on the Slayer's face as he lifted his head from his bible and saw the water rushing him was priceless. Too bad she didn't have time to enjoy it.
Catherine ran for the child and broke the iron restraints with minimal difficulty; the chain links were thinner than the padlocked cemetery gate.
The child must have known what she was, but she seemed to understand that a savage shape-shifter was the lesser of two evils in this situation because she clung to the older girl's neck like ivy on a trellis, weeping into Catherine's hair.
The Slayer was the first to regain his feet in the ankle-deep water. “The Irish Triad,” he said. His eyes went to Catherine and the witch child. “And Miss Pierce. Where's Alex?”
“Dead,” said the witch.
“Was it the girl? I see blood on her clothing. A messy kill, then. How like a shape-shifter.”
She glared at him hatefully over the halo of the child's strawberry blonde hair. “You killed David.”
“In vain, so it seems. Because even in death, he led me right to you, my dear. Our magic reacts strangely to you, Miss Pierce…as if you were a witch. Why might that be, I wonder?” He took a few steps closer. “We might just keep you on as a specimen.”
She went stiff, thinking of the cabinets in Hauberk's room. She hadn't even realized her grip on the child had tightened until the little girl let out a small squeal of pain.
“Surprised, Catherine?” He tossed the knife aside, and retrieved a bow and arrow. “I don't think you realize how much gossip goes on in the staff rooms.”
The arrows had the aura of black magic.
“Let us pass,” said the witch. He seemed to realize that this was a fight they could not win.
The girl whimpered, the sound painfully loud in Catherine's sensitive ears. She wondered what the bastard had done to the child, to make her so afraid.
“Leave the shape-shift
er behind, and you have a deal.”
“I'm not bargaining.” The witch said a sharp word and a ball of fire burst into shape above his hand, rotating like a small, flaming sun. “Last chance.”
Mr. Bordello took aim. She dropped to her knees, knowing even as she did that it would be no good. The witch had said himself that the weapons of Slayers never missed.
Finn let the fireball fly, and it hit the fire detector with a vengeance. A piercing alarm sounded before the thing exploded, raining down charred pieces of plastic and metal. Mr. Bordello ducked.
Transferring the girl's weight to one arm, Catherine pushed herself to her feet and got up, racing for the door. The sprinklers went off as she passed, raining down cold, rank water from the ceiling.
“Go,” the witch said sharply, giving her a push.
“You try running with a child in your arms,” she snapped, causing the girl to cry again.
When they reached her car, the witch swung himself into the driver's seat and slammed the door shut behind him. Rather than argue with him about who would drive, she got in back with the witchling, who stared at Catherine with wide blue eyes the color of washed-out sapphires. Probably in shock.
That made two of them. Catherine buckled the little girl's seat-belt and then her own, and tried not to scream. “I need to see my family now, to warn them.”
The witch shook his head. “First, the child.”
Protect the young first, Predator agreed. He'd be good alpha male. He knows what's best for the pride.
He is not an alpha male! Catherine nearly shouted. He only cares about her because she's one of his kind!
He is strong. Powerful. Protects young.
Not worthy of us, Catherine told Predator. He's lower even than an omega. Let him be.
Predator scoffed. He won fight against us, but didn't kill us. He was trying to tell you something.
Like what? Catherine scoffed back. My life doesn't fit in with his busy time-table.
No fool. He was showing dominance in a different way. Male and female way. Displaying power.
I already have a mate, she snapped to Predator, putting the argument into words Predator could understand. Stop playing fucking matchmaker.
Mates die all the time in wild. You need new one.
When she looked up, the witch was watching her. They had made it to a residential zone unscathed, and the car was parked outside a house she didn't recognize. “I asked you to unbuckle her seat-belt.”
“Right.” With numb fingers, Catherine complied. The girl slid out of the car door and followed the witch up to the doorstep.
A dark-haired woman answered the door, her eyes widening when she glimpsed the child on the step. She picked up the girl and hugged her tightly to her chest as if afraid that she would disappear if she relaxed her grip, even for a moment.
And the witch was smiling. Not a sneer, but a genuinely happy smile. Pleased. It softened the hard planes of his face, thawing the natural iciness of his expression, making him almost…pleasant to look at.
She looked out her window and ran her tongue along the edge of her teeth. Goddess. What was she thinking? What were the animals inside her head thinking? He was a witch. Even if he wanted her body, he hated her kind. So what if he liked children? Everyone loved their own species. What if the girl was a shifter? She tried to imagine that same pleased expression as he delivered the same child to a shifter family and couldn't quite manage it.
There, she thought savagely. You can't do it. See?
But Predator had gone silent, and the thought didn't leave her any more satisfied than she had been before. Catherine simply felt empty.
She frowned. Her probing tongue dislodged something between her teeth. Something spongey and wet. What—? She spat it out into her palm, stared, and then threw open the car door to throw up in the street. It was a piece of flesh from the Slayer's throat.
The shifter stared straight ahead without saying a single word. That was fine. Finn had plenty to think about. The situation was far graver than he'd thought.
The child's parents had told him Other children in the area had gone missing, and that when they had found out that theirs had been added to the list they had all but given up hope.
Coldly, he told them that such second chances were not given lightly. He suggested relocation, and with minimal demurring, they agreed. Because he and the child's parents both knew that they had no choice.
He looked at the shifter. She was staring out the window, playing with the zipper of her sweatshirt. His mouth went dry as images of what lay beneath it flooded his brain, and he nearly drove onto the curb.
She had lost control to her beast. He did not know what to think when he saw her tear into that Slayer child like a capon. Nor when she reverted back to her human form, face wet with tears, naked and blood-covered like some war goddess of ancient legend.
He had seen her retch outside the witch family's house, as well. He pretended that he hadn't, but he had seen everything, and he thought he knew why.
Finn found himself wondering just how much of her true nature she had to suppress to live out her life as a Glamor. He wondered if it was a constant battle, or an occasional repression of sudden whims and cravings. He wondered if she could be coaxed to fuck with that same intensity, and whether she would taste like blood if she kissed him now.
She looked over at him, and her hand stilled on the zipper. He saw her lower her hand, saw the knuckles whiten as she dug her fingers into her thigh.
He didn't ask her for directions to her house, and she didn't offer any. They had a strange relationship, he thought. Certainly not friends, but not quite enemies, either. Not anymore.
As he stopped at a stop sign, he wondered if the shifter had realized yet that she would never be able to return home.
Pride kept her from running up to the cobblestone path leading to their front door. Pride and a niggling sense of apprehension that said that maybe she wouldn't want to see what might have happened inside her home during her absence. She started to reach for the doorbell.
No, that would make too much noise. She knocked instead, and her flesh went cold and clammy as the door swung open with a creak.
No. The Slayers couldn't have gotten here already. Not so soon. Could they?
“Mom? Dad?” She shoved the door the rest of the way open. She was running, pride be damned, ready to Change at a moment's notice. Predator and Prey both reared their heads, searching for danger and threats, each in their own way.
She heard no evil. Saw no evil. The lights in the front hall were off. There wasn't any sign of a struggle. At least, nothing was smashed or shattered. But that didn't mean much if they had managed to catch her family unaware.
“Hello?” she repeated, desperation sneaking into her voice, making it sound high, like a child's.
“Catherine?” Her mother's voice carried from another room. Pleasant. Fearless. The tension in Catherine's body eased a little. Her mother wasn't under duress. She was in the kitchen. Breathless, Catherine stumbled into the room and saw her mother preparing sandwiches for tomorrow's lunch. “Did you have fun with your friends Cath—”
She froze, sniffing the air, smelling the blood, magic, and sweat surrounding her daughter.
“Mom,” Catherine gasped, still choked up by the adrenaline gushing through her veins, and the fear that something awful had befallen her family. Her pride. “I don't have time—”
“What happened to you? To your…clothing? Where have you been? And why—” she drew in another breath, her eyes flickering to gold “—do you smell like one of them?”
“Mom—”
“This is the second time you've come home with their scent. His scent. It's the same witch as before. And don't try to tell me that it's someone who brushed up against you on the bus!” Her face softened the anger behind the words, letting Catherine know it wasn't directed at her. “Who ruined your clothes? Why do you smell like blood? Did one of them attack you? Did they hurt you?”
The waves of worry surrounding each question was making Catherine feel dizzy. She collapsed against the counter, with little regard for what her clothes would do to the white tile, and said, “Mom, you're not hearing me! We have to get out of the house.” The words stuck to her throat like burrs and she winced as she wrenched them out, one by one. “The Slayers…Mom, the Slayers know where we are.”
All the color drained from her mother's face, except for a single splotch of red in each cheek. “What? How? Why?”
The words she'd been holding in all this time spilled out in a rush—she'd never been more sure. “They got David—David Tran—as well as a witch girl from my Biology class. She was on the Council and had heard reports about black magic—Slayer magic—being used in the area. She thought it was me so she sent one of her hired underlings after me, except it wasn't me, so he forced me into helping him instead because he caught me shifting in the hills and said he'd send me to the Keep if I didn't—”
She drew in a deep breath.
“There's a master list of every single Other in town, although it took a while for us to be added. All of the high profile Others and major threats were taken care of first—” that was guesswork on her part; it seemed like the only rational explanation for why they had been overlooked for so long “—but one of their leaders was at the meeting tonight. Emilio Bordello—” her mother flinched at the name “—We managed to escape but soon they'll be here to collect all of us. We have to get out of the house!”
Her mother nodded, lips so tight that they were nearly white. Then she went still, and her eyes narrowed as gold bled into her irises before swallowing them whole. If she had been inhabiting the form of something with fur, it would have bristled. “What are you doing in my house?”
The witch was standing behind Catherine. Too close for comfort for any shape-shifter parent. Catherine hadn't even heard him enter the room and if the look on her face was any indication, neither had her mother. The belt of charms and vials was lashed around his waist, poking out through the bottom of his long-sleeved shirt. She saw the magic flicker around him and snapped, “Don't you dare!”
Touched with Sight (Shadow Thane) Page 17
