by K. F. Breene
I didn’t have time for a gurgling stomach. Upchucking at how gross it was would have to wait.
The next mage got a boot to the face, not fast enough to block my attack. Emery downed another mage, and my next spell took out two more. But more kept coming. We were kicking ass, but their overall numbers had barely dwindled. And most likely would barely dwindle until we were captured. They’d known where we were, and they’d been prepared.
“We need a Hail Mary,” I yelled, jabbing my fingers in the next mage’s eye. “Or to run.”
Emery countered a spell from a casing before firing off one of his own. Another spell came at us, then another. He countered one, threw up a screen made with his survival magic to stop another, and surged forward. His fist smashed into the nearest mage’s face, doing damage much more quickly than if I’d made the hit. He executed a perfect side kick Reagan would be proud of, dropping another mage like a stone before darting between two more and blasting them at close range with a spell.
My heart dropped when two more mages ran down the path, followed by another from the other direction.
There were just too many.
“We have to run,” I yelled, hitting two with another nasty spell. I didn’t worry about balancing my weaves. About finessing them. There wasn’t time. I zipped them off as soon as they were done. Thankfully, my power was so much stronger than most of these mages that it was enough to hold them off.
Lord help me if they brought in powerful mages.
“Emery, we have to run!” I repeated. He wasn’t answering me, and I suddenly realized why. He’d seen it earlier. There was nowhere to go. They’d completely rigged this area with traps and used themselves as bait. They must’ve had people stationed around the various exit points of the Quarter at the ready, just like the ones stationed inside the Quarter itself, their spells at the ready. That larger spell split into perfect little pieces.
The Guild had figured out how to combat the unpredictable.
“You run, Penny,” I barely heard as Emery threw a smaller man into a larger. They both went down. “You run. Back the way we came. Call for help. Come for me, if you can.”
My heart tore a hole in my chest. It lodged into my throat and choked me.
I’d only just gotten him back. Was I going to lose him again so soon?
“No,” I said, the next spell ripping through someone’s middle. “No!”
“Penny—” Emery started, intent on talking sense—even though we both knew he was bound to fail miserably—but a deep, earthshaking roar drowned him out.
The sound worked through my middle and froze my blood, the fear it caused primal and ancient. My movements slowed and my eyes widened. I couldn’t help but look for the source of the sound. Only Emery kept working, firing off spells as fast as ever, taking advantage of everyone else’s distraction.
Another roar, this time closer, made my teeth chatter. I backed up without being able to help it, envisioning a huge, lethal predator tearing through the bushes with its mouth gaping and teeth bared.
A moment later, that was exactly what happened.
A giant lion, larger than the ones that roamed the modern plains of Africa, surged into the scene with feline grace. It gave a loud grunt, blowing out of its nostrils, before pausing to stare at the mostly immobile group before it. Its huge, shaggy head swept from one side to the other, taking everything in.
The little dog from before scurried out from behind the great lion and headed off to the side, pausing to take everything in.
A few of the mages stepped away, unsure. Still more stood and stared with open mouths, like I was doing, taken aback by the sight of a big jungle cat within the city limits.
My brain shuddered to a start.
Big cat.
Shifter.
“Help!” I called into the uneasy silence, not at all embarrassed about freaking out.
Like a starter gun had been fired, the scene burst with activity again. Mages cracked casings and shot them at Emery, me, or the lion.
Wolves burst out of the foliage around us, synchronized and deadly as they began their attack. Vicious growls cut through the shouts and screaming. Wolf bodies slammed into mages. Teeth found jugulars.
Another roar, deep and powerful, and a large shape emerged from behind the fountain and lumbered into the mix, a giant bear.
“Work, Penny,” Emery shouted, grabbing a mage who had come out of his stupor and tried to run for it. “If they get away, they’ll try again another day.”
“Why are you rhyming at a time like this?” I blasted a mage making a run for it. He lost use of his legs…because I’d made him leave them behind.
Gagging, I used my rodent zapper on another, and a half-assed spell on one more, trying to get the spells out faster again.
The lion burst into the remaining mages. It swept a large paw across human bodies, opening gashes through their middles. He clamped his teeth on a mage’s shoulder and the side of her throat before ripping her head off, ending the haggard screaming.
The bear roared and stood on its back legs, swiping its claw as someone readied a spell.
The mages broke, sprinting for cover. The wolves were on it. Faster on four legs, and with the added benefit of improved sight in the darkness, they jumped onto the retreating figures, forcing them to the ground and ripping at their vital organs. Screaming and groaning mixed in with the growls and roars. Limbs flailed. Chaos reigned.
I danced from side to side, ready to help. Ready to shoot off another spell. But furry bodies kept obscuring my view. Then, in a matter of minutes, it was all over. The noise died down. The movement slowed.
My panting was unnaturally loud as I stood next to Emery, in the center of a disastrous circle filled with blood, bodies, and keyed-up animals.
My stomach finally gave out and I heaved. It wasn’t the most professional thing to do, admittedly, but I could no longer help it.
“Penny.” Emery wrapped his arms around me rather than holding my hair back, as befitted the situation. “Are you okay?”
“I’m okay.” I wiped my mouth and pushed him so we could back away. “You?”
His breath dusted my face. “Yeah. Got a couple scrapes and bruises, but yeah.”
Waves of magic pushed at me, and I knew by feel that it was the shifters’ magic I was feeling. The space was no longer occupied by a bunch of downed mages and animals. Now it held mages and naked people.
“Uh-huh.” I dropped my forehead to Emery’s shoulder. At least I wasn’t the only one stuck looking unprofessional after a battle.
Someone grunted, and I couldn’t help but look. Steve, previously the lion, stretched in the moonlight before scratching his chest and dropping his hands to his sides in fatigue. “Two back-to-back changes will really take it out of you. Least you could’ve done was leave a few more for us.”
Emery pulled one of his arms from around me and stepped forward, dragging me with him. He reached out to shake. “Thanks a million. We were getting buried. You turned the tide.”
Steve, completely unconcerned with his lack of cover, thrust his hand into Emery’s. “Not at all, mate. We would’ve been here sooner, but we ran into some sort of magical wall. Lost one of ours trying to get through it.”
“Oh no, I’m so sorry!” I said.
“Nah.” Steve waved my sentiments away. “He was an asshole. A real know-it-all. That’s why I sent him first. Don’t tell Trixie, though. She didn’t like him much, either, but he was good in bed, apparently.”
I was pretty sure my face was frozen in a very strange look. I didn’t know where to go from there.
“Anyway.” Steve glanced around the ground and clucked his tongue as more men and women, all equally as unworried about the state of their undress, slowly made their way in our direction. “Red said they stole Reagan’s car and chased you two to this area.”
“How would Red know all of that?” I asked suspiciously.
Steve gestured toward the dog still off to the si
de, watching from a distance. “He followed you. He might only be a dog, but it gives him the ability to make more changes than the normal shifter without depleting his energy level.”
“But…we were invisible.” I remembered how the shifters outside the bar had sniffed me out the other night. “Ah. He followed our scent trail. But how’d he let you know?”
“Right? I told him, he needs to carry a little doggy fanny pack for a cell phone. He could be Reagan’s sidekick.” Steve boomed out laughter. Red lowered his head and snarled. “Yeah,” Steve said, “he didn’t think that was funny. But he’s got phones stashed around the city. Following and reporting is his job. He has to have a way to report. So when he saw what was going on here, he called me up.”
“And Reagan?”
“Is busy with the vampire. She’s apparently got a thing going with that elder.” Steve wiped his lip with his thumb and shook his head. “I didn’t expect that, I’m not going to lie. No one tells me anything. I mean, I get the sex appeal, but he’s a vampire. You should never trust vampires.” Emery and I nodded knowingly. “They’re questioning the mages. The vampire took all the live ones before Roger could get back to us.”
“They didn’t think this was more important?”
“We don’t work with vampires, love. They do their thing, we do ours.”
“They didn’t tell Reagan,” Emery said softly, his tone even. I couldn’t tell if he was making a judgment or not.
“Didn’t need to, did we?” Steve smiled. “Don’t get me wrong, if she wasn’t with that elder, we surely would’ve let her in on the fun. But as it was…” He spread his hands. “Roger sends his regards. He was happy to help, and he hopes you keep this situation in mind should we ever need something.”
“Ah. A forced trade.” I rubbed my eyes, not really able to deal with this right now. “And how are the vampires so different from the shifters?”
Emery huffed out a humorless laugh as Steve said, “That’s not very nice. For one, we’re cuddly when we change. Much furrier and nicer to look at.”
“That’s true, though I doubt you smell any better when you get wet,” I said.
Emery choked on his laugh this time, half turning away to wheeze out more guffaws.
A flare of green followed by a wave of shifter magic, weak in power, preceded the dog’s alteration into a thin, lanky Red. He stood and quickly cupped his privates, thankfully worried about propriety. “I told him not telling Reagan was a mistake,” Red said with a know-it-all air. “She’s going to be pissed.”
“Women are always pissed about something.” Steve glanced down, and I followed his gaze before I could stop myself, only to instantly shift it when I got an eyeful. “I better get going. The cold isn’t kind to my bells and tackle.”
“She’s not an ordinary woman,” Red muttered. “I’m not going to take the fall for this. I’m going to tell her it was your call.”
Steve hooked a thumb Red’s way, his smile almost infectious. “He’s awfully jittery, isn’t he?”
A younger guy wearing basketball sweats with buttons down the pant leg for easy removal jogged over and handed Steve a pile of sweats.
“Hey, is anyone driving?” Emery asked, looking around.
“Yeah, you need a lift?” Steve rolled back on his bare heels as he shook out the hoodie. “Of course you need a lift, what am I saying. Sorry about that. I’m always a little slow after fast changes. Come on, we’ll get you wherever you need to go.”
“But what about…” I pointed at the fallout of the battle.
“We’ll get someone on that,” Steve said. “We’ll use a cleanup service and bill the vampires.” Steve laughed again, though I didn’t get the joke.
Fatigue dragged at me after I collected my stones and phone. Emery slipped his hand into mine. Softly, he asked, “Can I stay with you tonight?”
I leaned against his arm. “Yes. Reagan can deal. We need to stick together.”
“I agree. This was only the force they had stationed in this part of New Orleans. We’d be naive to think they aren’t gathering in a temporary headquarters somewhere. They’ll have more. The question is, how many more?”
Red drifted in next to us. “That’s what I would have told Reagan if she hadn’t stood me up. In addition to calling in big numbers, I’ve heard that they are hiring anyone willing to work for them.” He glanced around warily. “If you ask me, they know what they’re up against, and they’re rising to the challenge. You might be more powerful, but they have the numbers.”
39
After one of the shifters dropped us off at Reagan’s house and we took a slow, touchy-feely shower, Emery and I sat at the kitchen table, staring at my phone.
I’d called my mother. She hadn’t answered, but a reckoning was coming.
Up until that point, she’d assumed everything was fine. That I was busy training, we hadn’t seen hide nor hair of the Guild (which had been mostly true up until recently), and life was bumping along. I wasn’t a good liar, but luckily, Veronica, Callie, and Dizzy were excellent. When I accidentally set off alarm bells, they covered for me beautifully.
Well, I was about to ring the alarm gong. We needed help that only my mother could (hopefully) provide.
She was going to be so pissed.
My phone vibrated against the table.
I glanced up at the clock on the oven. Eight-oh-three. Fifteen minutes after I’d called. Fifteen minutes before she had to get her popcorn and TV ready for her favorite show.
Hopefully, she hadn’t figured out how to work the DVR, and the conversation had an expiration date.
Emery nodded slowly, offering support. I could see my wariness mirrored in his eyes. He’d met my mother. He knew the score.
I picked up the phone with chin held high and pursed my lips, ignoring my shaking hand. I opened it, then wiped away the dirt that showered the table top.
“Hello?” I asked in a calm, steady voice.
“No, you may not marry that boy. I don’t care that he came back; you barely know him. And while we’re on the subject, no, you may not live with that boy. He is to stay in his own residence until you have dated him for at least a year, do you understand me? Are you practicing safe sex? You’re not stupid, so I assume you are. But do you remember the talk we had? Sex is not the same thing as porn. Those are different. You need to show him what—”
“Mother, Mother, Mother!” I leaned back in my chair, immediately rattled. “Would you stop? What are you— How—”
I had to stop and regroup. All I’d been through, and this woman could shake me up like a canned soda.
“I know he is back. Is he sitting there with you? Don’t get me wrong, he’s a nice boy, but Penny, he is much more experienced than you. You need to—”
“Mother! That is not why I’m calling.”
“It might not be why you’re calling, but it is certainly an issue. Let me talk to him.”
“No. No! Listen…” I put my hand up to stall her, as though she were in the room. “Listen. I’m in a bit of a pickle, and we need some advice.”
Silence filled the line briefly. “Fine. We’ll table that discussion for now. What’s up?”
I took a deep breath, not really sure where to start. “I’m going to put you on speaker. Can you be normal for just a few minutes?”
“Penelope Bristol, I am your mother. You should know that I do not have an ounce of normal in my body.”
Why did she make things so very difficult?
“Fine.” I pushed the speaker button and put the phone in between Emery and me. “I’m here with Emery.”
Silence.
That was better than talking.
“We are sitting within an extremely thorough ward that not even a large force can break through,” I started. “But it isn’t at the Bankses’ house.”
I grimaced, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Still silence.
That was no longer better than talking. It meant she was saving up her
aggression for a big blow.
“I’ve been staying with Reagan, who is extremely knowledgeable and powerful.” I waited for something. Nothing came. “Callie and Dizzy’s training wasn’t working, so Darius took over. Not the training, but the managing of it. He hasn’t really organized any details yet because there was an issue with some vampires at his house and he’s a bit tied up. So I’m kind of stuck with Reagan, although she has proved an excellent teacher. I’ve come very far. I’m not fast enough yet, especially in a battle, but I’m much better. Control-wise, anyway. I’m really coming along.”
The silence stretched.
This was really not good.
“And, through a spur-of-the-moment accidental marooning in the French Quarter, we may have, accidentally, taken out a favor with the shifters to avoid getting captured by the Mages’ Guild.”
More silence.
“And so…I called you,” I finished lamely.
“I see,” she said after another pause. “Anything else?”
“Oh! I kind of went against Callie and Dizzy’s wishes and chased down, then captured, a banshee. I was only in danger for a very brief period of time, so I really think that’s a non-issue.” I swallowed audibly. “In the grand scheme of things, I mean.”
“I see,” she said much more slowly. “And does that boy have anything to say for himself?”
Emery cleared his throat and leaned forward a little. “I accept whatever punishment you choose to level on me, but I love your daughter. I’m just trying to do right by her in any way I can.”
Adrenaline washed through my body, sending jitters and tingles and cold and hot racing through me all at once. I gripped his arm and turned toward him, tears fogging my eyes and heat soaking my heart. I’d opened my mouth to tell him how I felt—even more deeply than when I’d first told him—when the front door crashed open.
Metal squealed as it tore from the frame. Screws flew, hit the ground, and rolled away. The wood crashed against the wall before tumbling into the entryway.
“What was that?” my mother yelled.
Emery was already up on his feet with a spell in front of him, ready to throw.
