Conviction

by Jennifer Blackstream

  “She’ll be here,” Peasblossom said fiercely. “You told her you found Andy. She’ll be here. She knows how important he is to you.”

  “But does she care?”

  Peasblossom’s wings stuttered to a stop and she dipped in the air before catching herself. “You don’t think she cares?”

  The piece of wood I was on groaned under my foot, and I quickly sidestepped. “She bolted from Marilyn’s without waiting to make sure Raphael and Luna were done making trouble. Why? She wasn’t injured. Where did she go?” I shook my head. “She had to have known what she did to Liam. She had to know I’d have questions, that I’d need information to help him. But she left anyway. Without a word.”

  I grasped the handle to the front door and turned it. The sunlight wasn’t bright enough to pierce the shadows inside the house, especially with the windows overgrown with sagging ivy. I held up a hand. “Lumen.”

  Three balls of yellow light floated before me, letting me see the path forward. To my right, two orbs of green light stared at me from the shadows.

  I jumped, my heart spasming in my chest so hard I clapped a hand over it. I landed on a spot to the left of the door, and the wood gave a muffled crack under my feet. I let out a squeak of dismay, trying to call my magic even as I threw my body to the side to avoid falling through the floor.

  My hands touched a large, furred body. Scath. I grappled to hold onto her as she leaned away from the weak boards, saving me from seeing what the basement looked like.

  Pulse pounding, I sat on the floor to regain my breath, leaning against her for support. I wanted to say something, but I didn’t know where to start. Where the bloody hell were you? Thanks?

  “Andy’s here somewhere,” I said instead.

  Scath waited silently for me to regain my footing, making sure I was on solid ground before she swiveled her head toward the front door.

  “Your feline friend is back,” Flint observed from the doorway.

  “Andy?” I called out. “Are you here?”

  Scath paced ahead of me, searching out secure places for me to put my feet. Not only was the floor a series of potential land mines, there was debris everywhere. Newspapers and plastic bags, random tools and empty cans. I followed Scath, ears straining for any response from Andy.

  “Don’t fly too far ahead of me,” I warned Peasblossom. “The ceiling is falling apart too, I don’t want you getting crushed by a piece of plaster.”

  A low growl rumbled from Scath’s throat, cutting off Peasblossom’s indignant reply. I looked down at her and found her staring up at the ceiling. “What is it?”

  Scath raised her head. Inside the house, the main floor was gutted. There were missing sections of plaster in the ceiling, but it was difficult to tell if any of them had gone clear through to the next floor because it was so dark. I squinted, but didn’t see what had caught Scath’s attention. I raised my hand, sending the yellow balls of light from my spell higher.

  Flint picked his way over the floor to stand beside me. “What’s going on?”

  The gunshot made me jump.

  Beside me, Flint grunted and fell backward. The wood gave way beneath him with a sickening crack. There was no giant hole that opened up that he fell through. Rather, it happened piece by piece, with one section being punched out by his arm as he tried to catch himself, then that rupture weakening the boards beneath him so they folded when his body made contact. It happened in seconds. He was there, then he was gone.

  “Andy?!” Peasblossom cried.

  I jerked my head up to find her hovering by the ceiling, pointing to a hole I hadn’t seen before.

  Scath bolted, heading for the dilapidated stairs and flowing up without a sound as if she were made of shadow.

  “Peasblossom, check on Flint!” I shouted.

  The pixie dropped from the ceiling like a falling star, winking through the hole in the floor to find the injured leannan sidhe.

  Without Scath’s preternatural grace, I couldn’t run to the stairs like I wanted to. I had to weave my way over the debris, feel out for weak spots that might have been made even weaker by the new Flint-sized hole.

  Another gunshot rang out.

  “Blood and bone,” I snarled. I braced myself and broke into a run, trying to stay close to the edge of the stairs where the floor should be more secure, holding on to the railing in case I fell. I said a prayer to the Goddess to guide me, focused the orbs of light I’d conjured on the floor so they lit my path like theater running lights.

  I reached the second landing with my heart pounding, my breaths ragged. The wall to my right was mostly solid with a few patches missing from the rose-colored wallpaper. To my left, a railing protected the stairs, but the walls that had once formed what looked like two bedrooms were mostly gone. The second floor was open, with the exception of a bedroom at the end of the hall on the left whose open door blocked the view beyond it.

  “Hello, Mother Renard.”

  Raphael’s voice flowed over my senses like heated whiskey. My pulse throbbed, making me swallow hard as my body remembered that voice, remembered what I’d felt the last time I heard it. I didn’t know if Raphael was flexing his power again, or if the memory was still so fresh in my mind that he could awaken it with just his voice.

  There was no time to fight it, so I didn’t. Instead, I used that rush of adrenaline, poured it into my magic. I hurled my arm outward, sending more lights skittering into the shadows to illuminate the sidhe’s face. His grey eyes glittered with malice and he held an upraised gun, but that wasn’t what threatened to stop my heart in my chest.

  Andy lay on the ground at Raphael’s feet. His suit jacket was gone, his white shirt so bright it practically glowed in the dark. I took an unsteady step forward, straining to see some sign of movement, some rise and fall of his chest.

  “He’s alive, don’t look so worried. I took the liberty of disarming Agent Bradford after he shot your master. You’re welcome.”

  Scath snarled and drew nearer. I hadn’t even noticed her when I came up the stairs, too distracted by Raphael. But now I could see she was limping. Her front left leg wouldn’t hold her weight, and I soon saw the glistening patch of blood on her shoulder.

  “You shot her?”

  “I just told you Agent Bradford shot your master. Why would you assume I shot your pet and not him?”

  I couldn’t look away from Andy, but I didn’t need to read Raphael’s face to know he was mocking me. “Why did you shoot her?”

  The leannan sidhe shrugged. “She arrived rather suddenly. I’d only just disarmed your FBI agent, and I was…tense. Anyway, you can hardly blame me for being proactive in my defense after what she did to your werewolf lover.”

  I was getting really tired of the comments on my sex life, but I wasn’t going to let him distract me from the matter at hand. “Why are you here?” I asked bluntly.

  “I’m here to catch a murderer.” Raphael nudged Andy with the toe of his boot. “And I did.”

  “Andy isn’t a murderer.” I closed my hand into a fist, feeling the pulse of the ring on my finger as defensive magic crawled over my skin. It wouldn’t stop a bullet, but it would help against most other attacks.

  “He killed Raichel and Deacon, that’s apparent to at least one of us. And now he’s killed Flint. Your master, whatever his lesser qualities, was still one of my kin. I had every right to intervene.”

  “Did Andy shoot Flint?” I asked, challenging him with my glare. “Or did you?”

  “Andy shoot Flint,” Raphael said. “On my oath.”

  “And was he under your influence when he did it?” I demanded. “Did you pump him full of adrenaline the way you did to us back at Marilyn’s?”

  “No.” Raphael snorted. “Come now, Shade, you’re being deliberately dense, aren’t you? Think about it. Why do you think Morgan invited Agent Bradford to see her?”

  I stilled. I knew why I thought she’d done it. But suddenly I was very interested to know what he thought. “
What are you suggesting?”

  Raphael narrowed his eyes. “Either you’re being coy, or you aren’t as clever as everyone seems to think you are.”

  “Either you’re being coy, or you have no idea why Morgan invited Andy to see her,” I shot back.

  Raphael grinned, a sudden baring of too-white teeth. “Touché. Tell me, what do you know about Morgan?”

  “I know that she’s part fury. I know she used to belong to a house of punishers.” I stared into Raphael’s eyes, searching for some hint to his thoughts. “I’ll admit, I wondered if her interest in Andy was a holdout from her days at court. Maybe she’s feeling the urge to recruit, the way her house did before it fell.”

  Raphael shifted his weight. “You know more than I thought, and less than you should.”

  “Enlighten me.” I took a careful step closer to Andy.

  “Don’t come any closer, or I’ll kill him here and now,” Raphael said coldly. “We aren’t done talking.”

  Anger surged through me, sharpening my voice. I faced the leannan sidhe with clenched fists, letting him see just how far he was pushing me by refusing to let me near my partner. “What do you want, Raphael?”

  “What do I want?”

  “You’d obviously prefer to talk about Morgan and what sway she has over Andy, but right now, none of that matters to me.”

  “Liar.”

  I pinned him with my gaze. “Right now, I care about getting Andy out of this house. Making sure he’s not hurt. That is my goal. My only goal for the moment.” I lowered my voice. “And the only thing standing between me and that goal…is you.”

  Raphael’s eyes brightened, and his chest rose and fell a little faster with each breath. “Oh. Are you…threatening me?”

  “I’m helping you to understand the precarious situation you’ve found yourself in,” I said. “You’re outnumbered. And if you’re half as clever as you clearly think you are, then you’ll realize you have nothing to gain by dangling this threat to Andy’s life in front of me.”

  “What would you do if I killed him?” Raphael raised the gun, idly pointing it at Andy’s chest. “If I shot him, right now. What would you do?”

  “You know what I would do.”

  Raphael shook his head, slowly. “Tell me. Or I’ll find out for myself.”

  Scath stood beside me. Her leg continued to bleed, as it would until I could bandage it. Andy’s bullets would have a high enough iron content that she wouldn’t heal as fast as she should. She could still fight, albeit slower, but I wasn’t sure even she could make it to Andy before Raphael shot him.

  “I would do my very best to make sure you never left this house alive,” I whispered.

  “How would you kill me?” Raphael pressed.

  He was staring at me again. Staring at me the way he had back at Marilyn’s, as if he were studying me, weighing an option I hadn’t been aware of yet. He had the look of a man trying to figure something out. Someone who’d been presented with a new possibility, and couldn’t decide if it scared or excited him.

  I lifted my chin. “Slowly.”

  A grin spread over Raphael’s face, wide enough that I saw one tooth on the left side of his mouth was crooked. His eyes glowed faintly in the light from my spell, bright silver like liquid mercury.

  “I’ll make you a deal, Shade,” he said, his voice hypnotic. “I’ll let you take your partner out of here. Heal him, put him to bed. I’ll even join your futile quest to prove his innocence, offer whatever assistance, whatever information I can.” He leaned forward. “If you’ll agree to a new contract.”

  My temper reached a low boil, my magic simmering hot and ready inside me. “What contract?”

  “Flint is dead. You’re free of him. Which makes you free to engage in other partnerships. Sign a contract with me. One year, same as Flint. The contract I should have had in April. Do it, and I’ll let your friend go. You’ll have your chance to save him.” He shrugged. “I’ll even allow for a delayed start to our new contract. It won’t go into effect until Andy begins serving his own sentence.”

  His gun remained steady, and there was no doubt in my mind that Raphael would do it. He’d kill Andy here and now. Without a second thought.

  “Why do you want that contract so badly?” I stalled, trying to give my brain time to think, give Scath time to heal, give Peasblossom time to return to me. If Andy’s shot had been true, the bullet would have killed Flint instantly, just as if he were human. Peasblossom would go invisible, come back to me. She could be here now…

  Raphael tilted the gun down, pulled the trigger.

  The shot was so much louder than I expected. Not just because we were indoors and only an idiot fired a gun indoors, but because I saw Andy’s body jerk. A groan escaped his lips and he shifted, his leg curling toward his body. He hissed out a breath. Then another.

  Raphael had shot him in the thigh.

  “Your word,” Raphael said, his voice low but still completely calm. “Your word you’ll sign my contract. Same one you had with Flint, but with my name in place of that oversexed magic whore.”

  Another shot rang out. Raphael bellowed in pain, releasing the gun as he clutched his hand against his chest, leaving a smear of blood. His mouth twisted into a snarl as his gaze locked onto something over my shoulder.

  “I’m afraid Shade’s contract is not quite over yet,” Flint said from behind me.

  Chapter 14

  Flint’s voice had never been a pleasant sound for me, but in this moment, I could almost appreciate it. If only for the shock that fell over Raphael’s face when his rival came up the stairs behind me. Flint looked suspiciously healthy for a sidhe who’d just been shot in the chest. Shot in the heart, if the hole in his shirt was any indication.

  “You’re wearing a bulletproof vest?” I sputtered. “That’s what you were doing at the car after I left.”

  “I’ve invested in all sorts of new toys since we began our relationship,” Flint murmured. “Thought I’ll admit, I thought it would be a little longer before your FBI friend got up the guts to shoot me. But staring down the barrel of one’s own death does put things in perspective.” He stepped closer to me, but didn’t take his eyes off Raphael. “I knew Andy cared about you. Even when you didn’t believe it yourself. Of course he’d try to kill me with the time he has left.”

  Raphael reached down and grabbed Andy by the back of his shirt. The thin white fabric ripped, but enough of the material held for him to haul Andy against his chest, using him as a human shield. Andy dragged in a sharp breath before shouting in pain as he tried to get his feet under him and put weight on his injured leg.

  “Stop it!” I shouted. “Let him go!”

  “He’ll feel better if I don’t.” Raphael tucked his face close to Andy’s ear, keeping Flint from getting a clear shot at his head. “Give him a second and he’ll feel much better.”

  Andy’s head lolled forward, and his chest rapidly rose and fell with heaving breaths as Raphael’s influence spilled over him. I could see him gritting his teeth, sweat forming at his temples. My own body responded in sympathy, my pulse skipping a beat. I remembered that overwhelming sense of power. The feeling of invulnerability, the need to act, pain and injury be damned.

  I was too caught up in the memory to notice at first that the bleeding in Andy’s leg was slowing down. Or that he was resting his full weight on it without any apparent pain. I didn’t see how tight his torn shirt was becoming against his skin, more than could be explained by Raphael’s rough handling. It wasn’t until Andy straightened, his head towering above Raphael’s that I realized he’d changed.

  Realized he was much bigger.

  Flint cursed behind me.

  My mouth fell open. Andy was seven feet tall if he was an inch. His body swelled outward, giving him the thick arms, barrel chest, and massive thighs that even five years of steroids and daily trips to the gym with a professional Hollywood trainer couldn’t have offered. The scars on his arms, the ones that had lef
t his skin looking like melted wax, were no longer smooth and pale. They bled. Rivulets of crimson washed down his skin as if whatever power had possessed him was making his body relive every injury he’d ever received. The tatters of his shirt hung from his body, the blood making them look more like torn strips of flesh. When Andy opened his eyes, they were no longer a soft brown.

  They were black.

  Solid black.

  “What did you do to him?”

  I meant to scream the words, but they came out a whisper. I was choking on my own magic, my anger so hot, so heavy in my head that I thought a sharp exhale from my lips might be enough to slay Raphael. I raised a hand, ready to blast the leannan sidhe out of the house. Out of my city.

  “Raphael didn’t do that,” Flint said grimly.

  Someone knocked me to the ground.

  The world tilted madly, my head spinning with vertigo as my attacker carried me to the floor. My elbows struck the hardwood with enough force to jolt my entire body, rattling my bones. Cold hands clutched my face, long fingers curling around my jaw, seizing me with such ferocity that I couldn’t have formed the words for another question—let alone a spell—if I tried. I took a short, surprised breath and was greeted by the scent of leather and metal.

  Luna.

  I gritted my teeth, raised my hands to pry her grip from my face. The collision had knocked the wind out of me, and I was too slow. Luna’s power hit me like a cotton-wrapped sledgehammer. Relaxation forced its way into my muscles, stealing the tension and leaving me a heap of boneless flesh on the ground. My head fell to the side, giving me a view of Andy as the transformation finished, left him sucking in ragged breaths, his dark eyes scanning the room with the shrewd stare of a hungry predator.

  A flash of pink near his hip caught my eye.

  Peasblossom.

  An idea struck me like a bolt of lightning. Maybe it was all Peasblossom. Maybe she’d healed Andy, then used her glamour to change his appearance. She was bluffing, trying to make Raphael back off.