Conviction

by Jennifer Blackstream

  The equines watched the Vanguard leave, their expressions a mix of confusion and something else.

  “You’re under arrest for murder,” Andy clarified, his eyes still locked on Siobhan. He advanced toward her. “You have the right to remain—”

  “Wipe that smile off your face, Bradford,” Siobhan snarled. “I came ready for treachery.”

  The van behind Siobhan shook, the thud of something heavy against metal warning me that something was happening inside. It occurred to me then that the three racers I’d seen had all arrived in human form. Which meant the obvious weight in the van had not come from a few horse-sized passengers…but rather many passengers in human form.

  Passengers who, by the sounds of it, wouldn’t be in human form for long.

  My suspicion was confirmed a moment later when three new figures exited the van on the far side, then circled around to stand by the first three racers.

  The first waterhorse that stepped into my line of vision was a huge white beast with a mane of dark green snakes that hissed and writhed in the cold air. My breath froze in my lungs. She was a kelpie, but a rare breed I’d never seen in person before.

  “This is Medusa’s Bane,” Siobhan announced with grim satisfaction. “She’s come all the way from Aberdeenshire just to meet you, Agent Bradford.”

  Andy shifted beside me and I thought I felt the air between us grow a few degrees warmer. I didn’t look at him, though. I wasn’t sure how much Siobhan knew about how his corruption affected him.

  And I didn’t want to ruin the surprise.

  A second horse creature came from behind Medusa’s Bane. This one was a steel grey, with a dark black mane that fell in wet tendrils down his neck. Other than looking strong there was nothing about him to suggest he posed a particular threat.

  “This is Captain’s Orders,” Siobhan said, reading my expression. “He’s here because he won his last three races, and he deserved a treat.”

  Before I could respond to that, her third lackey stepped forward. This arrival was still in human form, but the shape of his irises betrayed him as a backahast. His dark brown skin seemed to absorb the meager light from the coming dawn, softening it into a muted velvet shine on his flesh. He wore a heavy crimson cloak with a thin chain clasp at the throat. There was something about his long dark hair that made me think of feathers, but I couldn’t put my finger on what. I suspected he was not a purebred backahast, not with feathers in his family tree.

  “Swansong is in human form for now,” Siobhan said, her eyes on me. “Mostly because he has something to say to you, Mother Renard.”

  Liam and Scath had moved apart as Siobhan’s thugs gathered around her. As if instinct told both shifters to fan out, get ready to pick the equines off one by one. Maybe they were also waiting to see which of our opponents made the first aggressive move to choose their target.

  Which is why it came as a shock when Shadow of Death whirled to the side and dropped his shoulder to charge—straight into Charlotte’s Web.

  I stared as the backahast drove the each uisge to the ground, then wrapped his hands around Charlotte’s throat. I had a split second to wonder what on earth would make Charlotte’s Web his target, and not Andy—or even Siobhan.

  Then Siobhan stepped forward.

  “I’ve been waiting so long for this.” She reached behind her and drew something metallic from the waistband of her pants.

  My eyes flew wide and my magic roared inside me as I darted forward. “Gun!”

  The roar of the gunshot made every nerve in my body spasm. Andy jerked back with a grunt, and suddenly for me the scene moved in the slow-motion of a nightmare. Blood blossomed on the right side of his belly, and he clapped a hand over it without taking his eyes off Siobhan.

  “You have the right to remain silent,” he hissed.

  Peasblossom darted off my shoulder, sailing through the air before landing on Andy’s head. Then grasping his hair to hold on as she let her magic flow over him. “Should have worn a vest!” she scolded him.

  Relief washed over me. She could keep him stabilized, keep him from bleeding out. If she could hold on.

  The injury didn’t slow Andy down. He was already charging at Siobhan, and even in the dim light, I could see him getting bigger as he ran. That wild energy—demonic energy—swelling inside him until his body strained against his shirt. I reflected it might be better he wasn’t wearing a bulletproof vest. I doubted it would tear easily, and the last thing he needed was to get tangled up in Kevlar.

  Still reciting her Miranda warning, Andy launched himself at Siobhan, and his fingers wrapped around her hand holding the gun. I imagined I could hear her bones crack under the long shriek of pain.

  I hadn’t been expecting the gun from Siobhan, but now that I knew she was armed, I was faster to spot Rowyn drawing a weapon. This time, I was ready. I aimed at his gun, the words of the spell ready on my lips. “Pax!”

  Rowyn’s head jerked toward me, even as he pulled the trigger. But the metal wouldn’t move. His eyes narrowed at his firearm, trying to figure out what was wrong. Another gunshot rang out, and Rowyn’s body jerked.

  I spun to find Flint approaching from around Liam’s truck. He walked with his arm extended, his gun still trained on the fallen kelpie clutching his thigh. Blood seeped between Rowyn’s fingers as he gritted his teeth.

  Flint winked at me, the teasing gesture contrasting with the tension holding his back stiff. “Sorry I’m late.”

  Puck’s Folly gave Rowyn a disgusted look, then fixed his eyes on me. He took a step forward, but his progress halted immediately when Scath launched herself through the space between our two groups, hitting Puck squarely in the chest and knocking him to the ground. The nuckelavee twisted under the press of her claws, but he didn’t scream. Instead, his entire body rippled and twitched as he began the shift to his equine form, even as Scath dug her claws deeper.

  A pulse of heat behind me told me Liam was shifting, and I caught a hint of his half-man, half-beast form in my peripheral vision. He opened a mouth full of sharp teeth and snarled. Then he threw himself in the path of Medusa’s Bane as she reared up over Andy, ready to bring her sharp hooves down on his spine. One rake of his claws severed the heads of two snakes in the nest of her mane, but three others jerked forward, sinking their fangs into his arm. Liam growled and swiped with his other hand, claws cutting cleanly through the thin serpentine bodies.

  Medusa screamed, a high-pitched equine sound that frazzled my nerves. She pivoted on her back legs, her hooves plunging through the space where Liam had been seconds ago.

  More movement caught my eye, and I spotted Captain’s Orders approaching Andy. The kelpie had used his magic to summon the silver bridle that his kind so often used to lure human victims closer. The morning’s first light caught the silver, making it shine as the kelpie dangled it closer and closer to Andy. I lifted a hand, ready to fire another spell.

  Someone started singing.

  I frowned as the first dulcet tones tickled my ears, wormed their way into my brain. I shook my head, stumbled back a step as I searched for the source of the music. My search stopped on Swansong, and suddenly our gazes locked. It was him. He was singing. And I knew then that I’d been right. There was something with feathers in his heritage. Sirin, maybe. Or harpy.

  I felt my body swaying as if I were lying in a boat on the water, being carried to and fro, up and down by the gentle swell of water. I blinked slowly, barely aware that Captain’s Orders was approaching my partner, dangling his silver bridle closer to the hand Andy had wrapped around Siobhan’s throat. He was trying to entrance him with the enchanted harness, convince him to release Siobhan and grab the bridle. I had the semi-hysterical thought that if Andy touched that bridle, Captain could easily swing him onto his back. It would be a fast ride to the lake after that…

  I made my hand into a fist, feeling the ring of shielding on my finger, concentrating on thickening that wall of energy. I had to fight that song, get it out o
f my head. But the music was so plaintive, so beautiful. It echoed in my ears, coaxed me to listen. To sleep.

  Andy released his crushing grip on Siobhan’s broken gun hand and snatched Captain’s bridle. A sharp stab of panic chased back some of my lethargy from Swansong’s music, but it wasn’t enough. I couldn’t raise my arm, couldn’t grab hold of my magic. I tried to yell a warning.

  Suddenly, Andy made a sharp whirling motion with his wrist, wrapping Captain’s bridle around his fist and jerking, hard. He used the hand around Siobhan’s throat to yank her off the ground, and my eyes widened when he looped the reins of the bridle around her neck and pulled tight.

  Captain let out a muffled scream, but froze, aware that if he struggled too hard, the bridle would come off. If that happened, it would be Andy who controlled him. The enchanted bridle was a double-edge sword.

  Captain kicked out with his front hooves, battering Andy in the ribs with enough force to shatter bone. But Andy didn’t seem to feel it. His gaze remained on Siobhan’s face, watching her writhe in the gravel, fighting to breathe. I was dimly aware that he was saying the last words of the Miranda warning.

  A flash of pink caught my eye. Peasblossom still gripped Andy’s hair like the reins of a bronco, her magic still pulsing against him, keeping his injuries from becoming fatal.

  I fought to throw off Swansong’s magic, but his song grew louder in my ears, drilling into my brain until it drowned out my thoughts. I squeezed my eyes shut, then regretted it immediately as being blind gave my brain fewer distractions from the haunting melody.

  Suddenly, the song cut off. My eyes flew open, and I saw Swansong clutching his bloody throat, his eyes wide. He made a wet gasping sound as he tried to breathe. Liam stood with his clawed hand at his side, dripping blood from where he’d raked them over Swansong’s throat. He looked at me, but there wasn’t time for communication.

  Medusa charged at Liam, dead snakes hanging from her mane, fury blazing in her eyes. I threw out my hand, hurling a spell into the air over her head. “Tonitrua!”

  Dark clouds swirled and gathered, writhing black masses flickering with bright silver light. I flicked my hand down, dragging a bolt of lighting from the clouds straight into the snake-haired equine. The smell of burning flesh accompanied her scream as she fell to the ground. The few snakes in her mane that had still been moving lay dead. Fried.

  Flint scooped Rowyn’s gun off the ground, keeping his own weapon aimed at the kelpie’s chest. He stepped back, tilting his head slightly from side to side, taking in the battle with quick glances.

  Scath still grappled with Puck’s Folly. Her jaw hung at a wrong angle—broken by one of his vicious kicks. She was fighting to get her claws into his flesh as he lashed out with deadly hooves, trying to trample her.

  Then Flint’s gaze flew to Andy. Captain was still pummeling Andy with his hooves, over and over. Andy’s body had swelled beyond his shirt’s ability to hold, his body three times the size it had been. I didn’t know enough about Andy’s corruption to know how much damage he could take, or just exactly what his abilities were. But his shirt had fallen away in tatters, and the scars on his back were bleeding again, oozing as if they were fresh. It was possible that he couldn’t bleed to death. That could be part of the corruption. But still, the broken ribs had to hurt. And if Captain managed to drive a broken bone into his heart, even Peasblossom’s magic might not be enough to save his life…

  Flint swung his gun around and shot Captain. The large equine’s body jerked, blood blossoming on his shoulder. Flint’s shot was true, and suddenly Captain staggered back, wheezing from his red foam-coated muzzle as if the bullet had nicked his lung.

  Rowyn took advantage of the distraction and hurled himself off the ground to tackle Flint. The kelpie used one hand to push the gun away from him and the other to smash a fist into Flint’s face.

  A feline snarl spun me around, and I spotted Scath standing a few feet away from Puck. One look at the nuckelavee and I could tell her claws had severed the muscles of his shoulder. The damage was hard to look at, his right arm looking like so much raw meat hanging limply at his side. He couldn’t stand, could only lie there, glaring at her with murderous promise in his eyes.

  Medusa lurched off the ground, smoke rising from the bloody ends of her severed snakes, her teeth glistening with saliva as she took an unsteady step toward me. Suddenly, Bizbee poked his head out from the waist pouch. My mouth fell open as he aimed a thin tube at Medusa. He huffed out a breath, and a tiny burst of grey flakes shot over the kelpie. She screamed as the iron filings stuck to the burns all over her body.

  I hissed and stepped back, then caught sight of Liam lifting Swansong’s body overhead. He swung him around and hurled him at Rowyn. The airborne waterhorse struck the kelpie hard, knocking him away from Flint.

  I waved my hand, sending the thunderstorm I’d conjured over the two men, then drove both my arms down. Twin bolts of lightning arced into the ground, searing through both of them in a burst of electricity.

  Another gunshot rang out.

  Everyone froze.

  All eyes turned to Andy. He’d grabbed Siobhan’s gun from the ground, and now he held it pressed against her forehead. The female kelpie wasn’t moving. No one spoke. Even Scath held perfectly still, her eerie green eyes locked on Siobhan’s body.

  Andy shoved himself to his feet. He still held Captain’s bridle wrapped around his meaty fist, and he fixed the frozen waterhorse with a murderous glare, then jerked on the tack. The bridle slipped off Captain’s head, and the waterhorse let out a sound somewhere between a scream and a moan before dropping his head. Submissive.

  Andy reeled forward, dragging Siobhan with him. He surveyed the area with black eyes, and I held my breath, waiting to see what he would do next. His entire body was red with blood, shiny and wet in the meager light of the new dawn.

  Rowyn, Puck, Swansong, and Medusa stirred on the ground, but they were all badly burned from my lightning, and the latter wheezed and coughed up blood through the pain of the iron filings. If she could shift, she had a chance of forcing the metal from her body enough to heal, but I didn’t like her chances without help. And it was possible that shifting could push some of the filings deeper into her body. Getting them out again after that would be nigh-impossible.

  “You’ve won.”

  I jerked at the sound of Charlotte’s voice. I’d forgotten about him and his brawl with Shadow of Death. I looked for Shadow now, and at first I didn’t see him. Then I noticed Charlotte’s mouth was smeared with blood. I sucked in a sharp breath. This time when I looked, I found Shadow.

  Or what was left of him.

  “You ate him.” I hadn’t meant to say it out loud. But in the silence of post-battle, my words carried.

  Charlotte treated me to another inscrutable look from his dark, oily eyes that made me wild to know what was going on his head.

  Charlotte met Andy’s black gaze as casually as if he were welcoming him to a summer luncheon. “You’ve won,” he said again. He gestured at Siobhan. “Will you kill her?”

  “Yes,” Andy rasped. His eyes found mine. “After a trial. I have the evidence. Let her answer for it first.”

  The each uisge nodded slowly. “Then she is leader no more.” He turned, looking around at his fellow teammates. “If anyone here would like to challenge me, speak now.”

  Flint rose to one knee, one hand cradling his jaw. “You’re the new leader?”

  Charlotte smiled, a soft expression at sharp odds with the blood staining his teeth and lips. “Yes I am.”

  “That’s why Shadow attacked you.” My eyes swiveled from him to Siobhan, whom Andy was now handcuffing. “He knew Siobhan would be killed or ousted or both tonight. He knew your team would need a new leader. And he knew you were his competition.”

  “Not much of a competition.” Charlotte grunted toward the pile of meat that had been Shadow of Death. “He always had such a high opinion of himself. Too high, really.” He shrugged.
“Winning a race was never that important to me. I win when it counts.”

  Charlotte addressed Andy again. “As leader I will allow no more interference with children. Or almost-children. I have no desire to prey on the weak. And I look forward to punishing anyone on my team who feels differently.”

  “You’ll still eat people.” Andy’s voice was such a deep, grating sound that it hurt my throat just to hear it.

  “Maybe. Maybe not. There are many other options.” Charlotte tilted his head. “You do know we’re cannibals?”

  Andy’s eyebrows shot up. I put a hand to my stomach, willing myself not to throw up. I needed out of this conversation. Now.

  “Andy, we need to go,” I said, swallowing back bile. Don’t throw up, don’t throw up. “You need to heal.”

  “Go,” Charlotte agreed. “I’ll clean up here.” He smiled at me. He didn’t say anything, but I knew that look when I saw it.

  It was a look that said “See you later.”

  That can’t be good.

  Chapter 28

  “You’re stuck, aren’t you?”

  I leaned back in the driver’s seat of my car and eyed Peasblossom where she slumped on the rearview mirror. A honey packet dangled from one hand, and the other had been surreptitiously trying to pry her dress off the plastic back of the mirror for the last five minutes.

  “I am not stuck,” Peasblossom said primly. “I’m just relaxing. We’ve been up all night, you know.”

  I dropped my attention back to the windshield, staring at the front of Andy’s house. He was inside right now, talking to his mom and dad. Well, their ghosts. I’d offered to go inside with him. He was the one to ask me to come along. But he said he wanted to talk to them alone. And even though he didn’t come right out and say it, I knew what I was there for.

  Damage control.

  “He’ll be okay,” Peasblossom said confidently. “His mum will set him right.”

  I sighed, pretending not to notice when she finally jerked her honey-glued dress free and almost fell off the mirror. “I’m afraid this isn’t something a mom can set right.”