Wicked Wings

by Keri Arthur

  Then something within me twisted, and a fiery strength rose—one that had been a part of me since before I was born, but had somehow awakened within this reservation. Calm descended. There could be no more running. Not now. This reservation was to be the final battleground, the place where my fate and my future would be decided, for good or for bad. But this was my home ground, not his. He might be more powerful than all of us combined, but was he stronger than the wild magic that now burned through me?

  I guess we’d all find out soon enough.

  Something flickered through Daniela’s gaze—an awareness of the power now burning within, perhaps. As much as I wished she hadn’t caught that surge, it really didn’t matter anymore. Her report would be sent, her recommendations would be made. The fate I’d spent twelve years running from was now in motion. There was nothing I could do to avoid it.

  I could only wait and prepare.

  “You’ve nothing to say?” Daniela said.

  Nothing to admit, was what she was really asking.

  I smiled, though it held little in the way of warmth or friendliness. “What do you expect me to say?”

  “Nothing, I guess. But I find the fact you haven’t even asked who Clayton Marlowe is rather odd.”

  “I simply gathered he is somehow related to the missing woman.”

  “He’s her second cousin, and also her husband.”

  “Was she abducted or something?”

  “Or something.” Her smile was every bit as cool as my own. “Thank you for your time, Ms. Grace.”

  She rose and left. I closed my eyes and clenched my fists against the scream that broke past the calm and threatened to erupt.

  Damn her. Damn her to hell…

  Hell is too damn good for her, came Belle’s comment.

  A cup of coffee appeared in front of my nose. The rich scents that teased my nostrils suggested it was heavily laced with whiskey. I accepted it gratefully and took a sip. If I kept this up, I thought glumly, I’d be well on the way to becoming a lush.

  Belle plonked down beside me. Monty took Daniela’s seat, his expression grim. “You could take this fight up to him, you know. You could approach the courts and ask for an annulment. The records might be hidden, but they do exist.”

  “He won’t give me an annulment. He wants revenge. He wants what we’ve denied him for twelve years.”

  “There’s no doubt in my mind that Clayton can hold a grudge with the best of them, but I doubt even he would step beyond the boundaries of the law—”

  “Except this is about more than the loss of face he suffered that night,” Belle cut in. “It’s about revenge. It’s about the fact he probably hasn’t been able to get an erection for the last twelve years thanks to a spell I might have cast in anger as we fled that night.”

  Monty blinked, and then something close to awe entered his expression. “You did that? To a blueblood possessing ten times your power?”

  “I was a little angry at the time.”

  “Then I shall endeavor never to make you angry enough to cast such a spell my way.” His amusement fell away. “That does put a more dangerous spin on things, however.”

  “Yes.” I drank some more coffee. “Both my father and he broke the law when they forced that marriage on me, Monty. What makes you think they won’t do so again to get me back?”

  He grimaced. “That means it’s perhaps even more vital you take the fight to him. If knowledge of what happened that night becomes public—”

  “It’s my word against two of the most powerful witches on the council,” I cut in. “Who do you think they’re going to believe?”

  “Yes, but if the marriage at least became public knowledge, his actions over the last twelve years will come under some scrutiny. He’ll also have to watch what he says and does in regard to you.”

  “I don’t think it’ll help—”

  “But it can’t hurt,” Belle said. “Not now that the tracer’s report is about to be filed. The minute he sees us, he’ll know the truth of our identities. At least if the marriage is outed before that happens, there’ll be questions about why we disappeared and why he and your father went to such lengths to hide it.”

  It went against every instinct; went against the need for self-preservation, and the desire to grab the few precious moments of life and love I had left to me before it went to hell.

  And yet, it made utter sense. To hold on to secrecy now would be playing into Clayton’s hands.

  I glanced at Monty. “I don’t suppose you know anyone up there who might have the pull to get the marriage certificate released?”

  He hesitated. “I could perhaps ask my father. He and Clayton have what can only be described as a rocky relationship, and I have no doubt he’d jump at the prospect of causing Clayton a little embarrassment.”

  “It’s a start. I’ll also ask Ashworth—he already has people up there keeping an eye on Clayton’s movements.”

  And if the Black Lantern Society was as powerful and as righteous as he implied, then two of the most powerful witches in Canberra forcing an unwanted marriage on a minor was something they’d surely want to investigate.

  Monty reached across the table and caught my hand. “You know I’ll do everything in my power to protect you, don’t you?”

  “Yes.” My voice held a tremulous note. Monty might be distant family, but he was also the only family who meant anything to me.

  “And you know Ashworth and Eli, and even Aiden, will do the same. All of us will get you both through this. It’s a promise.”

  I smiled, even though my heart wasn’t really in it. “Remember that old saying? The one about making promises you can’t keep?”

  “It doesn’t apply here. Believe that, if nothing else.”

  I nodded. There was nothing else I could do. The dice had been thrown, and the game was now in motion. There was nothing we could do to stop it.

  My only real hope was that when Clayton made his move, he did so openly and honorably.

  But I seriously feared that would not be the case.

  The rest of the day crawled by. I called Ashworth once we’d closed for the day and told him what had happened. He immediately said he’d get the Black Lantern Society onto it. It didn’t make me feel any easier. Nothing would now. Not until this mess was all finally sorted, one way or another.

  As evening began to stain the skies, I settled down to read the book on tracking spells Belle had retrieved from our storage locker earlier.

  She came out of her bedroom, looking glamorous in a red dress that skimmed her curves and only barely flirted with her upper thighs. I raised my eyebrows. “If your plan is to make Kash realize exactly what his inattentive manner has caused him to miss, I think you’ve got it spot-on. But I’m not sure that dress will be legal in many places.”

  She grinned. “We’re off to Émigré, which has a ‘less is more’ policy on certain nights.”

  “I wouldn’t have thought Émigré would be Kash’s thing.”

  Belle snorted. “He is, above all else, a player, even if his nerdy self came to the fore when he was scanning Gran’s books.”

  “Then I won’t expect you back home tonight. Have fun.”

  “Oh, I very much intend to.” She swung her purse over her shoulder and headed out.

  I spent the next hour or so reading the book, marking a couple of pages that had spell possibilities, although I didn’t find anything designed specifically for Empusae. Not yet, anyway.

  With a frustrated sigh, I put the book down and then headed downstairs to make myself something for dinner. I’d barely finished eating when someone knocked loudly on the front door.

  I frowned and glanced across to the old clock on the wall. It was just after eight, so it surely couldn’t be a customer, and anyone we knew would have rung us first.

  “Who is it?”

  “My name is Judy Rankin. I need your help.”

  I hesitated, studying the closed door for several seconds, feeling her o
ut with my ‘other’ senses. Unfortunately, they were giving me squat.

  “If you need help, Mrs. Rankin, you should talk to the rang—”

  “I can’t,” she cut in. “Please, can we just talk?”

  I thrust a hand through my hair and juggled the need to help with the desire to tell her to go elsewhere. As usual, the former won out. My sister’s death had certainly affected me in more ways than one.

  I walked across to the door but didn’t immediately open it. Instead, I peered through the bullet holes that we’d never bothered to repair. The woman standing on the other side of the door was tall, with pinched cheeks and a long nose. Not a wolf, I thought, even though her coloring was similar to the Sinclair pack.

  There was no one else within immediate sight, so I opened the door and let her in. “I gather you’re after some sort of psychic help if you believe the rangers can’t help.”

  She walked into the middle of the room and then stopped, her expression a mix of curiosity and desperation. “This is not what I was expecting.”

  Meaning she wasn’t one of our regular customers. Certainly I couldn’t remember seeing her before. “What do you want, Mrs. Rankin? It’s been a long day, and I’m really not in the mood to be mucked about.”

  “Oh. Sorry.” Her gaze jumped to mine, her expression slightly contrite. Not the brightest bulb in the box, I thought. “My son and his three mates have gotten themselves lost, and I was wondering if you could help me retrieve them.”

  It seemed to be the month for boys getting lost. I could only hope they hadn’t fallen down an old mine shaft as well. “Do you have any idea where they are?”

  She nodded, her annoyance obvious. “Up in the Manton’s Gully forest.”

  “And they have their phones with them?”

  She was obviously aware of the point I was about to make, because she immediately said, “Yes, but they’ve wandered into an area not covered by Google Maps and they’ve gotten themselves lost.”

  Given Google Maps covered pretty much everywhere, that was quite a feat. “So why come to me rather than the rangers? You’ve a reasonable idea where they are, so it shouldn’t take long for a ranger to find them.”

  “I know, but I don’t want to land the boys in trouble.” She hesitated. “They’re a little too near the Marin compound, you see, and I don’t want to draw any unwanted attention to them.”

  “Because they’ve been warned about trying to enter the Marin compound several times before?” I guessed.

  She grimaced. “Yes. They don’t mean any harm, but the elders don’t see it that way.”

  “Would you still feel that way if it was a bunch of teenagers raiding your home?”

  Surprise flitted across her expression. “Well no, of course not, but it’s hardly the same.”

  It was, but she obviously was never going to get that. I sighed. “If you want me to find them, I need something of your son’s—something he wears every day. I also won’t be doing it for free.”

  Not when I didn’t like the woman.

  “Oh,” she said, somewhat surprised. “How much would it be?”

  I gave her our general rate for personally finding things, and she blinked. “That seems overly high to me.”

  “Mrs. Rankin, if you want me to work outside of my usual hours, then you pay penalty rates. Or go to the rangers. Your choice.”

  “Oh,” she repeated. “Well, I guess I have no option. We could use his school shoes—”

  “I’ll need something that has had constant direct contact with his skin.”

  “Which they do.”

  I blinked. “He doesn’t wear socks?”

  “No. Apparently, it’s a fashion statement.”

  “In my day, a fashion statement like that would have landed you in detention.” Which made me sound older than Methuselah, I thought, amused.

  “Oh, it still does, but it’s considered a badge of honor.”

  One that obviously didn’t bother his mother. “Fine. Go get a shoe and I’ll see if I can get any vibes off it.”

  “And if you can’t?”

  “Then you’ll have to do things the old-fashioned way and organize a search party.”

  “That would take far too long,” she said, her tone cross. “And, as I’ve already said, I can’t afford to have this brought to the attention of the elders. It might get us thrown off the reservation.”

  If her son couldn’t be bothered following the rules, then perhaps that was for the best. But I bit back the comment and simply told her to go get the shoe. As she did, I walked down to the reading room and filled the backpack with the usual assortment of holy water and potions, and then grabbed my knife and its sheath. There was no way known I was going anywhere at night without a little extra witchy protection behind me. The Empusae might not have been active last night, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t be tonight. Didn’t mean she wasn’t circling the whole reservation, just waiting for the right moment to swoop and attack.

  With that cheery thought lingering, I threw the pack over my shoulder then grabbed my phone and keys. Mrs. Rankin reappeared just as I was making a coffee. I didn’t bother offering her one. I wasn’t in the mood to be that generous right now.

  I screwed the cap onto my travel mug and then walked over to the table on which the shiny black shoe sat. I picked it up, opened the psychic gates, and immediately felt a response. It was distant, but nevertheless strong. There was no sense of danger coming with that pulse, no sense of urgency. Her son might be lost, but he and his friends weren’t overly concerned about it.

  “Okay, I’m getting a clear response—”

  “Oh good, let’s go.”

  No way, no how. Not together. I cleared my throat and somehow managed politeness. “It’ll be easier if we take two cars—that way, you can take the boys straight home once we’ve found them.”

  “So I just follow you?”

  “Given you know their starting point, it’ll be quicker and easier if you lead the way there. I’ll use the shoe to locate them from that point on.”

  “Oh. Okay. I’m parked out the front.”

  “I’ve a red SUV around the back. You can’t miss it.”

  “Oh. Okay,” she repeated, and headed out. I locked the door behind her then pulled out my phone and called Aiden as I left via the rear door.

  “I take it this is not a social call,” he said.

  “Yes and no. I just thought I’d inform you that a Mrs. Rankin has just asked me to find her wayward son. If I’m not here when you come to pick me up, I shouldn’t be too far away.”

  “Let me guess, said son is missing up near the Marin reservation.”

  “Yeah.”

  He swore. “They’ve been warned multiple times about that. I’ll contact Rene and tell him you’ll be in the area.”

  “Thanks.” Mrs. Rankin wasn’t going to be pleased, but I’d rather face her ire than a werewolf intent on protecting his compound’s boundaries any day.

  “There is a sliver of self-interest in my actions, you know.” His amusement shimmered down the phone line.

  “Oh, of that I have no doubt, your sexual drive being what it is and all.”

  He laughed. “Be careful out there. Call me if the psychic senses don’t land a result.”

  “I have his shoe. We’ll be fine.”

  “Meaning he’s walking around the bush with one bare foot?”

  I smiled. “No.”

  “Shame. The little brat needs some discomfort in his life. I’ll catch you later.”

  I shoved the phone away and started the SUV. Mrs. Rankin pulled away from the curb as I nosed out onto the street, and led the way through Castle Rock and out toward the Marin reservation. Darkness had closed in by the time she turned left into what looked to be little more than a goat track and then stopped.

  I grabbed the flashlight out of the glove compartment then swung my pack over my shoulder and climbed out. The stars were bright in the sky, and the nearby forest filled with th
e song of cicadas. If they were singing, then there was little in the way of threat in the area.

  I locked my SUV and walked over to hers. “Why on earth would you drop four boys off here?”

  She seemed surprised at the question. “Because it’s a good area to practice their orienteering skills for a comp that’s coming up.”

  If this little adventure was any indication of said skills, they had no right to be entering any sort of competition. “And there were no other places further away from the Marin boundary that would have done?”

  “Of course, but this area—”

  I held up a hand to stop her excuses. “Just give me the shoe.”

  She did so. Life pulsed across my fingertips, a strong beat I’d have no trouble following. “Okay, let’s go.”

  “What?” she said. “You want me to come with you? Into the bush?”

  It’s your fucking son, lady. I took a deep breath and said, “Yes. I’m a stranger—they might just run.”

  “Oh. Right.” She sniffed, a sound that was somehow filled with displeasure. “Let’s go then.”

  I switched on the flashlight; the bright beam pooled out in front of me, silvering the nearby leaves and muting the call of the cicadas. The pulse coming from the shoe led me to the left; after squeezing past a number of thorny bushes, I found a slight path. Mrs. Rankin followed close behind, her annoyance staining the air. Hopefully, this little adventure would impress on her the need to stop overindulging her damn son.

  It was a good hour before the signal coming from the shoe jumped into sharper focus. I stopped and swept the light across the trees. There was no sign of the teenagers, but they were nevertheless close.

  “Call your son, Mrs. Rankin.”

  “Charlie? You out there?”

  “Mom?” The voice came from our left.

  I swung the light around. A slender figure popped up out of the scrub and flung a hand across his face to protect his eyes.

  “What the hell are you doing all the way out here?” he said.

  “What the hell do you think I’m doing? Rescuing you, you idiot.”

  “I thought you’d just send the rangers.”