“I—”
“What did I say to you about looking away from me when I talk to you?” She shook her head. “As I told your boyfriend, I’m reasonable.”
Violet kneed me straight in the crotch. Holy fuck, the pain was a bastard, sending me on a coughing fit, my balls screaming.
She called that reasonable?
“It wasn’t my heel,” she said softly.
My balls!
Still holding my face, she was staying in the chatty mood. “Aw, your poor man bits. What a shame. I can see it really hurts. Well, good. I’m in pain too. You murdered my family. Because that’s what we are. Family. All of us here. You came into our territory and slaughtered us, thinking you were high and mighty and had the right to assert yourself.”
That was complete horse shit. I’d been passing through to get to the warlock. Yeah, I could’ve gone the long way round to avoid the slums, but then my mark would’ve got away.
Useless pointing that out to her, though.
“I think we’ll begin in a few minutes. Fingernails. Yes, fingernails. Pulling them out is a classic for a reason. I’ll make sure to really make it count. Lee?”
“Yes, boss?” The bloke was at her side in a flash.
“If you’d be a dear and fetch me the pliers.”
“Yes, boss.”
Ah, crap. So, the quiet time hadn’t brought up a way out of this. Bloody Bob and Rose! What the hell were they doing?
The man called Lee returned with the pliers, handing them to his crush and master.
“Thank you,” Violet said.
Hated her polite shit. Why not just be rude and stuff? It was easier to swallow than this sick attempt at manners.
“Let’s—”
Before the gang queen could finish, my body snapped back, my spine slamming into the pole. Bob and Rose came whooshing into me, sucking all the air out of my lungs.
Whoa!
Fingers in my hair, yanking my head up. I looked into her deadly amber eyes as she held me in her painful grip, her nose coming in to touch mine. “Don’t pull out on me yet.” She laughed at herself. “I had higher hopes for our meeting than this. Thought you were made of stronger stuff.”
The wind really was well and truly knocked out of my sails. In a perfect world, I’d head-butt her, break out of the chains, and get to arse-kicking. But this situation was a bit more complicated. Also, I didn’t have the kind of strength to snap metal in half. I wish I did.
Head swimming with fresh pain, my body shivering from the aftermath of my babies’ adventure. I tried to hold her gaze. Tricky though, ‘cos my head just wanted to flop.
I needed a moment. Violet wasn’t gonna give me fuck all.
Bob and Rose were all warm and glowy, not as agitated as they should be.
The gang queen took her nose off mine, placing the pliers on the middle finger of my right hand. “This is for—”
“Get off him.” G’s voice was weak, but still had a tiny bit of a growl to it.
“Shut the fuck up!” Lee barked.
“Your boyfriend is so protective.”
My strength was starting to come back, the nausea passing. Despite the car crash, I wasn’t that badly hurt, headache aside. Not that it’d make piss all difference. I was gonna lose at least one hand’s worth of fingernails before I figured shit out.
“Leave him…alone.”
Gabriel needed to keep it zipped. Seriously. He was doing himself no favors.
Should I head-butt her anyway while she was looking over at the beta werewolf? I mean, I’d hurt her, sure, but she’d probably remove my nuts with those pliers as a reward.
Yeah, new plan needed!
“He’s—”
Whack! Skin on skin. I strained on my restraints at the sound. That big bastard had struck G. Lee would be meeting my blades at some point. He was now on the list, quite near the top for a slicing.
The cabin door flew open in a boom, sparkly orange dust everywhere. Lee yelped, Violet dropped her pliers.
That wasn’t all the gang queen let go of. In the chaos of the glittery cloud filling the place, she revealed herself—her trace.
Witch.
Sneaky bitch! Well, that was it. The cat flung out of the bag. Big pissing reveal.
Now I know your weakness…
But that knowledge needed to be banked. For now, the elf cloud in the room was the biggest ‘WTF?!’
Elves were good at these things. Their magic was all healing ointments and infusing objects with their magic—an energy transference thing. They could pour their magic into a harmless pebble and make it something powerful.
Had to love elven magic.
Lee was coughing in the cloud. I could see zilch but was super happy about it. So were Bob and Rose, stirring at a presence in the room. It took me a few secs to catch up.
Zach.
Like the first time we’d met, that weird pull happened, a confusing connection then faded off.
The hell? Was Gabriel right? Were we related? Was this part of it?
Magic buzzed over my skin. Witch magic, its green and deadly light pulsing in the fog suffocating the cabin. Unlike the elves, witches and warlocks didn’t need objects to get things done. This hag was gonna summon up some spell and burn our arses. My God! Pulling out my nails really was only the beginning of the torture she wanted to bring down on my head.
Yeah, needed to escape.
“Babies,” I said.
They appeared before me, feeling a lot more obedient. It was weird sometimes. Bob and Rose were me, my wolfy senses, but also their own metaphysical wolf minds.
“Find my swords. They’ve gotta be around somewhere.” Unless they weren’t, tossed into the Thames while I was knocked out.
Fingers crossed I didn’t have to go swimming.
The green magic shot through the air and exploded in a flower of emerald. I waited for a cry, a yelp, some indication that being hit with that beam was hurting like crazy.
Nothing, not even a squeak from Zach or Phi after being turned into a mouse. Just a fist meeting a face, Violet cursing.
More green light.
“I don’t think so!” Phi cried.
Some glass crashed, and another cloud of glitter went off. This one red, green, and gold like Christmas had exploded everywhere.
Pretty.
Outside, in a shed between this building and the next, were my katanas in their holder. My babies circled them, licked the leather sheath, then hurried back to me, eyes big and full of satisfaction.
“Good babies.”
More sounds of fists, grunting, and there were hands on my wrists. Through the glitter, I could just make out Zach’s form. My wolfy side reacted to him with a happy dance—or what I imagined was some weird version of a happy dance.
Silently, he pulled on the chains, then bent to pick something up. The Christmas cloud was dissipating enough for me to see what he was doing, twisting myself at an uncomfortable angle.
“This won’t hold me!” Violet bellowed.
Ah, so she was in a pickle. Good. Shame she wasn’t actually being pickled in a jar along with the nastiest onions ever, then taken to the nearest volcano and dropped into the raging pool of lava that’d be waiting to burn her up in the crater.
Going round the houses a bit, but it still sounded like a fun thing to do.
Zach had Violet’s pliers, the object glowing like white fire in his hand. On their own, they wouldn’t do anything. Pimped up with elven energy, they broke through the silver like a hot knife meeting butter.
Boom! I was free! No time to waste.
Zach went to help G as I leaped over the unconscious body of Lee, crashing through a door and out into a balmy evening.
What the hell was this place? More to the point—where the hell in London was it? The whole place was like a complex of log cabins surrounded by walls of concrete, without a single bit of greenery in sight. The outside kind of spoiled the illusion of the inside of the buildings.
&nb
sp; “Oi!”
Ah, here came some more of her lads. Time for her to hate me even more.
There were two of the fuckers. I didn’t pay much attention to their appearance. They were hurdles between me and the shed on the other side of their crappy wall of flesh. My headache only made my drive to win stronger.
I launched myself on the first one, delivering a flying kick right into his chest. He fell hard on his back, booming with rage. I landed on him, sitting on his rib cage, about to pluck his eyes from his head. The other guy tried it as I straddled his comrade, pointing a gun at my head. Quicker than the wanker could blink, I had the gun out of his hand.
“What the—”
I shot him in the head. Down he went.
Eye-plucking forgotten, I shot the second prick in the face, blood spraying my face and chest. That was close-range execution for you.
Another man came running out from behind the shed. I shot him in the stomach, then went to give him a bullet to his head. The gun clicked. Empty.
The man sobbed, clutching his stomach. Nasty way to die. I took the gun out of his hand, then shot him in the head to spare him the suffering.
I heard Violet yell something from the cabin.
That’s right. More of your dick head cronies dead!
I hurried to the shed, shooting the lock off. Man, the gun was fucking loud. My ears were ringing a bit, but I pushed through it, tearing into the stinky shed. Someone had been lighting up spliffs in there.
Amidst the tools and general shite on the shelves were my blades as my babies had seen them. On the shelf closest to me were my two small blades. I took them, sliding them into the sheaths still at my ankles. Then I fixed my katanas onto my back. Shame, my top wasn’t anywhere in sight. Good job, I wasn’t into designer labels!
I charged back outside. Two more men appeared. They were all blending into one, my hunter head fully switched on. Cannon fodder you’d call them, there to die before I took down the mothership.
I shot the guy on the left, the gun clicking empty before I could take down the other. The other man popped off a shot, missing my head by inches.
“Wanker!” I dove into a roll, drawing one blade as his buddy fired, also missing.
With a swift slice, I had the shooter’s leg off below the knee. He screamed, and his gun fired.
Another guy charged into the fight, going for the kill shot, but stumbled. Boom for me. I tossed his comrade’s severed leg at him, the boot cracking him in the face.
Zach came at him, darting across the concrete to grab the guy by the neck. With the same quick moves as me, he broke the wanker’s neck.
Shit.
Related?
“Thanks.”
Zach nodded and went back into the cabin. I followed.
Lee was still out cold on the floor. Phi had Violet in some weird binding thing—a glowing rope wrapped around the witch’s throat. G was slumped against the pole, free from the silver, his green eyes fixed on me, his sweat-glistened chest rising and falling.
I hurried over to him, falling into a crouch in front of him. “You alright, G?
The silver had left angry red marks where it’d touched. “I’m fine.” He winced a little as he sat up straighter. “You okay?”
“Yeah. We need to get you out of here. Can you walk?”
“Yes.” He’d be weak though, in need of some downtime to let the werewolf healing fix him up. It’d only take a few hours, but this wasn’t a safe place to hang.
“My people will kill you all,” Violet announced.
I turned to her as I helped G to his feet—his right arm slung over my shoulders, his left resting over Zach’s. “Oh, yeah?”
“Yes.”
“Some are already pushing up the daisies as we speak.”
Her eyes narrowed at me, full of toxic hate.
I could throw it in her face now. “You said you’d torture me to death, but here I am, and there you are.”
Tendrils of green energy formed at her feet, licking the edges of her boiler suit. “Is that so? Here I am? Trussed up by your friends. Friends? Are they your friends, Akira?” She cocked her head. “Interesting information I now have about you and silver. I’ll know for next time that such things are useless on you. Time to be inventive.”
That green stuff was becoming fire, dancing up her legs.
Shit.
“There won’t be a next time.” I made sure Zach had G and started to head for the witch.
Phi turned to me, putting a hand up as I readied my katanas. “No.”
I paused. “What? Come on, out the way. I’m cutting her up.”
“Too late. We’ve got to leave now.”
“But—"
“Time’s up. She’ll kill us. That’s no just green fire, but deadly poison. If we’re caught in it, we’ve got a slow and painful death coming.”
“Leaking your bodily fluids from all orifices,” Violet added. “Keep back! Keep back! Or come and give me a hug. I’d quite like that.” She blew me a kiss.
“Go!” Phi cried.
“Don’t go! Stay and die! Stay and fucking die!” Violet laughed manically.
Not needing to be told twice, I went back to Gabriel.
“Phi?” I called back as we reached the outside.
“I’m coming.”
Ten seconds later and she was with us. “Two minutes and this place goes up. Come on, the car’s just up ahead.”
She led the way down a dirt path that cut through the concrete walls, then through a hole in the stone her and Zach had obviously made. It was smoking, with a man and a woman either dead or unconscious next to it.
Through the hole was a quiet side road running alongside a wasteland of concrete and weeds, the center of it flooded by the rainfall, all sorts of junk strewn over the place.
Parked up on the road was a red car, splattered with mud, a coconut sat on the roof. Three men were sprawled on their backs beside it, their hands burned. They were alive, though.
Phi removed the coconut and unlocked the doors.
“Coconut?” I asked.
“It electrified the car.”
Yep. Any object for the elves. “Cool. Good plan.”
I got in the back with G, Zach climbing into the front seat.
Green smoke was rising into the sky.
“Hold on!” Phi yelled and punched it.
We tore off. The car looked like a banger, but it chewed up the distance quickly. I turned to watch as the green smoke thickened. A flare of mega-bright green and a mushroom cloud of smoke swallowed the fake log cabin complex.
Phi made a sharp turn left, and we were off the wasteland road, but the green mushroom was still bulging into the sky.
“Holy fuck!” I announced. “What the hell was that?”
“A dangerous spell,” Phi replied. “Toxic cloud of killing poison that would’ve melted our faces, definitely had our organs melt and leak out of any hole they could flow out of.”
“Gross. So, she just killed her own people?”
“She was cornered. There was no way for her to get out of my rope.”
“Really?”
“Only by doing something extreme. Bad news for her and her people. That spell will blow out her magic for a long time if it hasn’t killed her. Her crew in the complex are certainly dead.”
“Why didn’t she just do that in the first place?” I asked.
“Too risky. Witch and warlock magic can be cruel to the caster if it’s too big. She’ll be ill if she’s alive. Like the flu turned up to a thousand. Even that could kill her.”
“I thought they just sometimes got a migraine from using too much magic.”
“In most cases, yes. Most magic users don’t do things on a grand scale unless they’re suicidal. Even then, they don’t come majorly big. Magic just doesn’t go that large for witches and warlocks. Just the rule of supernatural gene laws. What you just saw was big. Anything bigger would be unheard of.”
In that moment, I was thankful fo
r not being a magic-caster. Warlocks could be flashy with their magic, even dangerous, but not on that scale. And witches normally kept their profiles mega-low.
“How do you know all this?”
“I love reading up on the history of witches and warlocks. Got some books in the caravan if you want to borrow them.”
“I’m good. I’ll just tap you for knowledge.”
She gave me a grin through the rear-view mirror. “Please do.” Zach placed a hand over hers that was resting on the gearstick.
G’s head fell against my shoulder. “Tired,” he said.
Fucking silver.
He draped an arm across my lap.
Why was my skin tingling at the feel of his flesh on mine? Why was my crotch feeling warm at the half-nakedness of us? ‘Cos, as I often thought, G was hot, and that was it. Didn’t mean anything other than my dick having its own brain. Yeah, that was it.
I let him rest on me. He needed it. Heads would roll when my dad found out about the silver chains. There’d be raids in the slums. Yep, the iron fist of the High Alpha would come down hard. It was a bit hypocritical, though. Yeah, silver was illegal, but the wolves had a huge stash of iron that could wipe out the elves as they were as vulnerable to that particular metal like the wolves were with silver.
“Could a magic caster poison the city doing that?” I asked.
“As awful as it would be if she were to do it in the heart of the city,” Phi answered, “she wouldn’t be able to take down the whole of London—only a small area like that one back there. Yes, it would be devastating, but not as devastating as she’d like if she was gunning for utter destruction—which most witches don’t. Plus, she’d be fixed in one place, and more vulnerable to the SCU shutting her down in that two-minute window.”
“Oh. Well, they do have those special bullets, eh?”
Anti-magical energy. It was good for winning wars, shutting down rebellions, taking ultimate power. And bloody expensive to make. That’s mostly what our taxes went on.
“That they do. Any big spell would register on their radar. SCU agents will be heading for the complex now to clear it. As I said, that type of magic just doesn’t go apocalyptic, even if some would love it too.”
Four Moons: The Complete Collection: (Books 1 - 4) Page 13