Leda stepped cautiously out of the club. Hunter turned, the green light from his eyes falling on her, but he had no recognition on his face.
“I will cleanse this place,” he announced, his voice booming. “I smell death magic here.”
“Hunter,” Leda said.
He shifted his gaze to her, the heat of it prickling her skin. “You are a witch,” he said. “Life magic. Are you a demonwhore?”
“Hunter, I’m Leda.”
Still no flicker of recognition. “Do I know you?”
Leda held her breath as he looked her up and down, then a hint of Hunter’s usual tone entered his voice. “I’d like to know you, if I don’t. You must run, witch Leda, lest I kill you with the others. I can meet you later for celebration.”
Leda took a step forward, holding up her hands. “You can’t kill them. They’re my friends. They’re helping us.”
Hunter looked past her, his glare swerving into the club. “I smell vampire and demon. I enjoy killing vamps and demons.” He tilted his head, as though trying to sense everything in the club. “But the innocent beast hiding there may go free.”
“That’s Mukasa. He’s your friend too.”
“Kali the Destroyer has awakened me. You will move, or I will have to obliterate you as one of them.”
Samantha ran out of the club, in spite of Fulton yelling at her to get back. Mukasa followed her, the lion’s mane rippling.
“Leda, get back inside,” Samantha said, breathless. “He doesn’t know you, and he’s too strong to fight.”
“You don’t deserve to die,” Leda told her stubbornly. “And Septimus is the only one holding Los Angeles together right now.”
“Not if Hunter goes on a rampage. Get out of his way. You can’t reason with him, Leda. Kehksut obviously did something to him.”
“Kehksut?” Hunter asked, his brow furrowing. “He is a demon my brother Adrian drove away long ago. Why do you speak of him?”
Leda pointed at the ripped-apart concrete. “He’s the one who trapped you underground.”
“I don’t remember,” Hunter said, untroubled. “Now, if you will move, little witch, I wish to begin the cleansing.”
Hunter started around Leda, and Leda caught him by the arm. His energy surged through her, a spike of white-hot power that lifted her from her feet.
“Best not to touch me,” Hunter said, gentling his voice as he looked down at her.
“Hunter, I love you.”
Hunter’s brows furrowed, and he studied her, something in his eyes trying to break through, to understand. “Why do you say this to me?”
Leda gave a self-deprecating laugh and didn’t let go of his arm. “I have to wonder. Because you’re you, I guess.”
He shot a glance at Samantha. “You are willing to die for her, witch Leda? For a demon? Even a half demon?”
“I’m willing to hope you trust me. To believe me when I say we need them to keep the death magic balance right.”
His frown deepened. “To trust you because you love me?”
“Yes.” Leda held on to him, even though his magic firing through her stung like electric shocks.
“I’m a fighter,” Hunter said. “I don’t love.”
“Yes, you do. You had a wife and two children, a long time ago. You loved them.”
“I don’t remember.” He sounded a little more uncertain.
“And you have brothers. Four of them. You love them, even though you pretend not to.”
“The other Immortals?” Hunter gave her a doubtful look. “I love them? This seems unlikely.”
“Well, you do. I see it when you talk about them. You’re worried about Tain.”
“Tain.” The white light dimmed a little. Behind it Leda sensed the vast pain his magic was shutting away from him. “Tain is lost.”
“He was captured by a demon and tortured until he went crazy. You and your brothers are trying to find him.”
“I don’t . . . know this.”
“That’s why we need those vampires in there. To help rescue Tain, and to keep death magic in balance until you do. Your brother Adrian needs you. Please remember.”
The light dimmed a little more. Leda realized the arm she held was skinless, her hand connecting with blood-soaked muscle.
She jerked back in horror, his blood red on her fingers. “Goddess. What did he do to you?”
Sudden awareness flooded Hunter’s eyes, the true Hunter breaking through. “Leda,” he said, his voice cracking. “Don’t let the pain come back. Please. There’s too much. It will break me.”
“Shut it out.” Leda stepped back from him, her eyes wide. “Do what you have to and shut it out, but let them live.”
“If I shut it out, I’ll forget you again. I don’t want to forget about you.”
“It doesn’t matter. Be the warrior. Shut out the pain. Do it!”
Hunter gave her the ghost of his crooked smile. “Maybe if I forget you, I’ll get to meet you all over again.”
Leda made herself smile back through the tears on her cheeks. “Trust me, I’m looking forward to it.”
Hunter briefly closed his eyes, and when he opened them, all recognition had gone. He drew the white magic around him like a cloak, his skin once more appearing whole and strong.
“If they are here tomorrow, they will be dead,” Hunter declared in a loud voice.
He turned away and soared down the street on a wave of magic, vanishing with a flash into the bright afternoon. Residual magic sparkled like live wires in his wake, stirring more of the trash on the street, then faded.
Mukasa sat down to watch the empty corner around which Hunter had disappeared, and gave a forlorn growl.
Chapter Sixteen
Leda waited at Adrian’s house above the ocean for two more days, but Hunter never reappeared. Mukasa wandered the circumference of the house, eating little, sleeping little, his step heavy.
Septimus paid a visit on the evening of the second day, dressed in an Armani suit and expensive sunglasses, looking every inch a modern vampire and successful businessman.
“I’ve heard from Adrian,” he said when Leda met him at the end of the driveway. She didn’t want to lower the wards to let him in, with an Old One demon on the loose, and she wasn’t sure how to counteract Hunter’s and Adrian’s magic in any case. “Actually, I called him myself and confessed my failure in keeping track of Hunter. To say Adrian was not happy with me is an understatement.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Leda said with a stir of indignation.
Leda had encountered only Hunter’s approach to being an Immortal—imbibe coffee, kill the bad guys, make love—and now she wondered whether the other Immortals would be less straightforward and more frightening. If Adrian had grown angry at Septimus, how much more angry would he be at Leda, who’d caused Hunter to chase her to Los Angeles and get caught by the demon?
“Don’t worry about me,” Septimus said. “Adrian requested your presence in Seattle. My pilot will fly you there, and I will continue to search for Hunter here, although I don’t anticipate much success. When Immortals don’t want to be found, they are vastly difficult to find.”
“I can’t leave,” Leda said with heat. “What if Hunter comes back here? He might be drawn to the magic around this house and to the ley lines.”
“I’ll keep watch on the house, and so will Kelly. I’ll position my men and vampires around the neighborhood to inform me if they see him.”
“Why does Adrian want me, anyway? It’s Hunter they need.”
Septimus shrugged. “Perhaps, but you’re a strong witch, so there will be need for you. I’m certain Adrian has his reasons for everything.”
Leda folded her arms. “And you obey Adrian.”
“Let’s just say we have a business agreement.”
Samantha, who’d been listening, gave a short laugh. “In other words, you do whatever he says, and he lets you live.”
Septimus looked pained. “Something like that. You wil
l make it easier all around if you go.”
Leda agreed in the end only because she reasoned that if anyone had a good chance of finding Hunter, it would be his brother Adrian. Septimus insisted Leda pack and leave then and there, and she resigned herself to making the trip.
It was an easy task to throw her things into her bags again, including her magical accoutrements. She toyed with the idea of sending Mukasa back to the island, courtesy of Septimus, but Mukasa made it clear he was coming with Leda. He stuck by her side when they left the house and forced his way into the limousine.
Samantha elected to remain behind. While she didn’t trust her father, she had common cause with Fulton to locate her mother. Leda felt bad that she hadn’t been able to assist Samantha much, but Samantha told Leda she’d helped simply by believing Samantha’s story, and by caring.
“I’ll stay in touch,” Samantha promised, and closed the limo’s door for her.
The journey to Seattle was uneventful, which gave Leda too much time to think. She found it amusing to watch the uneasiness of Septimus’s vampires as Mukasa boarded the plane and settled himself with a thump in the middle of the aisle, but such things couldn’t crowd out the grief she’d felt since Hunter’s disappearance. She wished their last words together hadn’t been angry ones.
Hunter had given Leda so much—taking away the death magic inside her, wanting to be with her when all others had pushed her away, understanding why she’d done what she’d done—and she’d become angry at him because he wouldn’t give her everything she wanted. And now she might never see him again.
I’m sorry, Hunter. She leaned her head against the airplane’s bulkhead and closed her eyes.
After a few hours, the plane landed at a small airfield in Seattle. Leda descended alone to the pavement, waiting for Mukasa to lumber down the plane’s steps. She studied the roiling clouds in the night sky, sensing much the same darkness from this city as she had in Los Angeles. The clouds were denser here than in California, the Washington coast having a rainy climate, but the oiliness within the dark made Leda’s skin crawl.
The vampires in the plane must have considered their duty fulfilled, because the door slammed shut and the plane taxied hurriedly to the end of the runway. As the plane roared away back to Los Angeles, Leda walked through the small building that served as a terminal. Amber had given Leda a message, via Septimus, that she’d send her werewolf friend Sabina to meet her at the airfield.
Outside the terminal Leda found a young blond woman who radiated life magic, a powerful dose of it. She was Were, with the golden gaze of a predator. That gaze took in Leda and Mukasa behind her, and her eyes widened.
“Shit. No one said anything about a lion.”
“He insisted on coming,” Leda said.
Sabina smiled a wide smile—werewolves liked to show their teeth—and led Leda out to the parking lot. A large man, handsome and blond with very blue eyes, leaned against a black convertible Mustang not far from the entrance. He reeked of life magic too, but Leda did not feel the overwhelming flood of magic she’d sensed when she’d first met Hunter. He was not Adrian, not an Immortal.
He stood up as they approached and opened the car door with a flourish. “Valerian’s Taxi Service,” he said in a rumbling baritone.
Not a witch, Leda thought as he took her canvas bags and tossed them into the trunk. He didn’t perform magic—he was magic. A shifter perhaps, but not a werewolf.
“This is my boyfriend,” Sabina said. “His name’s Valerian. Are you afraid of lizards?”
“Funny.” Valerian slid sunglasses on despite the gloom outside. “How am I supposed to fit a lion in a Mustang?”
“Put the top down?” Leda suggested.
Mukasa nosed around Valerian’s blue-jeaned legs as Valerian leaned inside to flip the controls to lower the convertible’s roof. The lion seemed to approve of Valerian, much as he approved of Hunter, and Valerian looked in no way worried that he was being investigated by a lion.
Once the top was down, Valerian folded back the seat and gestured Mukasa inside. “There, how’s that?” Mukasa huffed his approval and climbed into the car.
The exchange made Leda wonder very much what kind of being Valerian was. She squeezed herself into the seat next to Mukasa and waited while Sabina and Valerian got into the front.
“Just hope it doesn’t rain,” Valerian muttered, glowering at the sky as he raced the car out of the parking lot. He swerved into traffic on the main road, waving at drivers who leaned on their horns and shouted obscenities at him.
“Afraid of lizards?” Leda repeated Sabina’s words.
“Not lizard,” Valerian growled. “Dragon.”
Leda blinked in surprise and peered around the seat at him. Dragon-shifters were extremely rare creatures; possibly only a dozen existed in the entire world. Valerian didn’t look particularly dragon-y—more like a human wrestler. He had unruly blond hair, blue eyes with irises wider than a normal human’s, and brawny muscles stretching his clothes. His aura was intensely magical, however, golden yellow with streaks of red and blue.
“Adrian told me to look after you,” Valerian said as he careened the car through the streets. “Dragon babysitter service, that’s me.”
“Just get us there in one piece,” Sabina said, clutching the dashboard as he swung around a corner without slowing.
“Everyone’s a critic.” Valerian glanced into the mirror at Leda. “So you don’t know where Hunter ran off to?”
“No,” Leda said sharply. “I don’t.”
To her surprise, Valerian grinned. “Welcome to how it feels to deal with Immortals. You have to tell them everything, but they can disappear to wherever, whenever they please.”
“I just hope Hunter’s all right.” Leda’s fear for him resurged now that she wasn’t worried about vampires or transporting Mukasa. Hunter’s body would heal, but what about his mind? The magic that had infused him had been fierce and terrible. Leda wasn’t certain if he’d become that way because of the demon’s torture or because Kali had ripped open the earth to save him—Leda still wasn’t certain exactly what had happened.
Valerian only grunted something in response. He drove swiftly through the streets, the other drivers hurrying as much as he did, as though no one wanted to linger outside. Leda had visited Seattle before, a teeming city on the beautiful Pacific Northwest coast, but tonight a dark, dirty fog concealed the beauty she remembered. Even Pike Place Market was quiet, the stores and stalls closed, tourists nowhere in evidence.
Valerian gestured at the gloom. “I’m willing to bet that all this is another easy problem to the Immortal boys. They’ll clear it up and run off to drink at that place they call Ravenscroft, leaving the rest of us to wonder what the hell happened.”
“You hope it’s that easy,” Sabina said. “Then you won’t have to work too hard.”
“I’m a tropical dragon, sweetheart. Born to sit on my ass in the sunshine.”
“Then why are you here?” Leda asked him. “You could fly away and bask in the sun while the Immortals take care of the demon.”
Valerian’s blue eyes revealed the depth of his concern, even as he shrugged. “Hey, the Immortals can’t have all the fun. A dragon’s a good thing in a fight. And besides, my girl lives here.” He sent Sabina a fond grin. “She hates the heat—I hate the cold—so we decided to stay somewhere in between.”
“A sensible arrangement,” Leda said.
As they wound through the city, she wondered if Hunter had returned to Ravenscroft, wherever that was. She wished she could scry for him, but when she’d tried even in Adrian’s magic-infused house, she had seen nothing. For now, all she could do was wonder and worry.
The house Valerian drove them to was a large, old Italianate Victorian, complete with tall tower rising on one side of the house. Valerian took Leda’s bags from the trunk as Leda stared up at the house, then he strode to the wide porch without waiting for them.
Mukasa emerged from the backseat
when Sabina opened the door for him. The lion looked over the house, his nose working as he took in new scents, and he growled under his breath. Leda gave him a reassuring pet on the top of his head and followed Sabina up onto the porch. The carved, solid front door was yanked open before Valerian could knock, and an Immortal stood in the doorway.
Not Hunter, Leda realized after a pained heartbeat. The dark abyss of his eyes told her he was a stronger, even more intensely magical Immortal than Hunter. This was Adrian, must be.
Adrian resembled Hunter in physique, having the same tall, broad-shouldered body and hard face, but his hair was black, his eyes so deeply brown they were nearly black. He wore a sleeveless shirt that exposed a silver armband in the shape of a cobra around his right bicep, tight jeans, and motorcycle boots of the kind Leda recognized from his closet in Los Angeles.
The witch called Amber stood next to him, a slim young woman with dark hair and tawny eyes, a Celtic tattoo on her upper arm. The closeness with which she stood to Adrian told Leda they’d become a couple. Few people crossed that far into another’s personal space if they weren’t being intimate. Amber must be another witch who couldn’t resist an Immortal.
While Adrian continued to stare, Amber’s look was welcoming. “You’re Leda Stowe?” she asked. “Of the Coven of Light?”
“Formerly of the Coven of Light.”
Amber’s expression turned curious, but she didn’t ask, to Leda’s relief. Adrian’s obsidian eyes flicked over her once more, and Leda sensed he knew everything about her, including the fact that she’d dabbled in death magic, plus that she’d shared a bed with Hunter.
Amber took Leda upstairs to a large bedroom with an attached bathroom. She left Leda to refresh herself, and Leda washed up and unpacked her few things. She saw from her window that Mukasa had wandered behind the house to the green grass in the back, investigating this new place.
Leda couldn’t help but admire Amber’s home as she descended the stairs again, an old-fashioned house layered with generations of witch wards, and over those, the sharp, hot magic of an Immortal. The bite of Immortal magic made Leda worry for Hunter again, and miss him. Goddess, she missed him.
The Gathering Page 17