“Get in and get out,” Sorren warned in a barely audible hiss. “If you find survivors, you’ll have your hands full just making it back to the perimeter, because I don’t imagine they’ll be in good shape.” He left it unsaid the slim likelihood of finding the prisoners alive, even Derek.
Rowan assured us that the fence had no protections beyond a mundane alarm system, which Teag quickly disabled. Marshall came with us and Vivian, a black-haired, violet-eyed shifter who looked twice as lethal as Uma Thurman. The other two shifters, Alex and Hendrix, went to back up Sorren and Donnelly.
Wire cutters got us through the fence. We stopped, and Marshall lifted his face to the wind. “This way,” he said, taking off into the shadows of the forest. The shifters’ supernaturally-enhanced vision let them see in near-darkness, but Teag and I required night vision goggles. Marshall and Vivian moved silently, with a preternatural grace I’d never seen duplicated by anyone fully human. Teag and I did the best we could to keep up and make as little noise as possible. The look on Vivian’s face let me know how much we sucked at stealth by shifter standards.
A glimpse of something shiny below a bit of scrub vegetation caught my eye. I bent down and saw a quarter with two neat holes drilled through it. Teag signaled for the others to stop, and they looked at me questioningly.
“Derek knows I can read objects,” I whispered to Teag. “He dropped this on purpose, I’m sure of it.”
Do I pause and risk a vision here and now, or have Teag pick up the button and keep going after Derek? My gut told me Derek meant to leave a message, and so I grabbed the button and closed my eyes.
Images flew past like a DVD on fast-forward, almost too quickly to process. Derek’s truck, parked in front of Trifles and Folly. Gevers with a gun, and a struggle that ended with a tranquilizer dart. Waking up in the dark, probably the barn on Emory’s farm, naked and bound. Then a gaunt-faced, hollow-eyed man speaking an incantation and the shift, forced and painful, to become the large black dog I’d seen at the fish camp. In the final image, the dog nipped the buttons of Derek’s discarded jacket and held them in his mouth.
I came back to myself with a muted gasp. “They made him shift,” I murmured to the others. “He’s out here.”
A rifle shot split the night air.
Marshall gave the military gesture for us to follow him, and we took off toward the sound of the shooting.
I gave the dog collar around my left wrist a shake, and Bo’s ghost materialized next to me. My athame slipped into my right hand, and I could draw Alard’s walking stick faster than Billy the Kid at high noon if I needed to. Teag had his blades out. Vivian shifted into a svelte gray wolf. Marshall pulled out a .45 and stayed in his human form.
Another shot sounded, closer now, and a pained yelp.
Vivian ran ahead, while Marshall indicated that he planned to flank the hunter. We were close to the action; I could hear heavy footsteps, and then a made out the image of a man stalking along the edge of a natural clearing. Jackson Emory lifted his rifle.
“It’s over, Derek,” Emory called out to the darkness. “I know that shot clipped you. You’ve led me a good chase. Time to end this.”
My foot scuffed against something hard in the leaves, and I saw another one of Derek’s special buttons. Blood smeared across the silver quarter. Trusting Bo and Teag to have my back, I grabbed the button.
This time, the vision gave me a good look at the hunter’s face, confirming the identity as Emory. I saw Derek, in dog form, run for his life from the big barn, tearing at full speed into the forest, only to discover the fence that blocked any hope of escape. Emory nearly caught him then, but Derek doubled back, keeping to the shadows. Emory might be a skilled hunter, but he was merely human. Derek had a man’s brain and a shifter’s heightened senses. For a while, it was enough. Then he underestimated Emory’s abilities and found himself staring down the barrel of a rifle. A shot fired, and I felt Derek’s pain as the bullet grazed his ear. I also felt Derek’s terrified certainty, as he ran into the darkness wounded and bleeding, that Emory missed making the kill on purpose, intent on stretching out the pleasure of the hunt.
I jerked back to myself and shook my head to clear it. “Sick bastard,” I muttered. “Go!” I hissed to Teag. What I’d learned from the button confirmed important details, but right now, we had to get to Derek before Emory decided he’d had enough fun.
Just then, I caught a glimpse of movement and flung my arm out across Teag’s chest, stopping him before he could step into view of the man on the other side of a row of large trees. Enough moonlight filtered down for our night vision goggles to function, and I wondered whether Emory used them too.
“You can’t run forever, Derek.” Emory’s voice carried on the night air. “Give up. I’ll make it quick. You know what they say: You never hear the bullet that kills you.”
Emory’s taunting tone made it clear how much he enjoyed his hunt. I thought about the information Teag found about the man online, all his trophy kills around the world, even of species considered to be endangered. He’d hunted everything—except humans. The thought turned my stomach. Was that what Green offered him? The hunt for more challenging prey, something that thought like a man and had the animal abilities of an apex predator? Deep inside, I was sure I knew the answer.
“That’s far enough.” Marshall spoke from behind Emory, holding his gun in a firing stance, aimed at the center of the hunter’s back. “Drop the rifle.”
“Get off my land. This private property.” Emory never flinched, and his voice gave no sign that he worried about an armed man behind him. For an entitled sack of shit, he had balls.
“Last time I checked, murder was still murder on private property.”
“You’re the one holding a gun on me.”
“And you’re the asshole hunting one of my people.”
Emory’s laugh sounded sharp and hard. “Not hunting any people, son. Just some rabid dog that needs to be put down.”
“Drop your rifle,” Marshall repeated. “I won’t ask again.”
Emory raised his left hand in a gesture of surrender and bent over to place the rifle on the ground. At the last moment, he dropped and rolled, firing at the spot where Marshall had been standing seconds ago.
A large gray malamute sprang from the shadows like a wolf, teeth bared, knocking Emory to the ground. I raised my athame, but I couldn’t get a clear shot to hit Emory without hurting Vivian. She had his left forearm in her teeth and they rolled on the ground. A heard a shot, muffled from beneath the big dog’s body, and then Vivian fell backward, fur matted with fresh blood. Emory held a pistol in his hand, pointed right at me.
“Get out of here,” he snarled. “Before I kill the lot of you. I’m friends with the sheriff. No one will question it if I plead self-defense.”
Everything happened at once. I raised my athame and sent a blast of cold white force at Emory as he squeezed the trigger. His shot went wide, missing me and thunking into a tree behind me. Marshall’s gun fired an instant later, as Teag brought his staff around in a bone-crunching swing to knock the gun from Emory’s hand. Bo’s ghost leaped at Emory with all the weight of a ninety pound Golden Retriever, pinning him to the ground. That’s when I saw the bullet’s exit wound through Emory’s right shoulder.
Teag sank down on one knee next to Vivian, who had shifted back to human form. He looked up and met Marshall’s gaze, then shook his head. “I’m sorry.”
“I think your hunt is over,” Marshall grated, keeping his weapon trained on the wounded man. “Don’t give me an excuse to shoot you again.” He looked up to meet my gaze. “Go find Derek.”
Teag and I started out in the direction Emory had been traveling. Teag glanced down and brushed his hand against a bush. His palm came away smeared with blood. “He came this way.”
I thought about calling out to Derek, but we didn’t know where Green was, or whether Sorren and Donnelly had captured the necromancer. So I kept silent, looking for Derek’s
trail. That’s when I spotted another coin-button.
This time, a single image seared into my mind. I felt Derek’s pain and fear, but the picture I received showed me a rocky outcropping like a shallow cave. I raised my head to look around, and in the moonlight, spotted a ridge not far away. “He’s over there,” I said, pointing. “Come on. Let’s get him out of here.”
Teag and I scrambled through the underbrush, climbing the rocky rise. “Derek! It’s Cassidy. Emory’s done for. You’re safe. We’re going to get you out of here.”
A dark shape moved in the shadows. The big black dog limped into the open, bleeding from his shoulder and left ear. “Can you shift?” Teag asked. The dog gave a very human shake of the head “no.”
“Green. He’s still got his power, and he’s locked Derek in.” I managed a tired smile. “Good job dropping the buttons. They helped.” The dog ducked its head in acknowledgment.
“Cassidy—look over there.” My gaze followed where Teag pointed. From the high ground where we stood, I could see beyond the woods to the yard by Emory’s barn. Two figures squared off against one. If Sorren and Donnelly were at an impasse, we were in a load of trouble.
“Where the hell are the shifters?” Teag muttered.
“Maybe Green took them down.” I looked beyond Sorren and Donnelly toward the house, its windows ablaze with light.
“Remember what we guessed, that Green used the trophies of the shifters to store death magic for him, like witchy batteries?”
“You think that’s why Donnelly hasn’t handed him his ass yet?”
I nodded. “The house and the barn. We’ve got to get to the trophies and burn them.”
Teag turned to Derek. “Can you walk?” This time, the big dog nodded.
“Follow us. We’ll take you to Marshall,” Teag said.
Derek limped behind us as we made our way back. Marshall had covered Vivian’s body with his jacket. Emory lay where he fell, eyes open and staring at the night sky. I guessed that he had bled out from the wound. When Marshall spotted Derek, he let out a sigh of relief. “Thank God.” He glanced at me and then at Teag. “Why hasn’t he shifted?”
“We think Green’s magic locked him in,” I said, looking in the direction where we had last seen Sorren and Donnelly. “We’ve got to destroy the trophies. Can you make it to the barn, check for survivors and set any trophies there on fire? Teag and I will take care of anything in the house. Until we do, Sorren and Donnely are at a stalemate.”
Marshall glanced at Derek. I don’t know whether they could actually communicate by thought, or whether Derek just guessed intent, but the big black dog sat down beside Vivian’s body and even wounded, he made a formidable guard.
“Go.” Marshall grabbed Emory’s fallen rifle and helped himself to a long knife from the hunter’s belt. “I’ll handle it.”
“Watch yourself,” Teag warned. “We don’t know if Emory has ‘helpers’ out here.” Marshall gave a curt nod, then headed in one direction while Teag and I jogged in another.
Teag and I found our way back to the cut in the fence, and stuck to the shadows, moving swiftly and silently. We kept the barn between us and Sorren’s fight with Green, knowing we helped best by knocking out the necromancer’s power supply. Bo’s ghost loped beside me as I ran, adjusting his pace to mine. It didn’t take long to cross the wide, dark lawn between the barn and the house, but I felt exposed with every step, knowing we presented an easy target.
“Where do we start?”
The square, three-story white clapboard house with a wide wrap-around porch looked like something from the pages of an upscale magazine. Lights blazed from the huge picture windows that ran the length of the first floor.
“We find the trophies and light them up.”
Teag’s expression made clear the words he did not say aloud. What could possibly go wrong?
Just before we reached the steps to the porch, a dark form hurtled from the shadows, knocking me to the ground hard enough that the air rushed from my lungs and my head spun. Teeth snapped, so close to my neck I felt a spray of saliva. I struggled to get free, pinned by the shifter’s weight and strength. Teag’s staff swished through the air and cracked against the man-sized Rottweiler’s skull, and Bo’s ghost sank its teeth into the creature’s haunch. The Rottweiler twisted, trying again to bite and this time, its teeth grazed my shoulder.
I forced my right arm to bend, painfully wedging my elbow into the ground and my palm against the shifter’s chest. Drawing on the resonance of my athame and my own pain and fear, I called to my magic and let loose a cold, white blast of power that threw the shifter off me, slamming him against the steps.
Teag followed up with another blow to the creature’s head, and this time, the shifter stayed down. Taking no chances, Teag tied up the shifter with silver-infused rope.
“Come on!” I whispered, leading the way toward the windows that showcased the trophy room. Teag had managed to find a floorplan from the building permits, so while we had no way to know if alterations had been made, we weren’t going in blind.
The trophy room took up half of the first floor. I couldn’t know which of the taxidermy creatures might be shifters without touching them, something I had no intention of getting close enough to do. Breathtaking in its scope, Emory’s collection included complete, mounted figures of large mammals and apex predators from around the world. Those that would not fit easily had been carved up into parts, like the rhino and elephant heads above the mantel.
We came prepared. Teag dug into the small rucksack he had carried all night, handing off two modernized Molotov cocktails to me, keeping two for himself, and grabbing a sawed-off shotgun. A little finesse and better materials meant assurance the home-made incendiaries wouldn’t blow up in our hands. We pulled off our night vision goggles, not wanting to be blinded by the flames. Teag fished a lighter from his pocket. “Ready when you are.”
“Go!”
Teag racked the shotgun and blasted the windows, taking no chances our explosives might bounce off bullet-proof glass back into our faces. Apparently Emory hadn’t been worried about anyone shooting him, because the windows shattered in a spray of glass. I heard the snick of the lighter, saw the blue flame and a moment later, we lit the Molotov cocktails and let them fly.
“Run!” I yelled, as we turned our backs on the house and sprinted away at top speed.
A shot rang out, and I felt a sudden, searing pain in my calf that dropped me to my knees. Blood ran down my leg. Teag grabbed my arm and yanked me to my feet. “Can’t stop!” I stumbled after him, just trying not to fall as we zig-zagged through the garden, hoping to use its bushes and plantings as cover.
A second shot kicked up dirt inches from Teag, and we careened in the opposite direction. We were easy targets in the moonlight, and the small garden hedgerow wouldn’t hide us for long.
Over by the barn, I saw a flare of brilliant red light, as if hellfire had surged up from the ground. Behind us, the house exploded, sending plumes of flame into the night sky, deafening me and shaking the ground. I seized the opportunity, trading out my athame for Alard’s walking stick. I took aim, tapping into the history and magic of those who had used the cane before me, gathering its power and drawing on my pain and fury to send a torrent of fire at the shooter.
Flames illuminated the man’s face as he dodged aside, seconds too late. Gevers’s hair and jacket caught fire, and he dropped, screaming, to roll on the lawn. Before I could breathe a sigh of relief, a large dark form slammed into Teag with a feral growl, taking them both to the ground.
I saw a flash of silver, and as Teag rolled the shifter, he buried his blade in its belly. The Mastiff howled, and as it reared back, firelight revealed other bites along its shoulder and sides, making me certain it had already encountered some of Marshall’s pack. Teag seized the opportunity and got his feet under the creature’s rib cage, hurling it away from him with his legs. I turned toward where the shifter lay, stunned and injured in the underb
rush as Teag scrambled to his feet. He grabbed a weighted net of fine silver-coated chains from his belt and hurled it, unfurling as it flew, so that it covered the downed shifter, pinning him to the ground until we could get backup.
I looked at Teag, panting with exhaustion and pain, relief flooding through me. Then I registered the horror in Teag’s eyes.
“Cassidy! Behind you!”
Too late. Charred, bloody arms grabbed me from behind, pulling me against Gevers’s ruined chest. Any normal human would have been unconscious from the trauma and the pain, but shifters can withstand far more punishment. Even wounded, Gevers’s grip threatened to break my ribs.
“Drop your weapons.”
Teag raised his hands in surrender and moved slowly to comply, giving Gevers no reason to tighten his grip. I wondered why Gevers didn’t have a gun on me, and then I looked down at his clawed, blackened hands and fought not to throw up at the smell of burned skin and blood. My left leg buckled, and would have taken me to the ground if Gevers hadn’t held me up, using my body as a shield.
“Keep that ghost at bay,” Gevers ordered when Bo took a step toward him, head lowered and teeth bared. I shook my head, and Bo stopped, but he watched Gevers’s every move. Gevers held my upper arms pinned to my sides and encircled my chest like a vise with his forearms, but I could still move my hands. My fingers fumbled at the clasp on the sheath holding my silver knife, and I hoped he wouldn’t feel the twitch of my muscles.
“She’s my ticket out of here. So here’s how it’s going to work. I take her to my car. You stay here, and I won’t break her neck on my way out of the driveway.” Gevers’s voice held steady considering the pain, but I could hear his breath hitching and feel the trembling in his failing body. He might live long enough to get away, but barring healing miraculous even for a shifter, he wouldn’t get far.
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