The family ghosts, probably directed by Aunt Bath, but maybe acting on their own, swooped and howled. Akane was obviously at work because parts of the familiar landscape had changed to something both nightmarish and disarmingly cute, like the backdrop to a disturbing anime series. At the same time, he knew exactly where he was.
Lightning flashed more and more often. He couldn’t tell if it was striking anyone, couldn’t control it anyway. It was pouring, but in a concentrated way, mostly around the main house, so he couldn’t tell if that was Meaghan’s power or his own working of its own accord, or if Portia or Heather was doing something deliberate. Focusing on a spell seemed too hard. It took all his concentration to keep crawling.
Into a pair of muddy combat boots.
He raised his head. Armed man. Big fucking gun that didn’t look quite right, and not just because no gun would ever look right at Donovan’s Cove, not even the small pistol Tag sometimes carried.
Time froze. He and the armed agent made eye contact. The man had dark eyes, a complexion that suggested he was Hispanic. He didn’t look cruel, and his aura didn’t display any of the off colors that indicated pathological levels of sadism or malice. In fact, it looked like the aura of just about every cop or soldier Deck had ever encountered. Serious. Intent on the mission and on staying alive. Asking the questions necessary for those purposes and planning to worry about everything else later. Determined to carry out orders and hoping he didn’t have to get hurt or hurt anyone else to do it.
Unfortunately, this guy’s mission was putting Deck and everyone he loved in danger. Deck might be able to get the lightning to strike him, but they were too close together. And he didn’t really want to kill the guy, let alone himself, just put him out of commission. Making a great effort, he tapped the raw power of the earth on which he was sprawled and the water in the air around him, tugged possibility, said a few words in Gaelic in his mind because he was afraid the guy might panic and shoot if he heard the language of Donovan spells. There was metal in the gun, and metal came from the earth. And even high-tech guns probably didn’t shoot as well when they were full of water.
Deck held his breath. The armed man glared, apparently not wanting to shoot him but equally apparently ready to do so if he deemed it necessary.
The barrel of the gun blossomed with rust and spouted water like a fountain. It wasn’t what Deck had meant to do, exactly, but, hey, he’d take it since it meant the gun couldn’t shoot.
Unfortunately, it would still work just fine as a club, and that occurred to the beleaguered agent at the same time it occurred to Deck. The man raised the gun. Deck rolled and scrambled as best he could, howling with pain as his wound opened, struggling to come up with some magic that would work.
Water dumped, as if from a barrel, onto the man’s head with enough force to knock him to his knees. Not his doing this time. The silver cord that connected him to Meaghan tugged, a poignant reminder.
Enough crawling. Deck forced himself to his feet while the other man was distracted. He wasn’t far from the guesthouse now; he’d make himself get there, make sure Elissa and the child were safe.
Then he’d find Meaghan and Kyle. Their cords were strong inside him now, bright silver, though it was easier to trace down Meaghan’s due to their similar powers. He needed to see them. Make sure they were safe.
And if they weren’t, wreak havoc on anyone who had harmed them, and to hell with what it might do to his Donovan magic. He’d worry about that later, along with worrying about the bleeding and the pain he could only dimly feel now through his determination.
He was half-Thorssen, descended from a Scandinavian witch so fierce he became associated with the God of War and Thunder.
And that ancestor was with him as he staggered, bleeding and snapping lightning, not the Donovans in whose tradition he’d been raised.
The front door of the guesthouse where Elissa, Jocelyn and the guys had been staying was flung wide when Deck got there, but the open doorway was choked with vines and oak branches. Elissa’s green magic.
A tiny, handmade leather moccasin lay in front of the door. Deck tried to tell himself that it had fallen off when Elissa whisked the baby to the safety of the main house—or, for all he knew, to wherever they’d been living with Rafe’s family—but he was choking on bile and panic and his heart beat a frantic tattoo. Too late, too late.
Though, if Elissa, Rafe and Jude couldn’t protect the baby, he didn’t know what he could have done.
The simple interior of the guesthouse, usually calm and welcoming in the shades of green and brown that made it perfect for both green witches and duals, was a shambles. Overturned furniture. Tufts of fur. Singed places.
And blood.
He found himself praying. Praying to the Lord and Lady that his family was all right. Praying, especially, to Trickster that Jude or Rafe had been the ones doing the bloodshed. Not Elissa, because it might harm her. And not the Agency, because demons and devas, Jocelyn was only a baby, and Elissa was his favorite cousin.
He called “Elissa! Jude! Rafe!” at the top of his lungs, but as he expected and feared, there was no answer. Not by voice, not by magic.
Just silence.
Real silence, broken only by distant surf and a crow cackling. The sounds of combat had died down and he didn’t know if that was good or bad.
Chapter Nineteen
Something was wrong, something beyond the obvious fact that the Agency had invaded Donovan’s Cove. Something even beyond the catastrophe that someone had shot Deck.
Magic wasn’t flowing right. Meaghan could still reach hers, make it work by following her instincts and perceiving just a tiny bit ahead of the situation, as she had to combat the storm the other night. But the movement of energy seemed sluggish, not as responsive to her as it had been earlier in the day. And all around her, she could feel the Donovan witches struggling to call their powers, hear their curses when a normally reliable spell failed. Hear their pained cries when some Agency bastard hurt them. The air was full of smoke and magic, and she kept hearing shots.
And the Donovans were still trying to protect her and Kyle, despite the fact that, at the moment, it was a toss-up who was worse off: the witch who didn’t really know what she was doing yet, or the witches who knew what they were supposed to be doing and couldn’t do it.
The unarmed otter was probably the worst off of all. If he felt that way, though, he wasn’t showing it. Instead, he was leading her at a run, occasionally stopping to tell her where she could target an agent without risk of getting someone on their side.
Neither sorcerers nor guys with guns seemed to cope well with sudden dehydration. She didn’t particularly care if the agents died. She’d probably killed someone today already and her magic was working fine. She didn’t even think that death would trouble her much, not after Deck had been shot. But she knew the Donovans felt strongly about that sort of thing, so she was using very tiny visions, seeing just a little bit ahead to know when her target was incapacitated but not in real danger.
Doing the magic took so much time, though, and she had to get to Deck. Had to. Everything was secondary to the need to follow the cord to him. The cord tugged insistently, urging her to move faster, to get to Deck so the three of them could stand together. And judging from the way Kyle was moving, he felt it too.
“Almost there,” Kyle wheezed.
And then he stopped so suddenly that Meaghan crashed into him. “Oh shit. Oh shit. Three sorcerers have Elissa and the baby surrounded, and I can’t smell Elissa’s magic. We’ve got to help them.”
Meaghan steeled herself for pain and let herself open to the currents of magic. She’d never been able to sense Elissa’s aura, but thanks to the ritual, Meaghan could recognize the distinct feeling of Elissa’s magic.
But she couldn’t feel it at all now, even though Elissa was chanting in Gaelic, words that Meaghan sens
ed should be weighted with power. The sullen cold of sorcery surrounded them with its sulfur smell. Something leaden filled the air where she heard Elissa’s voice. Something leaden that seemed very familiar—a version, she guessed, of the magic lock that had been used on her, though not as long-lasting.
The baby was also locked down, but even through that leaden shield, Meaghan sensed the baby’s terror.
And the raw, unfocused power swirling within the child’s tiny body. It had seemed like overkill to magic lock an infant, but in the case of the child of five bloods, maybe the bad guys had a point. A kid wouldn’t have any idea how to use all that power yet, but if she got scared enough, that might not matter.
Kyle tugged on her arm. She shook him off, ordering, “Get Elissa and the baby to safety while they’re distracted.” He said something, but she didn’t hear. She had to focus, had to concentrate on the magic.
She felt it when he stepped away, but she knew where he was. The cord connected them.
She reached out to the patterns of word and will that indicated sorcery, knowing that now her magic was fully awake, she could sense it from a distance. The sulfurous magic felt almost comfortable on her skin. No, not comfortable, but like an old pain that had become a part of you.
Felt like Shaw.
And that thought made it easy to follow the sorcery to its source.
Three sorcerers invading someone else’s home. Three sorcerers trying to steal a baby from her mother.
Three bodies that were mostly water.
She didn’t actively try to kill them. That would upset Elissa, who didn’t need that on top of everything else. But she didn’t hold back, either.
She heard a strangled cry, and suddenly she felt only two sorcerers, not three.
She might feel bad about it later. Except that Kyle was moving away from her, moving fast, and the baby was with him, her fierce, immature power retreating from danger.
A lion roared—and in answer, a baby laughed.
It was all okay, then. Kyle and the baby and the baby’s mother would be safe. Whatever was screwing up magic wasn’t affecting duals, and Jude was one dangerous big cat.
She started to relax.
And that was when someone grabbed her from behind, someone who made Deck seem like a small man. She thrashed, knowing it would do no good except as a distraction, and reached for her magic. He was mostly water. She could do this. But her head was swimming with exhaustion. The magic hovered around her, just out of reach. She couldn’t see ahead.
A needle punctured her neck. She cursed, struggled some more, tried to scream.
Her body went limp.
Elissa and the baby and the guys had to be all right. Meaghan and Kyle had to be all right. Because Deck didn’t know what he’d do if they weren’t.
His body wanted to collapse, but he forced himself to run the distance to the main house, bursting into the main hall.
Where his grandmother sprawled on the floor, tiny and still, her aura snuffed out. Aunt Jan was crouched next to her, but as he entered, Jan stood, shaking her head, and put her arms around the nearest living Donovan, who happened to be Deck’s cousin Siobhan. (He promised himself he’d freak out later about the fact that Siobhan, who wasn’t fourteen yet, had been in the fight—and pretty effectively, based on the random scorch marks all around. Right now, since she was alive and uninjured, he had more important things to freak out about.) Portia’s husband Guillermo, clutching a bloodied sword and standing over a distressingly human, armed corpse, was weeping unashamedly. Paul was kneeling by Roz’s body, clasping one of her withered hands between his own. Tag had tackled a still-struggling agent, a small woman with burned hands and an ammo belt now made of flowers, and was holding on to her, but he followed Paul with his gaze.
While he was distracted, the agent shuddered and went all too still. Black blood trickled from the corner of her mouth. Tag dropped the body with a curse and grimaced as a cloud of black and fuchsia sorcery rose from the body.
Deck didn’t see Bathsheba anywhere, but he heard her chanting a version of the Donovan death song that he’d never heard before. Ancient words. Fierce words. A song for a loved one fallen in battle. A song that hadn’t been used since World War II.
He saw no blood on his grandmother, but whether she’d died by sorcery or her old heart had given out in the stress of the fight, if Bathsheba counted her as a battle casualty, she was.
His grandmother. His grandmother, the healer, dead in battle. Around him cold air swirled wildly as the resident ghosts reacted to the death. He didn’t think his grandmother would linger in this world—she’d no doubt be back to visit, like Great-Aunt Josie, but at her age, she’d have many friends on the Otherside, not to mention his grandfather—but he was sure the ghosts were greeting her.
He couldn’t feel her death yet, just a dull throbbing like his wound. Both, he knew, would be far more painful when the shock wore off and he let himself feel.
He didn’t see Elissa or her child. Didn’t see Kyle or Meaghan.
And when he reached out, shaky with shock and grief, Meaghan’s cord trailed off beyond the shields of Donovan’s Cove.
Deck didn’t move. Couldn’t move. His feet were frozen to the floor, and he wasn’t sure how his knees were still holding him up.
No one noticed him at first, too caught up in the death, the aftermath of the fight. Then Kyle skidded in the door, still damp and naked, and crashed into him.
He turned to Kyle, opened his mouth to ask the question to which he feared he already knew the answer. Kyle was shaking, pale under his tan, his eyes wide. His mouth worked, but no words came out. Instead, a flood of images poured into Deck’s mind.
Meaghan helping Elissa fight off sorcerers who were trying to snatch the baby. Water magic. Death. Kyle and Elissa running with the baby at Meaghan’s insistence.
Kyle turning back once Jude found them—and seeing Meaghan, half-conscious in the arms of a monstrously large agent —just before they vanish into thin air. The images were a dual’s perceptions, so he got the rotten-egg reek of sorcery and the smell of hot metal and electricity, suggesting some sort of cloaking technology.
Meaghan was back in the hands of the Agency. His grandmother was dead. And Jocelyn, for all he knew, was still in danger.
The earth rumbled as chain lightning ripped apart the sky. Even over the thunder, over the creaking of the old mansion in the tremor, even at this distance, Deck heard the waves crashing, far too large, far too high, up onto the beach. Probably all up and down the coast, not just at Donovan’s Cove.
And this time, he didn’t care. Just pulled in all the power, focused all his out-of-control magic into one honed punch…aiming for whoever headed the Agency’s black ops, whoever had taken Shaw’s place. Didn’t know who it was, but the intent should be enough. It worked for sorcerers, after all. He was better than a sorcerer, the magic innate in him, so it should work for him too.
Die. Die. I don’t care if I have to go with you. Just die.
A blue spiral of angry power built. He targeted. The earth rumbled again, and he heard objects falling in the old house. Someone screamed, but he didn’t care. Meaghan. The baby. His grandmother…
Chain lightning tore through the room.
And Kyle tackled him to the hardwood floor, twisting as they went down to make sure Deck landed on his wounded shoulder.
Deck cried out as he hit the floor, a sound that encompassed the physical pain of hitting the hardwood but seemed to incorporate every loss and tragedy of the day and an immense frustration that Kyle thought went beyond even that.
The thud of landing reverberated through Kyle’s bones. He winced, imagining how much crashing into the floor must have hurt Deck’s injured shoulder.
Less than corrupting his magic or accidentally frying his relatives would hurt him. Someone had to save Deck from his own rage, and
all his relatives—all his powerful, competent witch relatives—were too deeply in shock to do so. Which left it up to him.
Sometimes loving someone meant causing them a little pain. Kyle had usually thought of that in the context of sex, but he’d never felt less sexy than he did as he took advantage of Deck’s shock and rolled him onto his back, with Kyle on top.
The air crackled with lightning, and Kyle’s sense of the ocean told him something awful was brewing. The house…no, the ground…shook.
Kyle put his hands on either side of Deck’s face and glared into his wild blue eyes, trying to get through to the intelligent, decent man behind the tempest that possessed him. “Snap out of it! You’re out of control.”
He wasn’t opposed to barking orders at people. Some people affected him that way, sometimes because he read them as subs who’d enjoy that kind of thing and sometimes because they didn’t have the sense the Powers gave kelp and needed someone to keep them out of trouble.
He’d taken one look at Deck and wanted to get on his knees. Or on his back. Or some position where Deck could use him hard, anyway. Wanted Deck to do the ordering.
But Deck at the moment was in the “less sense than kelp” category—deep shock could do that to a person—so the order snapped out naturally.
Unfortunately, Deck was so antiauthority he’d needed practice to be okay with giving orders, even in bed. Kyle’s words sank into the witch like they would into the ocean. If anything, the storm gathered force from the opposition.
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