Witches' Waves

by Teresa Noelle Roberts

  On second thought, he did want to think about it. The thought of Jude going postal, shifting and eating a few Agency employees was a pleasant one to cling to as the elevator started its climb.

  It even helped as he was once more pushed, injury first, into the door when they reached the ground floor.

  This would be over soon. And then they’d kick ass.

  Garrett, supporting a Meaghan who wasn’t nearly as groggy as she seemed, started to head down a dimly lit corridor, the two agents and their seeming prisoners following them.

  Then he turned and gave Meaghan a small shove forward.

  He raised his hands, seemingly casually. But from the way Meaghan darted away, the way Kyle felt water currents in the air and the prickle of lightning on his skin as if both his lovers were preparing for action, it wasn’t casual at all. Kyle started shifting as soon as he felt that subtle change, twisting to make sure he was free of his borrowed scrubs.

  Garrett still didn’t look like he was doing anything but pausing for breath, but Mack let out a grunt and staggered a bit.

  And José fell, not breathing.

  Mack drew his weapon. Laughed.

  Shot at Garrett. And despite a thug-sized sleet storm and a healthy jolt of electricity slamming him more or less at the same time, he hit. “They hadn’t worked out all the bugs when I went through mutation. I ended up immune to healing magic,” he said casually. “Which totally sucks, but it means I’m also immune to you.”

  Garrett tumbled toward the floor in slow motion, his eyes wide with shock, his hands still pointing at Mack as if he were trying to get off another spell, but couldn’t focus. “It’s time,” he said weakly.

  Mack retargeted almost too fast to see. Deck screamed, “Meaghan, down!” and flung himself at Mack, while Kyle jumped in front of Meaghan and braced himself for bullets ripping through his flesh. He felt Deck’s resolve, too, through their bond: whatever happened, they wouldn’t get Meaghan. Even if Deck had to kill or die himself to be sure of that.

  And three more agents poured down the hall.

  Meaghan heard the shots, smelled the blood. Felt blood as it splattered her.

  Garrett’s life energy flared, bright in his blood. Colors she couldn’t name swirled in her mind, then faded. “No!” she screamed. She was furious with Garrett, but she understood as well. Understood how the Agency and especially Shaw could twist you with words, twist you until you believed you were a freak, a monster, and had no choice but to do the Agency’s bidding. She wasn’t ready to lose him with so much left unsaid.

  Not ready to lose herself now that she’d finally found herself.

  And she would never be ready to lose Deck or Kyle, even if they all lived to be older than Roslyn Donovan.

  Meaghan rose to her knees. Water energy surged through her link to Deck, water energy and others she couldn’t use, but that cool blue power was open to her and she drank it in. She reached down those cords connecting her to Kyle and Deck. Reached Kyle’s love and his abundant feral sexual energy, so fierce it could be dangerous if he wasn’t careful. Reached Deck, and his magic embraced her, fluid water energy, hot red magic and energies she knew were earth and lightning.

  Power filled her, more power than she’d ever experienced, more power than she knew how to use. Colors filled her mind and she knew she was sensing auras: Deck’s, Kyle’s, Garrett’s fading one. One of the guards was gone, but she sensed the other’s energy, scarred and warped and muddy, and more people had entered the fight. Couldn’t tell how many, but a few, one with sorcery. Deck was doing something. The floor vibrated, and water was pouring from somewhere.

  But it wasn’t enough. Their enemies weren’t slowing down. Garrett was still fading.

  And another shot echoed in the corridor.

  She felt it as it struck Deck.

  A glancing wound, she thought, but enough to make him stagger and cry out, enough to make Kyle cry out as well. For an instant, all she felt was the shock of impact, filtered through her link with Deck, a dull throb.

  Then pain washed over her and she knew it was only an echo of what Deck felt.

  The bastards would shoot again.

  She pulled back from Deck and Kyle, reached out to the guards. They felt both slimy and spiky to her magic. Four, including the original one. Three didn’t seem human, nor did they feel like Kyle or the other duals she’d met at the Donovans’ estate.

  But their bodies were still over 60 percent water, their blood and brains more than that. And water would do what she told it to do.

  She remembered what Garrett had told her and pulled, pulled with all the force of will and magic, pulled the water from their bodies. She’d done this on a smaller scale before, enough to make her enemy dizzy and light-headed.

  This time she didn’t stop. Didn’t stop when she could sense the water in their bodies was running dangerously low, didn’t stop when one began to beg incoherently, didn’t stop when Deck, his voice laced with pain, commanded, “Meaghan, no!” She pulled. She kept pulling. Vomit rose in her throat, metallic and sharp, but she choked it back and kept going.

  She didn’t stop until someone put his hands on her shoulders and shook her. The hands felt like Deck’s, hot and solid on her skin. She thought he was speaking to her but the words were tinny and distant. Everything was tinny and distant except for the magic that had taken control of her and the need to make sure that her lovers and her very first friend were safe.

  She swayed and Deck’s arms caught her. She knew it was Deck, knew he was worried, knew she loved him and ought to say it, but the magic roared too loudly.

  Then a hand slapped her face. Smaller than Deck’s, harder than Garrett’s, even if Garrett had the strength. Kyle.

  It had to be Kyle anyway, because she could feel his love coming through the slap and she knew that was how he rolled, that love and pain and dominance and submission were all mixed up for him.

  She still couldn’t stop. But the pain, and the love behind it, jarred her enough that she could comprehend what Deck was trying to tell her. “They’re all dead, Meaghan. You’re pulling the water from the cistern and the earth around us and the building’s flooding. We need to get out of here. And you’re burning so much power you’re hurting yourself.”

  Her brain was still fuzzy, full of magic. The words made it through, almost made sense.

  The lips touching hers definitely did. Deck’s lips, sweet with red magic.

  Her instincts told her to suck that out, use that to move more water, bring this evil down around their ears.

  But there were innocents here, prisoners and maybe more agents like Garrett, people who might not exactly be innocent but who didn’t deserve to die.

  Garrett. Her rage and her magic were willing to flood the building and kill everyone, but she really wasn’t willing to kill herself, and certainly not Kyle and Deck. And Garrett was still alive, but his energy was fading. He was dying.

  She pulled back, reined in the magic.

  Her head swam. “Thirsty,” she muttered against Deck’s mouth. Her tongue was swollen in her mouth, her lips cracked, and she realized she’d used some of her own body’s water to fuel the magic.

  Instead of water, Deck breathed red magic into her. It couldn’t help her parched cells, but the red magic rejuvenated her seared spirit. She wrapped her arms around Deck, drank deep—then pulled away. “You’re hurt!” She’d almost forgotten, the memory washed away by the tide of magic.

  “Just nicked, but it hurts like hell.” Somehow, Deck managed to sound cheerful.

  “And Garrett?”

  “Not good,” Kyle said quietly. “I can’t do much without equipment, and he’s bleeding pretty badly.”

  “I can slow the bleeding, like I did for myself.” Meaghan felt Deck stir, knew what he must be doing.

  “I can help.”

  “You’r
e drained.”

  “Garrett got shot defending me.” Exhausted as she was, she had a feeling she could help, that she could redirect some of what she’d pulled from the dead agents. Instinct told her that Deck wouldn’t want to know that.

  Silently, Deck kissed her again, not sharing his red magic this time, but waking hers. Exhausted as she was, that was enough to arouse her, enough to give her a flicker of magical energy.

  Deck took her hands, guided one to Garrett, held the other one. “Follow what I’m doing,” he said, “and if it hurts, pull out.”

  She didn’t answer, just touched Deck’s strong power, touched Garrett’s failing energy and went to work.

  Time had little meaning in the state she was in, but she thought it had been only a few minutes, if that, when Kyle said, “He’s doing better. We should be able to move him.”

  Garrett’s voice was shaky but determined as he insisted, “I can walk. Crawl if I have to. But we need to go. Not many staff on duty now, and Meaghan took out a lot of them, but signals…must have gone out.”

  Deck released Meaghan’s hand, and she knew he was helping Garrett to his feet. “Grab my shirt,” he said, and they were on the move.

  Not as fast as they should have been. Not as fast as they probably needed to be, not with Deck and Kyle supporting Garrett. He kept insisting he could walk but it was pretty obviously not true.

  Not as fast as the magic told Deck they needed to go. The cistern had already flooded the lowest floor and the water was rising. Worse, the cistern was leaking into the surrounding earth as well. The underground structure hadn’t been built with that in mind, and everything felt unstable. “Are prisoners kept on the lowest levels?” he asked Garrett, He hated to force the injured man to talk, but he needed to know. Deck didn’t want anyone else to die tonight, but he couldn’t hold the water back much longer.

  “Not on the lowest level, and no one works there at night. A few on two. Bad ones.”

  Meaghan asked before he could, “Bad how?”

  “A naga. Couple of blood drinkers. Cannibalistic wolf dual serial killer.”

  In other words, beings even a Donovan might agree needed to be off this plane.

  He couldn’t guarantee the water wouldn’t go higher, that the building wouldn’t destabilize further. But after the first few floors, it should be slow, slow enough that people would have a chance to escape.

  And the doors were all open.

  Hopefully the real monsters hadn’t noticed that yet. He really didn’t feel like dealing with a naga or a cannibalistic serial killer tonight.

  They made it to the front door, stumbled out into the gray predawn forest.

  And heard helicopters.

  Garrett slumped. “Oh shit,” he murmured. “Backup.”

  Deck rallied himself, searching for reserves he didn’t have. “Shift!” he told Kyle, knowing the otter wouldn’t listen to him.

  “Don’t be foolish!”

  They all jumped, but Deck recognized the familiar energy before either Meaghan or Garrett could do anything regrettable. “It’s all right,” he said. “It’s just Akane.” The kitsune became visible in the clearing, human height but mostly in fox form.

  “Just Akane? You’ll pay for that later, cousin. And the helicopters are just your parents and uncle, who just brought along some of their old friends.”

  “Would those be friends from the government?”

  Akane shrugged. “Boring people in suits and lovely muscular men with big, big guns. They all seemed annoyed someone messed with our Jocelyn and your lady friend, and furious that Roslyn-san is dead. It seems some of the lives she saved over the years were dear to those in positions of power. And the large men with guns all disapproved of murdering elderly ladies, not to mention kidnapping young handicapped women and threatening babies, in terms that would meet a samurai’s approval, only with a few more bad words.”

  His father had come through.

  And that was his last thought as his abused leg gave out on him and he and Garrett both sank to the forest floor.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  A gentle hand stroked Deck’s hair. “Meaghan?” he said. Opening his eyes felt too much like work.

  The dry laugh told him otherwise. “If you can’t tell your mother from your girlfriend, they gave you too much painkiller.”

  He gingerly opened his eyes to find both his parents by his bed. Or at least some bed. This wasn’t his room—it was decorated in a clean, cold modern style, for one, with a brushed-steel bedframe and pale beechwood furniture, a lot of light and glass. And it was far neater than his place ever was. He could hear waves crashing outside as if the house sat even closer to the beach than his own.

  “Mom? Dad?” His head was swimming and he didn’t think it was medication. He struggled to sit up, only to have his father absolutely order him to stay put.

  For once he obeyed without argument, mostly because he wasn’t sure he was up to arguing but partly because he suspected his father might have a point. Still he managed to say, “Didn’t think I was hurt that badly.”

  “You weren’t,” his father confirmed. “But you’re drained, son. Your friend Meaghan as well. You both put out unconscionable amounts of raw power.”

  Deck tensed, waiting for the but. But you used it badly. But you created far too much havoc. But people died.

  His father patted his hand awkwardly. His mother kept stroking his hair like he was six and had the mumps, or eight and just had a scary magical accident.

  Only he’d been in both of those positions and Sigrid Donovan hadn’t been that tender with him. At least with the mumps, she hadn’t blamed him, but even at that age he’d been able to tell she’d wanted to be back at work, not being caregiver to her unpromising youngest child.

  Something had to be wrong if they were behaving like this. “Are Meaghan and Kyle all right?” His father had implied that Meaghan was still alive, but maybe she’d been seriously damaged by all the power she’d used, or by killing in his defense, or maybe her neurological problem couldn’t handle the strain. Or perhaps something had happened to Kyle. He’d been impressively banged up but it hadn’t seemed that serious. Certainly hadn’t let it slow him down. What if he’d had internal injuries they hadn’t recognized? What if Garrett’s magic had misfired at the last second, after Deck had already passed out, and killed Kyle?

  His father actually smiled. Deck couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen that, except the occasional private grin at his mother. “They’re fine.”

  “Not even Jan’s magic is going to keep Kyle from being one giant ache for a few days,” his mother elaborated. “But none of his injuries were serious. Meaghan drained herself to a dangerous level, but we’re on the coast, so she’s recovering nicely.”

  His father cleared his throat. “Better than anyone expected, honestly. Both she and the injured agent you dragged out made sure we all knew that the magical fatalities were her work, that you’d tried to stop her but the magic had a will of its own at that point. Almost caved the building in between the two of you, though you managed to hold off the worst.”

  Okay, the but was coming next and it was a big one: that a Donovan couldn’t possibly marry a woman who’d killed with her magic.

  “She’s scared,” Deck’s father said, his voice softer than Deck ever remembered hearing it, “scared that you’ll reject her. And honest to Powers, I wanted you to at first. But her magic’s uncorrupted as far as anyone can sense. Akane’s sniffed at her, and someone who’s pure magic herself ought to know what she’s talking about. The magic wanted her to do it. Wanted her to defend you and Kyle and that Garrett Clark creature, no matter what the cost.”

  Deck couldn’t help smiling at the thought. Akane, being a fox at heart, had probably literally sniffed.

  “I kept reminding your father that Thorssens have some truly ugly battle
magic.” Deck turned his head and saw his mother smile, both fierce and tender. “He was just lucky he met me before I needed to use it or he’d probably have been too uptight to marry me.”

  “Meaghan’s a wild witch.” Deck realized he was beaming with pride as he spoke. “A strong one. I taught her a few basics but she’s already surpassed me.”

  He expected a more polite version of “that wouldn’t be too hard” but instead his father smiled again. Deck expected his face to crack from the unexpected effort. “She wants to learn more. She’s clever enough to realize she’s likely to hurt herself or someone else, flying by the seat of her pants all the time. By the way and speaking from experience, it’s healthy to have a spouse whose magic is more rawly powerful than yours in some areas. It keeps you on your toes.”

  “Indeed. And it can be fun sometimes.”

  His parents shared a look that should have been secret and private. Maybe they thought he was still too drained to use his witch-sight properly, but they both glowed with red magic.

  Good to know his parents were still happy after many years and five children, but that look was bordering on TMI, even by Donovan standards. Time to think about something, anything, else. “So where are we, anyway?”

  “A friend’s vacation home on the Northern California coast. With all of you in rough shape and Agent Clark only alive at all thanks to your ingenious use of water magic, we thought it best to head here.”

  “Ambiguous much? Let me guess: the friend is a politician or higher-up in some alphabet agency.”

  “We had to get the helicopters and the SEAL team somehow,” his father said, which was as much of an answer as Deck expected. “He’s been looking for a chance to shut the Agency down completely, and now he can. Attacking our home, killing an old, respected healer and trying to kidnap an infant didn’t play well in the media. The President is furious. But I expect you’ll want to see your partners now.”