by Robyn Bachar
Wired on adrenalin, I charged him. My shields bowled him over, and while he was down I pounced on him. The smell of sulfur gagged me, and I realized in horror that instead of tackling a turncoat sorcerer, I’d pinned down a demon.
“Who summoned you?” I shouted. The demon smiled and tried to buck me off, so I dropped my sword, grabbed my dagger, and stabbed it. “Who?”
“No one,” it answered in a low growl.
“Bullshit. Are the summoners working with the Prometheans?”
“What summoners? They’re all dead.”
I blinked at it, confused, and the demon laughed. A burst of pungent brimstone made my eyes water, and I banished the bastard back to hell before he could do anything stupid. I wasn’t going to get anything useful from him anyway. The demon disappeared, leaving an oily, black residue that stained the floor and my jeans, and the plaintive sound of Bubba’s whining caught my attention.
Stumbling to my feet, I sheathed my weapons and spotted the shepherd behind me, his tail between his legs as he stood over Lex. He was so still—I staggered toward them, my knees buckled, and I collapsed at Lex’s side. He was alive. Unconscious, but alive. His chest rose and fell with a wheezing gurgle as he struggled to breathe, and my hands shook as I pressed them against his wounds. Too much blood, too much damage—I’d dealt with claws, bites, slashes, tears and stabbing wounds, but bullets? Bullets were completely new territory. How the fuck was I supposed to heal that? I shoved as much healing energy as I could at him, and the world dimmed around me. My magical batteries were almost tapped out. Lord and Lady, I couldn’t faint now. Not now. If he didn’t get help soon, he’d die.
“Portia!” I shouted again. My voice was high and thin, filled with terror. I glanced around the room, but nothing happened. Lex groaned, and I flinched at the sound. “Portia. Damn it, I need help.”
“What happened here?” a voice asked, but it wasn’t my faerie cousin. I shot a look over my shoulder and spotted Faust standing behind me. Not who I wanted, but he would do.
“Help me,” I begged. “I can’t—I don’t know what to do.”
Faust slipped his jacket off, balled it up and placed it beneath Lex’s head. “I can help you, but you need to stabilize him first. The trip could kill him otherwise.”
“I can’t,” I repeated. “I need my rings. I need a spell. It’s too much—” I couldn’t do this. I wasn’t strong enough. Lex was going to die—
“Catherine. Look at me.” Faust grabbed my chin and turned my face toward his. “Focus. You can do this. Remove the bullets, strengthen him as much as you can, and another healer will see to the rest. It’s very simple.”
“It’s not simple!” I screeched.
“Yes. It is. Think of them as big splinters. Surely you’ve removed a splinter before?” One thin brow arched above his dark, smoky lenses.
“Yes.”
“Then do it. May I borrow your cellular phone?”
“Yeah, it’s on the counter,” I muttered. Splinters. Nothing but big, evil metal splinters. My heart raced and my hands shook, but I could handle splinters. Sure, no problem…
Placing my hands over the wounds, I closed my eyes, stretched out my magic and felt for the presence of the bullets. I found two—two hard, cold lumps of invading metal. Was there a third one? Maybe it’d gone right through…was that good or bad? Good that I didn’t have to dig it out, bad that it’d probably done extra damage on the way out. I tugged on the first one, slowly at first, not sure if yanking it out was a good idea, like ripping off a bandage. Lex hissed, a strangled, choking sound.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry, honey—I’ll fix it,” I assured him. Fast then, to get it over with. I yanked at the bullet and it leapt from the wound into the palm of my hand. I squeezed it in my fist, unsure of what to do, and I stuffed it into the pocket of my jeans. One down, one to go. Faust’s voice droned on behind me, probably talking to Zach. Great. I couldn’t even begin to worry about that now.
The second bullet was in a trickier spot, lodged near his kidneys. That would be hell to heal, so I needed to be careful about it. Sweat broke out across my brow, and a drop slid across the left lens of my glasses. Either that, or I was crying. Both were likely at the moment. My magic was fading, and I struggled to keep hold of the bullet. It was slippery, as though my actual fingers were struggling to hold it, instead of the spell. Finally it was free, and I put it in my pocket to join the first one. I poured everything I had left into strengthening him, but I had to hold back just enough to keep me conscious. I couldn’t faint, because I couldn’t trust Faust and Zach not to let Lex accidentally die. I had to make sure they really helped him.
“There now, that’s better. I knew you could handle it,” Faust said. “There’s a cleanup crew on the way to deal with the bodies. Let’s be on our way.”
I nodded, my hands pressed against Lex’s wounds. He was still bleeding, and I didn’t have the strength to stop it. “The dogs and my cats. I don’t know where Cesár is.”
“The cleanup crew—”
“They won’t go with just anybody. Dammit, where’s Portia?”
“I will find your cousin, and she will take care of your pets,” Faust assured me. He placed a hand on my shoulder and then the other on Lex’s chest. There was a quick blast of freezing cold and the room went dark.
Chapter Twelve
When the lights came up again I blinked several times, trying to get my bearings, and we were in an office I didn’t recognize. A big wooden desk reminded me of Simon’s library, but it wasn’t ornate enough, and I knew Faust wouldn’t have taken us there. I turned at the sound of movement behind me and spotted Zach approaching. His expression went from furious anger to fear in the blink of an eye when he saw me.
“Are you hurt?” he asked. Faust stepped aside, and Zach placed a hand on my shoulder where the faerie’s had been a moment before. I shrugged him off.
“He needs a healer,” I said.
“I know. She’s on the way.”
“You have to help him.” I stared up at him, and Zach nodded.
“We will.”
“Don’t bullshit me,” I snapped. “I know you want him out of the way. I want your word that he’ll be helped.”
He frowned. “I would never—”
“Promise me, Zachary,” I shouted. “If he dies, you’ll be next. I am not fucking joking.”
“I promise. I swear that we will save him. He’ll be fine, Catherine. Now tell me if you’re hurt.”
I looked down at myself. I was covered with blood, like a chick from a slasher film, with a side of demon ooze. “I don’t know. It’s mostly not mine.” Pain bloomed through my bare feet. “Okay, yeah. I’m hurt. But I’m not leaving him.”
Zach sighed. “Fine.”
I turned my attention back to Lex, who was disturbingly still unconscious. I wanted to funnel more healing magic into him, but I’d fry myself. It was a tough choice—help my husband and risk hurting myself, or wait until Zach’s healer showed up and risk him getting worse in the meantime. I settled on holding his hand, crying and praying.
When the stretcher arrived, I wondered why the hell Zach had a stretcher lying around—must be a vampire thing. An elderly woman arrived with it, looking like a kindly country doctor in a floral print dress and a white lab coat. Though my nostrils were filled with the stink of blood, I caught a whiff of pine-scented witch magic from her. Was she an outcast like me? I couldn’t imagine her working with Zach otherwise.
“I’m Amelia. You look like you’ve had a rough night.”
“He’s been shot. I removed the bullets. They’re in my pocket.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll have him patched up very soon.”
I reluctantly let go of his hand as her assistants loaded Lex onto the stretcher. He groaned, and I flinched. When I tried to stand up to follow, I crumpled as my feet protested with screeching pain. There was no way I was walking until some serious first aid happened. Zach picked me up and I scowled at him.
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“No,” I said.
“You’re hurt. Don’t argue.” He carried me away, and we followed the stretcher until it went down one hallway and Zach turned down another.
“No!” I snapped. I squirmed in his arms, trying to escape. “You son of a bitch. Let me go!”
“Catherine, think. You know a healer needs to concentrate. You’ll only distract Amelia.”
“I don’t trust you.”
“I gave my word.”
“And you bend the rules until they scream for mercy,” I argued. “How am I supposed to trust your word?”
“Well, if you hadn’t broken the bond, you would know I am speaking the truth,” he ground out.
I winced. He had a point. Maybe I should have waited another day. Then again, how could I have known that hunters were about to kick down our doors? My options were to trust Zach or fight like hell to stay with Lex, so logically I fought like hell. I shoved Zach away with my shields, and he stumbled and dropped me like a sack of potatoes. Pain sliced through me as I hobbled away, but I only managed a few steps. This time it wasn’t faerie transportation, but a sleep spell that got me. When I awoke, I found myself propped up in a comfy chair in what I assumed was a guest bedroom. Harrison was kneeling next to my feet, adding another glass shard to a mountain of bloody slivers piled on the floral patterned ottoman that matched the chair.
“You rotten son of a—”
“Why did you break the bond?” he asked, interrupting my tirade. Zach yanked a shard of glass from my right foot, and I jerked it out of his reach.
“Ow! Motherfucker, that hurts,” I howled.
“Hold still and it will hurt less,” Zach replied.
“Your bedside manner sucks, Nurse Ratched.”
“I’m not a healer. But I can fix this if you hold still.”
Gritting my teeth, I balled my hands into fists and choked down another complaint, allowing him to continue pulling glass out of my skin. “Where’s Lex?”
“With the healer, as I promised. She is confident that he will make a full recovery. Why did you break the bond?” he repeated.
“I want to see him.”
“You can see him when Amelia allows it. Answer my question.”
“Can we be more concerned about the hunters who just tried to kill me?”
His brow was creased with his temper-tantrum look, and I knew that did not bode well. “I deserve an answer.”
“The hell you do.”
“You and I shared something special, and you threw it away.”
Lord and Lady, he sounded like a jealous ex-boyfriend. Great. “We didn’t share anything. You forced something on me, without asking, without my permission, and it was screwing with my life and my marriage. I had to end it.”
“Maybe if you hadn’t rushed into said marriage—”
“Don’t. I just stabbed a bunch of people to death, one more won’t phase me,” I warned him. Zach paused and then shook his head.
“Was it really that bad?” he asked, his voice soft.
“I wasn’t going to live the rest of my life with your color commentary in my brain.” He looked up at me, and though his expression was pained, his eyes had gone creepy light green. “If you bite my feet, I will kick you in the face,” I warned him.
He snorted. “Sorry. I’m not going to bite you. The blood is affecting me.”
“Uh huh. You have a foot fetish, don’t you?”
This time he laughed. “No. Though I will admit to being enamored of your ankles.” I frowned. My ankles were hidden by the cuffs of my jeans, so I knew I wasn’t flashing him any inappropriate ankle skin. Zach paused. “Was it because of the dream?”
“No. But we’re not discussing that. Ever.”
“Why not? Because you’re afraid you might have feelings for me?”
This time I snorted. Yeah right. The only feeling I had right now was the urge to kick him. “That dream was a dirty trick, and you should be ashamed of yourself for pulling it. There’s no way I’d ever end up with you, even if Lex hadn’t shown up. I love him.”
“I didn’t create that dream,” he said. His voice was low, little more than a whisper, and I wondered if I’d heard that right.
“The hell you didn’t. You were all smirky-satisfied about it when it ended.”
“I won’t deny enjoying it, but the dream wasn’t my doing. I assume it wasn’t yours either, by your less-than-pleased reaction to it.”
“Damn right it wasn’t my doing.”
Zach sighed. “There was a truth to it. I love you, Catherine. I would love you forever, if you let me.”
“No, you don’t. You have zero concept of what love is. You’re a spoiled brat who doesn’t understand the word no, and I’m done being pushed around by you.”
“And your husband is such an understanding man,” Zach said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Did he give you a choice? Exactly how did he propose to you?”
My stomach turned. It hadn’t been an ideal, oh-so-romantic proposal. “That isn’t fair.”
“You never gave me a chance.”
“You’re right, and I wasn’t going to. I’ve been planning a way to break the bond ever since the art gallery debacle,” I informed him.
“Why?”
“You sound like a toddler. Or a parrot. Are we really still having this conversation? Is it that hard to understand? You forced the spirit link on me. I wasn’t going to fall in love with you because you think I should. So you need to move on.” Shaking his head, he less than gently yanked out another shard. I bit my lip and tasted blood. “Has it ever occurred to you that you might have a soul mate of your own out there?” I asked, changing the subject.
“If I did, I would have met her by now.”
“Why? You’re going to live forever; it’s not like you’re running out of time. I’d say that gives you an edge in finding her,” I pointed out. He didn’t look convinced. “And when you do find her, do you think she’d appreciate having her man connected to another woman? Uh, no.”
“Perhaps,” he said. “How did you break the bond?”
“With magic,” I replied matter-of-factly.
“With what spell? Where did you get it? Who helped you?”
“I googled it. It was on Wikipedia. You should really look into that,” I lied.
“I’m serious, Catherine.”
“And I’m not telling you, Zachary. It happened. Get over it.”
He scowled, but let the subject drop.
I didn’t think there was that much glass in our house, but apparently there was, and it was all ground into the soles of my feet. Stupid hunters. Now we were going to have to replace the windows before the real estate agent showed up again. And I’d soaked the kitchen with water damage from the exploded sink. Not good.
With exacting patience, Zach removed splinter after splinter, both with his hands and with stinging necromancer magic. When my feet were whole again, he sat back and looked over the rest of me. “Any other injuries?” he asked.
“No. This isn’t my blood.”
“Hunter blood?”
“Oh yeah. And demon goo.”
“Demons?” Zach’s brow rose. “What happened?”
“I’m not sure. The dogs freaked out, and I flipped the lights on and saw the hunters sneaking up on the house. I got Lex, and then they were everywhere. The demon must’ve gotten them past our unnoticing wards, but that doesn’t explain how they found us.”
“Alexander is in the database the Oak Glen librarian gave the hunters. We all are. I’m surprised they went after a guardian, but perhaps it was only a matter of time.”
“Marie! I need to call Marie,” I gasped. “Damn it, Faust still has my phone.”
“You called?” the faerie said as he appeared in the room, standing next to Zach. “I believe this is yours, my lady.”
“Thanks,” I said, taking the phone back from him.
“Zachary, if you’re not proposing, you may wish to stand,” Faust said dryly.
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“He is so not proposing.” The idea was a tad bit horrifying.
“Your cousin has retrieved your pets,” Faust informed me. “She has also managed to remove all your possessions from the house and has stored them in Faerie for the time being. She seemed quite anxious that the hunters should not rifle through your things if they returned.”
“Oh. Good idea,” I said. That was a handy skill. I’d have to hire her when we moved into our new house. Though I had no idea how we’d explain the blood stains and bullet holes in our current house to the agent. Maybe Portia did home repair too.
Faust turned to Zach. “The collections teams should be retrieving the bodies shortly.”
“What are you going to do with them?” I asked, afraid to know the answer.
“Interrogate them,” Zach replied.
Necromancer interrogation session. I fought down a shudder and focused on calling Marie. I was momentarily distracted by the blood covering my hands. Lord and Lady, I looked like a serial killer. I hit Marie’s number and tapped the fingers of my free hand in a frantic beat on the leg of my jeans while it rang. I hoped the hunters hadn’t gone after her too. Had they been watching the house? Did they follow her?
“Hey there, Cat. What’s up?”
Relief flooded me at the sound of her sweet Southern drawl. “Don’t go home,” I blurted, and then I winced. “The hunters hit the house. It’s not safe.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m okay. Lex was hurt pretty bad. There’s a healer with him now.” Silence hung heavily on the line, and I glanced at the display to make sure I hadn’t dropped the call. “You still there?”
“Yeah. Where are you now?” she asked.
“Umm, one sec.” I looked up at Zach. “Where the hell am I?”
“Oak Brook. Do you need the address?”
“Yeah.” He gave me the address, and I had no idea where it was, but I read it dutifully back to Marie.