Twenty-Sided Sorceress 3 - Pack of Lies

by Annie Bellett

  “And if he doesn’t wake by dawn?” Harper said, worried green eyes focused on the huge sleeping tiger at my side.

  “I’ll storm the castle and do shit the hard way.” My magic responded to my anger, rising in me until my normally light brown skin glowed pearl and violet for a moment. It felt like there was a switch inside of me now, waiting to be flipped. I was ready to stop reacting, ready to stop defending.

  Ready to kill.

  None of us slept much that night. Levi and Ezee and Rosie traded off watching out a crack in the front blinds and sitting with the rifle. People came and went from the living room, but mostly my friends left me alone with Alek. Rosie brought me a hot cup of sweet orange tea at some point. I stayed seated on the floor beside my tiger, watching him breathe.

  I must have dozed off at some point. A damp nose against my neck woke me. Wolf. She walked to the window as though she could see through the curtains, her lips peeling back from teeth as long as my fingers in a silent snarl.

  An odd hum buzzed in my ears and my skin tingled. My wards. Something or someone was moving out there. I sent my awareness spiraling out into the circles I had placed around the Henhouse. One, two, then others. At least six bodies out there, not human.

  So not the assassin. I was willing to bet they were shifters, wolves. But friend or foe? Looking at Wolf’s snarling face, I assumed foe.

  “Where have you been?” I whispered to her. “You could have warned me about Eva a little sooner.” It was useless to complain. Wolf had her own priorities and ideas about things. Eva was of the physical world mostly, not a threat that Wolf could protect me against. I guess, technically, not one she needed to, since Eva couldn’t kill me. Still, I couldn’t help feel a little warning would have been nice. She was warning me now, after all.

  Next to me, Alek moved. His huge head lifted and his eyes opened. He twisted, scrabbling in the quilts, pulling his legs beneath him, his lips coming back in a snarl. Then recognition bloomed in his pale eyes and he shifted to human.

  “Jade,” he said with a wince. His shirt was torn and bloody, with the bandage still on his back.

  “Should you shift yet?” I said as he pulled the ruin of his shirt off and contorted to rip free the bandage.

  “The poison is gone,” he said. “I’ll live.”

  I crawled onto the quilts and ran my fingers over the bullet wound in his back. Only a pink scar remained. He pulled me into his lap and we clung to each other for a long moment.

  “I heard you,” he said. “In my mind, I heard you calling to me, telling me to shift. I felt you send me into the twilight.”

  “You’re welcome,” I said, smiling against his chest.

  He pulled away from me, looking down into my eyes. “It was Eva,” he said.

  “We know. Liam left me a message and I heard her kill him.”

  “How did you find me?” he asked, and then smiled ruefully. “Ah, let me guess. Magic.”

  “Alek! Alek’s awake!” Max stopped at the edge of the carpet and started yelling, a huge grin on his face.

  Everyone came running to the living room. Alek held on to me as he quickly answered their questions, confirming for all of them that Eva had really gone rogue. I was okay with that, not wanting to break contact with him, not trusting yet that he was okay. The image of him dying, burning up on the inside, was too fresh.

  Wolf snarled again, still staring out the window, and I remembered the bodies, my wards. Shit.

  “There’s people outside,” I said. “Six or so I think. Shifters is my guess.”

  “Fuck,” Harper said.

  “It is nearly dawn,” Vivian said.

  “Is Eva out there?” Alek asked me. “Can you tell?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so, but I can’t tell. All I know is six non-humans are just inside the edge of the wards. They rang the alarm, basically.”

  “So they are staying in the treeline, out of sight. Show me where,” Rosie said.

  I reluctantly got up and went into the dining room, grabbing a piece of notepaper off the sideboard. Harper handed me a pen, and Alek followed, standing over me as I sat at the table and drew a rough diagram of the property, marking out where I felt the bodies.

  “So, two at the back door, four covering the front and angles there. I think they are here to keep us inside. Pinned down.” Alek’s eyes narrowed.

  “She’s afraid of us showing up and ruining her party,” Harper said.

  “She knows I’m a sorceress,” I said. “She should be afraid. I’m going to kill her.”

  “No,” Alek said. “You are not.”

  I twisted in the chair and glared up at him. “Did you just say what I think you said?”

  “She will die,” Alek said. His tone softened but held a dangerous, deadly edge. It made me think of forest shadows and screaming prey. “I will bring her to justice.”

  I almost argued. Alek wasn’t full strength; he had nearly died only hours before. His face convinced me to shut up. Eva had betrayed more than Alek and the shifters she had killed. She had abused and betrayed her position as Justice. Betrayed her gods. This was Justice business, and I understood Alek’s need to balance the scales. I understood, too, that a Justice killing the rogue Justice might be necessary to salvage their reputations.

  And hey, if it kept his Council from wanting to kill me in retribution, I was okay with that as well.

  “I’m coming with you,” I said. He might be able to take on Eva, but I was going to make sure he got to her in one piece, and be there to lend my power if needed.

  That was when the wolves watching the house got bored and started shooting at the cars.

  “They shot my car,” Levi snarled as he peeked out the front blinds. He looked ready to shift and go lay some serious wolverine rage down on them.

  “They shot all the cars,” Ezee said. “Sounds like automatic fire, too.”

  “Where did they get automatics?” Vivian asked. “Used to be we solved our problems with tooth and claw.” Her disapproval was almost funny in its school marm way.

  “It’s ’Murica, fuck yeah,” Max said with an eye roll.

  I looked through the blinds. The sun was rising. False dawn tinged the horizon the color of fresh meat and cast a hazy shroud over the tree line.

  “I could go out there,” I said. “Bullets won’t kill me. I think I can shield against them.”

  “Hold up there, Rambo,” Harper said. “They might not kill you, but they won’t do you any favors, either. How are you going to stop Eva if you burn yourself out trying to stop bullets?”

  Furball had a point. I sighed, frustrated.

  “Can you shield enough to distract the two in back?” Junebug asked me.

  Two people shooting at me was better than four. I nodded. “True, there are fewer out there. Maybe we can break out and circle around, take the others by surprise.”

  “You want to sneak up on shifters? Who have machine guns?” Rosie pursed her lips, clearly not on board with anyone going outside and getting shot at.

  “They can’t use the guns if they aren’t human,” Alek said. The killing look was back on his face, his eyes glacially cold and scary.

  I remembered him forcing the crows in my former tribe to shift. “How close do you have to be?”

  “They only need to hear me,” he said.

  “You can make them shift?” Ezee asked.

  I saw Vivian and Levi both glance at me before looking back at Alek. I’d told those two as much.

  Alek inclined his head slightly, a grim smile touching his lips. “I am a Justice of the Council of Nine,” he said softly. “They will rue this day.”

  “Good,” Junebug said. She brushed her hands over her skirt and took a deep breath, glancing at Levi. “Distract them, and I will fly out of here. You will need a car to get to the Den. I can fly to the shop and bring one. Just make sure they are gone before I return.”

  “What? No,” Levi said. “It isn’t safe.”

  �
��Don’t you lecture me about safe,” she hissed at him. I could almost envision her feathers ruffling as her eyes widened and her shoulders hunched up. “You run around with your brother and your friends, getting yourself nearly killed by a warlock. You are ready even now to run out there and fight a pack of wolves. I am your wife, Levi, not a sweet little princess sitting helpless waiting for her knight to come home. Let me help.”

  “Dude,” Ezee murmured with a smile, “I think your princess is in another castle.”

  “Shut up,” Levi said to his twin. He moved away from the window and wrapped his arms around Junebug. “All right,” he murmured into her hair. “Bring the Mustang. We’ll have them cleared out.”

  I pulled my magic around me like a cloak, hardening it until I felt encased in stone. I hoped it was enough.

  Opening the back door just enough to slip through, I dashed out and across the porch, diving down the steps. Gunfire crackled from the trees at the back of the house. Pieces of the porch splintered as bullets chunked into the wood. I was definitely going to dig into my savings and buy Rosie some serious home repairs after this weekend.

  I dodged behind a low brick flowerbed. Poking my head over it, I threw bolts of white light at the trees fifty yards or so out. That was where gunfire had originated. The light was meant to blind them in the dim light, distract. Give Alek a chance to get out the door if we determined the wolves were close enough for his magic to take effect. And to give Junebug a chance to fly from an upper window.

  Behind me, a coughing roar rang out, vibrating with power. Alek.

  Tiger-Alek stood on the porch, half through the rear door. I climbed to my feet, holding my shield in place. No one shot at me.

  Still roaring, tiger-Alek sprang down from the porch and stalked toward the woods. Ezee, Levi, and, surprisingly, Vivian had agreed to handle the four wolves in front. They were not immune to Alek’s power, so everyone except me was currently furry. Rosie had forbidden Max and Harper from fighting, pointing out that Max was only fifteen and Harper was still hurt. She’d threatened to lock them in a closet if they didn’t agree and I didn’t think she was bluffing.

  Two large wolves hurtled from the trees and sprang at Alek. He snapped one wolf’s neck with a bat of a huge paw, and spun, catching the other in the shoulder and flinging it back.

  The wolf twisted in midair and scrabbled to its feet, snarling. I gathered power, ready to blast it, but Alek sprang before I could do anything. His mouth closed on the hapless wolf’s throat, and blood spurted, staining tiger-Alek’s white fur. He threw the body down and resumed roaring as he ran for the front of the property.

  I gulped in a deep breath, staring at the dead wolves. It was one thing to say you were ready to accept killing, to know that your lover killed people as part of who he was, as part of his job. It was another thing to face it, to see the sheer power and violence right in front of me.

  They did this to themselves, I told myself. They shot at us. They chose Eva’s side. They chose wrong.

  I gave myself a mental shake and ran after Alek.

  The fighting had spilled out of the woods. Wolverine-Levi tangled with a huge white wolf, fur and blood flying as they engaged and came apart. A smaller, red-furred wolf who I guessed was Vivian circled a bigger grey wolf, driving it back toward where coyote-Ezee crouched in the long grass, snarling and watching for an opening.

  A third wolf leapt at Vivian, blood streaking its grey and black fur. Tiger-Alek reached the wolf before it landed, bounding across the distance in giant strides and slamming the wolf down into the grass with a sickening crunch I heard even from forty feet away.

  Coyote-Ezee took advantage of the distraction of Alek’s arrival and darted in, teeth ripping into the grey wolf’s hamstring. Vivian leapt as the wolf twisted and yelped in pain. Her jaws closed on the bigger wolf’s throat and together they went down in the grass, struggling.

  A snarl and movement in my peripheral vision warned me as the fourth wolf streaked toward me from the side. I guessed that it thought that the lone human would be an easier target for its rage. I spun and lashed out with my magic, focusing it into bolts of force.

  The bolts hit the wolf, sizzling in its fur and knocking it down. Shaking its body, the brown wolf leapt at me again, refusing to stay down.

  Another wolf, its fur red and white, streaked in, moving with impossible speed. This one was young, lanky, and much smaller than the brown wolf. They collided and rolled away from each other, snarling and circling as they regained their feet.

  Max. Dammit. Rosie hadn’t locked him in a closet after all. Probably hard to do as a fox without thumbs.

  The two wolves circled around me, moving with such speed that I didn’t trust myself to aim true if I threw more magic at the brown one. I dropped my shield, fatigue starting to send little heralds of headache pain into my brain. Crouching, I went for Samir’s knife in its ankle sheath.

  It wasn’t there. Cursing, I recalled it had been in my hand when we found Alek. I’d dropped it in the quarry. Fucktoast on a stick.

  Something to worry about later.

  Max darted toward the wolf, leaping past my legs close enough that I felt the brush of his fur. The brown wolf was quicker, more experienced. Its mouth snapped shut on Max’s leg with a crunch, and Max yowled in pain.

  I jumped on the brown wolf, digging my fingers into its eyes, biting an ear and ripping with my teeth.

  The wolf let go of Max and whipped its body around, trying to dislodge me. I let myself fly free, spitting a piece of its ear out as I hit the grass and rolled. The wolf was impossibly fast, on top of me again before I could regain my feet.

  A huge white shadow ripped the wolf away from me, leaving only a warm spray of blood behind. Alek shook the wolf as though it were a rat, and sprang onto the body as he dropped it, raking it with his back claws, rending it to shreds.

  “Alek,” I cried out. “It’s dead. Stop.”

  He looked at me, mouth scarlet in the light of the rising sun, his lips peeling back in a snarl.

  “Or, you know, shred away,” I said, crawling to my feet without taking my eyes off his. “Knock yourself out.”

  An odd look came into his deadly gaze, and he coughed. I realized he was doing the tiger equivalent of laughing. I relaxed. Slightly.

  Then he shifted, turning from giant, bloody tiger to tired-looking Viking in less than a blink.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Max?” I turned and looked for him.

  Max shifted from wolf to human, his face scrunched with pain. “Broke my leg,” he said, rubbing the human limb, which appeared straight and unhurt. “I’ll be okay if Mom doesn’t kill me.”

  “I’ll tell her you saved my life,” I promised. “Idiot.”

  Ezee called out to us and we all moved back toward the house, leaving the bodies where they had fallen. Ezee and Vivian were unhurt, but Levi walked with a limp even in his human body, and cradled an arm against his side.

  “I’ll live,” he grunted at his brother. “Stop looking at me like that. You’re worse than my wife.”

  Alek disappeared into the trees and returned a few minutes later with an arm load of automatic weapons. “Shouldn’t leave those out there,” he said.

  Rosie nodded and brought a sheet to wrap them in. Junebug arrived with the Mustang, gunning down the driveway with a reckless speed that rivaled Levi’s driving.

  “That’s my princess,” he said with a pained smile.

  I convinced the others they had to stay at the Henhouse. Levi, Harper, and Max were in no condition to fight more, and Alek and I had no idea what we would face at the Den.

  “We still don’t know where the assassin is, either,” I pointed out. “Alek and I can handle Eva.” After seeing Alek fight, I was pretty sure Eva was worm food. Especially if I was there to make sure it stayed one on one. Turned out, dire tigers were really scary in action.

  There were protests, but Alek and I were out of time. He took t
he keys to the Mustang and I followed him out the front door and past the bullet-riddled cars. Even his truck had eaten a magazine or two. Broken glass crunched beneath my feet.

  “Have fun storming the castle,” Harper called out from the porch.

  I turned and waved, yelling back, “Think it will work?”

  She grinned at me, obscuring the fear in her expression if not in her posture. “It would take a miracle,” she said, finishing the Princess Bride quote.

  I was fresh out of miracles, but I still had magic. And I had a Justice with me. It would have to be enough.

  “We need to make a detour,” I told Alek as we drove away from the Henhouse. “I left Samir’s knife in the quarry.” The knife was magical, a blade able to hurt things that shouldn’t have been able to be hurt by physical weapons. I couldn’t leave it lying around. Besides, having a weapon like that going into whatever we were driving toward at the Den wouldn’t hurt.

  “All right,” he said. His expression was grim. His eyes met mine for a moment before returning to the road. “Are we all right?” he said softly.

  I thought about the dead wolves. The blood still drying sticky on my shirt. I’d wiped the worst of it off, but I could still smell it, feel it on my skin. They had made their choices. We had made ours. All we could do was keep fighting, keep making choices, and hope the scales balanced in the end.

  “Yes,” I said grimly. “We’re just fine.”

  The sun was high enough by the time we reached the quarry to fling shadows across the stones and highlight the scars and ridges in the naked rock. Alek drove the Mustang right up to the boulders.

  “Keep it running,” I said. “I’ll be quick.”

  I jumped out of the car and jogged toward where Levi and I had found Alek’s body the night before. There was still a dark stain on the ground from his blood and I shivered remembering his crumpled, dying body.

  Samir’s knife was still there. The air felt oddly still, though the scene looked undisturbed. Another shiver ran up my spine and goosebumps broke out.