The Perfect Ten Boxed Set

by Dianna Love

  “That’s right. Fight it. Not me.” I nudged against her, but she didn’t budge. “Come with me. We’ll walk the other way.” Away from whomever just arrived. “Let’s do this together.” I nudged again.

  This time she moved. A granite boulder inching uphill, but she moved in the direction I needed her to move. Toward a side door.

  My head pounded. I had to fight against Bran’s spell while holding one of my own. I’d be lucky if I didn’t black out.

  I gave Dominique a smile wavy around the edges but a smile. She was moving toward safety.

  Shouts sounded nearby. Dominique’s gaze faltered and shifted. Mine followed.

  Suzette.

  Bran had both arms around the woman, bucking and shaking against him like a cornered calf. Security guards were converging on the pair. They’d almost reached them when Suzette reared back, head-butting Bran and breaking free.

  Free and rushing straight at Dominique and me, whipping open a cell phone in the process.

  The detonator.

  CHAPTER 63

  I froze mid-breath, aware what I was about to do betrayed my vow to my father and to myself. All magic had a price.

  If I didn’t act, though, we all died. If I did act, I’d pay the price with no idea of the cost.

  “Bran.” It felt like I was shouting, but everyone was focused on the hoopla at the main doors. I never thought I’d be thankful for the entrance of a celebrity. “I’m linking with you.”

  He didn’t have a chance to reply as I pulled deep within my core and breathed out.

  My mentor witch asked what it felt like when I did what many thought was impossible. I’d told her it felt like being on top of the highest cliff, looking at the world still and far below, and then stepping off.

  “Hemma, hanna, druia.” The old words, in a tongue I didn’t understand, mumbled forth. “Hemma, druia, sanctum.”

  I pulled forth Bran’s magic and made it my own, amplifying like a tornado funnel amplified wind. I pulled not only his but any other non-human abilities within a twenty-foot radius until I was still in the center and oh so powerful and dangerous to everyone around.

  Time didn’t still, it slammed to a halt. Suzette caught mid-scream, Dominique with a bead of sweat dripping from forehead to chin. Everyone within my radius frozen, except for Bran and me.

  I could hear him fighting his own spell engulfing him. He had a little immunity, same as me, but at a cost. My head roared, blood pounded behind my eyes, nerve endings jangled. Fighting against time was a bitch.

  “Get them outside,” I whispered, focusing everything I had to hold the spell. Stepping inside Bran’s power and lashing it with mine merged the two of us. I felt the thud of his heart, his labored breathing, the churn of his emotions: awe, anger, fear.

  But I couldn’t stop; it took too much to hold time in place.

  Bran moved, snagging Suzette as if she were a stiff doll and slogging to the nearest door. I couldn’t carry Dominique but held my ground, pushing the spell further out to make sure Suzette wasn’t released.

  “Hurry,” I whispered, not even sure he could hear me.

  “I’m coming.”

  By the time he returned to my side only seconds later, my body quivered, sweat destroying my lovely dress, my head screaming with the mother of all headaches.

  He half-lifted, half-dragged Dominique along as I followed closely—each step heavy, painful. I didn’t know how Bran was moving and carrying at the same time.

  “How are you?” he grunted, the last five feet in sight with Suzette frozen just beyond the open door way.

  “Holding.” It was all I could manage.

  “Later. You tell me what. . .”

  I nodded. Explaining to another who wove magic that I was a witch magnifier, an amplifier who could use others’ powers, channeling them through me, with or without their permission, was not an easy conversation.

  I was a freaking vampire weapon, but not blood driven, magic driven. My father warned me that others would fear and despise me if they knew. Those who didn’t would want to use me.

  Later, I’d deal with the fallout. Now Bran was wrestling Dominique through the door and setting her down beside Suzette. We were along the outer promenade facing Rock Creek Parkway and the Potomac, the city and National Cathedral lights winking in the distance. A blast of cool air bit my skin, a welcome relief.

  “Now what?” Bran bent slightly like a runner catching his breath, staring at me as if I had sprouted horns. Which in his view, and in mine, too, I had.

  It was easier holding the spell here, in a smaller area, as I focused only on Suzette and Dominique. The pressure lessened a little on Bran and me, though I could only speak in small bursts. If my attention cracked or wavered in the slightest, the spell would go down and Suzette would be free to activate the bomb.

  “Need containment circle,” I breathed, my eyes on my captives. Even in the darkness broken by the lights of the Center behind us, I could see the fury in Suzette’s gaze. She might be frozen but only biding her time, waiting for the second she was free. “Need blood.”

  “I don’t have any way to draw blood.” He came up beside me.

  Damn. Never thought of that. Anything that could possibly be used as a threat was rigidly removed from anyone entering the Center.

  “Wait.” He stepped toward Suzette, spying what I had just noticed. A brooch and brooches had pins. Leave it to the dress designer to spot that detail.

  He wrestled the pin off, not easy as the closer he got to Suzette the harder it was to move, but the second the brooch was clear he twisted toward me.

  He raised his cuff to slash his wrist.

  “No. Mine.” I shook my fingers, the only thing I could still move. “Take over spell?”

  He nodded, shouldering beside me as I freed myself from him, staggering back as I stepped back into time.

  I sucked in deep breaths of air, reaching for the pin clutched in his hand. No telling how much longer he could hold the time spell, but not long by the subtle shifting of Dominique and Suzette.

  My head would bleed the most but not with a pin prick. First I had to change the pin to something larger, sharper.

  “As thou be, so now change. Thought to image. Image to bind. Bind to blood let.”

  Now I clutched a small dagger. It wouldn’t remain in dagger form for long, but it had to do.

  Like a diabetic I started stabbing the ends of my fingers, over and over, dribbling blood in a rough circle around the two women. I closed the circle, murmuring the whole time,

  “Continere. Continere. Continere.”

  My fingers screamed as I straightened, pushing my hair back, aware of the sweat cooling on my skin.

  “You can release the time spell,” I said, wondering what was taking the team so long to arrive.

  Bran raised his head, then bowed, as a man releasing a heavy weight. This time it was Dominique and Suzette who staggered, as if dashed awake. They looked at Bran and me, then at each other.

  Suzette acted first. Hurling herself toward me then slamming backwards when she hit the edge of the circle. It held. Thank the Spirits, it held.

  It’d taken everything I had, scoured all the magic resources I possessed and then some to get us this far. Now it was time for the team and the authorities to stop these two.

  As if in slow motion, Suzette sitting on her backside on the ground, glanced from me to Bran and then to Dominique.

  Too late I realized her intention.

  Dominique must have grasped the danger quicker as she was already morphing, shifting into her Grimple form.

  “No,” Bran shouted, lunging toward the circle, but the containment worked both ways. It kept them in and us out.

  If Dominique morphed fully the circle would be too small for the two of them. But that wasn’t the biggest issue.

  Suzette still had her phone.

  Four things happened at once, as if choreographed.

  Bran screamed, “Dom, no.”

>   Dominique shifted.

  Suzette punched a number.

  And I . . .I thrust my hands forward and pushed. Pushed with every ounce I had. Pushed with fear and terror pulsing through me. Pushed as if there would be no tomorrow.

  Then the bomb exploded.

  CHAPTER 64

  The blast blew Bran and I backwards but did little more than rattle the Center’s windows.

  Damn that was one good containment spell. That and the fact I’d tossed Suzette and Dominique over the roadway below the Center and far out over the Potomac. Between the spell, the force of the explosion, and their location I doubted any retrieval team would find even ashes. If there was a retrieval team.

  But those thoughts came later. Thrown against a concrete planter it took a moment to shake my hair out of my eyes and look for Bran. He’d recovered sooner and was already leaning across the nearest rail, staring at the Potomac. The cold moving water. The tomb of his cousin.

  I crawled to my feet, hearing Jaylene and Vaughn scrambling toward me. “What happened?” Vaughn demanded as she reached my side, helping Jaylene pull me to my feet.

  “Problem eliminated.” I shrugged off their hands. “I’ll report the rest later.”

  I stumbled toward Bran. Kelly hovered beside him then backed away as I neared.

  “I’m sorry Bran.” I meant it, too, on so many levels. “I know you cared for her.”

  He turned. Not fully facing me but enough I could read the anguish and the anger in the shadows of his face. “You killed her.”

  As if I hadn’t been hit hard enough with the first blast, his words sliced me. “I stopped her.”

  “A witch as powerful as you could have created two circles. Kept her safe. But you didn’t.”

  I didn’t know if I wanted to laugh or cry. Me? Powerful? I could barely stand and he’d expected more. Monday morning quarterbacking was so much easier than in the heat of the moment, but truth coated his words.

  Dominique and Suzette were both dead. Now we’d never know who was working with them other than Dominique’s cryptic words at the house. My only lead to Van was gone. And Bran was alone.

  And yes, I’d done that. I’d do it again in a heartbeat if it meant keeping Bran alive.

  He didn’t want to hear that. Not from me. Not now, and maybe not ever.

  I’d killed his beloved cousin, the cousin of his childhood, not the manipulative, dangerous woman she’d become.

  Magic always had a price. The cost to me?

  Losing Bran for good.

  CHAPTER 65

  The knock on the Washington D.C. coffee house window startled me until I looked up and spied Franco, if that was his real name. My smile was automatic even though he looked different. The shrieking look-at-me hair color gone, his hair was cropped short and close to the head, blending into the top length which was swept back. He looked different, very sexy different, which had the breath backing up in my lungs.

  Franco I could deal with; this edgy, wary stranger was new territory. It was like I’d been expecting something light and fluffy and instead found something dangerous and very, very much a male. The tight lines radiating from his eyes clued me in to the pain he’d been in since I’d last seen him.

  “How did you find me?” I asked, as he joined me at the small window table in the nearly empty room.

  “I have my sources.” His accent sounded more British, more clipped and formal—not sounding like the old Franco at all, until a small grin broke through at my puzzled expression and he added, “Yes, I know. I’m having the same problem reconciling you as a hairdresser and an agent.”

  I allowed a slight ripple of my shoulders. “But I am a hairdresser.”

  “And a mighty good one,” he said. “Though making a peroxide bomb does boggle the imagination.”

  “You remember that?”

  “Heard the details that I missed as well as that little dust up exhibition you put on at the Kennedy Center. The tabloids have been full of nothing else since.”

  He didn’t have to tell me about that. But the tabloids didn’t have all the details. They knew nothing about what happened to Dominique and Suzette, only that two women had left the crowded room with me and Bran, and even those reports were conflicting.

  Bran fielded the press and put his own spin on things. Theft of fashion designs. As if. And the rattle of the windows? Sonic burst from a passing military jet. Ling Mai covered that.

  Franco continued in all seriousness. “You saved Bran. Nice piece of work there, too.”

  I looked away, not ready to deal with emotions that refused to be tamed. One more week or so without seeing him and maybe then I could hear his name without reacting. Okay, maybe a little longer, like a year.

  “Just part of my job.”

  He gave me a shrewd glance and a droll tone, “Really?”

  Time to deflect the man. “Is your real name Franco?”

  “It’s one of my names.” He extended his right hand for a shake. “It’ll do for now.” I could hear what wasn’t being said. It was dangerous to expose the real you in our line of work. In a year, when my contract with the agency expired, I could go back to being a civilian, but Franco had chosen this world, and its shadow side for life.

  “Frank Harrington at your service.”

  I shook his hand and scrutinized him closely. Frank fit him, old world solid, and intense. But then so did Franco. I steadied nerves by wrapping my hands around my mug. “Do you mind if I ask a question or two?”

  “Shoot.” Then held up his hands. “Just an expression.”

  He earned the smile I gave him. “I understand that your people were involved because of the theft of some British government papers.”

  “Just as your agency became involved on behalf of your government’s concerns about the thefts.”

  I nodded. “But why didn’t MI-6 tell Interpol they had a man undercover?”

  “You mean why didn’t we share with your agency? Combine our resources?”

  “Yeah.” I looked at him straight on. “Interpol knew we were going in.”

  “Need to know basis, dahling.” He shrugged, then grimaced. “Always the old need to bloody well know, and now a decent woman is dead.”

  “Sasha.”

  Franco’s face tightened. “Yes, a new recruit that should never have been brought in.”

  “Then why was she?”

  “We suspected Dominique, but knew she wasn’t working alone. We thought along the same lines as your agency.” He gave me a shrewd look. “That Dominique might be more than she seemed.”

  Interesting. “So MI-6 has a—”

  He raised his hand. “A branch we don’t speak about publically? Yes. More hush-hush and very need-to-know.”

  I sighed, already wondering if the Brits had better documentation on non-humans than Fraulein Fassbinder. Heck, they had to, even Wikipedia had more intel. Maybe there could be a little tit-for-tat sharing to be arranged.

  Franco, or Frank, continued, “Our fellows decided to send in someone to infiltrate the women’s world that I couldn’t access. That and the fact that when you arrived there was a rumor you were Dominique’s contact for the next phase of whatever she had planned.”

  “Me?”

  “It wasn’t like Bran to bring on a new staff member without his cousin’s prior approval. Dominique, for all her faults, and they were legion, did run a tight ship. Even I had to come to Dominique’s attention before being hired. Which Bran very nicely set up as we’d known each other from attending Oxford together, but your coming in was the first break in the pattern. Then things changed.”

  Oxford? Another piece of Bran I didn’t know. I looked at Frank. “What things?”

  It was Franco’s old laugh as he said, “Do not be dense. Anyone with eyes in their heads could see the sparks between you and Bran. Since you knew your job as a hairdresser, it was easy to dismiss you as a fling on his part.”

  Fling it was. Fast, furious, and not meant to be. Ignoring the ti
ghtening in my stomach, I let him continue.

  “The home folks didn’t trust my intel that you were just as you appeared to be—a hairdresser. My word, I’ll never live that one down when I get back to the home office.”

  “I’m sorry about Sasha.” I meant it, too. The poor woman was in way over her head almost from the start, a sensation I could relate to even if my own mission was deemed mostly successful with both Dominique and Suzette neutralized and the drug confiscated.

  Franco’s jaw tightened. “It appears that Suzette was the one who killed Sasha.”

  Not new news here as I’d put two and two together. Several official agencies jockeyed for information as to the ramifications of the drug, who had created it, who it had been administered to, who else knew about it. The model’s death was just one piece of a larger puzzle, and those agencies didn’t even guess at the non-human elements.

  Who were the Seekers? And what did they want? And why? Ling Mai had reassured the IR team that we’d know the details in due time. Probably the same amount of time it took me to forget Bran. Another cheery thought.

  “So your people know that Suzette murdered Sasha for sure?” I asked.

  “Yes. It appears Dominique had no idea Suzette was the puppet master pulling the strings. From what we’ve been able to piece together, Dominique most likely recruited her assistance in the drug scheme and promised the woman a sizable monetary reward when the drug proved effective. On Dominique’s orders, Suzette drugged and killed Sasha. Orders that Suzette fed to Dominique anonymously.”

  “And the knife?”

  “While you and I were finding Sasha, Suzette stashed the knife in my room to add confusion.”

  “So Suzette was actually the one behind everything.” On one level I could accept it. The woman was thorough. On another level, I marveled at how invisible the young woman really had been, slipping beneath everyone’s radar. But who was Vaverek? And when would I find him?

  I was already making plans to slip beneath the IR radar and head to Paris. I’d done what Ling Mai and Stone wanted on this last mission. Two weeks where Van had remained in the hands of his captors. They wouldn’t hold him forever, only until he told them what they wanted to know or broke him. Day after tomorrow I was gone. Team be dammed.