by Dianna Love
Her next step dropped her foot into a hole as deep as her knee and just wide enough to trap her boot, jostling her backwards. She flailed her arms to keep from falling and breaking her leg. Once she caught her balance, she listened for any movement.
Had Sasquatch noticed?
Yanking her gaze straight up, she found two bright yellow eyes staring at her from the biggest horse head she’d ever seen. It was stuck on top of a giant, hunched-over human body.
Shock registered a moment before his huge hands lunged for her.
She shoved up a hit of kinetic power to block him.
He slapped the invisible force. Vibration jarred her teeth. Growling, he started beating both fists on her kinetic shield.
With only one foot for support, she was off balance and bending further back with each blow.
She yelled, “Hey! Little help!”
Casper was of no battle use as a ghost, but that didn’t stop the cowboy from dropping to the ground. He began changing to his human form, slowly.
Thankfully, he made almost no noise while his body worked through the transition.
Besides, the monster was focused on her right now. It lifted a foot the size of a table and stomped her shield.
Her arms threatened to give out under the pressure. She shoved harder, calling on all her power to push back, but her arms started to shake with strain.
The thing weighed as much as a car.
Casper stopped changing in half-form and started shouting at the monster, drawing its attention.
“Casper, no!” she shouted.
Too late. Sasquatch swung away from pounding on Evalle’s kinetics to go after Casper.
She had no way to stop the monster.
It would kill him.
Chapter 2
Evalle couldn’t get traction from her awkward position to do anything more than throw a new kinetic hit at the creature determined to smash Casper.
She slapped a blast at its thick head, shoving the creature sideways. Its dark body flickered and the head came fully into view, complete with a bushy mane. Grayish-blue skin didn’t look any more alien on Sasquatch than the wild-eyed horse head snapping at Casper. The hunched-up body was narrow and covered in a map of tight muscle. Tiny black pupils floated in its yellow eyes. The bottom half of its body kept fading in and out from a dark shadow form to reveal snippets of a human-like body.
Was it wearing a glamour?
Snow sucked up off the ground beside Evalle, and started spinning into a sphere the size of a laundry basket. The spiraling snow continued to take shape as it lifted higher and flattened out. In the next second, it turned into a thin horizontal disk five feet across, and made a high-pitched whine.
What. The. Hell?
She didn’t have time to think about it. The monster jerked back around to her. She stabbed her hands down onto the hard ground, and shoved up, trying to free herself. Bones in her ankle were close to snapping.
Sasquatch kicked at her.
Dammit. She fought for balance and threw up a new kinetic wall, but it lacked the power of her first one. His kick jarred all the bones in her upper body.
A high-pitched whine screamed near her. She glanced around to find the snow disk spinning closer.
“Drop your kinetics, Evalle,” Lucien ordered.
Was he kidding? She twisted further to see that, yes, Lucien controlled the snow Frisbee. “That all you’ve got?”
Lucien ignored her and moved his wheel higher in the air, just as the monster turned and drew back a fist to swing at Casper again.
“Do it!” Lucien demanded.
Evalle killed her shield and shouted, “Hit the ground, Casper!”
The cowboy dropped fast. His human form finished taking shape in mid-fall, just before he slammed the hard surface with a grunt of pain.
The bright, spinning disk shot upward and sliced across the creature’s throat without any resistance.
Sasquatch froze, then reached up for his head as it tipped over and fell to the ground. His body tumbled next ... heading straight for Evalle.
She pushed up one more time, using what power she had left to block him from crushing her, but her arms wouldn’t hold long. Blood spewed from his headless neck and splashed her through cracks in her kinetic wall. Warm liquid splattered her skin and clothes. Ick.
Soft howling and barking sounded from the side of the building as Casper got to his feet and shook his head. “Man, that body change screws with me.” He took in the headless corpse. “Damn, son, you do that with snow?”
He got a quirked eyebrow from Lucien for that.
“You two want to make yourselves useful and get this thing off me?” she grumbled.
It took both Lucien and Casper to drag the body to one side.
She dropped her arms and sucked in deep breaths, waiting as Casper and Lucien dug a trough wide enough to free her boot. No small feat with the ground frozen. She accepted Casper’s offer of a hand up and hissed at the sore ankle, but she could walk without limping.
“You’re the only agent I know who could find a gopher hole while fighting a monster, Sunshine,” he quipped.
She gave up correcting him on how to address her and said, “It’s a talent. Anybody know what that thing is?”
Lucien studied the body. “I don’t think it’s a demon.”
“Huh,” Casper grunted. “What then?”
“With that hunched body shape and horse head, it might be a tikbalang from the Philippines.” Lucien glanced toward the whining and yipping still coming from the back. “But I don’t get why it was hoarding dogs instead of killing them, or what it’s doing here. Something’s not right about this.”
As if anything was ever easy in their world?
Evalle glanced at the lifeless eyes staring up at the sky. The eyes were flat black now instead of yellow.
Mission accomplished, right? Why did Lucien have to make her think there was more to this than just life in the underworld of Atlanta’s nonhuman community?
She wiped ick off anywhere she could. Storm was going to pitch a fit when she showed up bloody. “Do you think the Medb could have brought it in, or maybe made this thing?” she asked.
“They could,” Lucien said, not committing to his answer. “But this doesn’t fit for any of the covens, even the Medb. This took serious power to control, and I’m not seeing the reason for it even being here.”
Casper added, “Yeah. Dog theft? What’s with that?”
Lucien said, “No idea.”
Evalle still liked her worst enemy as the culprit. “Maybe the Medb coven is behind this, and they just wanted to annoy VIPER because of the sanction. Create havoc. I don’t know.”
Lucien looked as if he considered that. “I forgot about the Medb getting sanctioned for that rogue warlock in November.”
“Not all of them were sanctioned,” Evalle clarified. “Just the queen and Cathbad. That doesn’t mean those two wouldn’t order their warlocks to find a creature like this and use it to screw with us.”
Casper grunted. “It’d be same day, same shit for that coven. They probably sit around laughing about this, because you know they can scry damn near anything and they try constantly to watch this stuff.”
Lucien and Evalle exchanged a look then raised their eyes to search around the area, as if they could see someone watching them via a scrying vessel.
Howls and barks grew louder from the room on the other side of the open door.
Lucien opened the door wide, exposing the animals that had moved forward again, but were still clustered too tightly to be free. He lifted his hands over the invisible enclosure and whispered something.
Evalle pushed loose strands of hair from her eyes, trying to make sense of all this. “What was the creature doing with all these ...”
“Watch out,” Casper yelled, dancing sideways the second Lucien freed the dogs. Four-legged beasts shot out in all directions.
Lucien stepped out and looked around. “Guess that takes c
are of figuring out what to do with them.”
“Lucien! Don’t turn them loose. We need them for proof that our assignment’s completed, and the local authorities can’t get them back to the owners if we let them go.”
Lucien spit out something angry, which she took to be a curse in Spanish, then raised his hands and did that whispering thing again.
Howling erupted in the distance and grew louder as the dogs ran back toward them.
The chain-link fence attached to one corner of the building circled a pool, then connected at the other side. A locked gate opened all by itself as the dogs ran straight for it. When the last one ran through, the gate shut and locked again.
“Satisfied?” Lucien asked.
“Yes, thank you.” Evalle raked a hand over her head. She’d poke at Lucien’s weird powers again, but right now she just wanted warm and clean. “We’ll have our people inside Fulton County Animal Services come over as soon as we’re done and pick them up.”
That strange bullfrog grunting started up again, inside what Evalle had thought was now an empty room. A loud cricket chirp punctuated the weird noise, which could be heard easily now that the invisible enclosure no longer stifled the sound.
They all turned to look as a shaggy little critter stepped out of the room. It was the size and shape of a bichon frisé, but with salt-and-pepper hair and large owl eyes that were sunshine yellow. Really bright yellow.
If the eyes hadn’t clued her in that this was not a recognized breed, then the unicorn horn sticking up four inches from its forehead would do it.
Lucien backed away.
Mr. Build-A-Monster-Killing-Saw-From-Snow retreated?
A little doggie thing bothered him? “What’s the matter, Lucien?” she asked.
“I’m not getting near that thing.”
Casper found this amusing too. “Why?”
“It’s a witch’s familiar. I want nothing to do with it.”
The cowboy asked, “How do you know that’s what it is?”
“I just do,” Lucien said with finality, dismissing any future questions.
“White witch or dark witch?” Evalle asked.
“I don’t know that.”
Evalle took in the little critter’s sad eyes. They reminded her of Feenix, her pet gargoyle, who was only two feet tall himself. She leaned over and called to it. “Come here, baby. Let’s get you back to your owner.”
The critter stood up on its stubby, thick hind legs. It waddled forward.
Huh.
“Evalle, I don’t think you un—” Lucien started.
That half-croaking, half-chirping, bullfrog noise started again. The fluffy critter stopped long enough to bare its fangs in Lucien’s direction.
Lucien’s dark expression warned that he would answer any challenge.
Evalle lifted a hand at the men. “Give me a minute.” She patted her knee and the little doggie thing walked upright all the way to her, then leaped unexpectedly into her arms.
“Okay.” She caught the animal, careful to stay clear of the horn. Smiling, she looked at Lucien and Casper. “See? No problem. We’ll just take him, her, it to—”
Lucien was shaking his head. “There is no we. It’s you.”
She lost her smile and thought about baring her teeth. “I don’t have any idea how to find its owner tonight, and I can’t take this little guy home.”
Casper suggested, “Give it to Sen and let him find it a home.”
Lucien said, “Bad idea. The white witch council is having issues with VIPER. If that beast belongs to a white witch, handing it to Sen would light a powder keg of trouble.”
Right.
Lucien and Rowan, a powerful witch, were chummy, even though he claimed to hate witches of any type. Actually, from what Evalle had seen the last time those two were within spitting distance of each other, steamy would be a more accurate description than chummy.
She told Lucien, “Then why don’t you take this critter to Rowan and let her figure out who owns it?”
That seemed a perfect place to start looking for the owner, since Rowan led the white witch council.
“No. That’s not my responsibility,” Lucien stated.
The Castilian had always been a bit distant, but he’d never backed away from helping on any assignment in the past. Why now? Evalle shifted her heavy armful and said, “I thought you were friends with Rowan.”
“We have an understanding, which includes me not dealing with her gaggle in any way. Besides, that creature being out on its own is a bad sign. Witches do not lose track of their familiars.”
“Well, duh,” Evalle smarted off. “We know it was dognapped or whatever.”
“No. There’s more to this, and I want no part of it.”
What did he mean by ‘more to this’? She’d ask, but he had a not-budging look on his face. “Fine.” She turned to Casper. “Would you take this to Rowan?”
“Sure.” He reached for the little unicorn mutt, but it bared its sharp fangs at him. Its jaw unhinged wide enough to snap off a person’s head.
Casper snatched his hand back, then waved her off. “Nope, that one’s all yours, Sunshine.”
“How am I supposed to take this to Rowan?”
“I thought you drove Storm’s Land Cruiser tonight.”
Oh, that’s right. I left my motorcycle at home. “I did bring his truck, but not to use for animal control,” she argued. Weak, but that was all she had.
Casper shrugged. “Don’t know what to tell you.”
Should she take it home and call Rowan in the morning? Evalle envisioned this little terror around Feenix, who could be an even bigger terror. Plus, Storm would have to deal with the whole screwed-up menagerie. Her life was complicated enough.
She needed another option. “I can’t take this home. I don’t even know what it eats.”
Lucien said, “Probably anything it wants, and I’m talking live food.”
Not what she’d wanted to hear. “How did that tikbalang thing capture this familiar if he’s that dangerous?”
Glancing around the dark room, Lucien speculated, “The familiar might have been hiding here if...” he hesitated, then shook off whatever he was going to say. “I don’t know, but if someone with power was controlling the tikbalang, they might have sent it to capture the familiar. The tikbalang could’ve even brought the dogs to use as bait for the familiar, and shoved them in there when we showed up.”
Evalle wanted to know what Lucien held back, but no one was pulling a word out of him if he didn’t want to share.
“Why would anyone want a witch’s familiar?” This from Casper.
Lucien shrugged. “I have no idea. Just throwing out possibilities for why it would be here with the dogs.”
Evalle smiled at Casper. He’d been with her through a lot of missions, after all.
Casper crossed his arms. “No use wastin’ those rare pearly whites on me, Sunshine. I don’t have any majik mojo for containing that critter. You either take it with you or turn it loose.”
Crud. If she turned this critter loose it might get lost forever or eat everything in its path. “Fine. If I’m stuck with this miniature land piranha, then you two can deal with Sen.”
Sen served as the liaison between VIPER agents and their Tribunal, a ruling body of three deities who made decisions and passed judgment on nonhumans living in the human world. If humans had a clue what actually went on, they’d probably run screaming, which was why VIPER kept nonhuman activity hidden. Even Sen had to follow that rule.
He hated Evalle with a passion that she’d never understood, and she didn’t like him any better because of it.
She wasn’t alone in that club.
As a testament to just how much Lucien did not want any part of the witch’s familiar, he nodded. “We’ll handle this and Sen.”
Casper added, “I’ll get in touch with our people in animal control.”
Evalle realized something else. “I don’t have Rowan’s new number. M
aybe you could just call her...” Her voice trailed off as Lucien fished out his phone and punched in numbers.
Her phone played the default jingle.
While her phone continued repeating the jingle two more times before quieting, Lucien said, “Now you have her number.”
She’d never seen Lucien so unwilling to touch something. In fact, Trey said that Lucien had once drawn a dark energy out of Rowan after a powerful Kujoo magician who answered to a Hindu god had found a way inside her mind. Rowan was one of the most powerful witches Evalle had ever seen, so anything capable of controlling her mind would have to be badass. Trey had been impressed by Lucien’s abilities, and considering all that Trey had seen as a Belador warrior, it took a lot to impress him.
Evalle couldn’t stand around and debate this any longer.
She told Lucien and Casper, “In that case, I’m off duty.” She struck out for Storm’s Land Cruiser parked two blocks away.
Should she just go home and see what Storm thought?
No. She was not bringing anything home that might shake the fragile truce Feenix and Storm had been working under for more than a month.
Feenix had stopped eating anything silver that belonged to Storm, and Storm had been using his majik to animate toys for her pet gargoyle.
Life was in balance most days.
She gave the shaggy critter another look and decided he was a male until she learned differently. “What am I going to do with you?”
The mutt-familiar showed his fangs, but made no sound.
She took that to mean he had no answers either.
With a little luck, this critter would belong to a white witch Rowan knew. Problem solved. If not, Evalle would have to report it to VIPER, which would then make it her duty as the Belador-Medb liaison to contact Queen Maeve to find out if it belonged to any of their coven members.
That would probably require being teleported to Tŵr Medb.
Wouldn’t that be just what Queen Maeve wanted? To have Evalle trapped inside her kingdom?
By the time she reached Storm’s truck, Evalle had come up with a second option that might save her from having to visit Rowan or deal with the Medb queen.
She put the mutt on the passenger seat and dug out her cell phone. She had Adrianna Lafontaine on speed dial. At one time, Evalle had wanted nothing to do with the Sterling witch, but that had been before they went through near-death experiences and got to know each other. Since then, they’d formed an unlikely friendship that had benefitted both of them in the recent past.