The problem was, the predator in him wanted sex with Cara, whose skin he could still taste and whose spirit now smelled vaguely feline. Her new spirit guide made her even more attractive to him.
Thanks a fucking lot, Trickster.
Despite everything, his cock ached from proximity to her.
He pulled back instead, giving her space. “That’s not the point. The point is I don’t want to see any more bad stuff happen to you. You’re in danger, from whoever’s attacking the village and from your own powers, and I know how to help you. If you can’t let me do so, at least do what you can to help yourself. I’m a shaman. You’re a person with a problem. It’s my job to help. Besides…” He took a deep breath and opened up, telling her the full truth, “If I don’t do something useful, I’m going to explode and hurt the wrong people. I can’t save Ben or your friends, but maybe I can save you.”
“How about helping me save myself?”
“That was what I meant.”
“Thank you.” He couldn’t imagine her voice was normally that small. “I…” She swayed slightly. “Maybe I should see that healer after all. Or at least sit down.”
“You’re in shock.” He probably was too, but at least he wasn’t also experiencing a major magical backlash at the same time.
His cougar smelled her rage on the frigid night air. Another flehmen, and he smelled pain with it, physical pain. The wince earlier hadn’t been purely anger.
“You’re hurt. You just didn’t feel it right away.” He touched her on the shoulder, gently this time, and opened, bracing himself for whatever he’d feel. She held herself still, looking like she was forcing herself to do so.
Trickster’s tits, she was suppressing that much pain, trying to hide it, on top of everything else that was going on tonight? Judging from the echo his powers picked up, her hands and arms must feel like she thrust them into boiling water.
“Come with me.” He put his arm around her waist, and this time, she didn’t yank herself away. “Nella will take good care of you.”
He did his best to ignore how natural it felt to have her pressed against him, even if it was happening only because shock and fatigue had taken their toll and she could no longer stand without wobbling.
The Long-Claws cremated Ben at high noon, the fire set by Grand-mère and Jack so it burned higher than a natural fire, consuming all of his body. It was the Couguar-Caché custom, to make sure nothing was left of a loved one’s body that an enemy might use against them. Jack had always thought it was a paranoid holdover from earlier, more dangerous times, but for the first time, it made sense. Three wolves from the village were on their way to Toronto in one of the shared vehicles, escorting Becky Goulding’s body back to her pack.
Jack’s parents and sisters were comforting each other now. Ben’s friends were celebrating his life, and Jack had joined them for a while, helping to open a door to send their love and good wishes to Ben as he started his adventures on the Otherside. But as the official ceremony degenerated into a bunch of young people alternating between laughter and tears, Jack wandered off, restless.
He stuck his head in on Cara, but she was still asleep in the grip of one of Nella’s rest potions. Nella had braided her fair hair before tucking her in to sleep off the trauma and the pain of hands and lips burned by the cold of death, and the braid stretched out across the pillow, almost the only part of her that Jack could see under the pile of blankets. Part of him wanted to stay there in Cara’s quiet cabin, watch her until she woke.
Instead, he slipped away.
He was better at attacking problems than nurturing people who had problems, which was why he was the kind of shaman who rattled people into helping themselves before they needed a healer. Yet he wanted to nurture Cara, who didn’t want to be nurtured.
So he’d start attacking the problem. But not alone. He couldn’t think clearly enough, not with his brother dead and his mind still in an uproar over Cara.
He could have turned to Sam, but instead, he headed to Elissa, Jude and Rafe’s place and started talking as soon as he heard a “come on in” from Jude.
“What do you guys know about sorcerers?” he asked as he stomped the mud and snow off his boots, assuming the others would catch up.
“That they’re evil bastards.” Jude was sprawled on his back on the floor, basking as close to the woodstove as he could possibly get, filling a good portion of the room with his big, muscular body, and a little more with his dreadlocks spread out around him like a mane. His green eyes were half closed, but Jack didn’t think for a second Jude was taking the situation casually. Leonine, Jude simply couldn’t see why he needed to waste energy sitting up when there was a warm spot to lie down. Once action needed to be taken, he’d be on his feet in seconds, lionside in seconds after that, and all without waking the baby.
“Oversimplification.” Elissa stopped kneading bread dough and wiped off her hands. “They’re not all evil, but if they go bad, they can go really, really bad. Witches and probably shamans have some built-in controls, because our magic uses our own energy and the energy of the natural world and they’ll eventually turn on you if you misuse them. Sorcerers can use their will and their words to get other creatures to do their dirty work and can take power from death. No, from killing. Some witches, like my aunt Bathsheba, can raise power from death energy because it’s part of the life cycle, but sorcerers get power from shedding blood and causing pain.”
Jack shuddered, trying not to remember his brother’s broken body and failing. “What I want to know is whether Cara was the real target or just one step in whatever our enemy is planning.” He flashed to an image of Cara, tortured like Ben was, forced himself to keep talking past it. “It sounds like my brother and that poor wolf kid were targets of opportunity, but someone was looking for Cara, and figuring out why is the first question.”
Rafe stood and began pacing. There wasn’t a lot of room to pace in the cabin, not with four people in it and Jude taking up a disproportional amount of floor space. Still, Rafe managed to do it with such grace that Jack could see the cougar walking with him, long tail twitching nervously. “Seems to me that the first question is, how do we stop the fuckers from hurting anyone else?”
To Jack’s surprise, Elissa stuck up for him. “We can protect against an unknown enemy. I’m good at defensive magic. A lot of us are. The town is already well shielded, and if we all work together, it’ll be Fort Knox. We can be safe inside the shields for a long time. But to go on the offensive, we need to know who we’re up against and what they want.”
“That makes way too much sense. Though I still want to skip that part and kick some ass, and I’m pretty sure the lion agrees.” Rafe stopped pacing next to Elissa’s chair long enough to give her a light kiss.
Then he kissed Jude. That got Jude to sit up, and once he got that far, he stood and kissed Elissa. Rafe had kept his kisses light. Jude, on the other hand, wrapped the witch in his long arms and enveloped her. She made a small gasping noise and clung to him.
Jack couldn’t smell sex yet, but it was just a matter of time. And maybe it wasn’t the worst idea from their point of view. Red magic was Elissa’s strongest power, and she’d probably need a little of the good stuff if she was going to help bolster the defenses. But he was so not up for watching his friends get freaky.
He cleared his throat, loudly. “I figure bolstering the shields should involve all the magic-users in town—so no sex magic yet, okay? And no just plain sex either.”
Jude grinned as he backed away, sliding down to the floor so he could lean against his wife. Elissa had the grace to turn pink. Given her fair complexion, he couldn’t say if it was a blush or a turned-on flush.
Which led to thoughts of how Cara had flushed and mottled all the way to her breasts as she reached orgasm.
He shook himself away from that useless train of thought and tried to force everyone, including him, back on track. “Now that I’ve got your attention back, let’s try to figure
out who these creeps might be.”
“Children,” said a familiar, though unexpected, voice, “don’t you think your elders might have something to add here?”
Chapter Sixteen
Grand-mère sat on the bed, her feet dangling above the floor. Unlike the rest of them, she looked rested, even after the magic she’d exerted at the funeral, her white hair neatly braided, her buckskins flawless.
At least she’d had the grace, Jack thought, to materialize with a big thermos of coffee in her hand.
“Too bad you didn’t bring food to go with the coffee,” Jack drawled. “Dealing with murder is hungry work.”
Elissa shuddered. “Speak for yourself! I couldn’t possibly eat, though the coffee looks tempting.” She stood to fetch cups.
“I was speaking for myself. Hazard of being a dual. It doesn’t matter how awful things get, we can always eat. Right, guys?” He felt a little funny about it, with Ben dead, but the truth was, he was starving, and no one had taken the time to eat.
Rafe and Jude both nodded, Jude growling slightly under his breath. Being a lion, he was probably hungrier than the rest of them.
So when Grand-mère exclaimed, “Drat, I knew I forgot something!” and a mound of steaks appeared on the table, Jack dug right in. Jude and Rafe followed suit.
Elissa stuck to coffee, even though a bowl full of pasta appeared beside the steaks.
Somewhere, a restaurant cook was rubbing her eyes and swearing she’d had steaks on the grill and had just dished out that order of pasta. He glanced at Grand-mère’s barely hidden Trickster-touched glee, winked at her and suppressed a chuckle. He wouldn’t tell his American friends, especially Rafe, how the food got here.
The coffee, on the other hand, Grand-mère had made herself the old-fashioned way, in a blue enamel percolator on her woodstove, out of some cheap brand that came in the biggest can she could get someone to buy for her on a supply run. He sipped it gingerly. “Ah, the elixir of life!” It wasn’t good coffee by any stretch of the imagination, but it was what he thought coffee was supposed to taste like before he left Couguar-Caché to go to college.
Ben had never had any other coffee. Had never gone farther from Couguar-Caché than the nearest normy town that had a grocery store.
Elissa reached for the sugar. For a few minutes, they simply ate. It almost could have passed for an ordinary family meal if you were completely insensitive to atmosphere.
As he ate, Jack racked his brain for clues why a gang of sorcerers and skinwalkers had chosen this time to screw with Couguar-Caché—to screw with his family. He waited as patiently as he could for Grand-mère to enlighten them.
Even with her love of drama, she wouldn’t have burst in that way if she hadn’t had some information to impart.
He hoped.
Otherwise, he might have to see how she’d look with moose antlers.
Elissa lost patience before he did. “I appreciate the meal, Grand-mère. Even if I couldn’t really eat, I appreciate it. But talking strategy while the guys finish eating every steak in the province isn’t asking too much. What do you know about the creatures that attacked…”
Grand-mère raised her fork and said, with her mouth full, “Patience, dear. I was getting to…”
The door burst open. Everyone jumped to their feet, save Grand-mère, who remained cross-legged on the bed, munching contentedly.
Jude shifted. Luckily, he’d been wearing a bathrobe and could just shrug it off.
Elissa closed her eyes and spoke a few soft words, so quietly that Jack couldn’t tell if they were English or Gaelic. Whatever they were, they made the complex pattern of warding on the cabin flare silver and copper.
Rafe did what he had a bad habit of doing when he felt threatened.
“Rafe,” Jack said, “the gun’s still not there. Try again.”
Silly cops anyway. Jack had already shot the intruder—with his handy squirt gun filled with a combination of tobacco juice, moonshine and water Grand-mère had blessed. Worked against most ugly demon-constructs like the beastie that had impersonated his brother, yet wouldn’t hurt friendly beings.
Which was good, because once the intruder unwrapped her scarf and exclaimed, “What the hell was that? And why are you all eating instead of doing something useful?” they realized they’d all been about to attack Cara.
Grand-mère finally set her plate down and said, “At last. Now we can get down to business.”
“We were waiting for her?” Jack tried not to sound rude. It just came out that way.
The next thing he knew, he felt something warm and wet on his lower leg.
He was being pissed on by a glowing lynx.
Who knew the piss from an incorporeal cat stank so much? You’d think a fellow feline wouldn’t mind the smell so much, but when he was in wordy form, it smelled as nasty as it would to a human.
“Cara…” Somehow he managed not to laugh, but it was a struggle. Despite the gravity of the situation and the nastiness of being a target for lynx pee—or maybe because of the gravity of the situation—it was pretty funny. And a sign that Cara had what it took to be a good shaman, including the irreverent and annoying sense of humor. “Cara, what are we going to do with you?”
“What? All I did was think, oh, piss on you…” She stared with a combination of fascinated horror and reluctant amusement. “Lynx, stop! Sorry, my spirit guide isn’t housebroken.”
The spirit guide stopped, then made a grand gesture of “burying” Jack’s leg before bounding back to Cara’s side.
“They rarely are. At least felines usually don’t shit where they eat. Lesson whatever number we’re on—be careful what you wish for these days, because you might get it.”
He didn’t expect that this mild, friendly warning, after all she’d been through, would be what finally got her to tear up. She still didn’t break down and sob, which she probably needed to do, but her eyes definitely got moist, and one crystalline drop trickled down her cheek.
Every muscle in his body, every instinct, wanted him to run to her and hold her close until she was cried out.
He fought the instinct down. His touch was the last thing Cara needed right now. Maybe ever.
Chapter Seventeen
She knew Jack didn’t mean it that way, because he couldn’t have known her thoughts from long before they’d met. How many times had she fantasized, while Phil was alive, about a man who was a little wilder and more primal, more adventurous both in bed and in general? Life with Phil had been cozy and comfortable, but even while they’d planned the wedding, she’d sometimes wished for more.
Had she somehow wished Phil’s murder with her doubts?
Jack must have read something in her eyes, because he said, “Lynx piss is one thing. But you can’t make humans you’ve never even seen do horrible things. Even Grand-mère has to know you exist before she can interfere with your life.” He smiled at Cara, not the teasing grin she’d become used to, but one that looked genuinely kind and reassuring. Even his aura looked warmer and less spiky. While that didn’t come close to making everything okay, she thought it might make life bearable for the next few minutes.
“I hope to Powers that these murders and the things attacking Rafe and Jack and Cara aren’t related to us,” Elissa said abruptly.
“Huh? Why to you? The sorcerer had been looking for me. Not that I can imagine why a bunch of creepy backwoods sorcerers even knew I existed.”
“They needed a way in,” Elissa said, “and thought you might be one since you had family here. But if they’re looking for anyone in particular here, it’s most likely us. The Agency can’t attack us directly in Canada, and no one seems to be in any hurry to extradite us, but money talks, and people who won’t balk at human sacrifice wouldn’t balk at a little freelance work.”
“I hate sorcerers.” Jude’s voice was close to a roar, startling in the small, cramped space. “I don’t care what Elissa says. They all seem to be bad news.”
“The one
s in the village seem okay,” Rafe said without any real conviction. “And I’m sure Elissa said they had one in the family.”
“Those Donovans’ll marry anyone. She married us, after all.”
The name clicked in Cara’s head, flipped a switch. “You’re those Donovans… The ones who blew open that illegal American government operation last spring but killed someone in the process?”
“Yeah, that’s us,” Jude said, preening a little.
Elissa added, not preening at all, “The person we killed wasn’t exactly a person anymore. More like a human body animated by something really nasty from another plane.”
“We all agreed you were the best-looking fugitives ever, but your wanted posters don’t do you justice.”
The three fugitives seemed to remember they were talking with a police officer, because they looked from one to the other nervously. A signal passed between Jude to Rafe, and from Rafe to Jack.
Even Grand-mère was staring at her as if she expected Cara to pull out handcuffs.
Cara unexpectedly barked out something close to a cynical laugh. “Don’t worry. I’m pretty far out of my jurisdiction here. Hell, I’m not clear I’m in the same dimension as my jurisdiction. And after tonight, I understand why you did what you did. We have people dead and no one but us remotely equipped to deal with the killers.” She felt a comforting hand on her shoulder. Rafe’s.
That’s right. He’d been a cop himself before he found himself in a situation where the only way to get justice was to break the law.
Rafe said quietly, “Human law works well for humans. But human law doesn’t take the Different world into account. Things happen to us that human law doesn’t begin to cope with, even when it tries. Can you imagine the three-person police department in the nearest village dealing with a bunch of killer sorcerers?”
She tried to—and as she did, the room flooded with blood red and so did the inside of her brain. The burns on her arms, which had been lulled to calm by Nella’s potions, throbbed. The wound in her shoulder tore open. Her leg and wrist ached dully, not the sharp pain of a fresh fracture, but that of one partly healed and pushed too hard by an active patient. Lynx materialized on her lap, lying on the leg that had once been broken, butting at the once-sprained wrist until Cara got a clue and let that hand rest on her back. The glowing fur was as soft as you’d expect a lynx’s to be, but it tingled against her skin.
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