by Calinda B
Tom rubs his angular jaw, cocking his head to look at me. “I’m thinking target practice. What do you think, Daniel?”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Where’s Red?”
“Rafe’s on a job.”
A flicker of concern briefly flashes across the elder’s face. “A job? At this point?”
“He said it was a well-paying gig, that it would be short and he’ll be back in no time...”
“Does it require his berserker skills?”
“We don’t know,” Daniel says, draping his arm around me like a giant bird of prey. “He didn’t give us much info when he left. We’d been arguing.”
Tom’s eyebrows stitch together. “What this time? Her?” He tilts his head toward me. “Maybe,” Daniel says, looking away.
“You two are a couple of idiots,” Tom says, shaking his head. “And you…” he says, stabbing his finger in my direction. Another shake of the head.
“What do I have to do for target practice?” I ask, wanting to move things along.
“Watch Beelzebub.” The golden eagle has finished his morsel of raw meat and sits eyeing me with cold yellow eyes. Tom lifts his hand and flicks his wrist, and the bird flies free. “Watch how he focuses with laser-like accuracy on the lure.” He fishes the lure out of his pocket and begins to twirl it.
Beelzebub becomes instantly transfixed. His wings fold and he dive bombs for the lure like an arrow shooting for the center of the target. He misses, catching himself, wheeling skyward to try again.
“He don’t give up, no sir,” says Tom. “He doesn’t berate himself, doesn’t whimper and whine. It’s ‘missed that one, the next one will be a hit.’ Each time, he approaches with confidence—the confidence of a predator. That’s what you’ve got to do. Don’t give up.”
Beelzebub strikes again. This time his talons neatly snag the whirling lure and he drops to the ground, again mantling his prize. Again, Tom coaxes him onto his arm, offering him his bloody, raw reward. “There’s a good boy,” he coos to the avian predator. When the bird’s done, Tom places a small leather hood sporting an elegant purple plume over Beelzebub’s head. “This bird here’s a king among birds,” he says affectionately. He strokes the eagle’s chest with his fingertip. “I’ll take him back to his pen, now. Wait for me in the woods. Over there,” he says, pointing to a clearing ringed by cedar and pine trees.
He strides one way and Daniel and I head in the other direction. A few minutes later, we all stand in the center of the clearing.
“Okay, now what?” I ask Tom.
“We’re going to start small. Wait here.” He saunters to one of the trees, fishes in his pocket, and retrieves a tack. He scans the forest floor, finds a leaf, and pins it to the tree. “Stand back a ways, about eight feet or so. You got your sword?”
I pat my side in the invisible scabbard I keep it in. That’s a trick Rafe taught me—how to store it out of sight in Warplandia so that it’s always available, and unseen.
“Well?” Tom says, impatient.
“You want me to retrieve it?”
“Duh, missy. Get out your tool.” He lifts the ball cap from his head and scratches his straggly graying hair.
I mouth the secret phrase—it’s like a lock on a smart phone—and pull my sword free. She’s a beauty, my sword. I hold her before me and admire the polished gleam of the blade.
“Daniel, you stand behind her. Let’s keep distraction out of the way. Missy, you source your energy, extending it through the blade tip the way I taught you.”
I feel the power in my belly. Feel it bind me to the Earth. It rumbles up my torso and flows out my arms in an electric blue stream.
“That’s it. That’s great,” Tom says. “Hold your arm straight but relaxed, pointing at that leaf over there—the one I pinned to the tree.”
I raise and extend my arm, body sideways, legs planted solidly. The other arm is poised at my side.
“There you go,” Tom says. “When I say ‘go,’ let the light pour through the tip of your weapon, like a laser beam. You’re going to burn a tiny hole in the center of that leaf over yonder.”
I nod. “Got it.”
“Ready?”
“Ready.”
“Go.”
The force of lighting bursts through my gut, down my arm, into the sword and out the tip. Instead of being a single point of focus, though, it moves in a side to side arc, slicing the tree in two.
“Move!” Tom yells.
We all skedaddle toward the edge of the clearing as the giant tree falls right in the middle of the space where I stood just moments ago.
Crap!” I say. “Damn, damn, damn.”
“I’ve got words more choice than those,” Tom says, peeved.
Daniel’s face is impassive. He shakes his head.
Tom just eyes the tree, hands on his hips. “Tell you what, girl. Since you’ve destroyed a piece of my property and we need this clearing, I’m going to give you an exercise,” Tom says.
“What is it?”
“Daniel and I need a cup of coffee. You’re staying out here to slice that tree up and stack it at the edge. It will make fine firewood once it’s dried.”
“I’m going to cut the tree up?” I splutter, indignant. “By myself?”
“That’s what I said. Any objections?” He asks.
“Yes! It’s a lot of work! It will take me all day!”
“Better get to it, I reckon. Let’s go, Daniel.”
The two men amble through the field and toward the house, leaving me with one hand on my hip, the other holding the sword at my side, staring at their backs. “Is he kidding? I don’t have that kind of accuracy.... I could just burn it, I guess,” I say out loud, eyeing the tree.
Tom whirls around, catching my attention once again as he cups his hands around his mouth and yells. “And don’t get any ideas of taking the easy way out by burning it! I want neatly stacked, sixteen inch long, quarter-split logs.”
“Quarter-split logs?” I say to the empty space. “Sixteen inches?” I know Tom can’t hear me.
“That’s right,” he calls, lifting his hand, making a dismissive gesture and whirling back around to join Daniel.
“Damn sorcerer and his mind-reading, eagle ear bullshit.” His laugh floats across the field. I stare at the tree. The two dogs burst from nearby underbrush. They give a good shake and trot to me, tails wagging. “Come to watch the humiliation trials?” I pat their heads and turn to the massive prone log. “Sorry I felled you, big guy. You were a beauty. You’ll keep Tom and Betty warm, though. Do your best.” I contemplate my task. “This is going to take hours if I don’t master this skill. Accuracy,” I say, reminding myself, “is the key. Don’t be all haphazard and scattered,” I add, as if Tom or Betty or Rafe or Daniel were coaching me. I start with the branches. Lifting my sword toward a small one, I say, “Power it on first.” I bring up that crackling, delicious energy and let it flow into the blade. It happens in an instant, and the gleaming knife edge looks like it’s a white fire glow. “Now direct it out the tip…like…so,” I say it easily, hoping for success. The small branch falls from the tree, neatly sliced at the base. “Pretty good.” I continue slicing and dicing until all the branches are shorn, laying like pick-up sticks around the tree. “Good job, me.” I slide The Naked Truth into its invisible scabbard and set to gathering the branches, placing them in a pile at the edge of the clearing.
I stand before the giant trunk. “Sixteen inches. Hmm. Well, I know the width of my outstretched hand.” I stoop before the top of the tree and measure off an approximation of the required amount. I pick up a wood chip and place it on the tree to mark my chosen guide, stand back, retrieve my sword, and power it on. This time, when I direct the light, it pings against the wood, barely nicks it, and sputters, like I’m using a dull blade. “How odd.” I try again. Same thing. “Maybe it needs more juice. What do you think, Sober?”
He wags his tail.
“My thoughts exactly.” I l
et more energy flow through my system, direct it out the glistening tip, and this time, the top of the tree explodes. Both dogs yip and jump away. “Shit! Gah!” My head whips around to stare in the direction of the house. I sure hope Tom and Daniel aren’t in the yard, watching. I don’t see them anywhere so I turn back to the tree.
Sawdust litters the clearing where at least sixteen inches of wood used to be. “Now there’s my problem,” I say. “Too much energy. I need to control it more. I’m always, all, ‘let’s let er rip’, Engles. ‘Don’t hold back from free expression.’ ‘Death to suppression.’” I tick off catch-phrases I used to guide my life as an artist. “Well, this time,” I say to my sparkling canine, “we’re going to learn to contain all this wonderful life force and use it the way I want to use it.” I lift the sword, pointing it at another spot on the tree. Let the electrical impulses flow. Not quite sure how I do it, but I manage to control the energy to cut a splendid log. “There we go.” I pick it up, both arms straining, and extend it to Buster and Sober. Damn, I’m strong.
They both politely sniff it, then look at me as if to say, “Yep, it’s wood,” and wag their tails.
“Not impressed, are you?” I ask, dropping the heavy log with a thud. “Go play then.” I shoo them away and get back to work. As the day wears on, I recognize the sensation inside that indicates how much energy to use. It seems I have, in fact, gained a small measure of accuracy. “This is probably one of those ‘wax on, wax off,’ training exercises like the Karate Kid did in that old movie,” I mutter, hefting a piece of kindling. “I’ll bet Tom intended this sort of thing the whole time.” I put away my sword, stack the last of the logs, brush my hands free of debris, and admire my handiwork. “Not bad, Engles, not bad at all.”
As I step toward the house, leaves in the trees rustle and shake as if a strong wind has kicked up. I look at the sky. Nothing but a bunch of high, slow moving clouds. Once more, the leaves rustle, a bit stronger this time. I give them my full attention, the skin on my scalp prickling. Feels like magic to me.
The leaves warp and blur, shaking violently. I turn tail and run as the trees fade into a ghostly motion blur. An explosion of sound and color bursts through the leaves and catapults onto me.
Oh, no, I think, fear rippling through my system as I slam onto the ground, sliding on my belly like I’m about to score a painful, skin-shredding home run. It’s my trained assassin lover, here to kill me in a berserker rage.
Chapter 9
“Rafe? Honey? Is that you?” I say to the blurred image on top of me. Incredibly strong hands bear down on me, a solid body crushing me, but he’s moving at super-speed, so I can’t really see his arms, face, neck, torso, nothing—only a wash of colors. His hands circle my neck and squeeze, hard, choking me. “Rafe,” I wheeze. I’m hysterical, fading fast, little stars appearing in my vision, so freaked out that I can’t think what to do except claw at the blurred fingers. So much for learning how to chop wood. The sentence ping pongs through my head like I’m veering toward insanity, focused on mundane nonsense instead of reality. I try to source my power but it’s a little hard to do when my oxygen is cut off.
His grip lessens and I think the worst is over. A wretched, agonized cry pierces the air, slamming into my chest. “Rafe? Honey? What’s going on?” I’ve seen him in this kind of struggle before, trying not to do what his instincts tell him to do—make me dead. “Roll off me, honey, and come back into form.”
He vibrates, gyrates, and shakes like a 550 hp V8 racecar engine with turbo thrust, and he’s about to floor it.
“You’ve got this, honey, remember? You can win this war.” I push at his blurred form, thinking I’ll just slip out from underneath him, nice and easy.
Berserk Rafe has other plans. His hands suddenly grip my neck and twist, wringing me like a dishrag.
I dig at him with my nails, try to scream, writhe and squirm. I’m losing consciousness, certain my life’s about to end. The only thing on my mind, if I even have one in working order, is to survive. Guess I won’t be taking that dangerous journey after all. Rafe has my head arched back, and I notice movement in the canopy of foliage. Something large drops, landing behind me and blurry Rafe.
Rafe stills, assumes form, and gasps, his lungs heaving for breath. He starts to shiver, his face turning ghostly pale. He sees me, blinks, blinks, blinks again. “Marissa? Are you ok-k-kay?”
“Get off of me,” I snarl, shoving him to the side.
He curls in a ball, shivering and shaking, lungs suddenly convulsing.
I arch my head and roll my eyes up to see what’s affected him this way.
A large male, cloaked in black, calmly faces me and Rafe. “You all right, love?” He asks in a low, deep voice.
There’s something familiar about this voice, but I can’t discern where I’ve heard it before. I put my hand up, trying to communicate that I’m at least alive, still gasping. “I’m better now that you showed up,” I manage to croak.
Overhead, a large smile blooms beneath his hooded, shadowed face. His eyes, cheeks, and nose are obscured by shadows. All I see are beautiful lips, altered by a jagged scar.
“What did you do to him?” I ask, still gulping truckloads of air. I roll onto my side and sit up.
“A simple trick. I changed the pH of his blood, making it acidic. Due to increased carbon dioxide levels, he thought he might be dying, which broke the berserker cycle. Then, I threw him into hypothermia.”
I gasp. “So now he’s hypothermic? We’ve got to get his core temp up, quickly.” I scoot over to Rafe and yell to the guy, “Throw me your cloak. Now!”
The guy shrugs free of the heavy, woolen garment and tosses it to me.
I climb on top of Rafe and pull the mantle over both of us. Taking his face between my palms, I will heat into my palms. “That’s it, baby, you’re going to be okay.”
He’s shivering hard, his teeth chattering, but he manages to focus his sapphire blue eyes at me and nods.
I breathe slow and steady, letting just enough energy flow into my system to warm him. At least I learned that much this afternoon.
His shivers subside and his breathing slows. “Okay. That’s better. I’m okay. Thank you. Did I hurt you, darlin’?”
“You almost killed me.”
“Shit. Fuck. Goddamn it.” He pushes me to the side, sits up, and clutches his head in his hands. He scrubs his red hair angrily and growls through his teeth. “I don’t know what to do with this fucking berserker ability. Goddamn it! I needed money before we go. Rent’s due and all, you know?” He gets to his feet.
Actually, I didn’t know, but now isn’t the time to ask questions. I didn’t even know he had a home. I stand, reaching for him, ignoring the other male, just trying to calm my lover.
He grabs my shoulders, looking me in the eyes with fierce intensity. “I’d never want to hurt you. You know that, right?”
I nod, fearful of his intensity.
He releases his clenching grip but keeps his gaze locked with mine, fingers curled softly around my shoulders. “This was a quick gig. I didn’t think I’d need to go berserk, but my client had other plans. He put me in an isolated room. Some sort of long held grudge. He wanted total destruction.”
“Of?” I say cautiously.
“The hit, darlin’. Who do you think?”
I swallow, hard. “And that’s what you did?” I know so little about what he does for a living. All he ever tells me is, ‘You don’t want to know.’
He looks at me, his eyebrows stitched together, and pulls me tight, pinning me to his chest. “Well, yeah. Job done. Big payoff. Done deal. I can leave with peace, knowing I’ve taken care of business.”
“You just killed someone and you can leave in peace,” I say quietly, pushing away slightly so I can breathe. Alpha males.
“Yeah, and there’s still that little side effect of loving you. I thought I had it mastered.” He looks at me, clear and direct. “Truth is, I might have killed the person who hired me, t
he hit, and a whole bunch of innocents in trying to keep from going after you. It took every scrap of will, every ounce of self-control to finish the job and not do…do…well, do what I almost did just now.” His eyes fill with self-recrimination. “I had no mastery whatsoever. I’m now a liability to my profession.”
I wince and bite my lip. “So, you didn’t, um, take care of your needs and you, um, went after me instead.”
“Seems so. I didn’t want to be disloyal to you but…I may have to reconsider. Seems I’m still screwed when it comes to you. I thought I had it mastered,” He says again, maybe to reassure himself.
He looks so tortured I want to give him a big hug but he interrupts me.
He indicates the male behind me. “Who’s this?”
“River the Blood Magi, at your service,” the man says from behind me.
“I’ve heard of you. You’re the Sanguis Numen. Only been with the Numina a couple years, right?” Rafe asks.
I barely hear him. The name River makes me shiver with strange, stirring excitement. “River?” I repeat, still pinned to Rafe’s chest.
“As in rivers and rivers of blood.” A small, dark laugh follows this statement.
A full-on tsunami of sensation hits me. Oh, boy. Another deadly male.
Rafe shakes the man’s hand, his other arm still holding me close. “Thanks. You saved my life. More importantly, you saved hers. I owe you, big time.”
The male responds with another forbidding laugh. “Yep,” he says, “you do.”
“This is Marissa. Marissa Engles, the Light Rebel,” Rafe says.
“I know,” he says. “I know full well who she is. There’s not a thing about her I don’t know.”
“What?” I ask.
Rafe frowns. “And how is that?” He asks, releasing me slightly.
I push away, extracting myself from his smothering embrace.
“Hello, Marissa.” The male steps nearer to my side.
My insides churn as my eyes slide up the arm now extended to me. A tattoo of a blood-red wave swirls along his shoulder. My attention lands on the very bare, extremely muscled torso. The crest of the gruesome wave falls onto his upper chest. My gaze tracks up the corded neck and lands on the face and incredible blue eyes of Chris King, sexy dancer of Thunder from Down Under, my Las Vegas lover. “Chris?” I exclaim. “Is it really you?” My mind is suddenly flooded with memories of our weekend encounter. An awkward shyness makes me hesitant. So much time and change has happened. The three of us stand about, blinking at one another, until Chris speaks.