The Council was growing concerned.
A flurry of desperate movements directed Finn's attentions elsewhere. His lips parted in a cruel sneer. The shape-shifter was trying to grab onto a branch. Casually, he moved it out of reach with a bit of wind.
“Are you going to get her out?”
“She's moving downstream. The flooding doesn't extend that far.”
He was determined to put the shape-shifter in her place. However stupid her kind was, she had to have figured out by now that the flooding was not a natural occurrence, and that she was victim to his whims.
Council business always took precedence, of course, but if he took a bit of pleasure in making her squirm in the process, he couldn't be faulted. Not as long as he upheld the treaty. And rules were bent as easily as they were broken, if not more so.
He jerked his head downstream.
“Let's go—quickly, now.”
•◌•◌•◌•◌•
The water coughed Catherine into a Douglas fir.
The springy branches cushioned her from most of the force of impact, but that didn't mean that it didn't hurt. It did. The long green needles stabbed at her skin, her face, eliciting an unpleasant stinging sensation.
She hit the ground with a wet slap, face and clothes streaked with mud and dirt and soot. Refuse was tangled up in the wet curls of her hair. Mud and water were everywhere. She could feel the stiffening sensation of it on her skin as it began to crust over and dry.
Fuck this. She yanked off her flannel over-shirt and used it to towel herself off. The cold winds nipped sharply at her bare arms. She ignored it, gritting her teeth hard enough that her jaw ached from the pressure.
Part of her wanted to burst into tears. Shape-shifters were not inhuman, despite what the witches wanted to believe. They were caught somewhere in between. She might have the instincts of an animal, but emotionally she was very much like a typical human teenager. And right now, she was hurt, confused, and frightened.
Catherine drew in a breath, and the iciness of it seared her lungs. Don't panic, you can't afford to panic. She was in the middle of a clearing, surrounded on all sides by trees. It had a man-made feel to it—the shrubs were curbed just a little too neatly to be natural—and she suspected it might be a campsite. There was one around here, if she remembered correctly, and the circular arrangements of rocks suggested campfire remains.
No campers here now, though. She was alone. And looking around, she decided that there was a definite reason so many horror movies took place in camps.
She tilted her head back and sniffed. She could still smell ozone but not as closely as before. She walked out of the clearing, picking her way through the brush. Her footsteps were muffled, almost soundless. She knew exactly how to skew her weight to keep the loose twigs and grit from snapping beneath her feet.
Water dripped continually from the branches above her head, spattering her upturned face. She didn't mind; the water beading around her nostrils heightened her sense of smell. The trees were thicker here. Denser. Wilder. There wasn't a path in sight, but she could smell the highway: motor oil and exhaust.
Catherine tied the flannel shirt around her waist. She was back to where she had started, but the flow of water was starting to trickle out. Still vicious enough that she wouldn't be able to head back the way she came without slipping and sliding in the mud, risking her own death.
And the storm was rolling in full force, now. She didn't trust her flying abilities in the face of it. With her lucks, her wings would be rent feather by feather.
A cloud of ozone-scorched magic hung low in the clearing, suffocating her with its noxious potency. She had seen witches before, of course, but never while they were actively engaged in offensive combat.
It was more difficult to laugh at their cowardice and mock their inferior strength after seeing such power displayed. Even without much prior experience, she knew this witch was very, very strong. His very presence weighed down upon the forest, crushing it. The magic squeezed her lungs until she could scarcely breathe.
He wasn't just hunting her. No, this was a battle for dominance. She recognized the signs.
Danger, Prey squeaked.
Predator stomped on Prey, silencing it for the moment. Courage shot through in trembling veins in the absence of that voice of doubt. Her head, freed from panic, cleared a little.
If the witch intended to kill her, he would have done so already. But he hadn't escalated it to that point. Not yet, anyway. For now, it appeared that she was supposed to fight back. He was trying to provoke a response.
But why? To force a Change?
There was no point in being cautious. She could see that, now that she was no longer panicking. He knew she was here, and caution could be seen as weakness.
“Hello?”
A twig snapped and she whirled around, curling her hands into claws. One was raised at face-level. The other was at her side, ready to parry any forthcoming attacks.
The clearing fell into silence, rife with tension.
“I know you're there,” she said. “I can smell you.”
He smelled of magic and man, of raw meat and battery acid. His scent coated the back of her throat in a caustic film and made her heart beat faster for reasons best not speculated on. “Come out and show yourself,” she said, pausing a heartbeat before adding, “Or are you afraid?”
There was no response—she hadn't expected one—but she heard another crackle, and this time, it came from right behind her. She could hear him breathing, close enough to touch. She hadn't been able to smell him in time because the residual magic had overloaded her senses, whiting them out.
She realized this, even as he grabbed her wrists and snapped two silver bangles around them and crushed her body against his. The silver started to burn instantly. The pain shot through her wrists and muscles, sapping her strength, seeping into her body like a neurotoxin.
Her gorge rose. Silver was poison. A terribly slow-acting one, but poison nonetheless. You could keep a shape-shifter in silver shackles for years before it finally killed her. A fact she was sure her assailant knew well.
“Catherine Pierce?”
The voice was deep, husky, with a whispered lilt of an accent. Whispered right into her ear. He was holding her far too closely. She could feel his breath tickling her throat, dangerously near her pulse. Gasping, she jerked out of his grip, twisting around to knee him in the gut.
But the silver rendered her weaker, and clumsy. He dodged her attack, and she could sense his fury. Power arced from him to crack her across the face like a slap as he reached out for her again.
Catherine growled and brought her cuffed hands up to hit him squarely beneath the jaw, hard enough to knock his own head back. She heard his teeth connect with a sharp click, and a curse that suggested that he'd bitten his own tongue. She wished he'd bitten it right off.
The witch, as if reading her thoughts, rasped out words in a language she did not know, in a voice hoarse with anger, and all the air left her lungs in an instant as he created a vacuum around her far more effective than any plastic bag.
She couldn't breathe. She couldn't breathe. He had stolen her breath, and she was dying—
He slid a gloved hand beneath her chin, ignoring her spasms. He was dressed all in black, in jeans and a robe that had some sort of cowl. Fabric was swathed over his mouth, hiding his face, muffling his voice. Only his eyes were visible. Eyes she wished she had let the hawk peck out.
He is the reaper, thought Catherine. He is death.
Would he be hers?
“Answer the question, shifter slut,” he said, as the black spots began to dance before her eyes.
It took her several agonized seconds to understand, and then several more to remember what the question was. Brain-starved, faint, on the verge of consciousness, it was all she could do to bring her head down in a nod.
And then—air, blessed air.
She sucked in a breath, stumbling back a few steps as
the air reached her lungs and her brain and left her feeling dizzy from the sheer force of her replenishment.
When she remembered how to speak, she turned on him. Her voice was hoarse, and for that she was grateful; it masked the trembling. “You—fucking—bastard.”
And then she winced. The magic radiating from his body was so bright that it hurt to look at him.
As if he were an angel, or a god.
“Show some respect,” he said coldly.
But this witch—was no angel. “Fuck you.”
His eyes dropped to her damp shirtfront, and a sudden chill reminded her that she still wore nothing beneath it. The look he gave her when he met her gaze once more was loaded with irony—and something else, something that she couldn't quite catch, but that scared her far more deeply than his anger had.
“You're probably infected with parasites.”
Who was he trying to convince?
“Let me go.” She had to distract him. This witch was broken inside, full of shards as jagged as shattered glass. “I have your scent. I'll find you. And then I'll kill you.”
He shook his head slowly. That look still hadn't left his face. In a voice so low she had to strain to hear him, the witch said, “It's considered an act of treason to threaten a member of the Council.”
No fucking way, she thought.
“On your knees.”
Since when did the Council let their members run wild? Even they were not so cavalier—were they?
Catherine did not move. She felt like a tree being battered at by a heavy wind, forced either to bend, or break. The water had been trickling around her feet and now it swelled. She cried out as her legs were swept out from under her and she collapsed into the mud. Her knee hit a rock, and pain bit into her with savage fervor.
“That's better,” the witch said, almost cheerful now that she was on her knees, but the coldness hadn't left his eyes, and that look hadn't left his face. “Now tell me, what are you doing with a Slayer's spell book?”
She wished she had possession of her senses. She had the feeling that she'd need all of them. “Spell book?”
“Are you a parrot? I think not. So answer the question. What is your magic source? Who gave it to you?”
Her thighs were beginning to stiffen. Her wounded knee still throbbed painfully and she thought she could smell blood. Until the silver was removed, it would not begin to heal. “I don't have a magic source.”
“It surrounds you,” the witch said coldly.
“Shape-shifters can't perform magic.”
“You aren't going to make this easy, are you?”
Catherine swallowed, but did not look away from his eyes. She would not be submissive or docile. “Let me go. I answered your question.”
“Perhaps you enjoy pain. I do appreciate the odd challenge.” He glanced at her askance. She didn't change her expression, although her heart hammered with fear. “I could kill you right now, in cold blood. I could make you scream for me, and the Council would call it justice.”
He was lying, bluffing. The Council wasn't that corrupt. As much as they hated shape-shifters, they couldn't overlook murder. Several members of her own kind held seats. Surely they wouldn't condone this.
As if reading her mind, the witch said, “The Fourth Rule does not apply in clear-cut cases of treason. You have attacked and threatened an esteemed member of the Council, and you have artifacts of black magic in your possession. For all intents and purposes, you are nothing more than a rabid beast clad in human skin.”
Catherine flinched. “I'm a Glamor.”
“I saw you Change into a hawk where any human could happen upon you. I know you stole that book because I watched you do it. And though I have no proof of it yet, I know you tampered with our official records.”
Records? What was he talking about?
“It's not me you have to convince,” he said, when she opened her mouth. “The First Rule is bad enough, but toying with the dark arts—that is condemnation itself.”
“Speaking from personal experience?” she snapped.
It was a mistake. He went as rigid as an angry cat. Magic slashed out from his aura in lethal arcs as if trying to reach out for her throat and strangle her. The light spilled out from his violent aura and onto his face, and if eyes were truly windows into the soul, then his showed glimpses of an icy, arctic hell. A barren wasteland of madness.
And then he laughed. A sound as dark and velvety as the sky above, its softness tempered by a note of warning that crackled and rumbled like thunder. If evil had a laugh, she thought it would sound like his.
The storm was coming in.
“Something like that,” the witch said, at length, and Catherine felt a thrill of fear. What did he mean by that? That he had practiced black magic before? Or that he thought she did, and was about to make her pay for her impertinence?
Neither option was reassuring, but the third was worse—he was completely insane.
“The vampires who guard the Keep in the northern wastes would enjoy you, I think,” said the witch. “They regard stubbornness as a garnish in their little blood whores. That particular charm is wasted on me, however.” He reached into his jeans pocket and she stiffened, expecting another weapon. The coup de grâce.
“There is one way to tell.”
He's going to kill me.
Nobody would ever find her body. Not here.
Catherine watched him with her heart in her throat as he produced a necklace. There was no time for relief. As soon as she glimpsed the crystal dangling from the thin gold chain she knew it was no ordinary charm. It had the same dark aura as the spell book. Black magic.
Shaking her head, she began to edge away, but the witch was on her in an instant. She bucked, twisting, trying to throw off his grip, but his fingers dug tightly into her skin. “If you break this, you'll kill us both.”
“I don't give a fuck about you.”
She stopped struggling, though. The instincts for self-preservation were strong.
Catherine stared at the crystal, watching the aura pulse and swirl in time to her breathing in a way that seemed vaguely obscene. The witch's eyes never left her face, and that felt obscene, too. He seemed to be searching for a reaction of some kind, and his focus was so intense that she was finally forced to turn away.
The crystal was only a little less intimidating. It wasn't actually black, as she had first thought, but filled with those strange particles. There were so many that they were all pressed up against the walls of the colorless mineral from within, struggling to get out it seemed.
They were attracted to her, to her aura. To her body.
What would happened if the crystal cracked and the particles broke free? The witch had said that they would kill her—and him. Would they consume her, devouring her like a ravenous beast incapable of satisfaction?
The witch was regarding her through narrowed eyes. With the dangling chain in hand, he looked like a hypnotist from the turn of the century.
“Your aura reacts to this crystal the same way a witch's would—why?”
“I don't know.” She couldn't look away from the necklace. “I haven't done anything. I don't know.”
“I think you know more than you're letting on.”
Catherine shook her head viciously. “No.”
It was obvious he didn't believe her.
He tucked the necklace back into his pocket and fiddled with his belt. She sucked in a breath, terrified anew, and the terror stayed with her as he pulled out a silver blade from a discreet leather sheath.
“Do you know what this is?”
Cuts inflicted by silver did not heal at a normal rate. Anything he did to her would last. She would wear the scars for the rest of her natural life.
“Last chance.” He waved the blade in front of her.
He was going to do it. He was going to cut her, for reasons of his own. Reasons that had something to do with the ice in his voice and the madness in his eyes.
Her body blurred into motion before she was even fully aware that she had made a decision. She tackled him, and the witch went down. Silver had no effect on her body's mass. She was small, but compact. Shape-shifters had low BMIs. Their metabolism was constantly going to feed their bodies with energy.
The witch was knocked supine, in an ungainly sprawl that left him spattered with mud. She found the keys to her cuffs on his belt and unsnapped them quickly, shackling his wrists together instead while doing her best to ignore the burn of the silver. He started to curse her, and she shoved the knife down his throat, handle-first. A last-minute mercy.
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