by Annie Bellet
“Who are you?” Rachel said through gritted teeth. “Why weren’t you helping?”
“’Cause he’s one of Samir’s,” Harper said. She folded her arms over her chest and pressed her lips together.
“I helped you escape the sorcerer,” Cal said.
“He did?” Ezee and I said at the same time.
“Nominally. We’re even for that now. I got a feeling you were using me to clean up someone you didn’t like anyway.” Harper glared at him.
“Clean up?” I looked between them. Clearly I had missed something in her explanation of how she escaped Samir.
“She killed one of the other mercs. Crushed his throat with a toilet lid.” Cal raised an eyebrow at her as if to say “good luck explaining that.”
“Badass,” Levi said, drawing out the vowels in the word to form a half whistle.
Harper shifted her weight from foot to foot, betraying her nervousness. Her eyes flicked to mine and I made sure to smile. None of us were clear of blood on our hands. I wasn’t going to judge.
“You were part of the group capturing shifters?” Rachel said. Her lip curled in disgust.
I felt the same disgust. Shifters capturing shifters for sacrifice was shitty as hell. Doing it for a sorcerer must have been the worst kind of sacrilege in Rachel’s, and probably everyone else’s, minds.
“No,” Cal said. “Our group is guarding the sorc. We’re not dealing with the shifter stuff or town. I overheard them on the radios doing a last-minute grab at Samir’s request, so I came to see what was up. I couldn’t stick around where I was. I got a horrible feeling we’re not going make it through this one.”
“You are not,” Alek said. His voice was winter ice and bitter winds. It was the voice a rabbit hears in its mind just before the eagle drops from the sky.
I glanced at him, but his beautiful face was unreadable.
“Radios? I saw some on the guys out there. Can we use them to track what they are doing?” Levi started toward the door.
“No good,” Cal said with a swift shake of his head. “One of these guys squawked for help. They’ll have changed the channel to an alt now they haven’t heard back. They might monitor this channel for communications, but they won’t use it.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “You know where Samir is and where the shifters are being kept. So spill it and I’ll keep the tiger from killing you.”
Cal gave me a bitter, tight smile. “No,” he said. “I need to know things first.”
“Like hell you do,” Harper said, starting toward him with her murderface on.
“We should try the diplomatic chat option before hitting the kill button.” I put out my arm, stopping her. “What do you want, Cal?”
He looked me over with an obvious up-and-down sweep of his eyes, assessing. He was a predator, through and through. In some ways, he reminded me of a shorter, brown-haired, less-dramatic-looking Alek.
“You’re a gamer, too,” he said after he finished his assessment.
“Talk,” Alek said with a soft growl.
“I want you to save my boss,” Cal said. “I think he’s under some kind of spell.”
“The big white bear?” I guessed, thinking back to the fight that happened in the alternate timeline.
“Vollan,” Cal said with a nod. “Been running with him a long time. He’s a damn good boss. Keeps us safe, gets us paid. This job, well, it ain’t usual. We’ve taken people before, held ’em for ransom, that kind of thing. Taking other shifters? We don’t usually do that.”
“You took my brother,” Harper said, her voice barely above a whisper.
“The kid? Yeah. Nobody was supposed to die. After that, couple of us tried to talk to the boss. Tried to say how the job wasn’t what we’d expected. Arenson had point on that; he’d always been good with the boss, had his ear. Vollan shut him down. Then he left him on patrol after we all pulled out. When we asked where he was, boss just said he wasn’t coming back.”
“The two wolves?” Levi asked. “That whole camp was rigged to blow with magic, you know.”
Cal seemed to sag in place, his shoulders dipping. “So he is gone. Szabo too?”
“Both,” Alek said, his voice still ice.
“Fuck,” Cal said. His brown eyes met mine. “That isn’t how Vollan is. He doesn’t do this. We don’t work with humans, either, or other merc groups. Capturing girls, bringing in kids to get killed, all this, it’s shit. Total shit.”
“Okay, so your boss took a shitty job. Walk away.” I still didn’t see how this was my problem. I wanted his information, but I didn’t know what he wanted yet. If his own people hadn’t been able to change this Vollan’s mind, I didn’t see how I could.
“No, I’m not explaining it right,” Cal said. He threw his hands up and then squeezed his fingers into fists as though he’d crush the air around him. “I think my boss is under a spell,” he said. “I think he’s being mind-controlled.”
“Is that possible?” Ezee asked me.
I searched my memories as quickly as I could. Tess seemed to have no idea if Samir could do that or not. I had no idea. But Samir had been around a long time.
“It’s not impossible,” I said finally. “I need more information. What makes you think it is a spell?”
“How he acts, what he does. Like he’s angry but he can’t take it out in the right way. After Harper got away, Vollan called me out and we walked the perimeter. I thought he knew I’d helped her, but he didn’t say shit. Finally he just looked at me and nodded with this strange look in his eye. I don’t even know how to explain it. Like desperation. Like he wanted to speak but just flat couldn’t.” Cal took a half step toward me, desperation in his own eyes. Alek growled again and he stopped moving.
“If this was a D&D game, I’d think it was a geas,” Ezee said.
I glanced at Ezee and he shrugged. He was right. It did sound like some kind of control thing. Maybe. If Cal wasn’t just crazy. But this guy had helped Harper escape; she didn’t deny that. He was here now and he knew where Samir was and what he was planning.
“Geese?” Cal said, his eyes flicking between us.
“Ge-as,” I repeated. It was magic so outside my own experience and utility that I had to take a moment to wrap my head around how I’d even do something like that. But Samir… he would. I could see it. A spell like that would take a lot of power to maintain, since magic often weakened with distance. Unless…
“Does Vollan have something he wears all the time? Something he never takes off, ever?” Samir loved objects, I knew. He was good at making them.
Cal’s eyes lit up. “His dog tags. He fought in the Second World War Talks about it all the time. How he was out there killing Nazis. He never takes those things off.”
“Samir could have anchored a spell to those, maybe. It’s not guaranteed, just a guess,” I added.
“It makes sense,” Cal said, clearly latching on to whatever hope he could.
I almost felt sorry for him. He was a killer who had helped Samir wreck my life and kill my friends, but in some ways he was also a victim of Samir’s evil machinations. And he really did seem to want to help his boss. He was here risking his life to try to do that. Loyalty like that, I understood and kind of admired.
“Great, that’s solved—where is Samir and where are the shifters?” Harper said.
“Can you break the spell?” Cal asked me, ignoring Harper.
“Maybe,” I said. I’d seen that question coming from a mile away. “Killing Samir, which I’m going to do anyway, will break it. So you are going to get what you want no matter what.”
Cal shook his head. “Not good enough. You have to break the spell first. You help me, save Vollan, I will help you.”
“No,” Alek said. “There is no time for this.” He pointedly glanced out the window. The sun was dropping behind the trees. He was right.
“Do you know what Samir is going to do?” I asked Cal. “He’s going to raise an Irish god from the dead, the
n eat the heart and become a god himself. So sorry, but our quest is, like, a million times more important. We only have until moonrise. So quit fucking around and tell us what we need to know. Once Samir is gone, your boss will be free anyway.”
“No,” Cal said again. “I know he’s doing some ritual. He knows that you will try to stop him. He’s got my whole pack arranged around him with high-powered rifles. You think you all can fight through that?”
“I’m a sorceress,” I said, trying to imitate Alek’s cold confidence. “You think a few guns are going to stop me?”
“What if those guns were on your side? Or at least gone?” Cal said. He dropped his chin and folded his arms. He was stubborn and brave; I’d give him that. “You free my boss, I know he’ll get us out. Or even help you. He won’t be too well disposed to Samir. Boss doesn’t like anyone calling his shots. And you are going to need help.” He cast his gaze over our admittedly ragtag group.
“One of those guys outside called for help,” Levi reminded us. “Are they going to come here?”
Cal shrugged. “I doubt it. They might send a few guys, but as you said, shit is going down soon. They’ll assume their guys are gone. I haven’t seen much loyalty in that crowd.” He looked like he wanted to spit, his lip curling at the thought of the human mercenaries.
Everyone was looking at me. Ezee and Levi had mirrored looks of speculation and interest. Harper looked torn between believing Cal and killing him. Alek looked very much on the side of killing him. I turned my head to fully meet Rachel’s gaze, and she gave a little shrug and nodded down at her leg. She wasn’t going with us regardless.
“He telling the truth?” I asked Alek baldly.
“He is,” Alek said. “To his knowledge.”
“He’s not bespelled,” I said. “I checked him when he first showed up.”
“Please, this will work for us both,” Cal said.
“Fine,” I said. He had a point. I didn’t really need Alek’s Justice senses to tell me he was genuinely concerned about his boss. “To break the spell I have to be with your boss. I can’t do it from here.”
“Okay,” Cal said. He reached slowly down and drew a small flip phone out of his cargo pants pocket. “I’ll call him. I think I can get him to meet us. I don’t know if he’ll come alone, but he might if I word it right. I think he wants help and I think he knows I suspect something. He still trusts me.”
“Where is Samir?” I asked. “You’ve got my promise we’ll help. Time to hold up your end.”
“Juniper College,” he said, confirming our speculations. “They got the shifters and some others locked up in a church-looking building. Samir is down on some kind of sports field, it’s all surrounded by trees which is why he has us watching his back. Human mercs are in charge of the shifters.”
“Student Commons,” Ezee said. “It’s a converted chapel. Stone building, only two ways in or out. Narrow, high windows with steel wire to keep birds off the stained glass. It’s practically a fortress. We always joked if zombies attacked, we’d hole up there.”
“Well, shit,” Harper said, echoing my thoughts.
“One problem at a time,” I said. “Call your boss. Let’s get ourselves over to Juniper, or as close as we can get, and then figure out a plan.”
“I’m staying here to guard Mikhail and Vasili,” Rachel said. “Not much use anyway until this heals. I should shift.”
“You gonna be okay here alone?” Levi asked.
“You will need all the help you can get at the college,” Rachel said. “I’ll be fine. Bears will wake up, then we’ll try to get to you if we can. There’s a couple of rifles, a shotgun, and a spare Glock in my car, if you want them.”
I bent over and shook her hand. “Thank you, Sheriff,” I said. “Good luck.”
“You too, Jade, you too,” Rachel said. Then she shifted, turning from stocky human to a black-furred wolf.
We walked outside, Rachel limping behind us. She flopped on the welcome mat outside the door. Ezee left the cabin open so she’d have easy cover if shit went down. The bears were still enjoying their forced beauty sleep in the snow and on the trailer. The sun was setting. Moonrise would follow soon after. I stared at Cal’s back as he opened his phone and dialed a number, hoping I wasn’t making a horrible mistake.
Harper sat on Ezee’s lap in the front seat. Alek and I wedged Cal between us in the back. There was no way to be comfortable or to not come in contact with each other, so we sucked it up and squished in.
Alek tried to interrogate Cal more while we drove toward Juniper, but the merc was silent, just shaking his head every time Alek growled a question. After a few minutes, Alek gave up.
I sat there gripping the arm on the door for balance and to keep minimal contact with Cal. I tried not to panic about how quickly things were happening now. Vollan would meet Cal at the bottom of the college drive where there was a turnaround and a small gatehouse. Cal couldn’t be sure the other mercenaries, the human ones, wouldn’t be there, but he said Vollan had confirmed that everyone was busy at the moment.
I had a short car ride to figure out my new problem. How to break a geas or a control spell or whatever it was. If this were a game of D&D, it would have be simple enough. Cast Wish or Miracle or Remove Curse. Though that last one wouldn’t work. I was pretty sure Samir was still levels higher than I was, even with my new dragon subclass. I smiled to myself, almost wishing I could share these thoughts with Harper and the twins. They were silent, focusing on their own inner demons and desires, I imagined. So I stayed quiet, too.
This was no game. There was no simple answer. Or was there? Remove the tags. Nullify the magic. Samir would have some kind of protection on the dog tags. A compulsion not to remove them, perhaps, or a spell that would trigger or cause horrible pain if anyone tried. He’d put necklaces on both myself and Tess that had things like that involved. Samir wasn’t likely to change his MO for no good reason. Why fuck with what had worked for who knew how many centuries?
Tess. I almost face-palmed. I’d brute-forced my own necklace off. But Tess had removed hers with a much more elegant bit of magic. I had her memories, her powers. There was a chance I could use the same magic to remove Vollan’s tags. The danger was that Samir might feel his spell falling apart, but there was nothing I could think of to negate that. It didn’t matter if he knew I was coming for him or not, in the end. I was going to come for him anyway.
Plan in place, I closed my eyes and sifted through Tess’s memory, matching it up with my own. I’d witnessed the magic; now I just had to study how to recreate it.
We arrived too soon. I climbed out of the Jeep, not at all confident. I was just going to have to fake it until I made it. Levi pulled the Jeep off to the side. Vollan was nowhere in sight. The drive was plowed, the turnaround clear with snow piled on the sides like walls. The road turned and was forested with ancient oaks and some transplanted, stumpy-looking juniper that gave the college its name.
“He’s going to see us and bolt,” I said. “I really think we should hide, put the Jeep up the road or something.” It was an objection I’d raised back at the RV park.
“No, he won’t,” Cal said.
“He is already here,” Alek said softly as he moved up beside me.
A huge white bear emerged from the woods, moving with speed and silence I would not have thought possible. He paused after he leapt the snow wall, head down, looking at Cal and then at us.
Then he shifted, becoming a big man with a shock of silver-threaded black hair. He was wearing a green parka. A gun appeared in his hand like magic. I hadn’t even seen him move.
“Cal,” he said. “You all right?” His eyes flicked to Alek, who had a gun out now also.
Shifter speed. I was never going to get used to it.
Magic coursed through me with a thought. They weren’t the only ones who could be quick. I wrapped my power around Vollan in ropes, not pulling tight until I had him mummified. Then I squeezed with my mind, jerking him off
his feet and down. His arms flattened to his sides and he hit the icy pavement hard, trying to kick free of my magic.
“Don’t fight her,” Cal said. “Please, trust me.”
Vollan started cursing and promising to do terrible things to Cal’s mother.
I had no idea if there was anyone close enough to hear him. We had to get the second part of the plan rolling, and now. Levi and Ezee grabbed rifles out of the back of the Jeep and fanned out, keeping an eye on the road leading up to the college. Alek and Cal moved quickly to Vollan, pinning him with their bodies. I was going to need to let my “hold person” spell go in order to get that necklace off without killing him. I wasn’t dumb enough to multitask magic I hadn’t practiced or performed before.
Vollan quit swearing and glared at me as I dug his dog tags out of his parka. Samir’s magic dripped from them like the sickly honey it smelled of. It mingled with the cigar-smoke stench clinging to the bear shifter and turned my stomach. My guess had been right.
“It’s the tags,” I said to Cal and Alek. “Hold him.” I released the spell.
Vollan didn’t do more than token-struggle. He also didn’t shift. I had a feeling maybe Cal was right. Looking into Vollan’s pale eyes, I saw a man who was trapped and couldn’t help himself. He had to fight us, because I bet the spell was making him fight, but he could skirt around really fighting it.
I gripped the tags, swallowing bile at the feel of Samir’s magic. Consolation prize was that this would hopefully be the last day of my life I’d ever have to deal with it.
If it wasn’t just the last day of my life, period.
With that happy thought, I closed my eyes. I gathered my magic and thought of Tess, of her magic, clear and cold and precise. The air around us grew thick, the world holding its breath as I messed, only a little, with time itself. Then I hummed a soft note as I opened my eyes and yanked on the dog tags.
The chain and tags slid clear of Vollan’s neck, the chain moving straight through his flesh as though it weren’t there at all. For a moment Tess was there in my mind, a ghost of a smile on her ruby-red lips. She nodded to me, pleased, before she faded away into the silver circle that Wolf had constructed inside my head to hold my ghosts at bay.