by E G Bateman
“I can look after myself.” He knew he had begun to sound sulky.
Dolores patted his arm. “Of course you can, dear. But don’t speak to anyone.”
Gretchen slipped her arm through his. “I’ll look after him.”
“You’ll do no such thing, young lady.” George curled his finger to her. “You come and sit with me until they get back.”
She complied and went to sit with her father but wouldn’t release Scott. He was forced to sit there too and blushed furiously.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Lorenzo awoke. He breathed in, assessed the taste and smell of his surroundings, and concluded that nothing was amiss.
About time. Delphine’s voice sounded snippy in his mind.
He made a mental eye-roll and wondered if the enhanced abilities were worth the exhaustion from this psychopathic harridan who lived in his mind. She didn’t ever seem to shut up. Worse, the compulsion to follow her every whim made it a constant battle to not give in to her desires. Her life-force was incredibly strong, more than when he first wore the ring. It had taken considerable time to control her but now, it seemed to have become harder.
Draining the tourists in the courtyard directly after he put the ring on had been the result of her inability to control the bloodlust. It was inconvenient, but they had come to an agreement. He allowed her entertainments and she gave him extraordinary speed and strength. In his quiet moments, he still couldn’t believe he’d eliminated Thomas’ entire coven on his own. They hadn’t known what hit them. His lips twitched as he lay there and recalled what Delphine had done to Thomas. It had been a disgusting display and quite distasteful but he had been a sanctimonious prick, after all.
His thoughts turned to Joseph. Now he was a disappointment. Lorenzo had always respected him and even liked him. But he couldn’t go unpunished, not after he pulled his voodoo shit.
This caused a problem, though. He needed Joseph to help him get this fucking woman out of his head without losing the abilities the ring gave him.
Well? Do you intend to move?
Without thought, he stretched to touch the metal lid above him. He snatched his hand away. She’d made him reach out like that and he decided she could damn well wait.
The absolute shame and embarrassment of his present situation were that he was forced to sleep in a metal box in case Joseph tried something again. He inwardly groaned at the thought.
The box was useful for another reason, however. He was aware that Delphine had moved in his body while he was asleep. At least she couldn’t get out in the daytime, but he had woken the night before with his silver-tipped dagger in hand as he stood over Darnell, one of his most trusted clan members.
Of course, he knew about Delphine LaLaurie. Almost everyone who lived in or visited the French Quarter knew about her, but he wondered why the mad bitch had such a problem with black people.
“It’s time to visit the bayou. I promised to reduce the shifter numbers.”
Who cares what you promised?
“I like to think of myself as a man of my word.” He thumped the lid.
The box opened from the outside and Darnell waited next to it.
Lorenzo stood and stepped out of the metal box. “Any news?”
The other man closed the box once his leader had taken a couple of steps away from it. “The donors are here.”
Ahh, breakfast! Delphine’s desire for blood raised his anticipation. His teeth descended.
He closed his mouth and mentally reasserted control over himself. His gaze located a familiar donor, although he didn’t know her name. “Well?”
She approached and held her arm out.
Lorenzo rolled his eyes. “I want information. Did you do what you were told?”
“Yes. The shifters were seen heading to the bayou a couple of hours ago. I watched Joseph. He went to one of Oberon’s guest apartments but I don’t know why—”
He cut her off. “That’s okay. I can guess who he’s with. I think I’ll have to speak to Oberon about the company he keeps.” He turned to Darnell. “Keep Joseph’s serviteurs busy until I get back but I want Joseph alive.”
The donor remained and offered her arm again.
“You can go. I’ll eat out tonight.” He smiled when he felt Delphine’s disappointment.
A little later, Lorenzo parked his Porsche nine-eleven on the gravel beside the jetty. This was the second location he’d stopped at. The shifters didn’t always use the same place for their ritual but he knew this was the right one. It stank of wolf, which was a good sign. He looked at the available craft moored along the waterside. The giant tour boat was no good as it was too large. The airboat would be too loud. That left the small boat with an outboard motor in front of him. He untied the line, dropped into it, and looked around for a potential owner. There was no doubt that he was alone so he shrugged and started the motor.
The boat moved slowly through the water and he followed the scent of the wolves and branched off into smaller, narrower water lanes. The smells intensified. Moving at this speed was frustrating, but he couldn’t afford to miss a potential victim. He was supposed to kill a handful of them. That’s what he’d agreed but he was powerful now. He intended to obliterate the pack’s future generations and couldn’t wait to find the newly turned shifter kids. Neither, he sensed, could Delphine.
After they’d returned to the boat for the third time, he began to wonder where in hell they all were. Every time he thought he was close, he would find himself on an island with nothing but cypress trees for company.
“Finally!” he muttered to himself after more than an hour. He approached a small jetty, which led to a cabin.
A fire-pit burned outside, and the windows glowed with light. The smell of wolf was heavy in the air. He cut the motor and drifted to the shore. With the motor off, he could hear low, muttered voices from inside the cabin. He deduced they’d finished their shifting and were all inside, so he tied the boat off and stepped onto land. Knowing how keen the wolves’ hearing was, he guessed they would already know someone was there. In mere seconds, they would catch the scent of a vampire. Sadly for them, they didn’t have seconds.
With his improved speed, he hurtled around the cabin to the door and burst through immediately, only to find it completely empty. He walked to the center of the room, a little confused as he knew he’d heard people. Suddenly, flames flared all around him and seemed to fill the cabin. Within a second, he was outside. He checked his clothes for fire damage, stepped away from the building, and scowled as the blaze incinerated it.
Oh dear. You’ve been tricked. Delphine laughed, but Lorenzo could tell she was angry too.
He walked around the cabin to find the little boat but it floated beyond reach and it too was engulfed in flames. “Whoever did this, I’ll tear them to shreds.”
Oberon huffed as he lifted the crate of empty beer bottles into the dumpster behind the bar.
“You must be Oberon.” He jumped, startled. The voice was male but it sounded quite soft.
He spun, puzzled, and looked around for someone else. “Lorenzo—” The words cut off when he was held by the throat against the edge of the dumpster.
“I’d like a little chat about who you’ve rented your guest apartments to lately.” The vampire had taken control of the conversation.
The sanguinaire tried to answer but his larynx was being crushed.
“Obe?” Martine stepped out and froze at the back door of the bar.
Before she could react, his captor had dropped him and held her by the hair in front of him.
“Your friend here would like you to answer us.”
“Us?” His gaze scanned the area and returned to the vampire. “It’s someone called Dick. He’s here with friends.”
Lorenzo remembered the apartment across from William’s. When the Kindred bitch had told him William was off-limits, it hadn’t taken him long to learn that the vampire had a puppy. He’d gone there to snap the scrawny little mutt
’s neck. As soon as he had left the staircase, he’d felt drawn to the other apartment. He could smell the dog but something seductive had drawn him to that apartment. The stunning woman who had answered the door had assumed he was Peter, a friend of someone called Dick.
Peter, of course, was the name of the guy they’d poisoned to get to William, so that couldn’t be a coincidence. Was Dick a friend of William’s?
He had decided in that moment to forget the dog. Instead, he’d intended to murder the woman if she had the slightest connection to his adversary.
Delphine interrupted his thoughts. I could have told you his name is Dick. I stabbed him with a silver blade.
Martine squealed. “He has another name—William.”
“Oberon. Did you try to lie to me?” The entity within him spoke now. Lorenzo had opened his mouth to speak and her voice came out. She had become even stronger and without warning, she spun Martine and drove her head into a wall. With their combined strength, that was all it took to reduce her skull to a bloody, dripping pulp. The body fell and Delphine released the piece of hair and scalp still in his hand. “Now, what is William up to?”
The vampire forced himself to regain control of his own body. “So, William’s still in town. Interesting.” He was about to finish Oberon when a globe the size of a basketball floated into view. It was high and very bright.
“What the—” He stared at it as it began to pulse and glow brighter and after a few seconds, he had to avert his eyes. Suddenly, it blasted light and it was like staring at the sun. Lorenzo shrieked as the light scorched his eyes and skin. He covered his face with his arm before he disappeared in the opposite direction.
Chapter Fifty
Agatha padded through the forest. She had been running and the breeze through her fur had been exhilarating. Beneath her excitement, she was aware of the edges of the mental link with her pack and knew it would strengthen over the next few hours. She stopped to sniff at the undergrowth. Every new scent was like a story in her mind, the passage of creatures, what direction they had traveled in, how many, and how long they had stayed. In some cases, she could picture the animal simply by its smell. Others were a mystery, no doubt denizens of this strange, beautiful world.
The edge of the forest opened before her. A dirt track ran along the edge and she wondered if it circled the whole woodland area. The moon reflected upon a beautiful lake before her on the other side of the track. She knew she shouldn’t leave the trees, but this was a perfect opportunity to see her reflection and to look upon herself as a wolf for the very first time. She sniffed the air, listened to the silence, and looked up and down the track. Tentatively, she stepped out and made her way across it to the water.
Standing at the edge, she looked at her reflection. She had already seen that her fur was black at the roots and turned to a reddish-brown at the ends but now, she could see that around her snout and cheeks, it was white, exactly like her mother and older sister, Gretchen.
Oh, my God. I’m a white girl. It was hilarious. She laughed and it sounded unnatural coming from a wolf.
Ripples flowed through her reflection and distorted it as though something had moved in the water. Her ears pricked and she took a step back, ready to return to the forest. As she glanced across the water, she saw the reflection of another white face. She looked up at a beautiful horse that stood motionless in the reeds. When she focused on it, the animal whinnied and shook. She remembered she was a wolf.
The poor guy must be terrified.
She shifted to human form and walked around the edge of the lake to the horse.
“It’s okay. See? I’m only a person.” Agatha could see it wore a bridle but no saddle. She held her hand out slowly. The horse backed away from the water’s edge and stepped tentatively toward her. It nuzzled her hand, then allowed her to stroke its flank.
The girl muttered softly as she stroked it. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I wish I had an apple for you. You look as beautiful as a unicorn.”
Before her eyes, a horn appeared in the middle of the creature’s head. It was white and pearlescent. Her heart exploded with love. She looked around and wished one of the others could come out of the forest so she could share the experience, but she and the unicorn were alone.
“So, you shift too. Are unicorns shifters?” She wondered how many of the horses she’d seen on earth were unicorns in disguise.
The creature shook its head so its long mane fell to the side, and she stroked it. It shook its head again and this time, tilted its head toward her. Was it an invitation?
“Do you want me to ride you?” Agatha couldn’t quite believe it.
When the unicorn did it a third time, she didn’t need to be asked again. She wound her fingers into its mane and, using her shifter strength and agility, vaulted onto its back. It surprised her how comfortable she felt, and she looked around again, hoping one of the others might still appear and capture the moment with their cellphone.
What a profile pic this would make.
“I wonder if I could ride you into the forest. I’m sure none of my friends would eat a unicorn.” She’d never ridden a horse in her life and tried leaning in the direction of the track to encourage it in that direction. It stood unmoving. “Giddy-up?” she asked hopefully.
The animal took a step forward.
“Well, that’s something but not the right direction.” She pointed. “We want to go that way.”
Another step toward the water made her deduce that it probably wanted a drink. “Okay, you get a drink as long as I don’t fall off.” She looked at the ground and now realized how high she was. The shift was making her bones stronger but that fall would still hurt, and there was no Lexi to catch her with magic this time.
The creature took two more steps and its front legs were in the water, but it didn’t seem to be drinking.
“I’m gonna be honest. This is turning into a disappointment.” Agatha decided it was time to dismount.
She tried to lift her leg over so she could drop off, but the limb wouldn’t move. It was stuck. Confused, she attempted to lift her other leg, but that was stuck too. She decided to try to pull her leg up with her hands but she couldn’t shake its mane from her fingers. Alarmed now, she pressed her hands down to lever herself up, but her body was stuck solidly to the unicorn. When she tried to pull her hands free, they wouldn’t move.
As she watched, the unicorn’s horn blackened from its tip and dissolved into nothing. The creature’s body slowly darkened to black to reveal an ugly horse-like creature. It flicked its head and looked disdainfully at her with red eyes, while its jaws snapped and showed sharp, pointed teeth.
Agatha shrieked into the forest “Help. Help me.” She screamed and thrashed frantically as it stepped further into the water.
Her gaze locked on a beautiful fairy seated in a tree above her. Her head was tilted and her brow drawn with curiosity as she stared at the little girl’s predicament.
“Help me, please. I can’t get off.”
The fairy stared a moment longer, then rolled her eyes and flew into the forest.
“Don’t leave me, please,” the girl cried, and the creature took another step. It seemed to delight in drawing her terror out.
Scott pulled a tub of cookies from his bag and passed them around the group.
Dolores looked at them. “Betsy’s?”
He nodded. “Is she still here? How’s Todd?”
“They’re here, staying in my cottage. He’s ready to go home but now we know Caleb’s still alive and a threat to them, they’ll stay a little longer. We really must resolve that issue.”
The sorcerer nodded his agreement. “How will we find Caleb?”
“If that demon is with him, it must still be trying to escape to this earth. The hell dimension he was in when we last encountered him is of no use to him now. I have someone trying to find other possible points of intersection—” Dolores stopped speaking and stared into the distance.
<
br /> Scott followed her gaze and noticed Aleena, the young fae woman, returning at speed.
She drew to a halt in the branches of the tree. “A kelpie has one of the pups.”
As one, the adults stood.
“What’s a kelpie?”
“Who has it got?”
“Where?”
Aleena pointed at Gretchen. “The one that smells like her.”
Wings unfurled from Dolores’s back. Her skirt suit was gone and so was her middle-aged visage. “You all wait here.” She swooped away toward the tree line.
“The hell I will.” Gretchen shifted and bounded to the ground from their platform.
Scott expected her father to call her back but they all shifted and followed. He wanted to as well but knew his boss would expect him to obey her orders.
“Alone at last.” Aleena wiggled her eyebrows.
He ignored her and began to pace.
She sat on the branch, watched him, and began to sing quietly in a language he didn’t understand.
Dolores burst from the forest to the edge of the lake. A moment later, she was joined by the shifters, who barked and growled at the edge of the water. They could smell the girl’s trail and knew where she was.
The surface, however, was still.
The fae hovered over it before she plunged in. She found them a few feet down. Agatha was still on the creature’s back but was beginning to unstick. Her hands had loosened and drifted limply in the water.
She surged out of the water. “I found them. She’s still stuck to its back, though. If I try to pull her off, the kelpie will strengthen its hold on her and disappear into the depths. I have to grab the bridle. It’s the only way to control the beast.”
Without waiting for a response, she submerged again. The creature had begun to move. It became aware of her before she could get close and began to thrash its head in an attempt to prevent her from taking hold of the bridle. Its head met hers and shoved her back.