Silva growled low in warning and got a tight nod from Ed, and then she jumped into the treetops and waited for them to show up, it wouldn’t be long.
She realized that her fire was pretty worthless, but Ed was very strong with water and earth… maybe a storm might help. She couldn’t do much storm wise with the power she was limited to, but just like the club last month she could use a small amount of magic and at least start some rain falling, she was positive Ed could use that. While Silva kept watch and was ready to pounce, she closed her inner eyes and channeled the magic to stir up a storm.
Her chest rumbled as she heard them coming through the woods clumsily, there were four of them. Unfortunately they were sticking closely together, so she couldn’t pick them off one at a time. Still Silva waited, and she kept vigil with the great cat as her tail slowly swished back and forth. When the four men stopped almost directly under her, Silva prepared to leap.
One of the enforcers grunted, “Magic says she’s right here, don’t make no sense.”
She giggled internally, idiots should learn to look up when hunting a cat shifter.
Silva chuffed silently in laughter, and then dove with her claws extended at the guy in the back.
Celia sent dispersal magic out of the end of her claws. Between her magic, and Silva raking both claws down his face and chest while her back claws tried to dig into his stomach, it didn’t take but a second to slam through the wards and tear into the now screaming witch. It was much more efficient than when Celia fought with magic and fists.
Silva leaped almost straight up back into the tree canopy as the other three guys turned around and looked down at their buddy.
“What the hell was that?”
What must have been the smart one growled, “Cat shifter, watch the trees morons.”
Celia and Silva looked down, and that’s when Ed struck. The earth seemed to melt beneath their feet while the rain gathered in large globs of water and started to enter their noses and mouths. She felt one of them try and access their magic in a panic, and picked that one to pounce on next. The results were rather predicable as she mauled a second enforcer to death, and then took off like a shot over the ground.
Silva ran a little ways before jumping back up in the canopy and doubling back. She watched the last two slowly drown to death while sinking into the earth. She didn’t know what their active gifts were, but she was sure they weren’t earth or water. Ed was so well camouflaged, that they didn’t even have a target if they could even concentrate enough to use fire or air… or whatever they had.
It was unpleasant, but she felt relief when they lost consciousness, they wouldn’t last much longer. She jumped out of the tree and went back to where Ed was and rubbed her body along his hip. He looked a little nervous, so she chuffed in laughter.
She sent the elemental back to Gerald, and gave it orders to remember what he said and saw and tell her at sun down, just a few hours away. She was feeling frisky and kept bumping into Ed on the way back to the van. She had the urge to take him on the forest floor in the rain, but something told her she wouldn’t feel quite the same when she shifted back.
She’d always felt this amorous after a fight, the adrenaline and joy of being alive. Now though, she no longer had to suppress that feeling, she just had to be a little patient until they were somewhere… nicer.
She snuck into the back of the van when no cars were near, then changed to human which shed all the water, dirt, and leaves. She quickly got some dry clothes on but slowed down halfway through and decided to make a show of it since Ed couldn’t take his eyes off of her. She loved how she felt when he looked at her that way. She felt desired, sexy, and appreciated.
“So…” she cleared her throat, “What’s next? I have the elemental gathering more info but…”
Ed nodded, “Let’s go back to the hotel and take stock. I don’t think we can abandon the mission, but it needs rethinking, and some crazy planning if we’re going to finish Gerald.”
She asked, “Is it safe to go back there?”
He nodded confidently, “We killed all his enforcers, and he’ll want us to come to him so he keeps his home field advantage. We’ll put up a ward or two to wake us in case someone does come, but it should be safe.”
She pondered that for a minute, “Maybe for a day, two tops. You can bet he’ll be updating the assassin group on our new location, we can expect more waves form those psychos.”
Ed frowned, “I didn’t think of that. You’re right. We’ll watch for another day and make plans, but our time is limited.”
When they got up to the hotel room she looked at him curiously.
She asked teasingly, “Does the tiger make you nervous.”
He smiled, “Absolutely. I know you won’t hurt me, but my hind brain sees a huge ass predator, plus, I’d just seen you gut two witches effortlessly with those claws. If it helps, I think you’re beautiful as a tiger.”
She smiled and stalked forward, and then pulled him into a lingering kiss that promised so much more.
“You say the nicest things,” she said sultrily, “Join me for a shower?”
Chapter 16
She woke at the snick of the electronic door lock to their hotel room, and a soft bang of the slide lock. She knew that wouldn’t last long, she glanced at the clock and it was only three fifteen. How did assassins get here so fast? She heard some light sounds as she untangled her legs from the covers, and Ed’s legs, and rolled silently off the bed onto the balls of her feet.
She watched the door slowly open as she moved toward it in the shadows against the wall. She knew he’d see her almost right away, she had tan skin, but it wasn’t nearly dark enough and she was complete naked. She wasn’t worried, the guy wouldn’t enjoy the view for long.
He slipped in with a fireball in his hand, which immediately shrunk in size when it came inside her wards, since she’d made them fairly potent. The idiot stared at his hand in dismay, then gave up on it and reached into an inner pocket for something else. He was so focused on the door, his magic, and the gun in his pocket, that he didn’t even notice her step into him until he got an elbow to the face, a knee to the groin at the same time, followed by stomping on his instep and striking his throat at the same time.
Her other hand held his gun hand in a grip of iron while she ran dispersal magic against his wards. He looked hurt, but his wards had absorbed most of that damage, clearly her tiger claws were a much better weapon against that. She felt Silva preen at the thought.
She saw the obvious surprise and panic on his face as her next elbow was accompanied by a meaty thwack, and his head slammed into the doorframe knocking him out. She dragged him inside, shut the door, and reengaged the manual slide lock.
This had to be the most incompetent assassin yet, maybe that’s how he got here so fast, local trash. She snorted in laughter at the thought, she’d never thought she’d ever have need or cause to rate assassins before. She went over to the bed and shook Ed awake.
He wasn’t happy she hadn’t waked him up as soon as she realized something was wrong.
“I had to move fast Ed, I’ll try to make time next…”
He shook his head, still angry. He was obviously worried about her, and he was managing to hold it in, so she let him stew on it as they took a look at the latest assassin.
The man was local, lived just south of Albany. They woke him up and questioned him, but didn’t get any more than the usual from him. Clearly though, he was the first of wave three.
Ed said under his breath, “I’ll be right back, going to check his car. I’m not mad at you, but next time wake me up damn it. What if something had happened to you?”
She kissed his cheek and went to get dressed, she was too wired up to sleep anymore, three hours would have to do.
“I get it, I’m just new at this, remember? I went with my instincts, unfortunately cats work alone.”
She cringed when his face hardened, that’d been the wrong thing to say.
“That’s not what I meant Ed. Please, I don’t want to work alone, I just need to train until I overcome those instincts.”
He didn’t look very mollified when he left the room a moment later, but she just kind of shrugged, he’d either accept her how she was… or eventually not at all. It would hurt if it was the latter, but she supposed she’d survive just fine, it’d be his loss.
When he came back up he seemed to be his old self again, and she admitted to herself she was relieved. Did she like him that much already?
“What did he have?”
Ed chuckled darkly, “A shotgun, and what looked like C4 along with a detonator. There wasn’t that much of it, but enough to blow a small hole in a door, or wall.”
She frowned thoughtfully, “How about an upstairs window?”
He asked, “What did you have in mind?”
She sighed, “Let’s go now, before the rest of wave three gets here. There’s no way to elude them with Gerald feeding them location info. He should be sleeping right now, or maybe screwing one of his stepford wives.”
His eyes crunched, “You didn’t tell me about that.”
She shrugged, “I saw a few of them in the memories, all glassy eyed with the bowing and scraping. I only saw one… incident. I was trying not to think about it, and it really doesn’t have tactical importance.”
He nodded, “So what’s your idea?”
She sighed, he wasn’t going to like this at all.
“He doesn’t have outside guards anymore; we can just climb onto the roof, blow the window and shoot the hell out of his bed. If that doesn’t work, I can shift and go in after him.”
He shook his head, his voice held a modicum of humor, “It’s a crazy plan, but this whole thing is nuts, so it probably has a good chance of working.”
She agreed. The elemental had come back earlier, before they’d gotten to sleep, and they didn’t learn anything new. She did ask the elemental to show her where he was now. The compression of air in the room left and came back so fast she’d have missed it if she blinked. It only sent her one thing, he was asleep with one of those woman she’d been talking about earlier.
She told Ed, “Let’s go, he’s asleep right now.”
He sighed and they headed down to the guys car, and took it instead of the van. Things went really well, to a point. They drove in the back way and walked around someone else’s property and into the coven house’s yard. The roof wasn’t a problem, as the house had a back porch. She easily boosted Ed up, and then jumped up high enough to grab the edge and pull herself up.
She could feel the wards of course, but they were still on the outside of the house, so the headache wasn’t too bad. She knew it would be worse if she was forced to go in, but she thought she could fight it off long enough to rip his throat out and escape if it became necessary. The house wards were too strong to try and disperse, it would take destroying the bags hidden and protected in the four corners, and a decently long ritual to completely disperse them. The power of the magic behind it was able to withstand much more power than a personal ward for a variety of reasons.
They found the right window and placed the C4, and then stepped up the roof and around the corner of the eaves to set it off. Even covering her ears, it was really loud. Ed dropped down in front of the blown window with his shotgun and pulled the trigger. She jumped down and could see Gerald there glaring, and the second round of buck shot out. It seemed to lose a lot of its power before it hit Gerald, and rolled off his body from his personal ward.
She pulled on her magic and changed, ripping her clothes to pieces in the process, and she lunged at Gerald with her claws out. As soon as she went through the window the world turned white with pain, then black, and she knew no more.
She woke up in a tiny five by five room. The ceiling, three walls and the floor were made of cement, and she was lying on an uncomfortably hard bunk with a single thin blanket. There was no other furniture in the room, not even a lamp. There was light, from a spotlight through the fourth wall, which was made up of bars in front of her as she sat up. Like a jail cell. She was naked of course, and pulled up the blanket to cover herself, suddenly feeling body shy for some reason.
She’d never felt pain like that, when she’d went in the window, and what she remembered of the wards, none of them could do that, which meant… he must have added another ward since the first time she’d spied, and when they attacked his trap was sprung. She looked dubiously at the bars, she doubted she’d have the strength but, she’d try.
She reached for Silva and found… nothing. A howling empty space in her mind. Her eyes widened and filled with tears, this was impossible. Wasn’t it? She still felt her witch magic, the source of her power, and she could feel the thrumming wards around her, they would keep her magic contained in this cement room. She might be able to break them down given enough time, but to start trying meant someone would come quickly and stop her.
She looked around, got up and pushed her head against the bars, or tried, she couldn’t touch them and the wards threw her back and she hit the wall. It hurt a lot more than she expected. She felt weak, her shifter strength gone with her soul’s sister, with Silva. She was starting to panic, and she felt weak, useless. Did she always feel like this before her true self came out last month? She sat down and her mind spun as she tried to work out what to do.
She heard a door open and pulled the blanket around her more thoroughly. Her face drained of all color as Gerald walked in front of her cell.
“That was amazingly foolish, did you really think you could kill me in my own home?”
She frowned, “Where is Ed?”
He threw back his head and laughed, “Dead my dear. I shot him with fire, it burned into his chest, and he and that stupid shotgun went flying off my roof.”
Her eyes widened and she started to cry.
He snickered, “Stop that, you should be more worried about yourself.”
Despite what he said, she could sense he was enjoying her tears, and took pleasure in it.
“Why,” she said in a defeated voice, “what can you possibly do to me to hurt me more?”
He shook his head, “After you understand the answer to that question, and once I believe you’ve suffered fully for your transgressions against me and keeping Elaine from me. Only then will I make you a mindless slave to attend my bed. After all, you are rather attractive, and I grow tired of the same women night after night.”
He laughed, “But first, you’ll suffer, and you’ll learn exactly what I can do to hurt you more.”
She shook her head, “What did you do to my shifter abilities.”
He snickered, “A little potion I worked up. Shifters are a pain to control, so it helps to suppress their nature first. How does it feel to be so helpless?”
She frowned, she did feel helpless, but for the first time she felt hope. Potions would wear off.
She asked, “How did you know we were coming?”
He snickered, “Why you told me, you idiotic fool. Or didn’t you know my wards detect the passing of an elemental. Think on that a while, it’s your fault that… Ed was it? Is dead. I was asleep until your spy tripped the wards. I’ll be back in the morning.”
She cried for a long time after he left. She wasn’t sure if she should believe him or not about Ed, without her shifter abilities, she couldn’t tell the truth from lies. She decided he had to be lying, or… he just had too. She was weak, not as strong willed, and nowhere near as brave this way, but she was still determined that if she was going to die here, she’d find a way to take him with her.
She mentally ordered her elemental to examine the shield and blocking wards on this prison, and tell her about them. The flood of information was almost too much, just like the first time she’d done this, but she recovered. Then she studied the wards, and made plans. The truth of it was, she wasn’t as brave, but when he took Silva away, he gave her something back. The ability to use every iota of her witch magi
c, all at once…
And even if it was the last thing she ever did, she would make him heartily regret it.
Chapter 17
She was pretty sure this would work. Despite her denial, she was fairly sure Ed was gone forever, and she was grieving. She was also angry. In a nutshell, she was full of conflicting and contradictory emotions, she wasn’t sure this would work at all, or that she’d succeed, she could only try.
A dispersal spell, even at her full power would take her time, and probably drain her at the same time. But she knew these wards and shield better than he did now, thanks to her elemental. She sent out dispersal magic, but it was super concentrated into a thin needlelike line. It didn’t try and break the whole ward, simply one small wisp of a connection that she’d targeted.
The ward would still hold her in the cell, not let her leave, stop her fire, air, and even absorb the strong war magics she’d learned from her book. The single thing it wouldn’t stop anymore, thanks to her precise surgery which probably wasn’t even noticed, was her raw magic. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then reached up and out into the sky, slowly stirring together a thunder storm.
She laughed in delight when the first strike of thunder was heard deep inside her concrete cell, there was no doubt it was working, and she felt a kind of high from funneling so much magic potential all at once.
She whispered, “Show me where Gerald is.”
The elemental blinked and showed her Gerald sitting in his study working on something.
She smiled a little giddily, and knew she needed to control this feeling, be strong against the addiction of so much power and magic in her hands. But she would have her revenge first. She pulled a twister out of the sky, dropping it right on the house. It ripped right through the roof, through the floor below it, and then took a shocked and terrified Gerald up into the air, into the storm itself.
She giggled and she felt tingles down below. The rush was unbelievable, and she could feel Gerald flying around inside the twister, as if he were sitting in the palm of her hand. Sure, one or two others were caught in it too, but that wasn’t the point. All that mattered was Gerald would pay, pay for Elaine, and the demon, and the assassins, and Ed’s death. She growled in anger, and he would pay now.
Demon's Moon: A Celia Winters Novel Book 2 Page 9