The thought of retreat was galling, but Llyr knew he didn’t have the luxury of allowing some vampire to kill him. Not if it meant leaving his people to Ansgar’s brutal mercies. He reached for the Mageverse…and slammed head-on into a magical shield.
Naois cursed. “She’s thrown up a spell barrier.”
“So I’ll crack it,” Llyr growled. “I’ll not be trapped by some vampire bitch.” There was no doubt in his mind that was who they faced.
Whoom!
The door blew inward, sending both men staggering back, barely raising shield spells in time to block the chunks of wooden shrapnel pelting the room.
“Why, hello there.” A woman stood in the blasted hole, red hair tumbling to her shoulders. Fangs gleamed in her smile. She was dressed in magical armor, the scarlet plate mail ornately worked with runes. “I’ve never killed a king before.” A fireball bloomed around her hands and shot toward him.
“And you haven’t killed one now.” Llyr flung up a shield. The flames splashed off, hitting the carpet, which ignited at his feet with a whoosh of heat and flame. He threw a suffocation spell over the floor, and the fire winked out.
“We must leave, Majesty!” Naois cried, whirling to blow a chunk out of the back wall. The room shook.
He was right. They needed space to fight. Llyr started toward the hole, but before they could escape, the vampire stepped into the room, a magical sword appearing in her hands. “Don’t leave yet—I want to play.”
Naois turned back toward her, his own armor shimmering into place around him. “Go, Majesty!” He lunged at the witch, howling the kingdom’s battle cry: “Cachamwri!”
Llyr hesitated, knowing he had a duty to leap for safety. But he couldn’t just leave the captain to die. Cursing himself, he wheeled to go to his bodyguard’s aid, creating armor around him as he went. He’d be spitted if he’d lose another man to that vicious bitch.
Naois hacked at the vampire’s head, but she parried his sword easily. The blades rang and scraped, sparks flying. Llyr snarled, knowing she was drawing on the death energy she’d stolen from the men she’d killed. He badly wanted to feed her a blast of power she’d find a lot less pleasant.
Unfortunately, the captain was in the way, his broad back blocking the shot. Growling, Llyr circled, looking for an opening as Naois hacked at the vampire in a frenzy of rage.
She parried, then parried again. The blades rang like a blacksmith’s hammer on an anvil.
His mouth curled into an snarl, Naois lifted his sword again for another two-handed swing. Suddenly the vampire jabbed for his ribs with her empty hand.
The dagger appeared the instant before it hit, sliding right through the armor like an axe through burnt bread.
“No!” Llyr roared, leaping forward.
Naois gasped, the sound soft and shocked. For just an instant, his eyes met his king’s over the vampire’s shoulder. Llyr saw the death spell take hold, stealing Naois’s life in a rush.
“Cachamwri!” Llyr roared, and swung his blade with all his strength right for the vampire’s chest.
But she was already spinning, blocking the blow with a spell shield as she swung her own sword at his throat. Llyr jerked aside and the big blade struck him in the shoulder, slicing through his armor. Cold steel cut through flesh and muscle.
The spell came roaring up the blade. Desperately, Llyr drove his own power to block it with the full force of his will. Magic met magic in an explosion of energy.
Boom!
The detonation blasted Llyr right off the sword blade and through the hole Naois had blown in the wall. Wind whipped past his face as he shot across the night like a cannonball. Stars spun around him. He glimpsed a flash of moon. Instinctively, he tried to throw up a protective shield, but it barely shimmered. Too weak…
Something slammed into his head. Light exploded behind Llyr’s eyes with a burst of white-hot pain. He didn’t feel himself hit the ground at the base of the tree.
Sirens shrilled. Male voices shouted.
“God, lady, are you all right?”
Susan opened her eyes and blinked away the blood. A face loomed over her, and she tried to spell her sword into her hand. It didn’t come.
What had happened to her power?
“Lady, are you alive?” The man’s round face was white as a ghost’s, and his eyes were so wide they literally bulged. “It sounded like World War Three out there! And then you came flying through the wall. I figured you were dead, but you opened your eyes. How the hell did you survive all that?”
Thank Geirolf—just an innocent bystander. Who had been thoroughly traumatized, judging by the way he was babbling.
And he wasn’t the only one. She felt like she’d been beaten with a hammer. The fairy king hadn’t liked that last spell at all. He’d blown her through a couple of walls into a neighboring room.
Struggling onto her hands and knees, Susan realized she was naked. Damn, all her power must be gone, if even her magical clothing had disappeared.
The anxious fat man was still babbling. “What happened to your clothes? Maybe you better just lie still. I called 911 when all hell started breaking loose, and the lady said she was sending an ambulance.”
Which meant the cops would be here any minute. And her with no magic. No way could she create a gate without it. “Great,” Susan growled. “Just great. Now what the hell am I going to do?”
Her eyes fixed on the man’s beefy face as he crouched by her side. Come to think of it, he might come in handy. She didn’t have time to feed, not with the cops so close, but there was one good way to restore her power.
She gave him a grin.
He paled and rocked back on his heels, staring down at her in horror. “Your teeth…”
“Yeah, my teeth. You really should have minded your own business, lard ass.”
Diana contemplated the bottom of the ice cream carton. It was a good thing she burned calories so fast, or she’d have put on five pounds tonight just from going through all this fudge ripple. There were advantages to being a werewolf.
Too bad they weren’t sufficient to let you hang around with the King of the Fairies.
The phone rang.
Diana winced. “Oh, Jesus, tell me there hasn’t been another murder.” She sighed, rose to her feet, and scooped her cordless phone off the coffee table. “London.”
“We’ve got trouble, Diana,” Gist’s voice said brusquely. “I need you over at the hotel. Looks like somebody set off a bomb. And we’ve got bodies. At least twelve.”
It felt as if her heart had stopped. “Llyr?”
“The FBI guy? Can’t tell. But the manager said one of the dead guys is in one of the rooms the agents had.”
“On my way.” She hung up the phone, flung it aside, grabbed her purse, and ran for the door.
TEN
When Diana roared into the motel parking lot five minutes later, two fire trucks, three ambulances, and five police cars were already there. She jumped out of the car and ran for the hotel entrance. Several corpses lay scattered around in poses of violent death, but she could see at a glance none of them was Llyr. Most of them were disturbingly naked, and she wondered how the killer had stripped them all. A cop looked up from throwing a sheet over one, and she snapped, “Stairs?”
Recognizing her, the officer pointed. She ducked down the hallway he indicated, spotted a metal door, and clattered up them toward the second floor.
Diana found the next body on the landing, already covered in a sheet. Heart in her mouth, she stopped to lift a corner. She winced at Egan’s wide, empty eyes. He, too, was naked. The spell that had clothed him must have collapsed with his death. The reek of blood clung to him and she spotted the wound in his chest. “Jesus, I’m sorry. I should have been here!”
Sick at heart, Diana dropped the sheet back over his face and took the rest of the stairs two at a time.
Bevyn sprawled in the hallway, his bright green hair matted with blood, his eyes empty above a slit throat. A cr
ime-scene photographer stood over him, snapping pictures. “I thought these guys were supposed to be FBI,” the man said, snapping another shot.
“They were,” she said dully, looking over at the door to Llyr’s room and dreading what she’d find.
“Then what’s with the hair and the Spock ears?” He nodded at the elfin points showing through Bevyn’s tangled hair. “And why did the killer strip them all?”
“I have no idea,” Diana lied. Grimly, she rose and strode for the hotel room, stopping only briefly to examine the hole that had been blasted into the hallway wall from inside the room. Across the hall, something had blown another humansized hole through the Sheetrock. Glancing inside, she saw still another body draped in a sheet. This one wore socks, though, so he was probably just an innocent bystander.
Catching her breath in dread, she stepped into the room she’d obtained for the Sidhe. Naois lay sprawled, his brawny body covered in blood. She knew he’d fallen protecting his king.
Gist crouched beside him, making notes in a pocket notebook.
“Llyr. Where’s the blond FBI agent?” Diana demanded.
The chief looked up. “We haven’t found him yet.” He nodded at another hole, this one punching right through the hotel’s brick exterior to overlook the woods in back of the hotel. “He might be out there.”
Diana stepped up to the opening and looked out.
More than a hundred feet away in a straight line lay a stand of trees. She thought she saw something crumpled lying at the base of one of them, but even with her Direkind vision, she couldn’t be sure. Sweet God, I hope it’s not Llyr.
She didn’t hesitate. Magic flared across her skin as she transformed herself into a wolf and flung herself out of the opening.
“Diana!” Gist yelled, startled. “What the hell are you doing?”
She hit the ground running.
Diana found Llyr lying in a bloodied heap, just as naked as the others. Judging from the litter of broken branches around him, he must have hit the tree like a rocket.
She whined, wolflike, at the thought of what the impact must have done to his body. But as she sniffed at his face, she was relieved to detect the faint sigh of his breath, bruised and bloodied though he was. She reached for her magic and became human again. “Llyr? Your Majesty?” Gently, she ran her hands over him, looking for broken bones and the wound that had produced all that blood.
There was a vicious gash in his left shoulder, which looked like a sword wound, and the entire side of his body was sticky with drying blood. Gritting her teeth, she carefully rolled him onto his back. He moaned, but his eyes didn’t open.
“Llyr, wake up. Come on, you pigheaded fairy, talk to me. We have to contact your people!” It was painfully obvious he’d need magic to heal the injury; he’d lost a lot of blood. “Llyr!”
He murmured something incomprehensible in what was probably the native Sidhe tongue, then finally opened his eyes. He frowned, looking up at her. “A’cki ve?”
“It’s Diana London, Your Majesty. Come on, babe, focus! We need to move you before the cops get here.”
His gaze cleared. “Diana?”
She sighed in relief. “Yeah, it’s me. You need to open a gate and get back to your palace. The shit has hit the fan, and you’re not safe.”
“What?” He lifted his head from the leaves and looked around. “My guards. Where are my guards?”
Diana drew in a breath. “I’m afraid they’re all dead, Llyr. Something nasty got hold of you.”
He dropped his head back on the leaves. “The vampire. But where in the Dragon’s name did she get the power to do all this?”
“I have no idea, but I didn’t see her body back at the hotel, which means she’s still loose. You need to go home and heal.”
Llyr drew in a breath, gasped at the pain. “Yes. Yes, you’re right. But, Goddess, my men. Naois, Egan, Avar and Bevyn, Gayln and Camyr. All the rest. All dead. She killed them all.”
“Which is why you’d better create that gate now.”
He nodded, his gaze sharpening. Diana looked around for the expanding point of light that was an opening dimensional gate.
Nothing happened.
She frowned. “Llyr, where’s that gate?”
“I…It’s not responding.” His eyes met hers, very wide. “My powers are gone!”
“What?”
“When she ran me through with her sword, I sensed a death spell roll up the blade. I tried to block it. The two spells…exploded. They blew me through the wall.”
“You’ve got no powers at all? Are you sure?”
Llyr licked his lips and concentrated again, obviously straining. Finally he let his head drop back to stare blindly up at the tree overhead. “Nothing. Everything’s completely gone.”
“Well, when will they come back? They will come back, right?”
“Let’s hope so.” His handsome face was grim. “Either I’ve burned myself out blocking that spell, or the spell itself was designed to steal my powers. Either way, healing the loss will take time.”
“But how are you going to get home? Can you call somebody?”
Llyr glanced up at her, his expression wry. “There isn’t exactly telephone service to the Mageverse, Diana.”
“What about my magic mirror? The one you gave me. It’s in my purse…” She started to stand.
“Not anymore. When the spell stripped me of my power, the mirror would have vanished.” He grimaced and stopped to pant in pain. “Just like my clothes and weapons.”
She sat back on her heels and stared at him in dismay. “Oh, hell.”
“That is about the size of it.”
“We can’t leave you here, Llyr. They’re going to find you. And your glamor has collapsed. Somehow I don’t think you want you and your pointed ears under a microscope.”
His mouth twitched. “I doubt I’d fit.”
“You know what I mean. Besides, you’re naked.” Gnawing her lip, Diana thought fast. “Okay, look, I’m going to go get my car. I’ll take you back to my house until we can make contact with your people and get you back home.”
He let his eyes close. “Whatever you think best.”
She studied him anxiously. “You’re being too damned agreeable.”
Llyr grunted. “I’m not exactly in a position to play autocrat.”
“Guess not. Look, just wait here. I’ll be back in five minutes.” She stood, then stopped and looked around. “You don’t think the vampire’s anywhere around?”
“I have no idea.”
“Great. Just fucking great.” She hurried off.
Fortunately, Diana had parked the car beside a fire truck, out of the immediate view of the hotel. She slid in, started the engine, and drove off across the parking lot without turning on the lights.
Reaching the edge of the lawn, she drove across the expanse of yard to the spot she’d left Llyr. With any luck, nobody was watching. Unfortunately, Gist was probably at work organizing a search around the hotel for any injured, so she’d better act fast. Parking the car as close to Llyr as she could get, she got out and started toward him. If he couldn’t walk, she’d have to transform into the Dire Wolf and carry him.
“You want to tell me what the fuck you’re doing?” Gist demanded.
Startled, she spun to see him standing just downwind, all but invisible in his dark uniform, his hands on his hips. “What are you doing here?”
“After the way you dove out that damn hole, I was afraid you might be in trouble. Instead, I find you sneaking around in the dark.”
She took a deep breath. “I found the FBI agent. He’s been hurt.”
“So we’ll get the ambulance over here.”
“We can’t. He’s not human.”
The chief stiffened. “Shit. First the killer, now him—what is this, a spook convention?”
“That’s about the size of it. We can’t take him to the hospital. I’m going to let him recover at my house.”
Gist searched h
er face in the dim moonlight, then nodded. “Think he’ll be okay?”
“I hope so.”
“Need a hand?”
“Probably.” She led him over to where Llyr lay. The Sidhe king didn’t move. “Llyr?”
Gist dropped to one knee beside him as Diana knelt at his shoulders. “Jesus, don’t these people own clothes? He looks like somebody chewed him up and spit him out. And that wound in his arm is ugly. You sure you don’t want to take him to the doctor?”
“Yes.” She bent to listen to his broad chest. To her relief, he was still breathing, his heartbeat steady if a little fast. “Llyr? Come on, Your Majesty, we’ve got to get you into the car.”
“Your Majesty?”
She ignored the chief’s incredulous stare and shook the Sidhe by one broad shoulder. Opalescent eyes opened. “There you are. Think you can get up? We’ve got to get you into the car.”
He groaned something that sounded like a Sidhe curse and rolled over onto his hands and knees, his wounded arm tucked against his body. Even bruised and bloody, his broad back was magnificent. As he started to push himself to his feet, Diana crouched to help. The chief took the other side, then hastily shifted his grip to the king’s waist as Llyr hissed in pain.
He eyed Gist woozily. “You are her policeman. What are you doing here?”
“It’s okay, Llyr, the chief can keep his mouth shut,” Diana said.
Gist snorted. “Wouldn’t keep this job long if I couldn’t.”
Between the two of them, they managed to get the Sidhe into Diana’s car. Judging from the tight, pale line of his mouth, it hurt. A lot. Diana buckled him in—he tolerated the process in stony silence—and hurried around to the driver’s side.
As she opened the door, Gist stepped up and caught it to stop her. “I don’t like this, Diana,” he said in a low voice. “I think you’re in over your head. I know for damn sure I’m in over mine. What the hell are we fighting here?”
She looked at him, weighing what to tell him. “It’s a vampire, Bill.”
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