They weren’t screened. If he could see them, so could anyone else with magical gifts.
Shifting the angle of view, gut tight with foreboding, he spotted a red, windowless shed with a blue roof. He knew that building, part of the ghoul nest near Milledgeville, home to a couple dozen ghouls. The compound included two well-guarded breeding sheds and stock pens to supply the ghouls with fresh meat.
There’s no way she’d go into something like that exposed. She must think she was screened, and that meant she’d walked into a trap.
So Dare was right about the nest. Clearly some butts in intel and recon needed rousting. One this size should’ve generated enough police reports to draw attention to it.
Val opened her magical senses, checking the area. Birds and small animals brushed over her awareness. No prickles that would signal ghoul presence. Screen ward in place. But that odd tingle…
She glanced left, at Senior Deputy Harry Parker. Fortyish and experienced, he made an excellent squad leader. “Check the screen, Harry,” she murmured.
His eyes lost focus. Awareness of him brushed her senses as he extended his own. “Something weird, but the screen’s okay.”
Once they broke cover and started moving, the screen wouldn’t hold. By then, they would’ve seized the advantage.
“Thanks. Get ready.” As soon as she blew the fence, he would shear off the back of the breeding shed. The noise would signal the team on the far side to free and stampede the animals as a distraction. The rest of her group would hold the flanks while she and Harry evacuated the captives.
If Dare was right about the nests on his list, he might be right about other things, including the gut-wrenching claim about a traitor.
Closing her eyes, she reached deep inside to muster the power she needed. It built within her, warm, fizzy and gold. Colors supposedly weren’t tactile, but the buildup of power always felt golden to her.
With mages mustering their magic all around her, the radios weren’t reliable. She stuck up a closed fist so everyone could see it. She spread her fingers, then folded them down to signal five…four…three…two…
Suddenly the world exploded around her with a deafening roar. Then dirt, bark and oh, God, bodies slammed into her, hurling Val into the mages at her right. Her head hit the ground, dazing her despite the magic-infused Kevlar helmet.
She tumbled blindly. At last, she came to rest on her stomach with a heavy weight on top of her.
Trap, her brain struggled to process. Move or die. The ground had been mined. Ghouls had never done that before.
The weight on top of her was soft, and the acrid stench of blood stung her nose. She turned, reached out with a raw, scraped hand and found Harry with half his face blown off. Her stomach revolted, but fierce yells yanked her back from illness.
Yells? In the compound.
Val shoved Harry’s body off her. Scrambling to her knees, she magically shielded herself and flung what power she could at the fence.
Around her, mages jerked upright, shielding as they recovered. Others struggled to rise, groaning. Or lay too still, too silent. The sight stabbed grief and guilt into her throat, but she had a job to do.
Meanwhile, medevac should be rushing in. If only they could translocate, but that destroyed magical shielding, and materializing without it in a battle zone was suicide.
The compound yard held squat barricades that hadn’t been visible before. A couple of dozen ghouls knelt behind them with leveled automatic weapons. Shit!
“Fall back,” she shouted, then loosed another, more scattered burst of power to pass through the chain link of the fence and explode the bullets the ghouls fired. She didn’t have the range to reach the weapons themselves.
Some rounds blew in midair, flares of silver and red that sent shrapnel pinging off the fence or clattering off the buildings. Others zinged unhindered toward her deputies as the brrrrrrr of weapons fire continued.
Concentrated automatic weapons fire could penetrate magical shields, and kill a mage. But it couldn’t destroy a ghoul unless it came from a mage-crafted firearm, and those were about as common as snow in Miami since ghouls targeted mageborn gunsmiths.
She yanked her sword from the scabbard, drawing power and focusing it through the blade as her team’s crossbow quarrels shot past her. “Longbows,” she shouted. “Loose at will.”
Arrows flew up and into the compound, rained down on the defenders, but not nearly as many as there should’ve been. That scattering couldn’t come from more than three bowmen. Three, out of eight. Hell.
She sent more power streaming from her blade into the compound. The four-mage medevac team and the reserve force, six mages, charged into the clearing. Val knelt with the reserves, forming a human wall to pour destructive energy at the rounds flying their way while their comrades translocated out.
Guilt beat at her brain as she tallied the numbers, living and dead. No one would be left behind for the ghouls to drain, breed, or eat.
Almost done, the last ones were leaving. She backed up, wincing at a flash of pain from her left ankle. The reserves, still miraculously intact, moved with her. At least the ghouls weren’t charging.
A little farther, just a little, and her group could translocate directly to the choppers. Still no pursuit. Strange, but she’d take what they could get and be grate—
The ground under her detonated, the shock wave flinging her toward an oak tree. Twisting, she managed not to hit with her head, but her chest slammed into the trunk. Even her vest couldn’t keep fire from exploding inside her, and then darkness swallowed the world.
Frozen in horror by the scrying bowl, Griff watched Valeria slam into the oak’s broad trunk. The impact knifed into his heart, crushed the breath from his lungs.
She dropped to the ground like a wet rag and lay motionless. “Move,” he snapped. “Move, damn it.”
She had to be alive.
Ghouls poured out of their compound, charging the survivors, and he swore. His fists balled. She was almost two hundred miles away. He couldn’t translocate that far. No one could. He could only stand there and watch while—
A silvery wave of mage power swept the clearing and flung back the ghoul attack. A clump of filthy, bloodied survivors ran to their comrades’ aid. Two of them picked up Valeria. Another pair grabbed the tall man who’d fallen beside her. A pair of medics in stained camos grabbed another.
The others, with help, flashed away while a mere three haggard, dirty mages, one with an arm in a makeshift sling and another leaning on a tree-branch crutch, covered their retreat. A crossbowman staggered up to join them, a woman. Swaying on her feet, she fired behind their power blasts.
Griff followed the group carrying Valeria until, in midstep, they winked out of sight. Screened. Effectively this time. The rear guard followed.
A moment later the ghouls raced into view, but the survivors were already headed home.
He forced himself to breathe. The helos wouldn’t reach the Collegium for an hour. An hour to return home, longer before Stefan would have time to tell him whether she—and so many others—lived or died.
Live, he willed her. Whether you help me or not, you have to live.
She would never have attacked with an unscreened force. She’d walked into a trap. And where had all those ghouls come from? Had the nest grown? Or was it reinforced?
The screened, potent ghoul defenses, the swift response of the defenders, the ready counterattack, meant her targets had known she was coming. She and her force had been betrayed, as he and his once had been.
His fists balled again. He knew the pain she’d feel, the grief and guilt of unnecessary loss, knew them as only someone who’d led others to their deaths could. If she lived, she would need someone who understood that, and he would be there for her.
If she lived.
Chapter 6
Griff paced the shelter common room’s worn, beige linoleum. He’d volunteered to give art lessons to keep his mind clear, but it wasn’t work
ing. Good thing for him the two girls and three boys seated at the long, wooden table seemed absorbed in their pictures.
In the room’s far corner, several adults occupied chairs around a television. Entertainment Tonight blared from the set.
Griff walked back to the battered table and leaned over the seven-year-old girl’s shoulder. “Nice flowers, Josie. I like the red.”
She beamed at him from under curly blond bangs. “It’s my favorite. Thanks, Gray.”
He wandered around the table and absently returned little Molly’s smile. Will had called, told him Valeria had attacked the nest to rescue a kidnapped college student. That explained why she’d gone there, but where the hell had all those ghouls come from? Was his info outdated, or had someone reinforced the nest? He would ask Javier to check on that.
God, she’d hit that tree so damned hard, and so many of her troops had died. Those deaths would screw with her head more than anything she personally suffered.
Griff glanced at the clock. Eight thirty. He should’ve left hours ago, in case she blamed his info and sent mages after him, but he hadn’t been able to make himself go until he knew she would be okay.
Marc walked in from the hall doorway. “The softball crew’s back, so you have five minutes, kids. Then it’s lights out upstairs.”
A chorus of groans answered him.
In the doorway, Todd Claypool, the blond, lanky delivery boy, waited. His kid sister, sandy-haired, thirteen-year-old Robin, stood at his shoulder. They’d taken a couple of the shelter’s middle schoolers out for a round of softball with the town kids.
Robin grinned at Griff, her brown eyes dancing. “Are we in time for magic tricks?”
The kids set up a clamor for their favorite tricks. Smiling, Marc cocked an eyebrow at Griff. “We can push bedtime back a few minutes for magic.”
Marc might pretend he was doing it for the kids, but he seemed to enjoy seeing the tricks. Maybe that was because he knew they were real magic.
The coin trick was a favorite, and it wouldn’t take long. The usual, Mundane version worked by sleight of hand, but Griff used translocation. The coin vanished because he wrapped power around it, shifting it out of reality and through the space between life and death to reappear wherever he directed it.
“Well,” he started, and his pocket vibrated. He tensed. “Sorry, but I can’t tonight. I have to go, kids. I’ll make it up to you.” He shot an urgent look at Marc, who shepherded the disappointed children out of the room.
The kids went without too much muttering. They knew he’d make good on his promise.
Griff glanced at the caller ID. Stefan’s number. Praying for good news, he whipped the phone to his ear and stepped onto the deserted front stoop. The muggy air felt heavy, but he hardly noticed. “How is she?”
“So you heard about this morning’s little problem.” Stefan sounded bone tired, and no wonder. His medical team couldn’t magically heal large numbers of severe injuries at one time. They would’ve had to stabilize the worst, operate, and then do a partial healing, with more rounds of magic work to follow.
“We lost twenty-three,” he said.
Twenty-three dead? Griff’s breath froze in his lungs.
“But the patient you’re worried about,” Stefan added, carefully avoiding names, as usual, “will recover.”
Griff’s breath rushed out of him. He dropped down to sit on the concrete steps. “From…?”
A pause, as though Stefan debated with himself. “Multiple rib fractures. Impact damage to internal organs, though the vest diffused the force. Face and body contusions. Torn ligament, left ankle. Bad abrasions on the hands. She’s asleep, and I’m keeping her that way until morning.”
Griff stared across the street at the weekly Wayfarer Oracle’s plate-glass front window. All that, and she’d lived.
But twenty-three dead? Holy hell.
If only he could see her. Touch her and see for himself that she’d recover.
“The thing is,” Stefan was saying, “the Council didn’t know about that ghoul nest. Before she left, she refused to say how she’d heard of it, so they’re gunning for her.” His voice hardened. “They may replace her as reeve.”
“The hell they will. I’ll…Shit.” Griff could do nothing, as they both knew.
“Exactly.” Stefan paused. “Once I’m out of the way, they’ll hammer her.”
While Griff sat here, feeling helpless. He had to do something.
“She may have to give you up to save herself,” Stefan said. “Go to ground and stay there.”
As if he could do that with her in trouble because of him. She might blame him, understandably. “Admitting she talked to me and didn’t kill me outright would only make her problems worse. She’ll hold.”
What would that cost her, though? The Council wouldn’t accept silence from her, not with so many dead.
“Maybe she’ll stand firm.” Stefan yawned. “Either way, don’t get it into your head you can help her, Sir Galahad. If they have any idea you’re involved, that you give a damn, she’ll go from victim to bait in a heartbeat.”
Stefan was right.
“I know. Thanks, Stefan. Get some rest.”
“Eventually.”
They said good night. Griff leaned back against the warm brick wall. His brain churned like the Chattahoochee in flood season. Valeria was in the Council’s crosshairs because of him. If she continued to protect him, would they put her under ritual questioning? Would she resist?
If she did, and they forced her, that would leave her worse than dead.
His jaw tightened against a curse. He couldn’t help remembering how bravely she’d confronted him at his loft. How she’d rushed into a battle armed with only a kitchen knife and saved his life. Little Molly’s, too. How she’d embraced him after the fight, as though no cloud lingered over his name.
He’d gotten her into this mess. Somehow, he had to help her out of it. Even if that meant taking her place in the crosshairs.
It hurt to breathe.
Trying to keep her breaths shallow, Val opened her eyes. Pale blue ceiling. Pale blue curtains walling off a narrow space. Beeps and clicks. Monitors. Soothing violins playing softly. Antiseptic smells. The Collegium clinic.
But how?
The explosion. A tree coming at her, and before that—
A sob welled in her throat, scalding her chest. She gulped it back but couldn’t stop the tears trickling from the corners of her eyes. Her deputy reeves, so many blown to bits. She’d led them into a fucking trap.
Dare had marked that side of the compound as vulnerable, hadn’t given any warning of those defenses. Magically screened defenses, magic that must’ve caused the tingle she and Harry— Oh, God! Harry. His poor face blown off.
The sob this time escaped. Shaking, she bit her lip against the pain. Must be broken ribs. Maybe other damage.
She wiped away tears with her IV-free hand. A hint of something lemony, familiar, brushed her nose, but she’d figure that out later. Whatever damage she’d suffered could be no less than she deserved. This was her fault.
Was Dare’s intel outdated? Or had he held something back? He was slow to trust, or he’d have died long ago. Regardless, the choice had been hers. So was the burden of the result.
Even if Dare had deliberately baited her.
But why would he? Her breath caught at the memory of his grave blue eyes looking down at her. I need you safe, he’d said. He’d seemed sincere about wanting her help, had felt that way to her magical senses.
He had no reason to set a trap that would kill her. She’d warned him she would check out his information. He had to know she would do that herself, just as he would’ve in her place.
“No,” Dr. Stefan Harper said outside the curtains. “Absolutely not. She’ll require at least one more round of healing, probably two, and she needs rest before we proceed.”
“This is urgent, Doctor. Surely she can interrupt her little nap to answer a question or two.”
Crap. That harsh, scathing bass belonged to Councilor Otto Larkin. He not only looked like an English bulldog but had the tenacity of one.
“The explosive force,” Harper said with strained patience vibrating in his words, “disrupted their bodies’ energy centers. With those centers out of alignment, magic doesn’t flow properly. Healing takes longer. Realigning is a slow, delicate business, and you’re delaying us.”
“This comes first,” Larkin bit out. “We’ve lost more than twenty mages because of her incompetence, and by God—”
“Shut up,” Harper snapped.
He said something else she didn’t catch. More than twenty dead. Over half her task force, nearly a fifth of the total cadre. Incompetence didn’t begin to describe her folly.
“If that must wait, it can,” Gene’s voice said. “I’d like to see her, see for myself how she’s doing.”
A beat of silence, and then Harper said, “If she’s awake. Try anything else, though, and you’re out of here so fast your eyes’ll cross.”
He slipped through the curtains. When his gaze met hers, he asked softly, “Do you feel up to seeing Councilor Blake?”
Val nodded. “I don’t want him to worry.”
Harper looked at her a long moment, his doubtful expression urging her to change her mind, but she didn’t waver. At last, frowning, he walked to the curtain and opened it an inch. “Chief Councilor Blake. You have two minutes, no more.”
He stepped back to let Gene enter and closed the curtain behind the short, stocky man. Harper followed him in to stand at her shoulder like a rottweiler on guard.
Below Gene’s shock of graying brown hair, his blue eyes regarded her with concern. He took her IV-free hand in a gentle grip. “Valeria, my dear. I’m so glad you survived.”
“I’m sorry,” she choked. “So sorry.”
He opened his mouth as though to say something, glanced at Harper’s stern face, and cleared his throat instead. “We’ll discuss that later. Is there anything you need, my dear?”
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