by RJ Blain
I stiffened.
True wolves were animals born to human parents. Was it even possible for a wolf to bear a human child? Old memories stirred, but I shook my head in my effort to drive them away.
I was a wolf, woman, and witch.
I had been born a human.
I hoped.
~*~
Gunfire jerked me from my thoughts. My heart skipped several beats, as I frantically tried to figure out where I’d gotten shot—again.
The pain had I expected didn’t come. A heavy weight slumped on me, knocking me to the floor.
“That’ll teach you, you arrogant son of a whore.”
Shock froze me in place.
Amelia—prim, proper, dressed-in-a-business suit Amelia—stood in the door, a pistol held in her hand. The warmth of blood spread over my shoulder to drip down my chest and back.
“That won’t keep him down long,” the former judge announced in her no-nonsense courtroom voice. “Get up.”
It wasn’t until Amelia rolled Anderson’s groaning form off of me that I managed to crawl to my knees. Blood poured from a dime-sized hole in Anderson’s shoulder. I reached out with a trembling hand and touched the cold skin next to his wound.
“Amelia?”
“Later,” she replied, taking hold of my upper arm and pulling me to my feet. “No time to talk. Time to go.”
I stumbled, and without the old woman’s grip on my arm, I would’ve fallen. Had Amelia always been so strong? I stared down at the growing puddle of blood surrounding Anderson. “Did you kill him?”
“He won’t die from that. Someone’ll help him soon enough. Come on, we have to get out of here before someone finds us.” Amelia paused, making a disgusted sound, her expression darkening. “Look, it’s already healing.”
With widening eyes, I stared as the hole through Anderson’s shoulder writhed and began to close. My mouth fell open. Amelia jerked me towards the door.
“Change,” she ordered.
I stiffened, my throat tightening as emotion—mainly fear—choked off my breath. Had Anderson been right?
Had I ever truly been human at all?
Amelia pulled me towards the door. “Get a hold of yourself,” she hissed in my ear. “I’m a witch, Ms. Hanover. I can help you if you need. I’m fine in the cold. You won’t be. Now hurry.”
Anderson groaned. With a lurch, he sat upright. Amelia pulled me out of the room. Cold air washed over me, chilling my sweat on my skin.
“Hurry!”
I couldn’t remember deciding to obey, but one moment, I was still human, and the next I wasn’t. The wolf part of me that I wanted to reject rejoiced. Scents flooded my nose. The sweetness of fresh blood set me to drooling. I licked at my muzzle.
“Come on. He won’t be down for much longer,” Amelia hissed at me, holding the outside door open.
I growled, but pushed by her. The snow came up to my neck. I lunged through the first few feet before scrambling on top of ice hidden beneath the surface. I watched the woman out of the corner of my eye. Amelia turned and slammed the door behind her. Pulling out a key from her pocket, she tossed it into the snow.
“That should slow them down a bit at least. Head towards the woods. I’ve a snowmobile in there.”
I twisted around, snarling my irritation at Amelia’s demanding tone. When had Amelia acquired the key? Anderson had said he was going to keep it. I didn’t remember her taking anything from him.
Amelia hadn’t touched Anderson at all.
“Do you want the Inquisition to catch you?”
Growling my anger and frustration, I waded through the snow, leaving Amelia to follow in my wake. When given the option between someone who had shot me versus someone who had shot my shooter, I took the sane route. I didn’t know if Anderson had any more silver bullets, and I didn’t want to find out, either.
Running wasn’t possible for either one of us. With bounding leaps, I crashed through the ice and snow, leaving enough of a trail for Amelia to follow. Once in the shelter of the trees, it was easier to find a path. The underbrush offered shelter from the worst of the snowfall.
“That way,” Amelia panted, pointing deeper into the forest.
I eyed the witch warily. I’d never been all that good on identifying witches on my own. How long had Amelia been one? The possibility that the woman was an Inquisitor existed, but with no other choice, I had to stay with her—at least until I thought of a better plan.
Then again, maybe succumbing to the wild was better for all of us. Maybe Anderson had been right.
Maybe I’d been nothing more than a wolf trapped in a human’s body all along.
“There!” Amelia pointed again. I put my ears back, but couldn’t see what she had spotted.
There was a loud pop and something impacted my flank. My muscles locked, numbness spreading from a dart protruding from my fur. I snapped my teeth at the projectile, but I couldn’t reach, not with the muscle-relaxing numbness spreading through me.
My legs buckled beneath me. Collapsing in the snow, I fought the lethargy of the drug.
I clung to consciousness but could do nothing to defend myself. When several figures emerged from the trees, all I could do was helplessly watch as they approached me, silver chains dangling from their hands.
Chapter Thirty Two
I was more than a little sick and tired of taking unexpected naps. I was doubly tired of ending up in places I’d rather not be. Trussed up like a Christmas goose dressed with silver chains definitely counted as one of the last places I wanted to be. The metal was hot through my fur. While it didn’t burn me, I feared I’d start baking at any second.
It didn’t help that Amelia was sprawled over me. Whoever had captured us had opted for black iron, steel, silver, and some other shiny metals to keep the former judge contained.
I didn’t blame them. Witches were tricky. With a little luck, I would show them just how tricky we could be. If, of course, I didn’t kill myself in the process.
Silver alone wasn’t going to hold me down. At least I hoped it wouldn’t.
Playing dead, I considered the situation. All in all, I felt like I had been put through a high spin cycle in a washing machine before being left out to dry. It could’ve been worse.
I could’ve been dead. Death wasn’t something I had an aversion to. I marveled at how I had managed to escape its permanent grip for so long. I was cursed with an attraction for trouble, but I somehow survived.
Being dead wouldn’t do me a whole lot of good, not that I’d been able to eliminate the Inquisition. I had lost my chance to do something about the Shadow Pope. Then again, considering Amelia’s bullet hadn’t done much, I doubt I could’ve done anything to him in my weakened condition.
I curled my upper lip in a snarl, glaring at the cloth-draped cage. As a wolf, I had no chance of breaking free. While chained, I doubted I could transform back to a human. Freeing Amelia was my only chance of escape. But how? Without fingers, manipulating the locks wasn’t possible. Even if I could think of some way to use the weather to break us free, I wasn’t certain I could.
My dubious abilities as a weather witch would protect me from turning into a smoking ruin of fur and wolf jerky during a lightning strike, but it wasn’t really useful for escaping silver bars and chains. Even if I managed to call lightning to me, I couldn’t without reducing Amelia to a smoking corpse.
And with Amelia unconscious and bound, she wasn’t going to be of much use breaking us out of our prison.
I closed my eyes. In the most likely case, the Inquisition had captured both of us but didn’t want to take any more chances. Even with Anderson’s regenerative abilities, I doubted he had been the one to take us both out.
So who had done it and how?
“You didn’t kill them, did you, Ajahine?” The speaker had a thick, drawn-out accent, and it came from somewhere nearby. It wasn’t British or Australian. Canadian?
I could see some northern-bred Canadian being capable
of handling a blizzard. A Russian could as well, but I didn’t think the accent was European. It was too easy for me to understand.
“I’m certain. You wished for one alive. I have provided two,” a woman replied. Her English was distinctively Middle Eastern.
“As I’ve seen. As always, I’m impressed with your ability,” the man replied. I decided he wasn’t from France or Quebec. I’d heard French and Quebec accents before, and his accent wasn’t it.
“It helped that they came right to me,” Ajahine murmured.
“The werewolf is an interesting catch. And the woman?”
“An Inquisition witch, of course. I was surprised to see her here. She belongs to a sect down in Georgia.” The woman laughed. “I love how they fight among themselves. It makes my work so much easier. Still, you’ll want to be careful, sir. She’s quite old for a witch, and you may break her.”
I bristled at Ajahine’s pleased tone.
“And the wolf?”
“Probably one of those victims the Inquisition has been buzzing about. It looked like they were taking advantage of the storm to escape the outpost.”
“You’re lucky the storm let up when it did,” the man chided. Then he chuckled, a deep throaty sound. “You’re no use to me dead.”
“I had to act then, or never, Max.”
Max snorted. “I understand that. Well, show them to me, woman. I don’t have all day to waste. What type of wolf did you bag me?”
I heard the cloth rustle and flap as it was whipped off the cage. Lying still took all of my effort. I drew a deep breath. The only wolf I could smell was me.
Humans.
I considered Ajahine’s words. While I had been aware of splinter groups within the Inquisition, why would Amelia risk shooting the head of the order? Why would she shoot Anderson, with whom she’d worked for so many years?
I was about ready to howl my frustration at having no answers.
Max whistled, drawing my attention back to the him. “That’s no gray wolf.”
“A beauty, isn’t she? Definitely my best catch.” Pride infused Ajahine’s voice. “Want me to have the boys trot her out?”
“She’ll fetch a pretty penny on the market for certain. Bitches are rare enough. With her looks? Packs across the world’ll be lining up to have her.” His gleeful tone forced a growl out of me.
“Ah, she’s coming around,” Ajahine said.
With my play dead ruse busted, I opened my eyes and bared my teeth. A man and woman, both middle-aged, stared at me from a safe distance. Max was a Caucasian, though I couldn’t tell where he was from on appearance alone. Ajahine was covered from head to toe in dark, form-concealing robes. Even if I managed to get my head through the bars, they’d be able to dodge my efforts to bite them.
“Should we separate them? It would be a shame if the wolf were to kill the witch,” Max said.
Ajahine laughed. “With that much silver on her? She’s lucky she isn’t writhing in pain. A tough one, this bitch, but she’s in no shape to kill her cage mate.”
“And the witch?”
“There’s enough rue-infused cold iron in her chains to keep a fae down, let alone a mere witch.”
“Not yarrow? Curious.”
“It’s in the cage bars. Don’t worry, Max. These two will be going nowhere. They’re ready for transport as soon as you’re ready to take them.”
“Excellent. How long until the storm clears enough for us to take off?”
“Several hours to clear the runaway,” Ajahine replied, twisting around to stare at something behind her. “Another hour to de-ice the plane, then prep and take off.”
“See to it,” Max ordered.
Ajahine bowed. “As you wish, sir.”
Max pivoted and marched away.
Once the man was gone, Ajahine turned to face me. “I hope you’re skinned for your pelt, wolf.”
I put my ears back, my growl rumbling in my chest. To my surprise, Ajahine recoiled, fleeing from my presence as though something from hell chased after her.
~*~
“Those fools.”
Amelia’s voice cut over my growls, startling me into silence. The steel form of a cargo plane emerged as the snow lessened outside. The open space around us proved to be a hangar, one spacious enough for a 747.
I cursed my inability to speak English while trapped as a wolf. At least, for whatever reason, I wasn’t dying to scratch my way out of my fur.
Maybe Anderson had been right, and I had somehow concocted my allergies due to my fear of not being a human. Maybe I was a one-trick pony of the witch world because I was too busy manifesting symptoms of allergies to do anything productive with my abilities.
“Any idea where they are taking us?”
I shook my head.
“Did you see them?”
I nodded.
“Americans?”
Putting both of my ears back, I exposed my teeth and growled.
“No? They weren’t British. African?”
If I could have put my paws over my eyes, I would have. Charades didn’t work so well without hands. I didn’t know what Amelia was expecting of me. Maybe she’d been hit on the head? I twisted around to stare at her with a baleful gaze.
“Another no, then. Asian? No? Eastern European?”
At the rate we were going, I feared she’d name every stereotypical racial group before she guessed the correct one. I sighed.
The cargo plane roared to life.
“Ah, Middle Eastern,” Amelia chirped in a pleased tone.
I whipped my head around, raising the volume of my growls threefold. Max and Ajahine approached the cage with five men following in their wake. Thug was too nice of a word for any one of the men making up the scarred, muscle-bound group. They reeked of sweat, blood, oil, and snow. I sneezed at the onslaught of scents.
“Good morning, Amelia,” Ajahine said sweetly. “You’re looking well for a dead woman.”
“I’m afraid you have the advantage,” Amelia replied in a neutral tone that I recognized as her preparing to play dirty with a lawyer. As a judge, Amelia had been frightening. In her role as a lawyer, the woman was downright terrifying.
Ajahine smiled. “You’re right. I do. Here’s how this is going to work. I’ll ask the questions. You’ll answer them. Satisfy me, and you’ll still be alive when the plane lands. Have I made myself clear?”
“As crystal,” Amelia replied, her voice so cold it sent shivers crawling through me. “May I begin with an observation?”
With narrowed eyes, Ajahine regarded the witch in the cage with me. “What is it?”
“Unless this is a particularly short flight, you may wish to remove some of the silver from this wolf. I’m afraid she was shot with a silver bullet recently. This excessive use of silver will have an adverse consequence on her health.”
“A silver bullet,” Ajahine murmured, eying me with the same sort of trepidation someone viewed an angry cobra.
On cue, I whined and shuddered. While the silver wasn’t bothering me all that much, I hoped Amelia had a plan, because I didn’t. It beat doing nothing at all. Staging a convulsion was painful. The chains bit into my skin, and not even the witch part of me could protect me from that.
Burnt wolf fur dulled my sense of smell, and the pain of silver poisoning stabbed through me. My yelp wasn’t faked.
“Nasty things, silver bullets. Tricky as hell to make, and only old silver works. Heirlooms, prized pieces of jewelry, things like that. Things as old, or older, than the wolf you’re trying to kill.” Amelia sounded smug.
“And silver this old does what to a wolf?”
Amelia looked surprised. “It kills them, of course. Gets in their blood. Burns them to crisps from the inside out. Unpleasant business, silver bullets. Takes a little longer for it to get into their blood when they’re exposed to chains or jewelry, but it’ll do the job all the same. Takes longer, but it’s a pretty popular interrogation tool in the Inquisition. I thought you knew.”
>
Max frowned. “That’s not what we were told.”
Amelia’s laugh rang out, sweet with her amusement. I growled at the old witch’s pleasure. “I’ve been killing wolves for longer than you’ve been alive. If you want to make sure a wolf stays dead, you use silver and cut off their heads. Anything less, and they might get back up again. Your loss, then. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
I decided Amelia was far more frightening than I had ever imagined possible. She was either a really good liar, or the woman was a natural-born killer of my kind.
How had Marrodin turned from the sanctuary I had envisioned to the ultimate hunting ground for the Inquisition? How long had I been blind?
Max’s frown deepened.
“We can’t unbind that thing,” Ajahine hissed through clenched teeth. “She’s a blight, a profanity against—”
“Silence.”
Ajahine shuddered, rubbing her arms through her robes. After a long moment, and a glare from her companion, she nodded.
“This is what we’ll do. Ajahine, remove the chains, one by one, until the witch says the wolf will live for an eighteen hour transport. Any tricks, and you’ll die. I want that wolf alive.”
With a violent shake of her head, Ajahine recoiled from the cage. “I will not release such a blasphemous creature—”
“Ajahine,” Max whispered low enough I struggled to hear him over the plane’s engine. “You will do as I command, or you will become food for the wolf.”
My stomach soured at the thought of eating a human. Ajahine’s fear overwhelmed all of the other scents in the hanger.
“Open the cage,” Max ordered.
Two of Max’s thugs obeyed in silence. The first of the locks fell away.
Amelia stilled, her gaze predatory, focused on Max and Ajahine.
The second lock fell away. With a metallic groan, the cage’s door swung open.
“Go, Ajahine,” Max ordered. “One chain at a time until the Inquisitor witch deems that the wolf will survive the journey.”