by Bonnie Vanak
What the hell... Stunned, he realized the woman was no ordinary Mage.
From his peripheral vision, Shay saw his father move.
“No one,” Colton grated out, “touches my son. You bitch.”
As she turned, his father wrapped his hands around Moira’s throat and squeezed. The senator’s wife gasped as two thumbs pressed against her windpipe. Snarling, she tried to throw him off, but Colton persisted, even as her power seared his skin.
Talons emerged from her fingertips, and crimson stained the crisp whiteness of his father’s shirt as Moira sank them into Colton’s chest. A red glow suffused them, the power cooking his father from the inside out.
A wheezing gasp as his father’s face paled with agony.
Shay flung back his hand, ready to send more energy bolts into Moira. Hell, he couldn’t do it, not without hurting his father.
“Let her go, Dad. I can’t hurt you.”
Colton’s pain-racked gaze met his. “I’ve been a fool, a pawn in their ideology of hatred. I have to make up for what I’ve done. Don’t let hatred rule like it ruled me, son.” He moaned as the claws sank deeper. “I love you.”
Stricken, Shay regarded his father, his powers shimmering in his palms. “I love you, too, Dad.”
Then the Shaymore patriarch spoke in the firm voice Shay remembered well from his childhood. “Do it.”
Shay released his power as Colton snapped Moira’s neck. Her final scream cut off as the white-hot energy surged into them both, suffusing them in an eerie glow.
Colton dropped to the floor beside the senator’s wife.
Panic surged through Shay. He ran to Colton and cradled him, fingers searching for a pulse. Hazel eyes, much like his own, stared sightlessly at the ceiling.
Shay gently lowered him to the floor. Throat tight with grief, he glanced at Kelly.
“He wanted you to be proud of him, Sam.”
“I am,” he said quietly as he closed his father’s staring eyes. “He finally did the right thing and saw how wrong he’d been.”
If it had only been sooner. All these wasted years. Bitterness had killed his father long ago. But maybe in those last moments, Colton had finally felt a sense of peace.
“Sam, look at her,” Kelly whispered. “She’s changing.”
Blinking, he studied Moira Rogers’s corpse as it slowly shifted into a stranger’s face, a man’s slightly overweight body.
“If that wasn’t Moira Rogers, then who is that? And where’s the real Moira?” she asked.
Shay shook his head. “Someone must have killed her and stolen her powers.”
“But I didn’t see a Death Mask.”
Damn. He needed Curt, but his CO was out. He needed his teammates. He was going to have to go this alone. Shay glanced at his watch. In less than an hour, the committee would assemble and then all hell would break loose in this picturesque farming community. He’d have to take them out by himself. No innocents died on his watch.
Then he heard the sound of heavy vehicles coming up the drive. Shay’s heart sank as he glanced at Kelly. No time for her to escape. But her face lit up.
“Sam! Look!”
He turned to the window. The cavalry had arrived. Two Hummers parked in the drive, and out climbed seven men, dressed in battle gear, submachine guns in hand. The entire Phoenix Force. Even Tiger.
Shock loosened his jaw. The screen door banged as he ran outside.
“What the hell are you guys doing here? You’re AWOL!”
Dakota looked quietly at him. “Yeah. But we couldn’t sit on our asses, knowing you needed us.”
“Besides, you didn’t think you’d hog all the fun, while we stayed at the base, did you?” Renegade asked.
“Especially after you told Dakota where you were headed. We gauged the timing to arrive before you did,” Jammer added.
“Except we’re a little late. Dakota drives like an old lady,” Sully said.
Emotion at the thought of their loyalty tightened his chest. Words failed him. Instead, he slapped Renegade on the back.
Kelly stood on the porch, watching them quietly. “If Arcanes and Elementals were all SEALs, we’d never have a problem. Because we’d finally learn to work together, instead of apart.”
She gave a small smile. “Even if they poured jalapeño juice into our water.”
The men laughed, but Renegade shook his head. “Still owe you for that one, Shay.”
“Collect it tomorrow. Here’s what’s going down. In less than an hour, Senator Rogers arrives. He’s spearheading a committee that plans to slaughter Arcanes, starting in this community.”
Silence filled the air. Dakota’s expression hardened. “What’s your plan?”
Shay narrowed his gaze, looking out at the sweeping meadows, the jagged mountains. “We’re going to arrange our own welcoming committee.”
Chapter 24
The eight navy SEALs were all trained professionals, ready to demonstrate their skills. In military fatigues, black vest, compact submachine gun in his hands, Sam looked lethal. Kelly now saw another side of him, the quiet professional who got the job done.
“What’s the plan, Shay?”
Though he was the lead officer, Dakota deferred to Sam. They were a team.
“Wait inside and get the drop on them from in here. On my word.”
With smooth efficiency, the men set out on their assignments, moving the vehicles to conceal them, arming with extra clips. Kelly’s throat tightened as J.T. and Dallas lifted Colton’s body with extreme care and placed him in the back room.
They were much less careful with the other body.
Then, as the SEALs went into the farmhouse to wait, Kelly looked at Sam.
“I’m not leaving. I’m here with you, all the way.”
Tension turned his jaw to granite. “Wait inside, Kel. I’m not risking your life. You’re the one they want dead.”
She reached up and kissed his cheek. “I love you,” she whispered. “I don’t care if your team knows, or if anyone else knows. You stay alive for me, Sam Shaymore.”
Leaving him standing alone on the porch, like a brave sentinel, Kelly went inside into a corner bedroom facing the porch and cracked the window so she could hear.
Time crawled to a stop. Kelly shifted restlessly but heard nothing from the other SEALs. They were so quiet. Patient.
Finally a car pulled into the driveway. Senator Robert Rogers got out and saw Sam on the porch in full battle gear.
“I see you’re dressed to kill Arcanes.”
“Not Arcanes. You, you son of a bitch, are under arrest.”
Rogers laughed. “And exactly who are you arresting? Me or...”
The handsome features blurred, shifted, changed.
“Or my wife.”
In an elegant black suit and black heels, Moira Rogers faced Sam. “Excuse the boring dress. I’m in mourning for my husband.”
Sam’s stony expression never changed. “Who are you? Are you the real Moira Rogers, or did you kill her, as well?”
“There’s only one of me. I’m an original. Poor Robert, he didn’t stand a chance. I killed him the day before you and your men rescued Billy from the island. And then I assumed his powers and took his place.”
“Then who took yours?”
Moira’s smile was sly. “A Phantom friend imitated me. He made an excellent duplicate and did not mind playing the role of a woman. He respected women, unlike Robert. My husband was a vain man. He never believed a woman could hold power. Not like your commanding officer, a true gentleman. So courageous. I knew he’d bring a tidy profit.”
Moira laughed. “One does need financing to start a war. I couldn’t risk withdrawing that much cash.”
“You sold Curt to those...things?”
“Centurion demons will pay for the right victim. They needed a courageous man for their wolf bitch to torture. They gave me one million for his delivery. All it took was a lure of children in trouble and Curtis came running.”
/> “The Elemental children we rescued were never endangered, were they? It was all a ruse to cast suspicion on Arcanes and trap Curt.” Sam narrowed his eyes. “And you’re the one who sent the email to Sight Finders, to stir up fear about a genocide.”
“There is a genocide planned, only of Arcanes, not Elementals. I prefer to call it an extermination of cockroaches.”
“Then why did you try to drown me in Honduras?”
“Because of who you are, Samuel Shaymore.” Moira flicked a hand. “I needed you dead, and if I could use you as a sacrifice, all the better. But it was more important to eliminate you any way possible. If you died, Allen would resign. His sole motivation is protecting you from trouble. There’d be gridlock on the council, because those old windbags would take forever to replace him. Chaos. No authority to stop me from whispering how Arcanes should be destroyed.”
“So you kidnapped your own son to get the ball rolling.”
“Billy isn’t my son! He’s the bastard of Robert’s kept Arcane whore, his secretary, Catherine. Robert wanted an heir. I couldn’t have children, so we adopted Billy and Robert pretended he was mine. All these years, humiliating me. After everything I’ve done, raising his bastard as my own child, helping Robert navigate the political waters in Washington, Robert started getting soft on the Arcane problem. He said he loved her and wanted a divorce.”
Jealousy had tipped Moira over the edge. Kelly stared outside at the woman, seeing a mirror image.
Kelly was an Arcane resenting privileged Elementals.
Moira was a privileged Elemental resenting Arcanes.
The senator’s wife allowed insecurity about the younger, prettier Catherine to overshadow everything. Moira’s power, wealth and status meant nothing. Hatred had blinded her to the tremendous good fortune of simply being born into status.
Oh, gods, it can’t be too late for me. Sam, I promise you if we get out of this, I’ll let you go. I love you, and I want you to be happy, be it with an Arcane, an Elemental, it doesn’t matter.
“But you can’t complete the transformation to a Dark Lord. I saw the spell book. You didn’t have the children or the Mage for the sacrifice.” Sam spoke in a calm voice but gave hand signals to his teammates to start moving in.
Kelly saw a shadow slip outside.
Moira laughed, the sound like fingernails against a mirror. “My transformation is complete.”
He scoffed. “Elemental Mages can’t be Dark Lords. We don’t carry the sickness within us. It was written in the ancient book of spells for Arcanes.”
“You misread the book. It’s a book for Mages, not exclusive to Arcanes. The council decided long ago the book was too dangerous and had copies destroyed. But the Arcanes had hidden a copy in a small village in Honduras, right beneath Elemental noses. I gathered together a few Arcanes imprisoned for sedition, paid them well and promised power if they joined me and led me to the book of dark spells. And then I killed them. All the while I had my real supporters, Phantom Elementals who feel as I do and would do anything to exterminate the Arcane species. One pretended to be your commanding officer. And the others lowered themselves to pretend to be the hated Arcanes in order to carry out my plans and fool the council into thinking there was an Arcane threat to kill all Elementals.”
Her voice dropped to a thin whisper. “The ancient texts called for the blood of a courageous Mage. Gender isn’t exclusive. So I killed the bitch. And Catherine had plenty of Arcane nieces and nephews to complete the sacrifice. She proved her courage when she tried to stop my Elemental Phantom supporters from killing them. It was almost too easy, pretending to be Robert and luring the children into attending a party for Catherine.”
Horror pulsed through Kelly.
“There are good and honorable Elementals who will stop you and force others to listen to reason,” Sam said quietly, his gaze never leaving the woman.
“But they cannot. Far more powerful is an Elemental who chooses the path of darkness.”
The woman’s features began to change, darkening, her mouth turning into a red, wet slash. Beginning the transformation into a Dark Lord.
* * *
Standing on the porch, confronting the power-crazed woman, Shay saw the last piece of the mosaic fall into place.
He’d had a hard time killing the Mage in Honduras where they’d been ambushed because the bastard was a shape-shifting Phantom Elemental with powers equal to Shay’s. Only these Elementals had unleashed spells from the forbidden book of spells and learned to call the darkness, trebling their powers.
Two clicks on his radio. Everyone was in place.
He readied his weapon as the woman shimmered, a sinister black glow pulsing off her body like a dark force field. She was no longer anything remotely human, her eyes yellowed and bulging, a skeleton stretched over flesh, the Death Mask now visible even to Shay.
Talons emerged from her fingertips,
“Now,” Shay yelled, aiming his assault rifle.
Bursting out of their cover, the SEALs opened fire. Moira flung streaks of black energy at the rounds, turning the bullets into dust.
“Juice it up,” he yelled to the others, the code they used to resort to their powers.
Tossing aside his weapon, Shay began flinging energy bolts in a steady stream. But Moira opened her arms wide and the white light shriveled, turning into darkness as it made contact with her skin. She was absorbing his powers, siphoning them like a vacuum.
Now he understood with terrible clarity why his people were terrified of Dark Lords. They didn’t fear the darkness inside Arcanes, but the darkness inside themselves turning them into a creature that could not be destroyed.
Enraged, he lifted his hands to the sky, calling forth the elements. Dark thunderheads swirled above. Shay culled down the lightning.
He flung a bolt directly at Moira, who staggered backward.
Sully teleported across the grounds and tackled her. There was a sickening crack as Moira’s body dropped like a flour sack.
“Target down,” Sully said into his mic.
But even as he spoke, Moira stood, her neck at an impossible angle. She straightened her head, turned and hit Sully with a power burst, sending him flying backward into a tree. His teammate’s skull hit hard, and Sully dropped down, unconscious.
Darkness gathered in the air, a foulness that made it difficult to breathe.
“Fall back, everyone but Shay,” Dakota yelled into the radio. “Shay, everything you’ve got at her!”
Shay pulled every ounce of power from the thunderclouds, feeling the sizzle and crack of electricity invade his body. He forced the power to his hands and directed light streams into the Dark Lord. Blood streamed from Moira’s lips.
Screaming, she flung currents of dark magick, but her aim was erratic. One hit the house and shattered a wall. Another exploded a maple tree. Powerless to move under the constant barrage of white light, the Dark Lord kept firing her powers outward.
Shay kept up the constant pounding of his powers into the woman, feeding his magick. He felt his energy drain. He couldn’t keep it up.
They would all die here. As Moira staggered backward, temporarily incapacitated, he retreated to cover inside, trying to regroup his powers.
Kelly ran to his side. “You need me, Sam. You need us.”
He wanted to shout at her to get back, but the answer to the Dark Lord’s destruction came in a clear flash of memory.
Teamwork. She held up his pendant. “Merge your powers with mine through the triskele. Alone, we’re strong enough, but together...”
“We’re practically invincible,” he finished.
Like the SEALs, working as one unit. He and Kelly were their own unique team. They could fight this. Sam laced his fingers between hers and squeezed.
“You with me on this, Denning?”
She smiled. “All the way, Shaymore.”
Still, they needed more. They needed...everyone.
“Jammer, J.T., Dakota, Dallas, Renegade,”
he shouted into his mic. “Use your powers and let’s destroy this bitch for good!”
They rushed outside. Jammer directed water from a nearby cistern, sending it spiraling at Moira’s mouth with the power of a fire hose. As she fought this new threat, J.T. used his telekinesis to hurl nearby rocks the size of bowling balls at her head. Stunned, Shay watched the Dark Lord’s skull collapse and then regenerate.
“More,” he yelled. “Keep it coming!”
The dark streams of magick were weaker now. J.T. sent a boulder the size of a Ford pickup truck into Moira. She collapsed but then rolled the boulder off her torso. The three Draicon wolves shifted and rushed the Dark Lord, snarling and tearing into her. A vicious black liquid oozed from several jagged wounds. Shay looked at Kelly.
“Let’s fry her.”
In unison, they fired a bolt of white energy, searing the screaming Dark Lord. She began to morph into a shapeless mass. And then Moira flung out one last stream of dark power. The energy sailed into Kelly’s chest, searing her flesh, sending her screaming backward.
Shay kept firing, knowing Kelly needed him but also knowing he must finish this. Then the Dark Lord finally burst apart, black blood splattering the nearby trees.
Only her head remained intact, white bone against black dusty ground.
Shay ran to Kelly. She lay gasping for breath. Her rib cage rose and fell too rapidly.
She was dying.
Over by the tree, Renegade administered to the injured Sully, helping him to his feet. The big SEAL rubbed his head as if he had a helluva headache.
Dakota propped up Kelly’s feet to keep the blood flow to her head.
Shay ripped apart Kelly’s shirt and stared at the blood pumping out of the chest wound. Using her shirt, he tried to stanch the flow.
“What’s her blood type?” Dallas asked, kneeling beside Kelly. Dallas was the team’s medical corpsman. He fished a packet out of his vest and ripped it open.
“O positive.” He stared helplessly at Kelly. “I know, because I took her to the hospital years ago when she got hurt.”
“Jammer, get your ass over here. I need a donor, now!”