by Shona Husk
Lachlan had been right about Clary using magic, and right about how she was doing it. What else was he right about? What else had her sister lied about? Dayna’s fingers traced the frown lines on her forehead. Despite the lies, Clarissa was still her sister and the loss stung. With a wrench of will, she walled up the pain and turned away from the view over the backyard. She would fall apart and grieve later, once she was safe. She shoved the diaries of her mother and sister into a bag. Then she retrieved the cash they kept in the house and shoved it into another bag with some clothes, the photo and a few other bits she’d need until she got settled elsewhere.
Dayna took a deep breath and readied herself to go outside. Giving Lachlan the diaries seemed like the ultimate betrayal, yet if she didn’t the Council and Fendrake would never leave her alone. She knew that now, even if she didn’t understand their reasons.
The only question was, did she trust Lachlan?
Once she broke the circle and set him free, what would he do to her? Her mind threw up visions of being mauled by an enraged lion.
No, he’d have to let her go after she’d given him the diaries.
She gave the inside of the house a final glance. Beneath the hurt, anger simmered. Anger at Clarissa for endangering both their lives with her magical workings, for stealing the lives of innocent men, for tearing down the life they’d built here, and for lying to her face every day about what she was doing when she shut herself in her room.
Dayna yanked open the door and walked out into the heat and sunlight.
The heat from the ground seeped into Lachlan’s skin but didn’t warm him. He shivered as a hot breeze sprang up and swept over his bare flesh, drying the sweat that had formed. His cheeks tightened as if he could sense something. If he’d been in his lion form, his whiskers would’ve been twitching.
Something was going on, something that smelled like magic. It was so strong he could almost taste it at the back of his throat. The panic that had been keeping him company tore through his thoughts and scattered them like confetti in a hurricane. He had to focus.
He twisted around while keeping his hand firmly pressed to his thigh, trying to take in as much of the area as he could. Clarissa was in the burned-out circle. Dayna was in the house—at least she hadn’t left him to die, yet.
Her drink bottle rested on the railing, as out of reach as the moon. He dragged his gaze away. He had to think outside the circle. His mind remained empty except for the fear and the thick scent of magic.
Lachlan winced and eased back into a more comfortable position, half sitting, half resting on his hip. There was blood on the rope, on the ground and on him, but he hadn’t seen a single fly. Usually that would’ve been a good thing—there was nothing worse than flies crawling over his skin and annoying the crap out of him. But they should still have been buzzing around the outside of the circle, crawling on the rope and trying to get to him. There wasn’t even one.
He frowned and glanced up. Above him the sky was empty. Most animals didn’t stick around for magical workings, and the birds that had lived nearby were now dead. But around him the bush was silent. The birds weren’t coming back. While his hearing wasn’t as sharp as when he was a lion, it was still better than the average human’s. And he heard nothing.
The bush was devoid of life.
That made him more nervous than a teenage were approaching his first shift, so he pushed it aside. If he wanted to survive long enough to work out why the bush was silent, he had to get Dayna on his side.
What did he know about the Brightwaters? He came up with nothing. All his research evaporated like a raindrop in the Sahara.
Think.
He closed his eyes as if darkness would help. His brain helpfully brought up an image of Dayna drinking water, which rapidly became Dayna standing in the rain, water slicking her hair to her wet skin.
I’m thirsty. Got it, move on.
Unless rainclouds suddenly formed in the clear blue sky he wasn’t going to be getting a drink soon. He pressed his drying lips together but didn’t lick them, as that would only dry them further and waste what little fluid he had.
In the next hour his skin would begin burning. If he was really lucky, the heatstroke would knock him out before severe shock set in. Why couldn’t she have trapped him as a lion, before he accidently shifted to human? He could’ve licked his wound and not got burned… Not going to change anything. And not a good sign that he couldn’t concentrate. Struggling to stay focused, he dragged his attention back to the Brightwaters and Dayna.
Think.
Dayna. Not a full shaman. No third eye. Could obviously manage some magic. Twin of Clarissa.
Clarissa. Sex-line killer. He smiled. Sex. It would’ve been great to have sex again before he died. The image of Dayna standing in the rain reformed. If he hadn’t met her over the barrel of a rifle, he’d have definitely tried to take her home. He shook his head as if he could dislodge the thought.
Not going to die. Stay focused.
Clarissa. Used sex to raise power—clever to use the phone. That had made it harder for him to trace. But what magic had she been planning that would require the boost? The murders had escalated from one every other month to one every day for the past two weeks. There’d been a lot of pressure on him to find the culprit. Multiple homicides weren’t good publicity for non-humans. Humans began asking questions they wouldn’t like the answers to and then Fendrake had to work harder to cover up the truth.
His gaze drifted across the brown lawn to the dead shaman in the black circle.
What was he missing?
His leg ached, and each beat of his heart relayed the pain throughout his body. It rolled around the inside of his skull like a marble on a never-ending track. The sun was too bright. He was cold even though the day was hot. He was thirsty, and he wanted to lie down but couldn’t—if he did he wouldn’t be able to comfortably reach the wound. At least with the pressure, the flow was more of a thick ooze.
He tried to recall everything he’d learned about the Brightwaters during the investigation. His thoughts kept sticking instead of sliding. This was so much worse than the sleep deprivation during training when Fendrake put every would-be recruit through all seven levels of Hell.
Lachlan took a slow, deep breath and closed his eyes again. He began reciting what he knew about the Brightwaters.
“The Brightwaters love magical power.”
Clarissa had been sucking the life out of people to draw up magic for some kind of supercharged spell.
“Sherrie Brightwater killed an old boyfriend in the pursuit of power—after she’d already been expelled from the Council.”
Eighteen years later she was found dead in her yard, leaving behind her two seventeen-year-old daughters.
His eyes flicked open. “The mother.”
He stared at the blackened circle where Clarissa Brightwater lay. It was a perfect replica of the crime-scene photo from Sherrie Brightwater’s file. Sherrie had been found in a burned circle, between trees. That was what he’d missed. His heart skipped a beat as his stomach became a fist of ice and punched upwards.
Clarissa had been repeating her mother’s spell. No one knew what the spell was for, and a few hours after the body had been called in, a bushfire had swept through the area and killed the Fendrake agents working the case.
The wind blew its hot fetid breath in his face. He swallowed even though he had nothing to swallow. The ground was hot beneath him, not from the sun, but really hot, as if the earth was burning. Nature was out of balance. And the silence around him made perfect sense.
The animals were part of nature and they were staying away because they knew what was coming. Fire.
Chapter Four
Lachlan picked up a piece of vine and tried to lay it over the bloodstained cord. Each time the tendril was pushed back. Great.
He had to get out of the circle. His nose wrinkled as if he could already smell the fire. But it wasn’t fire; it was the scent of magic gro
wing stronger and deeper. His heart picked up pace as if pumping his blood out faster would help—maybe it would. At least he’d be unconscious before he got roasted.
The lion inside him prowled, and anxiety drew the hairs on his body up in spikes. Like most weres, he had an unhealthy fear of fire. He tossed a handful of dirt at the cord. It bounced back at him and scattered. He forced himself to blink and breathe and ignore the voice in his head screaming, “Let me out!”
What did he know about breaking circles? What did he know about breaking this circle? That the circle could only be broken from the outside, and his blood on the rope meant as long as he lived he was helping to keep the circle up. All he had to do was die and then the circle would break. Not a brilliant plan.
What else did he know?
He stared at the cord as if an answer would magically appear. Touching the cord was out of the question as he didn’t want to get shocked again. How had Dayna constructed the circle?
With most magical things there was more than one way to achieve a result. He’d already proven the circle extended above the rope, since the dirt hadn’t crossed the threshold. Was it a sphere or a cylinder? He tossed the leafy tendril of vine up and watched carefully. It hit nothing above him, it simply obeyed the laws of physics by arcing up and falling down to the ground next to him.
He scowled at the vine and corralled his thoughts. He was trapped in a magical tube—not a sphere. Had she thought to extend the barrier below ground level?
It was worth finding out, and doing something was better than waiting for the bushfire to sweep through, burn the rope, bring down the circle and kill him. He didn’t have the magic to hold the circle against fire. He could barely make a protection circle and had the scar across his shoulder blade to prove how close he’d come to failing that training exercise.
A few inches from the cord he began digging, scraping away the hot dirt with his nails. If he was lucky, he’d dig down a bit and find no barrier, then he’d be able to poke his hand up on the other side and break the circle. Given the way his day was going he’d probably get a magical slap in the face instead.
While Dayna wasn’t a full-blooded shaman, she didn’t seem like a sloppy magic user either. His bad luck.
“That won’t work.” Dayna stood on the porch with a bag in each hand, a blue backpack and a cream overnight bag. At least she wasn’t waving the rifle around. He didn’t like being shot at. Although, she wasn’t that accurate, and a bullet might bring down the circle. When compared to the certain death of the bushfire his odds of surviving Dayna with a rifle were much better.
“What will? I’m getting sunburned and I’m thirsty and I’m bleeding. I’m willing to do anything.” Well, almost.
She came down the stairs, her hips swinging in what were once white pants now smudged with dirt and blood. Her walk mesmerized his already easily distracted brain.
Blink. Focus. Get out and run like Hell is opening.
“If people were dying, why not send the police to question my sister?”
“Magical crimes always go through Fendrake. They also do the cover-up. Humans don’t want to know who they share the world with.” He paused and tilted his head. “But you don’t know about Fendrake either.” All non-humans were taught about Fendrake. If they ever had problems with humans, they went to Fendrake. Fendrake protected the humans and the non-humans from each other.
“Fendrake investigates magical crimes?”
Lachlan nodded. “Amongst other things. It’s like the Shamanic Council, only bigger—”
“My sister’s fear of the Council was enough to force her outdoors to do magic.”
“I don’t think she feared the Council.” He doubted Clarissa Brightwater feared anything. The amount of juice she’d stolen over the past couple of weeks should’ve made her invincible. He shuddered. Yet the spell she’d been doing had killed her. What the hell kind of power had she been playing with? If he didn’t get free soon, he was going to have the misfortune of finding out.
“The Council killed our mother, and Clary was afraid they were coming after us. And she was right. She was trying to protect us.” Dayna’s voice was tight, as if she were close to breaking.
He wanted to feel sorry for her, but she had him trapped and there was a bushfire coming their way. He didn’t have time to offer condolences and a tissue.
“The Council expelled your mother for breaking the strict rules about magic use.” He closed his eyes for a moment and tried to recall the exact nature of the case, but couldn’t. Being expelled from the Council would have been devastating for a female shaman. No full-blood shaman male would’ve had anything to do with her. Sherrie Brightwater should never have had a full-blood baby.
He opened his eyes. Dayna’s face was pale and tight. She didn’t know about Fendrake, the Shamanic Council or even the shamans’ third eye. She didn’t know her own family history. Her mother had kept her in the dark; out of love and protection or something more sinister? He glanced at Clarissa’s body but got no answers.
Identical twins should be identical, and Clarissa and Dayna weren’t. He was sure of that. Clarissa was more shaman and Dayna more human, but thinking about it made his head hurt more.
“The spell your mother was working killed her. It backfired somehow.”
Uncertainty clouded her blue eyes. He could win her over. Make her believe he was on her side. Well, he kind of was—she wasn’t the killer. She lacked the magic to pull off the sex-line murders. The Council, on the other hand, had had enough of the Brightwaters and their murderous magic. However, Lachlan wasn’t convinced Dayna should die just because she had the misfortune of being born to Sherrie Brightwater.
“Clarissa was repeating your mother’s spell,” Lachlan said. He should’ve noticed sooner, but being shot had distracted him, and now it was going to cost him his life if he didn’t get free fast.
Dayna’s gaze drifted to her sister. Her lips parted as if to argue, so he softened his voice.
“It’s the same as your mother’s death, isn’t it?” Had it been her daughters who’d found their mother and rung in the body after fleeing?
For a few seconds Dayna didn’t speak. “How do you know that?”
“I’ve seen the case file.”
“Why couldn’t you just let us be?”
“Because it’s my job.” He fought to keep desperation from coloring his words and wasn’t entirely successful. The magic was heavy in the air. Could she not sense it?
She sucked in a breath and seemed to harden, as if she were putting on invisible armor. He was losing her. “Your job killed my sister. If the Council hadn’t always been after us, Clarissa wouldn’t have been trying to work powerful magic.”
Her loyalty to her family was unshakable. He hated himself for trying to ruin that so he could save his own hide. Dayna didn’t deserve to have her family ripped away—no one did—but he didn’t have a choice. He needed Dayna on his side, not her sister’s.
“Your sister screwed up whatever magic she was doing.”
“The Council drove her to it.”
“The Council didn’t force her to drain the life out of people. They didn’t force her to cast a circle.”
They glared at each other. Her eyes were bright, as if she was about to cry again. She worked her lower lip between her teeth like she was holding in a secret.
“No, they didn’t.” The admission came with a sigh. She placed one of the bags on the ground outside the circle. “Clarissa had Mum’s diaries in her room.”
He would’ve frowned but his head was already thumping in time with his heartbeat, making the world bounce. It was like an incredibly bad hangover without the preceding good night out. “Why are the diaries important?”
“She used to record all of her workings in them.” Dayna paused as if debating how much to tell him. “Clarissa told me they’d been destroyed in the fire. She lied to me…about lots of things.”
“Ah.” At Dayna’s lethal glare he shut up and le
t her talk. That she was talking to him was progress. Maybe they’d be able to talk over a drink or three if he got out of this alive. He liked the way she hadn’t run away screaming from the lion.
“I stopped learning magic when I was twelve. I wasn’t very good at it. I could make a circle, make plants grow and that was about it. But Mum and Clarissa would spend hours together. After her death, we agreed no more magic, and then Clarissa began refusing to go outside. I knew she’d started using again a while ago. Just small things like cut flowers lasting for weeks.” She gave a small shrug. “It didn’t seem like much.”
“When did she start working on the lines?”
“She always did. It was a job she could do without leaving the house. At first I used to listen in and we’d do it together. People will believe anything. Gradually she withdrew. She hardly came out of her bedroom.”
“Shamans use sex to raise power fast.”
“She wasn’t having sex. She never left the house.”
“The men on the other end of the line were.”
Dayna nodded. Her lips moved without sound as if finding the words was hard. “She wrote that she killed those men. The proof you want is in here.” She kicked the dark blue backpack. “I hope the Council is satisfied.”
Lachlan glanced at the bag he couldn’t reach, then back at Dayna. She was handing over the evidence that proved her sister was a killer. In her other hand was the overnight bag. She was going to flee. “Where are you going?”
“I’m going to disappear.” She glanced at her sister’s body, clearly torn about leaving. “Please don’t look for me.”
“If you leave me, I’ll bleed out and die. You will seal my fate. Can you live with that?”
Dayna didn’t answer, she just looked at him, her eyes empty like she’d wrung her emotions out and had nothing to spare on him.