Master of Smoke

by Angela Knight

  “It’s Saturday—he’s running his Magic tournament.”

  “Oh yeah, that’s right.” Magic the Gathering was a collectable card game; Dad had been holding weekly tournaments at the Comix Cave for years. He also sold the wide variety of Magic card decks, so it was good for business all around. “So you decided to stop by and kill some time.”

  “It’s not killing time, it’s spending quality time with my baby girl.” But Charlotte’s attention was focused on David, her brows raised. “I didn’t know you had a cat. I didn’t even think you liked cats anymore.”

  “This one kind of followed me home.” The door safely shut, she put David down. He gave her a dirty look, the tip of his tail flicking in offended rage. She winced.

  Her mother crouched, extending a hand to him. To Eva’s surprise, he sniffed delicately at her fingers, and permitted himself to be picked up. “You’re a beauty, you are. What unusual coloring! I’ve never seen a cat with markings like this. Usually, if a cat is striped, it’s over his entire body.”

  “He’s not your typical cat.” Boy, that was an understatement.

  Charlotte walked over to the couch and settled down on it, then proceeded to give David’s ears a good scratch. Judging by the way his eyes shuttered in pleasure, he liked it. “What’s his name?”

  “Uh. ...” Fang would not do. He’d probably shred her curtains in revenge. Or her ankles, in his current rotten mood. “T’Challa.” Which was the secret identity of an obscure Marvel superhero named Black Panther.

  Charlotte shot her a look. “I should have known. You’re such a geek, darling.”

  “Hey, you knew who it was. What does that make you?”

  “I’ve been married to your father for three decades. Of course I’m a geek.”

  Eva laughed as she headed for the kitchen and the bottle of white Zin stashed in the refrigerator. After spending the day trying to convince David not to commit suicide by werewolf, she was in desperate need of alcohol. “Would you like a glass of wine, Mom?”

  “That would be wonderful. I’ve been grading papers all day, and I’ve got a horrible headache.” She taught English at Steve Ditko High, a thankless job if ever there was one. “My students think if you can text it to somebody, it’s perfectly acceptable use in a term paper. If I see ‘you’ spelled as the letter ‘u’ one more time, I’m going to start foaming at the mouth.”

  Still stroking David absently, Charlotte rose and followed her daughter into the kitchen. Eva got a pair of glasses from the cabinet and put them on the counter, then went to work on the wine bottle and its cork. It yielded easily; there were some advantages to being a werewolf.

  “Eva, is something wrong?” Her mother’s gaze was a bit too acute.

  More than I’ve got time to list. She concentrated on pouring the wine. “No, why do you ask?”

  Intelligent brown eyes studied her with obvious concern. “Maybe because I’ve known you all your life, and I can tell when you’re hurting.”

  Eva handed her mother one of the glasses and summoned her best everything’s-cool smile. She’d gotten good at it after five years as a lying werewolf. “Everything’s fine, Ma. I just had an argument with David, that’s all.” Which at least was the truth.

  “Where is he, anyway?” Charlotte sipped her wine, still cuddling David’s small furry body in the other arm.

  Eva managed a shrug. “Like I said, we had a fight. He stalked out in a huff.” Or at least, he would if I let him.

  “Your father said he’s very handsome,” Charlotte said, scratching him under his furry jaw. “Not to mention partially naked, at least when Bill met him. He works in movies?”

  “No—” Eva remembered she’d said he was a stuntman. Keeping her lies straight was becoming a problem. She really needed to make them less complicated. She took another sip of her wine to give herself time to think. “Oh. Yeah. He specializes in sword work. He was in Kor the King.” So much for simplifying the lies.

  Shut up now, Eva.

  Charlotte took another contemplative sip as she cuddled David/T’Challa. “Do you really think it’s a good idea to look for a boyfriend on one of those Internet dating sites?”

  “Well, all I’m meeting at the Comix Cave are geeks.”

  “I know, darling, but you are a geek, so that shouldn’t be a problem. Besides, I married a geek, and that turned out rather well.”

  “Ah. Yes. Good point.” Without thinking, Eva picked up her own glass and drained it in one long swallow.

  Charlotte put down her glass and dropped David, who landed like a—well, cat—then promptly streaked across the living room and under the couch.

  Eva, watching him in worry, was startled when Charlotte cupped her face in both cool, slender hands. “Something is wrong.”

  Pulling away, Eva picked up the wine bottle to pour herself another glass. “Everything’s fine, Mom.”

  “Which must be why you’re guzzling the Zin.” Charlotte brushed a lock of Eva’s hair back and studied her, dark eyes narrow. “Baby, this is your mother you’re talking to. I can always tell when you lie. And you’re lying now.”

  Eva pulled out of Charlotte’s light hold to give herself time to think. She had to come up with something her mother would believe. Preferably because it was true. “Like I said, I’m just a little upset about David.”

  “Are you afraid of him?” Charlotte’s eyes flashed with sudden anger. “Has he hurt you?”

  Eva blinked, startled. “David? God, no.”

  Charlotte nodded slowly. “Okay, that was honest. But you are afraid of something. Really afraid.” Brown eyes narrowed. “Is it that asshole neighbor of yours?”

  “Ronnie? No, David took care of him.”

  “Then what is it? I know there’s something. There’s been something for at least five years now.”

  Which was when the werewolf attacked her. Eva froze, the glass halfway to her lips. Mom’s getting entirely too close to the truth. I need to distract her.

  “We did notice, you know,” Charlotte continued, eyeing her. “One day you were fine, the next you started hiding from everybody, including us. You lost weight, and there was a look in your eyes no mother ever wants to see on her child’s face. You scared the hell out of us. And just like now, you insisted nothing was wrong when we knew damned well something was. What are you hiding?”

  Shit. “Nothing, Mom.”

  “Don’t give me that.” Charlotte’s honey brows lowered. “Who are you afraid of?”

  Should she come clean? Tell Charlotte she was a werewolf and transform to prove it? Tell her about David, the hunk currently hiding under the couch? “Mom ...”

  Before she could say anything more, the tinny notes of the sixties Batman theme started playing from the depths of Charlotte’s purse. “Dammit, Bill, your timing stinks.” Grumbling, her mother picked up the handbag and started digging through it in search of her cell phone.

  A reprieve. Thank God. Eva sagged against the counter, her mind working frantically. She really hadn’t wanted her parents to know what she’d become. It would only scare them, especially considering this Warlock character had drawn a bead on David—and Eva along with him.

  “Talking to Eva,” her mother said into the cell. “Bill, it’s really not a good ... Can’t you—? All right, dammit, I’ll go pick the damn things up. But next time, pack them in the car the night before, would you?”

  Grumbling under her breath, Charlotte folded the flip phone and stuffed it back in her purse, then looped the bag over her shoulder and headed for the door. “Your father left the prizes for the Magic tourney at the house, so he wants me to go pick them up. I swear to God, that man would forget his head if it wasn’t bolted on his shoulders.” She opened the front door.

  Alarmed, Eva straightened. “Ma, don’t ...

  David streaked right past her ankles, out the door and into the night.

  When Miranda opened the front door, her stepfather stood on the other side—seven and a half feet of enraged
, fully transformed werewolf. He stepped inside in one long stride, slamming the door behind him. She backed away, heart in her throat.

  “You utter fool!” Baring the knife length of his fangs, Gerald backhanded her before she could get her arms up to block the blow. She slammed into the foyer wall with a crash that rattled the portrait of her grandfather, then fell flat on her ass. “You betrayed your people.” His voice rose to a roar. “You betrayed your god!”

  Miranda shook her ringing head as she fought to scramble to her feet, desperate to get away before he hit her again.

  “Gerald, wait!” Joelle darted in front of her husband, raising her hands in supplication. “Miranda has done nothing to betray anyone, much less Warlock!”

  He seemed to swell in his rage, towering over the fragile figure of his wife. “Don’t you dare lie to me, you stupid cunt! Calista Norman called—she told me all about what you did. How could you let Miranda anywhere near a Knight of the Round Table? You knew she’d talk!”

  Calista, you bitch, Miranda thought, steadying herself against the wall as the room rotated slowly around her. Stars flashed in her vision, and she strongly suspected he’d given her a concussion.

  “We had no idea the knight would be there,” Joelle said, talking fast, as if trying to get through to him before he killed them both. “The ladies were holding a Grieving for Joan Devon, and ...”

  “Joan Devon!” Gerald mocked in a high, singsong voice. “Why do you think Joan’s husband is dead, you idiot? She gave him up to the knights! Just like she”—he pointed a curving talon at Miranda—“gave up Warlock!”

  “No, no you’re wrong!” Joelle wrung her hands and darted a frantic glance at Miranda. “She told them nothing. Did you, darling?”

  “Not a damn thing.” Miranda forced herself to meet her stepfather’s furious yellow gaze without flinching. “The woman tried to give me a communication spell, but Mother knocked it out of my hand and told her to stay away from me. So we left.”

  Her father’s long muzzle twitched, drawing in her scent.

  Oh, shit, Miranda thought. I should have talked around it. He’s going to smell the ..

  “You lie!” He sprang at her, knocking Joelle aside with a sweep of one furry arm. Miranda skittered back, calling her magic as she retreated from his snapping jaws. Her transformation raced over her body in a wave of fur, muscle, and bone contorting like soft clay in the grip of her power.

  “You dare change?” As she met his frenzied gaze, she realized he’d lost control completely. And he intended to kill her. “You dare fight me? You dare?”

  Fear iced her veins, but she made herself sneer. She was tired of cowering from these bastards. “Oh, I dare. And if I get the chance to talk to Belle again, I’m going to tell her everything.”

  “Then I’ll have to see you don’t get the chance, you traitorous bitch!” He drew back a clawed hand as if to rip out her throat.

  Joelle threw herself between her daughter and the blow. “Ger—”

  His claws ripped into her face before she could get the rest of the word out of her mouth. She flew sideways, her body slamming into the base of the stairs with a crash. Something snapped.

  The sound seemed to echo in Miranda’s skull. “Mother!” Forgetting her father, she leaped to her mother’s side, landing beside her in a coiling crouch.

  Her mother’s head lay at an impossible angle, the life draining from her eyes.

  Oh, God. I finally got my mother killed, Miranda thought in dazed horror.

  FOURTEEN

  Numb with horror, Miranda started to snatch her mother into her arms, only to freeze, afraid to touch her and hurt her even more. “Call 911!” she yelled at her father.

  “It’s too late.” He sounded indifferent. “She broke her neck. She’s dead.” He bared his teeth, stalking toward her on clawed feet. Grabbing her by a fistful of mane, he hauled her up away from Joelle’s body, drawing back for another open-handed swipe of his claws. “And I’m not done with you.”

  He didn’t notice the short sword shimmering into her hand, but he did when she rammed it into his chest. Miranda’s lips peeled off her teeth. “Well, I’m done with you!”

  She jerked the blade out of his chest, and he fell onto his knees, gagging at the sudden pain. Miranda felt nothing at all when she swung the weapon up and took his head in one swing.

  He won’t be healing that, she thought, feeling a wave of ice roll across her mind.

  Tossing the sword aside, she knelt by her mother and let the tears fall in a hot tide of guilt and grief. In her pain, she was barely aware of changing back to human form.

  Miranda cried until her eyes were swollen, cried until there were no tears left. Until there was nothing left, in fact, but an aching emptiness and a small voice that asked, What’s the point?

  She was done.

  Warlock would find her even if she ran, and when he did, she would die. Either he would kill her himself, or he’d send so many assassins even her magic would not be enough to protect her. She might as well dig a hole and wait to be pushed into it.

  But even as she considered surrender, her mother’s empty eyes seemed to catch hers. Mama didn’t die so I could give up.

  Miranda stared at Joelle’s broken corpse. Determination begin to grow from an icy little seed buried somewhere in her numb heart.

  What if she could find a way to get to the Magekind and tell them everything they needed to know to destroy Warlock?

  Unfortunately, she had no idea how to reach La Belle Coeur. “Dammit, Mama, why couldn’t you let me keep that communication gem?”

  Well, she’d just have to find another way to reach the Magekind, preferably before Warlock found her.

  So the race was on.

  She’d need to run, which meant she’d have to have money and a car. Gerald could provide her with both—albeit posthumously.

  The thought tore a bitter, rasping laugh from her lips.

  The library safe was hidden behind a massive nineteenth-century painting of fox hunters riding to the hounds. Luckily, Gerald had never been a very creative man; it took Miranda about two minutes to deduce that the combination was his birthday.

  Well, it wasn’t as if it would have been her own.

  The safe’s thick door swung open to reveal piles of cash in thick, banded stacks. “Hell, Gerry, what were you doing—dealing cocaine?”

  She packed the money into one of her two suitcases, then filled the other with her clothes and loaded the lot into her stepfather’s dark gray Lexus. Then she unbolted the car’s license plate and carried it upstairs.

  Miranda had been strictly forbidden from studying magic. Which, naturally, hadn’t stopped her. She’d read every book she could get her hands on, trawled forbidden Internet sites, and experimented endlessly.

  It hadn’t taken her long to determine that damn near everything she read was utter horseshit. Yet sometimes the spells she attempted did work, largely because they helped focus her own innate magic on her goals.

  So it was that she flipped the license plate over, got out a bottle of black enamel paint and a fine brush, and began to paint a spell across the back of the plate.

  It wasn’t a particularly powerful spell—if it had been, any werewolf who saw the plate might notice it. All it would do was keep cops from taking an interest in Gerald’s car.

  Satisfied, Miranda reattached the plate to the Lexus and slipped back inside the house.

  Now she needed something to keep Warlock from sensing her if he decided to conduct a magical search. And sooner or later, he would.

  She found what she was looking for in her mother’s jewelry box: Joelle’s favorite cameo on its black velvet choker. The Victorian piece had come down from her great-greatgrandmother. Generations of werewolf females had worn it, which gave it a certain power all its own. Power that would provide Miranda with a matrix to support the spell she planned.

  The cameo in her hand, she crouched in her bedroom closet, flipped back a section of c
arpeting, and lifted up the floorboards she’d unscrewed years before. In the space beneath them, she found her spell book, chalk, several beeswax candles, a few bottles of dried herbs, and an athame—a ritual knife.

  The spell Miranda had in mind was both powerful and complex, and to cast it she needed more space than there was in her bedroom. So she carried everything down to the basement, to begin the painstaking process of drawing the necessary chalk designs on the cement floor.

  Hours passed while she drew and chanted, candlelight throwing dancing shadows on the basement’s contents—dusty old toys, boxes of clothing her mother had planned to take to Goodwill, even a Christmas tree that stood in one corner, wrapped in a shroud of green plastic. All the bits and pieces of Miranda’s old life.

  At last it was time for the spell’s finishing touch. Still chanting softly, Miranda used the athame to slice her left hand. Tilting her palm carefully, she let a few drops of blood drip onto the back of the cameo.

  The spell snapped to life. With a sigh of relief, Miranda tied the necklace around her throat.

  Now she could make her escape.

  By the time Miranda left the house half an hour later, her mother lay in the big bed upstairs, hands folded neatly on her chest, sightless eyes closed.

  She’d left Gerald’s corpse where it fell.

  Miranda clicked the key fob on Gerald Drake’s Lexus and tossed her suitcases in the trunk. Just before she got in, she looked back at the mansion that had housed generations of Drakes. She sketched a design in the air and murmured a spell. Sparks of blue magic trailed her fingers.

  And the house burst into flame.

  “That’s all the warning you’re going to get from me, Warlock.” She slid into the driver’s seat and started the car.

  Belle sat six inches above the floor, her golden hair whipping back from her face on a magical wind, her eyes glowing the same milky moonstone as the pewter cat she held in one hand. Her long legs were folded in a lotus position that made Tristan’s thighs hurt just looking at them. All while wearing a black lace teddy that made her breasts look like mounds of fresh cream.