She had not expected to like humans. Miranda had never known any, since Joelle had home schooled her, probably because Warlock had wanted to make sure she never complained to school authorities. That kind of attention would have been damned inconvenient.
Or maybe he was just a controlling bastard who wanted to make sure her every move was carefully supervised.
Miranda found the people she worked with almost restful by comparison, far less inclined to anger and casual violence than Dire Wolves. And in the event anyone did get violent, she knew she could defend herself, since her werewolf nature made her strong even in human form.
It was nice not being afraid.
And it was interesting, watching the way humans interacted, watching them eat and talk and tell jokes. Learning how to pass for human was the whole point of getting this job.
She had also created a whole new identity for herself, complete with school records, driver’s license, and a birth certificate in her new name. It hadn’t even been difficult. All she’d had to do was to go to the appropriate schools, the DMV, and the health department, then cast a spell or two on the right people.
Magic made officials very helpful.
So now she was Randi Crestfield, 28—she’d made herself a couple of years older than her actual age to make it more difficult for any of Warlock’s hackers to find her with a casual search. A trip to the beauty shop had turned her red curls into a sassy brunette bob, and colored contacts had given her the eyes to match.
Of course, there was the possibility some Dire Wolf would catch her casting spells, realize who she was, and report her to Warlock. If that happened, she’d have to run like hell and start all over again. So Miranda had done everything she could to minimize the threat of discovery by picking a town that had no Dire Wolf population, at least according to the Southern Clans database she’d hacked into.
Morgan, South Carolina did have a decent community college, though, and she’d already enrolled there for the fall semester in the Radiologic Technology program. She should be a certified X-ray tech in a couple of years.
The medical field was ideal for her purposes. Werewolves avoided hospitals, since they could heal their own injuries and didn’t get sick. On the other hand, certain medical tests could draw attention to their magical differences. Miranda, however, could avoid that problem with a few judicious spells.
So she had a future now, one which didn’t include rape or violence. She had an apartment and a used Honda Civic, having sold her father’s Lexus and its magically doctored car title. She’d become an ordinary human woman working her way through college.
Life was good—as long as Warlock didn’t find her.
But if he did find her ...
Well. She just wouldn’t think about that.
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Angela Knight’s next Mageverse novel
MASTER OF SHADOWS
Coming soon from Berkley Sensation!
“What do you do when they order you to kill?”
The conversation instantly died as every witch and vampire in the room turned to stare at Davon Fredericks. Davon did not flinch under the weight of those incredulous stares. He’d been a trauma surgeon before becoming a vampire, and he’d never lacked balls. He just gazed at Belle, his chocolate eyes level and troubled.
Belle looked up at him from the plates of hors d’oeuvres on the coffee table, a stuffed mushroom halfway to her mouth. She’d cooked all day, and her efforts had turned out rather well. “Why do you ask?”
A muscle flexed in his dark, chiseled jaw, and he looked up at the “Congratulations, Davon and Cherise!” banner hanging across the back of the den.
Belle had designed the room especially for the dinner parties she loved to throw, with two big, white leather sectionals arranged around a low, circular coffee table. Davon’s brooding gaze dropped to the table, flicking among the trays and bottles that crowded it. He chose a beer and opened it with a violent twist of one strong hand. “I was just wondering.”
Now all twenty of her guests looked uneasy. Ten vampires and ten witches, all of them wet behind the ears. Though, like Davon, they were in their early thirties or late twenties, none of them had been Magekind for longer than a few months. Well, except for Cherise.
And Belle herself, who had been around one hell of a lot longer than that. She sighed and decided she’d better scotch this concern before they all started obsessing about it. “First off, none of you kids is going to be ordered to kill anybody.” She dropped the mushroom on her paper plate and used a toothpick to stab a couple of cheese cubes from a tray. “If someone needs killing, Arthur will send one of the Knights of the Round Table.”
Like Tristan, who had been avoiding her for the past month. She curled a lip and stabbed a cheddar cube through its cold, imaginary heart.
“But . . .” Cherise began, only to fall silent with a glance at Davon, who sat beside her on the sectional. Each promptly looked away from the other, as if they’d synchronized their chins.
Frowning, Belle eyed them. The two had just returned from their first mission a few days before, which was the whole point of this get-together. Belle always threw her boys parties to celebrate that first-mission milestone. You’re a real Magus now, kid.
There was more to being a Magekind vampire—a Magus—than having a set of fangs. You had to save the world, too.
Whether the world liked it or not.
But Cherise was no green recruit; she’d been a Maja for several years now. A steady, intelligent young witch, she had just enough power to handle most jobs without getting dangerously cocky about it. Belle had been pleased Davon had been assigned to her.
So why were they acting so twitchy now, when Belle knew for a fact neither was the twitchy sort?
Eyeing them, she popped the mushroom in her mouth and chewed, absently enjoying the earthy, spicy taste. Definitely one of her better efforts. Being French, Belle loved to cook almost as much as she loved to eat. She swallowed. “Look, Arthur doesn’t make the decision to kill humans lightly. You’ve got to be a career asshole along the lines of Osama bin Laden to make him decide to take you out.”
Richard Spotted Horse looked up from pouring himself a glass from one of the bottles of donated blood each of the witches had brought. “But why not just cast a spell on Osama to make him give up the terrorist business?”
“Wouldn’t work.” Belle nibbled a meatball as she watched Davon, who was now pointedly avoiding her gaze. She’d have to pull him aside after the party and make him spill whatever was bothering him. Nobody had appointed her den mother to the men she’d recruited; she just couldn’t help herself. “Once a murderous attitude becomes deeply engrained, you can’t wipe it out of a subject’s mind no matter how much magic you use.”
“So why is he still alive?” Davon picked up a chocolate covered strawberry, then dropped it back on the tray as if he’d remembered he didn’t eat anymore.
Belle laughed. “Oh, chéri, the fights the council had over that subject. We finally decided killing him would just make him a martyr, which is the last thing we need right now. There are enough psychos in that movement that the loss of one wouldn’t even put a dent in it. I . . .”
A rumbling male voice interrupted. “I need you, Belle. Now. Let’s go.” Tristan loomed in the room’s doorway, tall and muscular, his handsome face impatient. He was dressed all in black—black jeans, black polo shirt, black boots—and the dramatic contrast with his shoulder-length blond hair was striking.
Belle gave him a smile sweet enough to rot the fangs right out of his head. The kids, of course, were staring at him in hero-worshipping awe. “Come on in, Tristan.” Since you already let yourself in my house without knocking . “We’re celebrating Davon’s first mission.”
“Congrats, kid.” Tristan didn’t even glance over at him. “Look, Belle, I’ve got a pissed-off werewolf waiting for me. It’s kind of urgent.”
She bared her teeth. They weren’t fangs
, but they apparently got the message across; he flinched. “I’ll be happy to open a gate for you to go meet your fuzzy friend, but I’m a little too busy to accompany you just now. I’ll join you once the party’s over.” Damned if he was going to stroll into her house and start ordering her around. Not when he’d been treating her like a Black Plague victim for weeks.
“Belle, if you need to go on a job, we can clean up,” Cherise said earnestly.
“I think we can all be trusted not to get drunk and trash the place.” Richard gave her a lazy grin.
Tristan glowered at him, before turning the glare on her. “Look, I realize I’m interrupting fun and games with your ... boys, but the Direkind needs us to investigate the murder of a seventeen-year-old kid. And they’re convinced magic was involved.”
Belle stared, making the instant leap. “Warlock.”
“That’s my thought.”
Warlock and his daughter were the only Direkind werewolves who could work spells, and he was both immortal and incredibly powerful. He was also murderous and crazy as hell. Belle and Tristan had locked horns with him the month before, and had damn near died in the process. If he’d surfaced again . . .
Rising from the sectional, Belle looked around at the Majae she’d done all the cooking for. Unlike the vampires, they did eat. “There’s more hors d’oeuvres in the kitchen, girls. Please finish them off. Stay as long as you want, everyone.”
As Tristan stepped aside, she stalked past him through a chorus of good-byes. “All right, where am I opening this gate?” she said when he’d closed the door behind her. “And what the hell’s going on?” And why have you been avoiding me?
Tristan shook his head. “Actually, I don’t know many of the details myself. William Justice is my contact. He’s the Wolf Sheriff—the top werewolf cop appointed by the Direkind Council of Clans. He’s a good guy, not a nutjob like their aristocrats. I met him when he fought for us during the Dragon Wars.” When they’d been ass-deep in alien demons and calling in every ally they could find, whether Sidhe, werewolf, or dragon. “He’s been contacting me for help on cases ever since, usually when he needs me to bring in magical firepower.” Like vampires, werewolves couldn’t use magic beyond the limits of their own bodies; for spell work, they needed witch help.
“So where is this scene?”
“South Carolina. Some Podunk little town.” There were a lot of werewolves in South Carolina, Merlin only knew why. He reached into a pocket to pull out an iPhone. “Hey, Justice? I found my witch. Tell her what she needs to know, would you?” He extended the cell, and she accepted it. The touch of his hand sent a flush of frustrated heat zinging up her arm.
Belle dragged her attention away from his stern, handsome face as she put the phone to her ear. Some Maja had enchanted it to carry inter-dimensional transmissions between Mortal Earth and the magical city of Avalon. She could sense the buzz of an active spell as she handled it. “Hello, Justice?” Good name for a cop.
“Look, you people need to get over here now,” growled a deep voice with a distinct Southern drawl. “The kid’s parents have called every wolf in the fucking county. The mood’s getting ugly. I need to get you and the knight in and out before I have a riot on my hands.”
“I’m sorry for the delay,” Belle told him. “We’re on our way.”
“Do you want to gate directly to the scene?”
“Not if you want me to sense any magic cast by the killer,” she told him. “A dimensional gate produces a pretty strong blast of magical energies that would destroy older traces. We’re going to have to come in some distance from the scene if we don’t want to contaminate it.”
“You do realize that means you’re going to have to walk through a pack of pissed-off family members?”
She shrugged. “Can’t be helped.”
“All right. Give me a minute to get far enough out.” A minute or so went by as she listened to the rustle of clothes and the murmur of angry voices, then the click of boots on cement. “Okay.”
Closing her eyes, Belle concentrated, using the phone’s magical connection to home in on Justice’s location. A flick of her fingers conjured a glowing point in the center of the hallway. A heartbeat later, it had expanded into a shimmering oval: an inter-dimensional gate.
Avalon, the Magekind’s capital city, was located in another universe entirely, on a world that was a twin to Mortal Earth. Magic was a physical law in the Mageverse; both the Magekind and their werewolf cousins, the Direkind, drew on its energies to power their magic. Travel between the two Earths could only be accomplished with a magical gate, which meant Tristan needed Belle’s help. Otherwise he’d probably still be avoiding her, the bastard.
Tristan ducked through the gate before it was even finished expanding. Belle followed, trying not to admire his ass as she went. Like the rest of him, it was a very nice ass.
Too bad she needed to stay the hell away from him and his very nice ass.
They emerged in a neighborhood straight out of a ’50s sitcom—middle-class tract homes, all very similar, nestled in small yards surrounded by azaleas and oak trees. Crickets chirped serenely, and a black cat slinked past them in the dim light cast by a quarter moon.
William Justice must be the guy pacing the sidewalk, a big, muscular man dressed in a Windbreaker he didn’t need in the hot summer night. Probably wearing a gun under it.
Justice carried himself with the self-confident wariness that told Belle he was either currently in human law enforcement or had left the field very recently. “Clock’s ticking here,” he told them after a quick round of introductions. “I need you to check the scene so we can get the boy to the funeral home before some human cop shows up and starts asking questions. Or before there’s a riot. Could go either way.”
“Tell us about this kid.” Tristan frowned down at the sidewalk as though his vampire senses had detected something that worried him. Belle, being merely a Maja, heard nothing.
Justice rotated his shoulders, apparently resettling the straps of a shoulder holster. He was definitely packing. “Vic is seventeen years old. Name’s Jimmy Sheridan. Just got through his transition successfully, so his mom and dad thought they were in the clear.”
“In the clear?” Belle asked. “Of what?”
“A fifth of our kids don’t survive their first transformation,” he explained. “The magic runs rogue and burns them alive. Just incinerates them right to ash.”
She stared at him in horror, having never heard that particular detail about the Direkind. “My God.”
He shook his dark head. “Why do you think we call it ‘Merlin’s Curse’? It’s hell on our families. Which is why we’re a little nuts when it comes to our kids.”
“Everybody’s nuts when it comes to their kids.” She cast a quick spell, opening a telepathic link to Tristan. “This is going to get really, really ugly.”
“Yeah, I picked up on that.”
“You are quick.” Belle curled her lip at him before turning to Justice. “Please, go on. What happened next?”
“The Sheridans took their oldest son out to dinner. They left Jimmy at home because he had a term paper he’d been putting off writing. Paper was due tomorrow, so he was cutting it pretty close. Apparently, they had a little fight about that.”
“And the parents are now suffering the agonies of the damned,” Belle muttered. She’d been a parent once, a couple of hundred years ago. Never again. She had to deal with enough loss and grief as it was. Watching her mortal daughter die of old age had almost been more than she could take.
“That’s certainly part of the rage factor,” Justice told her. “The family headed to Outback at 5:40 P.M. When they got home at 8:20, they found the den sprayed with blood splatter. Boy’s body was sitting in an arm chair with his Xbox controller in his lap. They found his head under the coffee table. Looked like he didn’t even hear his killer walk up behind him. Sure as shit didn’t put up a fight. He was just executed.”
“Oh, shit.” Tr
istan scrubbed a hand over his face.
“You haven’t heard the worst of it yet. The weapon was obviously a sword, and the room stinks of magic.” Justice eyed them, his face utterly expressionless. “Magekind magic.”
They stared at him. Belle felt her jaw drop, and Tristan exploded in outrage. “Wait a minute—you’re suggesting one of us decapitated a seventeen-year-old boy while he was playing a video game?”
Justice didn’t drop his hard gaze. “The evidence is pretty damned clear, Tristan.”
“Fuck that,” the knight spat. “We don’t murder children, boy.”
“Any of us with that kind of mental defect is detected right after the first turn,” Belle said, laying a calming hand on Tristan’s tense shoulder. I should know—I detect them. “We have to kill them on the spot. It could not have been one of us.”
“You’re assuming the killer is crazy,” Justice said. “The family thinks this could be revenge for the attempted murder of Arthur’s son a few months ago.”
“You think Arthur Pendragon butchered that lad?” Tristan’s voice dropped to a furious hiss Belle found more unnerving than a shout.
“That makes no sense,” she interjected hastily. Tristan’s temper could be explosive. “Logan already killed the werewolves who tried to assassinate him. And in the process, he prevented the deaths of three hundred humans.” Logan’s fellow cops, gathered at a funeral home to mourn the death of an officer murdered by the werewolves’ hired assassin. “Those wolves strapped suicide vests on the Sheriff’s grandchildren. Everyone would have died if Logan hadn’t disarmed the bombs.” Which he then used to blow up the werewolves. Pissing off a Pendragon is never a good idea, she thought with a grim private smile.
“I’m aware of that,” Justice said. “That’s why I want you to check out the scene. I don’t believe Arthur would kill a child either, but the family is pretty worked up.”
Master of Smoke Page 29