Shadowed Blade (Colbana Files Book 6)

by J. C. Daniels

  Then his hand shot across the inches separating him from Nova, too fast for me to stop him. He yanked the psychic across those inches.

  Nova let him, and I tried to wrest Doyle’s hand away before Nova got it in his head to rip it away—literally.

  “Let him go, Doyle. Now.”

  “You watched it all play out. That sounds to me like you knew it was coming. Did you?”

  “Psychic, kid.” Nova touched Doyle’s wrist.

  Doyle made a pained grunt and I heard bones crack, watched his skin cave in.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw that Rana had risen. She was on her feet, eying us all a little too closely.

  Doyle snarled in his throat, but I was between them before he could do anything else. “No,” I said. “No.”

  “Kit...”

  “No.” Disgusted, I shoved his shoulder and sat down on the log next to him, glaring at Nova while I did so. “Sometimes I feel like I’m around a bunch of school kids. No, no, no...”

  There was a wet, sickening crack that I knew was bone, realigning itself as Doyle’s hand set. He made no noise, although his eyes tightened with the pain.

  “You knew,” he said, the accusation in his eyes clear.

  “That something was going to happen with Kit and her sword?” Nova nodded. “Yeah. I admit it. I did. Okay, lock me up and throw away the key.”

  “She was going to kill her!”

  “No,” I said, my voice rusty. I’d come to acknowledge that, myself, over the past hour. “No, she wasn’t.”

  Out of all of them, there had always been one person in my family who had tried to care for me, in the best way she knew how—and that was the woman still watching with dispassionate eyes. Perhaps she’d never outright stood up to my grandmother, but she’d always made sure I was fed, made sure I had clothes. She’d sent Rathi to get me out of the pit—yeah, that hadn’t gone over so well, but she couldn’t be blamed for the actions of some sick little son of a bitch.

  And she was the one who’d kept training me after the others had stopped trying.

  “Did you not see what I saw?”

  “She was pushing me.” The pulsing at the back of my head had finally stopped. It had been there in some way, shape or form ever since I’d woken up after the fiasco with Frankie. “When you were fighting the vamp, your adrenaline was up, you were fighting for your life. That’s what does it. Apparently…” I hesitated, because I still hadn’t explained what had happened in Tallahassee, wasn’t sure how to explain. “Apparently, I’ve done some healing up, but that initial bond can’t be made without adrenaline pushing through.”

  “Basically, you had to be scared shitless,” Nova said.

  I made a face at him. Asshole.

  He gave me a winning smile and I didn’t even realize I was smiling back until the woman sitting beyond us began to stare at me. She looked like she’d seen a ghost.

  “What?” I asked warily, the smile fading. I wasn’t even sure how to talk to her, this woman. This…stranger.

  “You.” Rana lowered herself back down to the stump she’d claimed as her own. “You look very like your mother.”

  Then she pulled the edge of that dappled cloak around her. Although I knew she was there, if I hadn’t seen exactly where she had been when she’d covered herself, I wouldn’t have been able to pick her out.

  Shaken, I looked around at the others.

  They were all looking at me.

  Waiting.

  I checked the time.

  One in the morning.

  “Let’s take a thirty-minute rest. No more. Then we move. We need to be done and gone before anybody knows we’re here.”

  Sliding down to rest my back against the log, I braced my elbows on my knees. Doyle moved to join me. “You sleep,” he said. “You need a little more than we do. I’ll stay up.”

  I didn’t bother arguing.

  Not that I’d likely sleep anyway.

  Not with her so close by.

  But to my surprise, I did.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Pilar stood in front of Rana, her solid body like the Rock of Gibraltar.

  Rana took her time looking Pilar over from her head to her feet. “Twenty-two years,” she pronounced.

  “Huh?”

  “You’re a wolf. You were bitten and changed twenty-two years ago. You’re strong, but not alpha and you never will be. You think bossiness—or surliness—makes up for that, and I assure you, it doesn’t. I could have you dead in under two minutes and helpless before you could shift. I’m going and you’re not stopping me.”

  Pilar barked out a laugh—but when nobody joined in, the laugh faded.

  Mike Grimm looked at me. “Ma’am?”

  One by one, they all looked at me. Rana was the last to do so, and the slight smile came and went on her face once more.

  “You do not know where they are holding them. I do. You do not know where to find the traps they have set. I do—and I’ve disabled quite a few. You do not know where their recording devices are. I do. You do—”

  “I get it.” Holding up a hand to stop the recital of just why she could be useful, I looked at Doyle. His jaw clenched tight. “You’d work with the devil for Damon.”

  He let out a hiss from between his teeth, then gave the cats a short nod.

  Grimm stepped up to Pilar and said something in a low voice. I caught bits and pieces of it, including the words orders and the Alpha.

  When Pilar gave both Rana and me a disgusted look, I decided there was another reason Mike Grimm had been sent along. He was the smarter of the two.

  It wasn’t long before I realized just how…useful my aunt could be.

  I’d never want her at my back, nor did she attempt to place herself there, but she pointed out the traps that started not far from where she’d chosen to draw her line in the sand.

  That had been by design, I had no doubt.

  The first problem was a camera.

  She stopped us with a lifted hand and pointed it out. “Recording device. I’ve left these alone. I do not know how to manipulate these without destroying them.”

  “Then why don’t we just destroy them?” That came from Roper.

  “We do that, people start getting suspicious.” Mo rolled her eyes at him.

  “I can handle electronics.” Nova smiled serenely and focused on the camera. It was so small, all I could see was the lens, small as my thumbnail. Embedded in the tree, it had likely been there for some time, because there was no human scent around it.

  Electricity gathered in the air around him, cutting off abruptly.

  “Are you done?”

  “Not…quite,” he murmured softly, lids drooping. “Dealing with the rest. They’ll assume some issues with the connections and look inside for the problem first. Technology, so nice when it works…there we go.”

  “You can do that. All from here?” Mike looked intrigued. “What do you do, like hack into their system?”

  “No. I’ve got a brain in my head, not a computer. But I can manipulate anything with electricity.” He tapped his brow and then nodded. “We should go. This won’t last forever.”

  The cameras were easy.

  Some of the traps…weren’t.

  Two of them weren’t man-made, either.

  Witch-made—and if I hadn’t dealt with the likes of them before, I would have had serious doubts about forging onward. Even more doubts than I had with one of my kin leading the way.

  It was knee-jerk, that reaction, and I knew it because if she had really posed a threat, I’d feel it. But being there with her went against everything I knew.

  If it weren’t for the fact that I could feel that tugging inside of me, I would have turned back at the first magical ward.

  Two of the shifters were already trying to.

  “Bad shit up there,” Roper said, his mouth twisting. His sentiments were echoed by Mike, who kept rubbing at his nose.

  “Dead things. People. Like a cemetery—b
ut they didn’t bother embalming anybody. Ain’t nothing here but death,” he insisted.

  The others were quieter, but I felt their aversion all the same—and it echoed mine.

  “No-seeums,” Nova said softly, leaning down so he could say it directly into my ear.

  I jabbed at him with my elbow, vaguely aware that he had started to radiate cold the same way others radiated heat

  He gestured around us. “What you’re feeling. You know this magic. Justin’s used it in your place. This is just on a much…wider scale.”

  “He doesn’t call them no-seeums.”

  Nova gave me a sly grin. “But that’s what they are. They make people want to look away, go away, stay away. I’m sure he has some clever witch term to describe them, but I don’t know what it is. But that’s what you’re dealing with. Other than Colleen and Justin, there are no witches here. If you can find the power source...”

  “Are you nuts?” If he was right, then this was a charm-based ward. And…well, it did feel like that. Just a lot bigger and stronger than anything I’d ever felt. “Are you implying that we should find the source and destroy it? That would be like throwing a match inside someplace with a gas leak.”

  “Then it’s a good thing you’ve got me here.” His white eyes flicked my way. “Can you track it or not? You’re better at locating magic than I am.”

  “And here I thought you were all-powerful,” I muttered. I wasn’t going to do this. It was insane. I turned away and my gaze collided with Rana’s. She had been listening.

  “You’ve learned to track magic, then.”

  I bared my teeth at her.

  She took that as an invitation to approach. Behind me, I could feel the shifters drawing closer. As a rule, none of us traveled close together, in case we missed one of the traps, but they seemed more concerned about her than anything human-made.

  If I hadn’t been so thrown off by her presence, I might have appreciated that.

  “I don’t think I’ve mentioned it, but you made wise allies, Kitasa. Very wise,” Rana said, looking amused.

  “Kit.” I gritted the name I’d taken for myself out through clenched teeth. “I don’t answer to Kitasa, anymore.”

  “You should.” Rana’s eyes looked almost…gentle. “It was the name your mother gave you. She did nothing but love you. It wasn’t her fault that she died, wasn’t her fault that you were…not cared for.”

  I wanted to hurt her then. So bad. My hand clenched into a fist so tight, my knuckles cracked. She heard, too, glancing down. The emotion in her eyes cleared, fading away into nothingness. “The magic—if you are any good at tracking, then that would be the best option. These wards are very powerful, but they cover a large area. Have you a map?”

  “I don’t like the idea.”

  “Because I do or because it’s not wise?” The expression in her eyes challenged me. Not by being outright defiant, but simply…questioning.

  Stalking away, I moved until I had a good ten feet of space and sucked in a deep breath. It wasn’t enough, but I couldn’t run far enough away right now. I didn’t even know if Orlando would give me the distance I needed. I turned back and saw Doyle had moved, subtly placing himself between me and everybody else.

  Damn, I loved that kid. The youngest of all of them, and he was the one offering himself as a shield.

  A shield who could probably break one or two of them, but still.

  Looking at Nova, I asked calmly, “Can you contain it? Whatever we find, are you sure you can contain it?”

  “When have you ever known me to be not sure?”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Rana found it.

  She’d taken Nova with her—I didn’t trust any of the shapeshifters not to try and kill her and for now, I was going to assume she had reasons for either not trying to kill me—or worse…take me back.

  I wasn’t going to go so far as to say I trusted her, but I didn’t want her dead.

  If she died, Fanis would know and she’d send somebody else.

  I’d much rather have the devil I knew.

  When the charm-ward died, I felt it, like somebody had reached inside me and ripped my guts out. I sagged and went to my knees only to be hauled up by Doyle while the rest gathered around me. His mouth was tight around the edges, but other than that, there was no sign he’d felt anything.

  The other shifters looked vaguely puzzled, but that was it.

  Magic didn’t hit them quite the same way. Considering how they kept eying me, none of them had exactly expected my reaction. Yeah, well, I hadn’t been expecting something to drop down on me like a lead weight, either.

  And that had been contained?

  Nudging Doyle aside, I nodded. “I’m good.”

  The tight lines remained around his eyes, though. We’d need to have a talk at some point. I needed to figure out just how sensitive to magic he was, and we’d have to figure out just what we could do to help him—although I’d suck at it. I couldn’t do much to help me.

  Nova and Rana rejoined us not long after. I’d recovered but if she had been affected by whatever Nova had contained when he destroyed the charm-ward, I couldn’t tell.

  She looked from me to Doyle and then gestured north.

  “We’re not far. You’ll see the final barrier.” That weird amusement glinted her eyes as we started forward. The path began to climb, a slow, easy climb at first that quickly became steeper. A light sweat broke out across my forehead, but the walk wasn’t particularly challenging. This couldn’t be the final barrier. The terrain was rugged enough to pose a threat to a human who didn’t experience much physical exertion, but even one who occasionally went for a run wouldn’t have too much trouble here.

  I was about to question Rana when we reached an abrupt crest—so abrupt, if we’d been moving at full speed, it would have been easy to fall off balance.

  They had picked the perfect spot for this, almost too perfect.

  The dense coverage provided by coniferous trees made it harder to pick out the tiny, pin-point streams of light. Harder, but not impossible. Particularly when one had eyes that could easily penetrate the darkness.

  “What in the hell…?” I breathed out.

  “This has made it somewhat problematic to stay close.” Rana delivered the words in a flat voice, one hand moving to the short sword that was her preferred weapon. She stroked it idly, staring at the series of small, squat buildings that lay tucked inside the cage of lights.

  “Motion detectors. They’ll pick up anything starting about twenty yards out from where we are, if I had to make a guess,” Roper said, looking disgusted. “I’d imagine it’s got a size range, so they don’t have every forest critter activating it, but that there is a right mess.”

  Pilar eased forward, head cocked. “Noise coming from…there.” She gestured to the east. “Faint hum, but some pretty solid power centralized there. Power source?”

  Roper nodded, rubbing at his jaw. “I’d reckon. You know tech?”

  “A bit. Did security before the bite.” She hitched up a shoulder. “Not so much use for it now, but the Alpha calls me for consults from time to time. The technology has changed, but I keep current. You?”

  “About the same. I did a tour or two before the war—then it was discovered that I was…well. Take a guess. I specialized in this sort of thing.” The two of them skimmed the area, talking in low voices while I studied the perimeter.

  “There’s something up there,” Rana said during a lull of their conversation, gesturing up toward something all but buried in a small burl in one of the massive trees. It took me some time to make it out, but Roper saw it immediately.

  “That’d be it.” He nodded pensively. “If we can destroy that and take out the power source at the same time?” He shot Pilar a look.

  “Have to. That unit will have a back-up system so if you take out the power source but not that, it will send an alert to the main security system. Take out that? Same thing.”

  “You’re fo
rgetting something,” Nova said. “You have ten people inside those buildings.”

  Everybody swung their head toward him.

  “What? I can count.” His brows shot up. He singled out the buildings, calling off the numbers. “And then the witches, in the most central building. If you take out their security system and not them? They’ll be looking for back-up in a flash. Have to take all of them out.”

  “We’re not worried about human back-up,” Pilar said dismissively.

  “You should be.” Nova’s eyes gleamed in the darkness. “These humans managed to incapacitate a warrior witch. Who here has experience in dealing with one of them?”

  Roper spat on the ground. “I fought with a few in the war. I’ll take one I trust at my back any time. Would rather not have one I don’t trust around me—ever.” Then he slanted his eyes over to Pilar. “Listen to the kid, wolf. If they’ve worked up tricks to take down that Greaves witch, then they are some pieces of work. You don’t want to go in there thinking you can just snarl and they’ll fall over in fear.”

  Pilar looked skeptical but before she could offer another argument, I asked, “So what do you suggest, Nova?”

  “Me.” He cracked his knuckles and rotated his head. “I’ll deal with the humans, but I’m not going to be much good after that and they’ve got dogs on the loose. Four of them, mean pieces of shit.”

  “Just how are you coming up with all this?” Mike asked, his nostrils flared wide. “I got the dogs and I got the scents of people, but they’ve had more than thirty people circulating in and out, all of them regular. How do you know ten people are in there now? Ten and not more or less?”

  “Haven’t none of you figured that out?” Nova almost looked affronted, which was befuddling, as I knew he’d probably excise the parts that made him so powerful—if he could do it without killing himself.

  Before he could make a display of it, I cut him off. “He’s psychic, Mike. He can probably tell us what those people ate for breakfast and if he wanted to, he could crush their bodies from a hundred yards out. If he says he can handle the humans, then he can handle the humans.”