Unleash (Spellhounds Book 1)

by Lauren Harris

  Eric unlocked the doors, and Amelia heaved herself into the back seat. "Holy Icicles, Batman!" she said, slamming the door shut and stomping her feet clean of snow.

  "Did you leave tracks?" Eric demanded. He handed a bag of room-temperature burgers into the back seat.

  "What do you think this is, amateur hour?" she demanded, snatching the bags. "Did I leave any tracks? How long have I been doing this shit? Longer than you. Shut up."

  She crammed half a cheeseburger into her mouth.

  "Amelia specializes in espionage," Eric explained. "She's what the Guild calls a cloaker."

  "Great," I said flatly, my eyes riveted on Amelia. "What did you see? Are they down there? Is Gwydian down there?"

  She nodded and chewed, stuffing the rest of the burger in her mouth before replying. "I got a pretty good look at Fuck-face number one. No one told me dude was, like, thirty. I thought he was a geezer like Eric."

  "I'm thirty nine."

  She swallowed her burger, fished out another, and unwrapped it. "Anyway, he's down there. I counted twelve sanguimancers with him, six at the site and six on sentry. There are four other non-magic bodyguard-types, including the Viking, and eight Hellhounds."

  My throat tightened. Eight. That would mean most of my pack, if not all of them.

  I refused to let their faces come to mind. Grief would come later.

  "And Jaesung?"

  She nodded. Eric flicked on the overhead light, using the time to double check his guns, and I got a good look at the girl in the back seat. She had bright green eyes and there was a border of lighter-colored hair at her hairline, suggesting she'd dyed it black. There was something familiar about her face, too, something about the arch of that pierced brow.

  "Are you Isaac's sister?" I asked.

  She stopped chewing, nodded, and started again. Something in the flash of her green eyes told me not to tell her I was sorry for her loss. My chest hurt for her, and I thought of how it had felt to lose Dad, and Mom, and Cai, and Eamon. I gave her a nod. She dug into the next burger.

  "You ready, Martin?" Eric asked, sliding his spare gun in its holster.

  I would never be ready. But I opened the door, stepped into the icy air, and folded into a transformation. Within a few seconds, I was shaking off my sweats and boots. Eric bundled them, slung a length of chain around them, and hooked it around my neck beside the cord bearing Jaesung's ring.

  I padded into the woods, nose to the earth, following Amelia's scent-trail back. Her cover-up job had been impressive—my paws cracked through what seemed to be unbroken snow, though the scent of coconut shampoo told me she'd been here. Smell was different as a dog. I didn't so much get an overall sense of a scent as a dissection of them—elements of pine and chemical and perfumed oil, animal musk and sap.

  I paced through close-growing trees for about a mile, sighting through the black trunks. None of the deciduous trees had leaves left, and visibility here was too good for my liking. It might mean I could spot the Sorcerers easily, but it also meant they could see me. Still, I had the advantage of being low to the ground and having a good path to follow.

  Amelia had chosen a route that took advantage of a dried up riverbed, and the uphill slope gave me decent cover until I reached the top.

  At which point I had a clear view down the far side of the slope, through the legion of stark black trees and into the campsite.

  An enormous bonfire rioted at the center—a tower of flame several stories tall. It made the blaze I’d conjured to destroy the grimoire seem pitiful in comparison. My hound’s eyes were attracted to movement around the fire. I was too far to make out necklaces or tattoos to confirm they were sanguimancers, but enough of them looked well-fed that I assumed they had to get their energy from an outside source. Not everyone could eat like Eric.

  Four of them were short and brawny. They stood together, conferring outside a large gray tent. It took me a moment recognize that one of them was actually wearing a kilt.

  Wonderful. Capturing me was apparently cause for a Lochly family reunion.

  That was when I saw the campers. There were two of them, a man and a woman in jeans and boots and shredded North-face jackets. They hung by their ankles from a sturdy branch, throats cut, bleeding into a large blue camping cooler.

  Maybe I’d been away from it too long, but the sight revolted me, sent my hackles up and my whole body to shaking with the need to fight. To hunt.

  I heard footsteps far to my left—one of the sanguimancers walking the perimeter.

  I melted back into the shadow of gathered trees. The best thing would be to take out as many sentries as possible without them sounding the alarm. I wouldn’t be able to do that as a hound—people with teeth in their necks tend to at least try to scream.

  That was why I had the chain. I pawed the bundle of clothes over my head and transformed, trying to stay silent despite the stinging chill of snow under my feet. Quietly as possible, I rooted through the bundle for the walkie-talkie and stayed, crouched naked behind the trees, wiggling my toes into boots.

  The man appeared. He was another stocky one, with the same dense curls as Gwydian and a mandala tattooed on his throat. There was a keen look in his light eyes, and for just a moment, I could swear he was sniffing the air.

  I tossed the walkie-talkie high, sending it arcing over his head to land on the declining slope. He jerked toward the sound of it landing. Two steps later, he had his back to me. I wound the chain around both hands, lifted off my heels.

  I saw my path through the snow and undergrowth. The snow muted my steps. He paused, peering into the blue snow for sign of movement.

  I dashed. Three long steps and I launched myself onto his back, looping the chain around his neck. He gave a strangled sound and slid on the incline, falling backwards. My bare back hit snow and the brittle wire of ivy. Air shoved out of my chest, but I clung on. He scrabbled at my arms, digging in nails, drawing blood.

  Sanguimancer. He could use that blood. I gave the chain a ruthless jerk, heard the crack of bone and cartilage. He thrashed, and I held on like a gator drowning prey. Slowly, his struggle ceased, and he went still.

  Shivering, I shoved him off me and unwound the chain. It had dug deep into my fingers, leaving indentations. I couldn’t look at the man’s face as I retrieved my walkie-talkie and scampered back up to the top of the hill.

  On went my sweatpants and thermal shirt. I wound the chain back around my left hand and gave the walkie-talkie’s button a double-click. Two double-clicks back. Eric was on his way with Amelia.

  “It’s a family reunion out here,” I whispered into it.

  “No kidding,” came his reply. “Amy’s gotten three of them ID’d as Lochly.”

  “I hope all of them aren’t sanguimancers. I took care of one.”

  “Dead?”

  “What do you think?”

  I wasn’t sure if I was angrier that Eric had to confirm, or that he was reminding me. My hands were shaking. Killing like that was different from what I’d done before, under Gwydian’s command, or in the midst of a fight. That had been calculated. Cold-blooded.

  I snuck off the way the Sorcerer had come, dropping my footsteps into his to hide my tracks. My eyes and ears were sharp for any sign of another perimeter guard. I made it to the North side of the valley and glanced back down into the camp. A gap in the trees gave me a good look at what was on the back side of the bonfire. A blue pavilion crouched over a pile of gear, but from this vantage, I could only see about a foot beneath the roof. Still, it was the most logical area to find Gwydian.

  Of course he’d be in a pavilion, sitting there like some medieval king, maybe with Morgan standing at his shoulder like a royal guard.

  I hoped Jaesung was somewhere else, but I got the feeling he wouldn’t be that lucky. I moved, hunching low and scuttling along the edge of the slope, wincing at every slush of unexpected leaves beneath the snow.

  A wet crunch froze me in place. It had come from the other side of
a jut of trees, down in a snow-filled gully. I strained my ears, dissecting the whistle of wind and the distant roar of flame, but the sound was too quiet to identify.

  I stalked forward, preparing a spell in my mind in case it was another Lochly family member, and peeked over the edge into the gully.

  A bear-sized monster bent over a man, muzzle deep in the viscera of his abdomen. Its once-shiny brown coat split over bloated muscle, its razor teeth bulged from a mouth almost too full of fang to chew the sanguimancer’s flesh.

  I barely recognized the bastardization of Zenia’s hound form. Horror heated my brain. I’d told myself this was likely. I knew.

  At least she’d fought back. Her sanguimancer guard had lost control of her spell, and ravenous beast that she’d become, she turned on the most convenient source of blood.

  “Go Zen,” I murmured. Then I locked away my feelings and crept backward, quietly as I could. The Hellhound’s meaty rending covered my retreat.

  I could have killed her, but I didn’t want to use magic on the slope if I didn’t have to. Any flash of power would alert those in the valley that there was something wrong. Besides, an uncontrolled Hellhound might be just as bad for the sanguimancers as it was for me.

  When I was far enough from the Hellhound not to be heard, I lifted the walkie-talkie. “Steer clear of the North perimeter. One beast is off the leash.”

  Eric clicked back an affirmative. Three more affirmatives clicked back.

  I continued down the trail of guard footprints, wary of shadows in the black trees, and came to a place where the footprints widened into a flat area. It looked like several people had been here—there were two or three different boot treads that had stamped the snow down thick and glossy.

  There was also blood, spattered in an arc across the trampled area. A frisson of fear zipped down my ribs, and I lifted the walkie-talkie.

  “Who’s in the northeast area?” I said, keeping my voice low. I couldn’t see anyone, or hear anyone, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t see or hear me. “There’s been-”

  Light shattered the ground beneath me—acid green and searing like chlorine into my eyes. I jerked sideways, but it was too late. The mandala sent up streamers of magic, which lashed around my legs and held me fast in place. Someone laughed from a few feet away, and the dark forest unzipped. A man stepped out of the cloaking spell, the mandala beneath his own feet fading as he paced toward me down the path.

  An acid green mandala blossomed into a shield before him, but I got a good enough look at his face to recognize him. It was the man who’d been with me on the ice. The one whose spell had trapped the border collie. The first sanguimancer I’d noticed.

  “I figured it was you,” he said. “Paw prints turning into girl’s feet. I mean, who else?” He asked it like a joke, grinning as his breath clouded out in front of him.

  “Could have been your mom. I heard she’s a bitch too.”

  The sanguimancer’s smile widened. “Thanks to you, I might just get a big enough payoff to set mama up in the Caribbean.”

  My walkie-talkie clicked and before I could move a finger, the sanguimancer opened his hand on a nasty looking mandala. It sprouted from the tattoo on his palm like a deadly flower. “Drop that.”

  I did, figuring my silence would be signal enough for Eric and the rest to know I’d been caught. The second part of the plan would begin without me.

  As the sanguimancer swapped the threads of his mandala from my legs to my wrists, I tried not to think about all the ways this could go wrong.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  There was a massive amount of shielding around the pavilion. It shimmered in several colors, almost pretty with the mandalas tiled beneath it, except that Gwydian sat behind those shields almost exactly as I'd imagined. Morgan at his left shoulder, a camp chair draped with several wool blankets serving as a makeshift throne. Before him, a blue tarp draped several human-sized mounds. The sight of them nearly took me out at the knees.

  It couldn't be Jaesung. Or, if it was, he would be alive—Gwydian would not use his best bargaining chip like that. But there were too many shapes underneath that tarp—one more than I'd expected.

  My gut lurched as I envisioned Krista, Sanadzi, and Eugene all in quick succession.

  Gwydian stood from his camp chair, gesturing to the kilted quartet flanking the pavilion. All but one of the colored shields dropped.

  "I was hoping you'd accept my invitation," he said, in that soft, evocative brogue of his.

  Stubble shaded the flat planes of his face, making his blue eyes stand out. He was not in his Crime Lord suit and tie today, instead favoring something earthier, perhaps to celebrate what he thought was a victory for the Lochly clan. A cognac coat, dark jeans, and hiking boots, with a tartan scarf tucked around his neck.

  "I took the liberty of dis-inviting a few of your cousins," I said. "Hope you didn't like them much."

  His expression didn't flicker, though a few of the Lochly fists tightened. The sanguimancer at my shoulder snorted. "I understand you've burned my book. That was a very important family heirloom, Helena, and the clan isn't happy with you."

  "Or you, I'm guessing?"

  His smile gave away nothing, nor did the stony expressions of his family guard. I glanced at them again. The two on my left were probably father and son—they had the same crooked nose and receding hairline, which only seemed to open their pale eyes. They didn't seem to be cold, with their bare, crossed arms covered in tattoos. On the right was a pair of dark-haired men with thick jaws and ham fists, guns ready at their hips. They'd be the non-sanguimancers.

  "It's time to discuss your options, Helena," Gwydian said. I restrained a wince. There he went, saying my name again, like a father or beloved teacher. It made me sick.

  An instant later, I didn't care. He'd reached down, flicked back the edge of the tarp to reveal the outer ring of a mandala. It was drawn in bright cerulean sand, and underneath its twisting designs was another mandala in black sand, and another in red. My throat tightened.

  "You won't have seen this before, but I'd imagine some of your friends in the Guild have. That Hindi girl is still leading up here, isn't she? She would know it."

  I didn't like the way he said 'girl' about Deepti—as if her age and power conferred on her no right to be called woman.

  "You still have so much to learn, Helena. They've told you, I expect? About your father's family?"

  I clenched my jaw and didn't answer. I nodded to the tarp instead. "What's under there?"

  Gwydian's smile was soft, and he shook a finger at me as if I were a misbehaving child. "Now, now—you have to wait for that. I still have questions."

  I didn't feel much like waiting. My favorite mandala—the gust of wind—appeared in my mind. I hurled it at the edge of the tarp, just outside the glitter of Gwydian's shield. It caught the blue plastic sheet and ripped it aside.

  I made a sound in my throat somewhere between a growl and a cry. Jaesung sprawled across the mandalas, his shirt torn open at the chest. A familiar tattoo inflamed the skin. Next to him lay a wolf. Dead, its head resting on his shoulder like Poo-stank might have done.

  I lost the strength in my knees, and the sanguimancers let me stagger toward him. I stopped, just at the edge of the sandy mandalas. His chest rose and fell, shallow and quick.

  He was a spellhound now.

  Gwydian had done to him the same thing he'd done to my mother and me. My last hope of restoring him to a normal life was gone. I'd now made an indelible mark on his future, changed not only his outlook, but the makeup of his mind and body. Even if we survived this, he would be subject to the same prejudice as me. The Guild would want its own mark on him.

  Maybe I could trade another two years of service to keep him out of it.

  Gwydian's boots appeared at the edge of my vision. He crouched, knees close to my head. I looked up, fear and anger shuddering through me. That damn shield. It had taken the Guild so much power to get through it befo
re. I couldn't do it now, not and ensure Jaesung's safety. I glanced back at Morgan standing by the camp chair. His right hand was wrapped in a bandage that didn't look nearly bloodstained enough to account for missing fingers. Someone must have healed him, which meant Gwydian had wanted him here as a threat. If I pulled anything cute, he would be forced to kill Jaesung.

  I had to stick to the plan.

  "Now, we can make this easy," Gwydian whispered, flicking into the collar of his shirt. He pressed his fingertips to the edge of a tattoo—the same tattoo I'd once had on my shoulder. "Or we can go through the obvious tedium."

  Morgan stepped forward, cocked the gun he'd taken from Isaac's corpse, and aimed it down at Jaesung's head. I tensed, even though I'd expected it. Fear was a writhing mass in my gut as I met Gwydian's pale blue eyes. He was so close—without that shield, I could have punched him. Or transformed into a hound and ripped his throat out.

  "Let him leave," I said, nodding toward Jaesung. "There's a police car about two miles through the woods. I saw it on my way here. Let him get in that car and I'll step onto that slave mandala without a fight."

  I nodded down at the white mandala, which I thought I recognized beneath the lines of the blue one.

  Gwydian twisted his face into a skeptical look. "Come now, do you really think that's how this works? After I've gone through the trouble of making him a hound like you?"

  "You'll have me. Or you’ll kill him and you won't have either of us."

  Gwydian's eyes met mine, and I hoped he would see how dead serious I was. His kind face tilted, and I saw the consideration in the set of his lips. He nodded once. "Kill him, then." He gestured at Morgan.

  I lunged, throwing myself on Jaesung even as I shoved power into the ring dangling over my sternum. The shot cracked, and a bullet slammed into the turquoise mist around us, hovering in a lightning-strike of power before it dropped to the mandalas below.

  I could not stay on these mandalas. I shoved the cord from around my neck and onto Jaesung's, then twisted, sweeping a leg at Morgan's feet. He dodged, but it was enough. I pivoted to my feet and grabbed the gun, twisting myself inside his guard just like he'd taught me.