Lore vs. The Summoning

by Anya Breton

  "Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the rulers of Boston were beneath a senator on the undead social strata. So how the hell did they rate you as a messenger?"

  Aiden's seeming fury cooled in an instant. He glanced away, a guilty gesture I'd seen before. "As I said, I volunteered."

  "You're keeping something from me," I stated boldly.

  "I have told you all that I can."

  "Yeah, that sounds like the world's worst cop out." My voice had soured considerably. I started for the door only to have him block it.

  "You're going to take the clothing with you," he said imperiously.

  I couldn't stand being dictated to. He should have learned that by now. "No, actually. I'm not. Now get out of my way before I see how well you can heal a silver bullet to the forehead."

  He stepped aside without a word. I darted into the hallway and down the stairs before he could reconsider. But surprisingly he didn't stop me. I'd expected a much greater fight from him.

  As my hand turned the doorknob on his front door I heard him call down, "I'd suggest a silver bullet to the heart to start if you truly mean to kill me."

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  I pulled my scraped up Mini Cooper into the parking lot of a building a block away from my destination. The phone vibrated in my pocket before I could grab the door handle. The number listed wasn't familiar but I decided to answer it anyway on the off chance it was news that would make my visit into the building pointless.

  "Hello?"

  "Guess where I am?" It took me a few seconds to recognize the rumbling voice of the Alpha werewolf.

  Cattily I retorted, "Outside a lingerie shop, getting cheap thrills?"

  He breathed in a snort. I thought it was an amused snort rather than a pissed off one but I couldn't be sure. He answered his own question a moment later. "Standin' in a few inches of water outside your apartment. What the hell happened?"

  "Water witch, I suspect."

  I heard him quietly swear. "Water witches now too?"

  "Yup."

  "So where are you?"

  In my cheeriest voice I said, "I'm about to go into a building where people will probably shoot at me."

  "Want company?"

  I almost laughed at how quick he was to offer his hide. "Not especially."

  The Alpha's voice went sharp, "What the hell did I do to piss you off?"

  "Do I have to pick just one thing?"

  "No..."

  "Look," I interrupted him, "Even if we were bestest buds, I still wouldn't want you here. I'm just going to pretend to be a dumb female looking at potential commercial real estate late on a Sunday night. And before you say anything, yes, I realize the dumb female part comes naturally. So see, having a strapping man along will ruin my act."

  He made a gruff noise. "I wasn't gonna to accuse you of bein' dumb. Well, I take that back. If you're goin' into a buildin' where you might get shot, alone, then yeah, you ain't exactly bein' intelligent. At least give me the address so I can come collect your body."

  "You'd like to get your hands on my corpse, wouldn't you?"

  "Can't you be serious for longer than a second?"

  I thought I was serious a lot, probably more than I should be. But rather than give that answer, I said, "I can't afford to be serious or I wouldn't be walking into a building where people will fucking shoot me."

  "Point taken," he said soberly. Then he did what I despised in a man, he whined. "Come onnnn...tell me. I wanna to find this bastard as badly as you do so I can make them pay for what they did to Michael and his sister."

  "I know you do." But I didn't give him the address.

  Dominick's tone soured in an instant. "You just gotta be Ms. Hero, don't you?"

  Oh no. I wasn't letting him get indignant with me. "You would only get in my way if I let you tag along. So just go home, watch Skinemax, crack open a beer and kick back."

  His indignation only increased as he snapped out a lofty, "I'm the Alpha werewolf for the entire state. I didn't get that gig by kickin' back. I think I can handle myself against a few guns."

  Oooh men. They were always wanting to get themselves killed. And I wasn't in the mood for this shit. Not after nearly getting murdered twice yesterday and then having to deal with Aiden's irritating gifts.

  I adopted my sarcastic oh-you're-such-a-big-bad-man voice, "Yeah? What if they're packing silver? You gonna be able to handle that? No. No, you won't because silver is motherfuckin' deadly to Were. So just stay at home and then I don't have to get my panties in a bunch making sure your ass doesn't get shot to hell while I'm dodging bullets."

  "I can handle myself, Laura," he replied frigidly

  "Well, you just handle yourself at home."

  "Give me the address, Laura."

  This time the note in his voice had been warning. The fact that he'd said my name twice in a row didn't bode well. But what the hell? I was halfway across the city in an undisclosed location. There was nothing he could do about it.

  "I know who you are," he said in an even more rumbling tone than usual. "You want to keep that a secret, you're gonna tell me where you are."

  Or there was that.

  I feigned stupidity while trying to think of a way out of this, "So you know my first and last name, big deal."

  "You're the Black Death everyone has been lookin' for."

  I laughed long and hard. Acting anything but stupid had never been in my repertoire. I was hoping he'd not pick up on that. "If I were the Black Death why the hell would I need a gun?"

  "Michelle has been havin' nightmares about a woman turning a guy into a mess of black sores. We know it's you, Laura."

  Apparently Aiden's vampire voodoo mind tricks weren't a perfect science. Maybe if I fed the Alpha a boldfaced lie he'd believe it. It was over the phone, which meant I had a fighting chance.

  "I'm not the Black Death," I said in with as much certainty as I could muster.

  Not buying it he retorted, "Then it would be really bad if I started spreadin' the rumor that you are."

  "You are an asshole," I hissed quietly as if someone might overhear me. "You know that?"

  "Yeah. Now tell me where you are."

  I gave him the address and then snapped that I hoped he got shot. I didn't mean it. Maybe.

  I smacked my head back against the headrest to wait for him because he'd threatened to spread rumors if I so much as went inside without him. I was going to have to find some incriminating information with which to reverse blackmail him with because he was just going to milk this for all it was worth.

  Dominick arrived in his muddy Jeep fifteen minutes later. I had no doubt he'd sped all the way here from my apartment. He rapped on the glass of my window when I'd feigned sleep. I flipped him off. Then I forced myself to get out of the car.

  The werewolf gestured to the side of the Mini. "What's up with your car?"

  I glanced back at it, frowning at the scraped up portion. "I got sideswiped."

  "Nice."

  He eyed my clothing choices dubiously. Apparently a gray mock turtleneck under my windbreaker (the high collar was to hide my shiny new crow Brand), a pair of blue jeans and comfortable black oxford shoes weren't ass-kicking enough in his eyes. But then he couldn't talk, he'd worn a ratty t-shirt and stained shorts on one of the coldest nights we'd had this month.

  "Can I get on with this now?" I grumbled on my way to the nearby sidewalk.

  "Yeah. Why are we here?"

  "You're here to be a hairy, sweaty pest," I replied helpfully.

  The Alpha grunted. "Besides that."

  I stopped near the hood of the Mini to explain my purpose at least. "The Water witch that flooded my apartment and tried to drown me in front of Symphony Hall was seen at a building up here. When someone went to check it out they were shot at."

  Dominick's forehead wrinkled a half-second before he scoffed loudly. "That's it? That's all you got? Some Water witch visited this buildin'?"

  Oh he was really pushing my buttons. S
nark meter pushing into the red I retorted, "Look, sweet cheeks. I didn't ask you to come along. In fact I distinctly recall arguing to keep you away."

  His eyes rolled to the left. "If you'd told me what you had I wouldn't have bothered."

  "You know now. Go ahead and leave, tough guy." In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have said that last bit because if the setting of his jaw were any indication it had made him decide to stay after all. But I had been unable to help myself.

  "No. I'm comin'," he insisted while stepping into place beside me.

  "Fine," I snapped just before stomping ahead to the sidewalk while zipping my windbreaker up to hide the two guns I carried. It helped that it was chilly, breezy and night.

  I'd driven past the building a few times before parking. There didn't appear to be any lights on within the large structure. The windows were boarded up. For all intents and purposes the place looked abandoned.

  Dominick grabbed my arm when I made a move to head toward the building's entrance. He tugged me toward the side instead. I was a fan of the more direct approach. He was obviously into sneaking behind someone and stabbing them in the back, or I guessed in his case it would be clawing them in the back. I'd remember that.

  I let him drag me around to the rear entrance and even stood quietly while he lifted a door off its hinges to let us in. Maybe having a supernaturally strong man with me had its advantages after all. He was the first to go inside and despite his decidedly larger bulk, I was the one that seemed to make all of the noise. I worked on softening my footsteps when we exited the empty back room into the building's interior corridor.

  There was another very good reason for having a Were along for the ride: he could see in the dark. I stumbled into walls and door frames left and right until he grabbed my hands to set them on his back. It was a little awkward and a bit intimate to walk forward while touching him but served the purpose.

  My hands suddenly dropped in front of me when Dominick's back abruptly disappeared from beneath them. A moment later his moist, warm lips pressed against my ear. I stifled a gasp.

  "There's a woman speakin' in a room at the end of the hall," he whispered. "She hasn't heard us yet."

  Whoever was down there wasn't vampire, Were or shapeshifter or they'd have heard my racket. We were probably dealing with another witch.

  "I think she's on the phone. She's tellin' someone that Ringo and James were supposed to be back by now and she can't get a hold of them," the werewolf added after another two minutes of listening. "She says they didn't have any luck trackin' the woman down after they lost her last night. What happened last night, Laura?"

  "Two goons tried to run me off the road on I-90," I replied as quietly as I could manage.

  "Now she's explainin' that Clarence was reported as murdered in a drug-related fight. Who was Clarence?"

  "The guy that tried to kill me before the goons on I-90."

  He stepped forward. It put his stomach square against my hip. "Jesus Christ, Laura."

  Then without warning he covered my mouth with his hand. The werewolf lifted me off my feet with his other hand so he could carry me at a darted speed into the nearest room. I wisely kept my mouth shut even though my rear end was pressed a little too snugly against his thighs. Seconds later I heard footsteps pass us by.

  The position he had me in, hanging by a palm over my mouth and a hand against my abdomen, hadn't bothered me until several minutes had passed without him letting go. Surely whoever had come by was out of earshot by now. I shook my head to get his attention.

  "They know someone is here," he said in my ear rather than set me down. "He saw the broken door out back."

  I made a sound against his hand that I hoped would remind him he was muffling me. He held on for a half a minute longer until I elbowed him hard in the gut. Once on my own two feet I pulled the gun from my windbreaker.

  "I'm not hearin' anyone but those two," he told me. "They're about to come lookin' for us. I'll handle the guy."

  Before I could argue with him, Dominick shot out of the room into the corridor. I could just make out the shadow of his body moving against the wall. A cone of light appeared three quarters of the way down with the shadow of a man eclipsing it. The Alpha's quarry stepped out slowly, looking every which way but didn't see the bulk slinking forward in the darkness.

  Breathlessly I watched the guy turn his back to walk in the opposite direction. That was when Dominick chose to pounce. The man let out a frightened yelp before the werewolf was able to shut him up.

  A curse left my mouth before I could stop it. Predictably the woman appeared in the doorway. She seemed to ready an attack with a lift of her arms that told me it would be something magical. I didn't think anything she could do to the interloping Dominick would be a pleasurable experience so I shot her in the shoulder.

  Unfortunately my offensive move had been too late. A fireball was already hurdled through the air toward Dominick's back. "Dominick!" I shouted in warning.

  He'd seen the incoming attack but wasn't able to roll out of the way in time. Both he and the man he'd had slammed on the laminate floor screamed as the Fire engulfed them. Before the bitch could turn around and do something to me, I shot her with every bullet in my gun, intentionally staying away from her head and heart in the hopes that I could still get her to talk. The bullets to her legs felled her but did nothing to stop her attacks.

  I'd gotten halfway to her, while hastily reloading my gun, when she shot a missile of flame at me. Apollo's Warning gave me enough time to jump out of the way. My shoulder smashed into the wall with a jarring pain that was nothing compared to what I'd avoided.

  Even with an entire clip in her body the woman tried to get up to come after me. From my distance I made out that she was blonde with long hair and vaguely familiar. I was certain I'd seen her at Morrígan's stronghold. Why did it have to be another freaking Fire witch?

  I changed the clips out in the gun while darting toward her even as she was readying another strike. This close I doubted I'd be able to avoid it. It occurred to me that I didn't actually know how to neutralize a Fire witch without a straight jacket and a tank of water.

  So I did the only thing I could think of, I threw myself at her and straddled her to keep her down. My left hand held her arms together so they couldn't form the seed of Fire.

  "Who do you work for?" I shoved the barrel of my gun into her nose and demanded in a low, furious voice while trying to ignore the moans of pain behind me. Moans of pain meant someone was still alive. At least that much was good.

  Rather than answer, she set herself on Fire from within. Reflexively my body jerked away from her. My move had been quick enough that nothing was hurt.

  But she was getting up now. I couldn't let her do that because she'd only hit me with another attack. So I shot her in the foot.

  She cried out with a guttural yelp. Still she was moving. With eight bullets in her she should be flat on her back praying to her god, not trying to slink toward me. The fact that she wasn't gave me enough startled pause that she'd had time to form another attack.

  Thanks to my father's warning system I saw the ball the size of my car barreling down the corridor in slow motion. There was absolutely no way for me to get out of the way in time. My only hope was to minimize the impact. I pushed myself up against the wall in an effort to only experience the edge of it but the bitch had already shot another attack directly at me.

  I was a goner.

  I screamed before I felt them hit because I despised burns above all other wounds. What a cowardly way for me to die, screaming before I'd even been touched by the flame! The gods would surely have something to say about that when I reached Hades.

  When the flame finally hit me I was surprised to find that the only thing I experienced was pressure. It felt as if something large had hit me in the gut and then a second smack against the shoulder. Together they were powerful enough to knock me onto my ass.

  I fell back against the dirty linoleum, con
fused and bruised but strangely unburnt.

  "I'm shot. The bitch shot me," the Fire witch yelled at someone while I groggily attempted to figure out what the hell had happened. "I took her out. Her and whoever she brought with her. But Bob got hit in the crossfire. Send a Healer and a body bag for the bitch."

  I might be a bitch, but she was an idiot. As far as I could tell, my skin was unblemished. Her Fire hadn't done shit to me aside from burn off my clothing. Apparently she thought so highly of herself that she'd not bothered to look at me after I'd fallen.

  If her fireballs did nothing, did that mean I could withstand her little trick of setting herself on fire? Did I want to put it to the test?

  I jumped to my feet before I could listen to the little logical voice in my head screaming "no". The wench had fallen back to wait on her Healer.

  Her eyes shot wide when she heard me move. She'd been trying to form another fireball when I landed on top of her. My hearing just about failed when she shrieked in my ear in surprised outrage. A second later we were both coated in flames. I did my level best not to freak out and hang on to her despite the instincts clamoring to get the hell away.

  "Sorry, sweetheart, it doesn't work on me," I informed her snidely. "Now who the fuck do you work for?"

  My gun was in her face again. It wasn't faring as well against the flame as I did. The steadily rising temperature of the metal was burning my hand. I had to let go and that pissed me off enough that I lifted her up by the shoulders so I could smash her down again.

  Snarling I demanded, "Who do you work for?"

  Her reply was to turn her head so she could bite my arm. It was the last straw. I wished her ill. The black of my plague power shot out through her veins, eating the Fire back as it moved. She choked in a shocked, labored breath.

  "Last chance," I told her when her eyes went wide as saucers. "Tell me who you work for and then I'll Heal you."

  "The greater good," she bit out on her last, rough breath.

  I shoved off her in disgust. All that effort, all that pain and I got nothing from her.

  Remembering that I wasn't alone, I shot to my feet then ran over to the Alpha's prone body. His blackened body was nearly unrecognizable but for the small bit of gym shorts peeking out from beneath him. I set my hand against his crisp skin and listened to the Health reports with a cringe on my face from how awful he felt beneath my fingers.