The kiss was brutal — almost punishingly so. Eons away from the playful way he’d teased me in the bakery kitchen three months ago. As if he was punishing me for being gone so long and welcoming me home at the same time.
I aligned my body all along his. He was only a couple of inches taller than me, and my legs were long enough that we matched up in all the right places. He wasn’t dampening his magic now.
His tongue darted against mine. His stubble was rough against my upper lip.
He groaned as I tugged his T-shirt out of his jeans and had my way with the skin of his overly muscled back. His magic sparked underneath my hands like the shock of static electricity.
I briefly contemplated how quickly I could get my clothes off, find a condom, and get to the bed — or any surface with a bit of give, actually — then orgasm and get dressed again.
“We don’t have enough time,” I muttered against his lips.
“We’re waiting, remember?” he answered. Then, with an effort that he made seem Herculean, Desmond pulled himself away from me and crossed — walking rather uncomfortably — to the kitchen sink.
I flushed further — heat spreading up my chest to my face — as I remembered why his gait was so hindered. I’d seen and felt that region of his body very clearly during our first make-out session in the Squamish forest, three and a half months ago.
Desmond poured a glass of water and downed it.
Then he pierced me with a stare that made me estimate my ability to clear the kitchen island in a single bound.
He laughed, shook his head, and poured another glass of water.
I laughed too — a little sadly, because the moment of sexy reprieve was over. Then I grabbed a T-shirt, a knit hat, and my sword from the bedroom.
It was going to be a terrible day … or evening … or tomorrow, whenever. If that was going to be my last kiss … well, I kind of wished Desmond had gotten into town sooner.
∞
I grabbed a two-pound bag of 72-percent Valrhona chocolate — Araguani, a single origin from Venezuela — out of the bakery pantry before we climbed into Desmond’s SUV, which he’d parked illegally in the alley beside the dumpster. The chocolate was quickly proven completely unnecessary, because there was a custom box of See’s Candies waiting for me in the passenger seat. Yep, filled with my favorites and miraculously untouched by the werewolves.
“I’m really glad you didn’t lead with this,” I teased Desmond as he climbed into the driver’s seat beside me. I stopped to inhale the intoxicating aroma of the opened box. “I would have had to have you on the kitchen floor.”
“Shit,” Desmond responded. “I’ll remember that for next time.”
“Make sure you do.” I grinned at him and popped a Scotchmallow in my mouth.
Both sets of back doors opened. Lara climbed in behind Desmond and Audrey climbed in behind me. Delightful. I wasn’t exactly friendly with Audrey — a striking brunette werewolf, who always looked sleek and perfectly-coiffed whatever she was doing. She also had a habit of fawning over Desmond in a way that really irked me. I’d seen her made Desmond’s provisional beta three months ago. She couldn’t hold a candle to Hudson — Desmond’s previous beta who Sienna had murdered because I’d drawn his attention. She didn’t have an ounce of Hudson’s charm or diplomacy, but I gathered she didn’t even bother trying.
“Don’t share,” Desmond whispered as he started the SUV.
“Now that wouldn’t be like me at all.” I held the box out for him.
He grinned and selected a dark chocolate caramel — my second favorite.
Then I passed the box back to the werewolves as Desmond, shaking his head at my stupid generosity, turned right out of the alley and headed down the hill in the direction of Burrard Street Bridge.
“Time to hunt,” Audrey said, far too gleefully for my taste.
“It’s a seven-hour trip,” I said, just to shut her up. Beta or no beta, she totally got under my skin.
She bared her teeth at me in the rearview mirror while Desmond was checking his blind spot, so the feeling was mutual.
But she’d still fight and kill at my side.
My sister was an unintentionally unifying force. The Adept of the West Coast would never be the same. If, you know, any of us were alive tomorrow.
∞
We didn’t exactly drive in tandem with the witches and necromancers, but with the text messages flying around the SUV, we might as well have been. We sped over the Lion’s Gate Bridge, climbed the North Shore to reach the Upper Levels highway, and arrived at the ferry terminal with thirty minutes to spare.
Despite the fact that it was practically pitch dark at 6:30 p.m., and I was nestled in the huge SUV with a box of chocolates as my comfort blanket, I still felt the moment Kandy arrived with the skinwalkers. They were parked in two cars about twenty cars behind and one lane to the right of us. The witches — Gran, Scarlett, and three others I’d never met — were parked ahead. I didn’t sense the necromancers until we were loading onto the ferry.
It was going to be a rough ride surrounded by this much magic. And the questions … I imagined everyone would have questions.
Desmond brought thirteen shapeshifters with him. That, added to three necromancers and the fledgling Mory, five skinwalkers, seven witches — including the two already on the island — plus Kandy and me made thirty-two Adepts.
Deep down in my heart — or maybe that was my soul — I knew it wasn’t going to be enough.
All the different magic I was feeling had me jittery and off balance. I stayed in the SUV on the car deck while the shapeshifters cleared the restaurant out of food. I gathered the skinwalkers opted for the cafeteria, and the necromancers stuck with coffee from the on board Starbucks. Even Kandy was distant, prowling around as if securing enemy territory. All of us on the same ferry, headed toward the same destiny, and still the Adept didn’t intermingle. They even took turns — dictated by some unwritten schedule I didn’t have a copy of — visiting me.
First, the elder skinwalker crossed the three lanes of parked cars between us. I saw her and started to open the SUV door, but she waved the gesture off as she approached. I unrolled the window instead, glad I didn’t need the car keys to do so because Desmond hadn’t left them with me.
Kandy slipped up to stand beside my window. The elder eyed me for a moment and then looked pointedly at Kandy.
“Elder Thomas,” Kandy said.
“Call me Rebecca,” the elder said as she dipped her head toward me. The raven feathers she wore almost disappeared against her dark hair, which was shot with steel gray, center parted, and pulled to the sides in two braids.
“She doesn’t like being referred to as ‘raven,’ ” Kandy cautioned me. Rebecca could indeed wear the guise of a raven when it suited her to do so — like when she was encouraging her skinwalker children to chase me through the woods and scare me into a river.
“Ms. Thomas, thank you …” I began but she cut me off with a raised hand.
“The spear shouldn’t be in the hands of a black witch,” she said. “And many of our people live in the area where your mother fears the demons will walk. We will protect them tooth and claw, if necessary.”
“All right,” I said. “It’s just —”
“We take responsibility for our own. We’re not as weak as you think.”
“I don’t think that.”
“Then trust we will do our part, but not be stupid about it.”
I nodded and glanced over the elder’s shoulder. A man and a woman stood behind her, close enough to hear our conversation but far enough away to stay out of it. He was in his mid-thirties and, if memory served, cloaked himself in the guise of a grizzly bear. I think his younger sister, the resemblance was obvious, was the skinwalker who cloaked herself in the guise of a black bear.
The elder followed my gaze and smiled. “My son, Gord, and daughter, Drew,” she offered.
I exchanged n
ods with the bears. I didn’t see the red fox or the coyote, but I could feel their magic nearby. The skinwalker magic was similar in color to the shapeshifters, but tasted of wild onion and huckleberries.
“And your granddaughter? Has she been chosen by her spirit animal yet?” I knew it was on the edge of rude to ask after the private magic of the brave teen I’d met in the Squamish forest, but I needed to know. I needed to know that the skinwalkers would survive and thrive, and that Sienna wouldn’t ruin — couldn’t ruin — everything.
The elder smiled in a tight, fleeting gesture. “The raven blessed our family for the second time, but I have a feeling that Maia will walk in whatever skin she pleases by the time she is my age.”
“She is not with you.”
“At home with her grandfather,” the elder answered. “You see, Jade Godfrey, we’re not careless.”
I nodded, pissed that people were short with me whether I cared too much and worried, or if I just barreled into situations without thinking. I didn’t say anything, though. I knew when to respect my elders.
“I brought cookies,” I said.
“No cupcakes?” the elder teased with a much more honest smile.
“No. For those, you’ll have to come to the bakery,” I said, repeating my invitation from months before.
Kandy opened the back door and reached into the inner hatch to extract one of the bakery boxes I’d packed with cookies.
The elder took the offering, then turned away to the stairs that led up to the passenger deck without another word.
“One down, twenty-nine to go,” Kandy murmured, referring to the other Adepts onboard the ferry with us.
“God, I hope not,” I said. “Want to share a box of those with me?”
“Hell, yeah.”
“Grab the cowboy cookies.”
Kandy climbed into the back seat and dug through the boxes of cookies while I watched another group of Adept approach through the rows of cars. I was pretty much trapped in a large, steel box over freezing cold ocean, miles and miles away from land. It was going to be a long trip.
“Necromancers, twelve o’clock,” Kandy muttered behind me. Her mouth was already crammed full of cookie.
“Geez, you could have shared before chowing down.” The coconut — paired with chunks of dark chocolate and oats — was what made the cowboy cookies supremely tasty.
“This is my second … nope, third one.” Kandy chortled to herself as she stepped out of the SUV, facing off with Danica and her crew as they neared our vehicle.
These questions were going to be harder. At least Mory wasn’t with them. I really didn’t want to recount the demon summoning in London while the fledgling watched me. I shivered and tugged my knit hat lower over my ears. Why the hell I’d grabbed a hat and not a coat, I have no idea. I decided to blame Desmond for my forgetfulness and felt immediately better.
∞
After an hour on the ferry, I felt drained of information. After an hour and a half, I felt like I had nothing left to give. Right before the ferry docked at the Departure Bay terminal in Nanaimo, Kandy rescued me with a piece of terrible cafeteria cheesecake that I gobbled up. Then I licked the plastic container. There was a lot of my childhood wrapped up in ferry cheesecake, most of it spent with Sienna, but I didn’t dwell on that any longer than it took me to eat.
It was past time to put that all behind me. Not in a denial sort of way, but in an acknowledged ‘that happened, that made me who I am, let’s move forward’ way. You know, like a real adult … with a shiny new sword.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Tofino was one of my favorite places in the world, not that I got there more than once every three years or so. I usually loved every minute of the drive. But normally it wasn’t so dark that I couldn’t see the view, and I wasn’t driving with a maniac shapeshifter who liked to double the posted speed limits on the hairpin turns.
We were winding through the mountain pass that separated the east and west coasts of Vancouver Island. I shrieked — for the second time — at the cliff face barreling toward me, inches from the front bumper in the headlights.
Desmond laughed, delighted at my reaction. He even managed to not crash the vehicle.
“Just because your reactions are faster than a human’s doesn’t mean a car is meant to be driven like this,” I snapped.
“The GL550 is a high-performance luxury SUV,” Desmond responded, still chuckling.
“Sure, like an army tank. It’s not a sports car.”
Desmond looked affronted. Then he grinned and stepped on the gas as if to prove his point. Shapeshifter games. Why did I keep stumbling into them … and why wasn’t I traveling with the witches? Oh, right — because they asked too many questions, thinking I was one of their own so interrogating me wasn’t a breach of etiquette. The shapeshifters weren’t a wordy bunch.
“Shouldn’t your beta be riding in a separate car? You know, in case you kill us all with your insane driving?”
Desmond glanced up at Audrey in the rearview mirror. “Beta-elect,” he said, as if that should answer my question.
The road went down to a single lane and the cliff on the right hand side of the SUV dropped off into inky darkness. Desmond finally slowed, though he still sped on the straightaways or passing lanes. I guessed he’d proven his point and thankfully didn’t actually want to drive us off a cliff.
“So tell me,” Desmond said quietly in the dark between us. “Tell me what you haven’t told the others.”
My stomach bottomed out. I hadn’t been deliberately lying to anyone, but the fact that I was an alchemist was still closely guarded, need-to-know info. Only a handful of people knew … if I didn’t count the dragons.
“I made something,” I said.
“In London?”
“Yes. With the knife that Sienna used to kill Jeremy.”
Desmond twisted his hands, but then deliberately released them when the steering wheel groaned in protest.
“The sorcerers were dying,” I continued, pushing past the fear of telling him, the fear of them all hating me before the night was over. “I might have been able to get Mory free with my knife, but …”
“It would have taken too long,” Kandy said — blunt but kind — from the back seat.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “I took what magic Sienna hadn’t drained from the sorcerer Sayers, combined it with the knife, the residual ritual magic, and mortared it with my own magic … and, honestly, my desperation.”
“Blood magic,” Desmond murmured.
“Undeniably,” I said.
“Feeling at all psychopathic now?” Desmond’s smile was a flash of white teeth in the dark of the car interior.
“Not in general,” I answered, but I couldn’t bring myself to be light about it. “You have to understand, I’m not actually sure what I made. Except it cut through the sorcerer’s magic like butter … and … and …”
“Jade thinks she killed Kett with it,” Kandy said.
“The life debt bond,” Desmond said. “Did the vampire actually step between you and a killing blow?”
“The magic thinks he did,” I whispered. Then I turned to stare out at the dark view and blink my tears away. Silence fell as we all thought about the ramifications of such a knife in Sienna’s hands. Audrey was the only one of the four of us who hadn’t seen my sister in action yet.
“A blood magic-sharpened sacrificial knife,” Desmond said. He glanced up in his rearview mirror. “We’ll just have to take it away from the black witch.”
“Consider it done,” Audrey said, a wolf growl edging her declaration. For someone so put together and prissy, she was also rather toothy. I wouldn’t want to get between her and anything she truly wanted. Hell, I wouldn’t want to be in a room alone with her … she really didn’t like me. Or, rather, she really didn’t like the idea of me with Desmond.
Which brought up a complex problem that I had no brainpower to think over at the moment
— namely, that Desmond was alpha of a pack, and therefore no relationship with him would ever go anywhere. I wasn’t pack. I wasn’t a shapeshifter.
“It won’t be easy to get near the black witch,” Kandy said, bringing my thoughts back on point. “Even Jade had a difficult time in London, and you know magic doesn’t effect the alchemist the same way it does the rest of us.”
“Jade was rescuing the fledgling necromancer and defending her fallen companions,” Desmond said evenly. Kandy had been one of those fallen. “Here, she’ll have us all around her, the witches at our backs, and the necromancers to hopefully counter the summoning magic.”
Yeah, all I had to do was get through a horde of demons, overcome Sienna’s defenses, and kill my sister.
Easy as freaking pie.
And I’d always made terrible pie. I brushed off my inadequacy by claiming that there just wasn’t enough chocolate in pie to hold my attention. But I was way beyond denial and disclaimers now.
∞
We’d caught the seven o’clock ferry, which docked at 8:45 p.m. in Nanaimo, from which it was a three-hour drive to Tofino. The dashboard clock was glowing 11:07 p.m. when we hit the junction of Highway 4 and had to either turn north or south. Ucluelet was eight kilometers to the south and Tofino was thirty-three kilometers to the north. Yeah, I was good at reading big green highway signs, even when they were only illuminated by headlights. The concern was we didn’t know exactly where the demon rising had taken place in 1778. So even if Sienna had a couple of days lead time on us, I hoped she’d gotten hung up on this point too.
Desmond pulled over when we reached the junction. As we waited for everyone else to catch up, I climbed out of the SUV and took a few steps away to see if I could sense any of Sienna’s magic ahead of us. Any glimmer to let me know which way we should turn.
I clutched my sheathed katana in my left hand, not bothering to strap it in place across my back, but ready to draw. I was careful to not step out of the wide beam of the SUV’s headlights. Knowing me, I’d slip on the road base at the edge of the highway, twist my ankle, and tumble into the dark woods that spread out on either side of us.
Treasures, Demons, and Other Black Magic (Dowser Series) Page 22