by Cecy Robson
Taran spoke behind me. “The she-wolf’s blood. It must have attracted the vampires, since the cardiac lab is next to the ED. I’m sure they fixed on my scent when they couldn’t find her.”
“Yeah!” I didn’t mean to scream. And I wouldn’t have had Shayna not careened over a small creek à la The Dukes of Hazzard. The entire ambulance landed in a skull-rattling thump. Shayna ignored the tires we blew to thunder into a field of ferns.
I glanced over my shoulder. Taran held tight to the bars welded into the sides of the ambulance. Her irises had turned white from the strength it took to work her magic as she banged to the beat of Shayna’s car ride from hell. “I can’t hold the track much longer, Ceel,” she muttered through clenched teeth.
And then she didn’t have to. My senses shot ahead of Taran’s magic ball. The vampire was in sight. He was fast. Shayna was faster.
I shrugged out of the doctor’s coat. “Get me close.” Shayna yanked the ambulance to the right with a hard jerk as the vamp abandoned the field and tried to disappear into the woods. I leaped out as my beast and tackled him into the tree. I pinned him into the trunk, hoping to get some answers. But when his fangs elongated and he went for my throat, I sliced my claws across his neck. He exploded in a mound of ash.
The back of the ambulance doors banged open and Taran and Emme fell out. Shayna tried to help them, but Taran jerked away from her. “You are the devil’s chauffeur! How the hell did you ever earn your goddamn license?”
Shayna frowned. “Why are you so mad? We got him, didn’t we?”
“We’re in the middle of nowhere with a busted stolen vehicle! Now what are we going to do? For shit’s sake, does anyone have a phone?”
“I left mine in my locker,” Emme mumbled, looking as green as Kermit’s backside.
Shayna dug into her back pocket and showed them her little box of toothpicks. “With everything that happened yesterday, I swapped my phone out for weapons.”
Taran slapped them out of her hands. “We need a phone. Or a working vehicle. Or a goddamn compass. Saving the world sucks donkey balls!”
Taran fell against the ambulance and took a deep breath. When she calmed, she retrieved Shayna’s toothpicks. “Sorry. I needed a moment.”
No kidding. I left them and sniffed around the area. My tigress silently moved among the thick trees, hoping to pick up anything that might suggest nearby civilization. A soft breeze swept toward me. My tigress’s eyes widened when I caught not only more vampire aroma, but the smell of witch magic as well. The witch’s fragrance mimicked the one I’d caught on our way to Zhahara’s. Lightning and thunder struck as the spell gathered strength.
I hurried back to my sisters, changing when I approached. They’d paused, mesmerized by the darkening skies. “Oh, shit,” Taran muttered. Her irises had turned white again. She’d sensed the rising power. “Celia…”
I nodded. “I know. I think we’ve hit bloodlust central.” My sisters fell silent. I pointed to where I’d roamed. “There’s bloodlust and witch magic that way, but my nose tells me the bloodlust concentration is too high for us to charge in alone.” I huddled my arms around my body. Crap, it was cold, or maybe it was the knowledge that we’d found our golden ticket. “Still, it warrants an investigation. Start following the tire marks back to the hospital. You’ll be able to go a few miles before the ambulance kicks it. I’ll catch up as soon as I can.”
A clang like two butcher knives meeting had me veering toward the back of the ambulance. Shayna hopped out with a brand-new sword she’d converted from one of the metal bars. “Why don’t we just go together?”
Taran’s narrowed eyes told me she agreed with Shayna. Emme hurried to grab the doctor’s lab coat. “Something to wear when you change back from your beast.”
I groaned, knowing there was no way to force them to head back to the hospital without me. “Fine.”
I returned to my tigress form. Taran dug her nails into the nape of my neck as she climbed aboard. “I get the front. Emme, get on next. Shayna, you get Celia’s rear.” She chuckled. I didn’t. Playing pony was downright insulting, but my sisters’ feet would be too easy to hear. I waited until everyone was situated and hurried off into the woods.
My racing speed was more like a trot and yet faster than my sisters could have jogged. The aroma of magic drew me deeper into the thick vegetation of the forest. I thought for sure we’d trekked into one of the many state parks, until the trees cleared over an industrial commons.
I crouched too fast and too deep for Emme. She fell with a hard crash to the side, taking Shayna with her. None of us were “outdoorsy,” but at least my tigress gave others the impression that I was formidable in the wild. My sisters’ actions insinuated they’d be mauled by a pack of chipmunks if they ever wandered in the woods unattended. And yet they tried their best. Shayna and Emme crawled along their bellies in true Rambo-meets–Bridget Jones style until they planted their slender figures on either side of me. The good news? We had a great view of the industrial park. The bad news? I didn’t like what I saw.
Two giant buildings with metal siding took up most of the area. A couple of old rusted trucks stood abandoned, surrounded by weeds that had broken through the cracked asphalt. Rust stains discolored their aluminum beds in long streaks similar to those on the sides of the buildings. Neither the trucks nor the buildings had been used in years. Yet one of the buildings didn’t have the thick growth of moss the other had, despite its dilapidated condition. Clumps of dried moss lay over the sides, like someone had brushed it off with a broom. It didn’t make sense, considering rust had punched the roof into Swiss cheese.
The scent of magic boiled and rumbled like a rising geyser before an explosion of yellow-and-black smoke swept through the holes of the roof. The building shook hard enough to rattle the trucks and the opposite building, banging the metal like old tin garbage cans. Another stream of magic erupted, followed by a long, pained scream.
“Jesus, what’s happening?” Taran whispered.
A U-Haul truck pulled in alongside the trucks and parked. Two vampires hopped out, not bothered at all by the screaming building into a crescendo. They waited with their arms crossed until the level of power faded and the smell of magic and smoke drifted into the clouds. The vampires stiffened and jerked away when a metal door swung open near the loading dock. A seven-foot-tall, severely infected male stomped out, dragging three women by their hair. My eyes fixed on the buxom brunette as her body scraped along the filthy and decrepit loading dock.
“Oh, my God,” Emme whispered. “That’s the prostitute from the other night.”
Shayna’s voice fell low. “They’re all prostitutes, Emme. All of them.”
They were right. I recognized them from the clubs. Two of them had been on Petro’s arms the night I’d seen him stepping out of the five-star restaurant…. My heart stopped beating. Everything around me became eerily quiet as my sudden awareness shattered the bloodlust haze. Oh…God. They’ve been the ones infecting the vampires. The realization made my head pound. And if they’d been with Petro, that meant he was now infected, too.
The bloodluster dragged the women like sacks of waste. I wanted to act and save them from being eaten, but then he dropped them in front of the other vampires and stepped away. Drool dripped onto his chest as he eyed their wilted forms. And yet he wouldn’t feed.
I nearly charged when I saw who exited next. Roberto Suarez, the last remaining judge. Bingo.
A witch with long ebony hair was draped from his arm, her dark eyes sparkling with the remnants of her spellwork. “Steady, Celia,” Shayna whispered.
The driver of the U-Haul approached the judge cautiously, bowing before speaking. “We cannot wait for the others. It is time to take what is rightfully yours.”
The judge seemed to be keeping his witch from stumbling. The skirt of her long velvet green dress flowed in the breeze as she fiddled with a talisman around her neck. She chanted words in a language I couldn’t recognize. The two v
ampires who brought the truck hurried to open the back doors. And just like that, Mr. STD on two green legs ambled in like a remote-control robot.
The vampires quickly locked the doors, hesitating briefly before securing themselves in the cabin of the truck. “Do not fear,” she told them. “I have him.” Her wobbly form suggested otherwise. Her olive skin appeared peaked, likely drained from whatever magic she’d conjured. I watched them closely, trying to decide what to do. The bloodluster appeared more infected than Zhahara had been. He would be nearly impossible for the four of us to take down without backup and the lake’s power behind us. Throw in a few vampires and a witch and we might as well pick out coffins.
Damn it.
A limo pulled in from alongside the opposite building and parked. The judge helped the witch inside before following and shutting the door behind him. The vampire driving the limo popped the trunk and ambled out of the car. He scoffed at the prostitutes lying on the ground before tossing them in the trunk like luggage. Two of them groaned as he slammed the lid shut over their twisted bodies. He rolled his eyes like they annoyed him before returning to the driver’s seat and speeding away. The U-Haul followed moments later.
None of us said anything until the vehicles drove out of sight. “Son of a bitch,” Taran muttered.
Yeah. Pretty much. A witch had somehow transferred bloodlust into human prostitutes. Evil genius at its finest, considering it had no effect on humans. She also controlled the infected vamps. Awesome, since she had an army of bloodthirsty critters at her disposal. Or, more accurately, at the judge’s disposal. We had our bad guy. We had his accomplice. I changed back. “We have to get to the wolves. Now.”
CHAPTER 31
“Don’t look at me like that, Celia. This”—Taran waved an irritated hand over my feather-covered body—“chicken shit is not my fault.”
I clucked as badass as a chicken could cluck. Despite what she said I blamed her. We’d followed the road leading out of the industrial park onto the main highway. Taran had one job. One. All she had to do was use her magic to hypnotize the driver of the first car that Emme and Shayna flagged down. Her haste to get the hell out of bloodlust central, however, prevented her from focusing. She allowed both a soccer mom toting her kids and an elderly couple on their way to church to pass. When she finally relaxed enough to work her enchantment, the next car was an old blue pickup truck driven by the hillbillies from Deliverance, schlepping two chickens and a sheep in the back.
I’d barely crawled half-naked into the truck bed when a bitchy little hen pecked me in the arm. A full-out seizure and some chicken drool later, I’d ended up tucked on Emme’s lap. Emme stroked my feathers. “It’s okay, Celia. We’re almost home.”
Billy Bob’s truck sputtered into our development and pulled onto our driveway with a bump and a bang. Never had I been so thrilled to be home…until our front door opened and Aric and the wolves piled out.
I turned to Emme. “Cluck?”
“Um…Liam and Koda had planned to stay the night. I sort of gave Liam a key.” She held tight to me as Liam lifted her from the back, not because she worried about dropping me, but more out of fear that I’d smack her with my wings.
Taran swore under her breath as she and Shayna jumped out and Billy Bob drove off, polluting the air with a cloud of exhaust. I had to give Taran credit: She smelled like a barn, and she had chicken plumage stuck to her hair, and sheep crap on her shoes. Yet she tossed back her hair and strutted into the house like she modeled for Dior. “I’ll be with you in a minute,” she told the flabbergasted Gemini with a wave.
Aric slowly stalked toward me, eyes widening until they narrowed on my latest and greatest form. “Is that Celia?” He didn’t wait for anyone to answer and lifted me from Emme’s grasp. I turned my head to the side so I could see him better. “Are you all right?”
I nodded my damn chicken head and prayed—prayed like the world and all the victims of war, famine, and disease counted on it. God…please don’t let me lay an egg. Not now.
Aric’s anger and worry heated his palms. His soothing presence and scent forced my body to change. Aric lowered me to the ground, growling at the wolves as he slipped his warm cream sweater over my head.
I rose…on chicken legs.
Shit. Aric had released me too soon. From the waist down I remained very much something Colonel Sanders would raise a flag over. I yanked his sweater over my fine feathered ass.
“Can we turn around now, Aric?” Liam asked. The wolves kept their backs to me while Emme gawked and Shayna jumped up and down, pointing at my legs.
“Depends.” Aric peered over his shoulder. “Celia, are you decent?”
Talk about wanting to die. Aric growled something in wolf that equated to, “Lucy, you got some ’splainin’ to do.”
The other wolves circled me slowly. Gemini rubbed his goatee, his troubled expression zipping between me and Aric.
“Holy shit,” Koda muttered.
I cleared my throat, gathering as much courage as a chicken possessed. “We found Roberto Suarez, the last remaining judge. His witch has been infecting prostitutes with bloodlust and, I assume, sending them out to contaminate the vamps. If you’ll excuse me, Shayna and Emme will tell you the rest.” I shoved down Aric’s sweater further and strutted into the house on freaky legs that bent backward at the knees. Taran, I wasn’t. The steps were a bitch to climb and I practically fell through the front door.
A hot shower relaxed my body enough so only my chicken feet remained from the ankles down. Downstairs the wolves spoke on their phones, organizing the packs in the area to search for the remaining judge.
I finished drying my hair. Aric’s anxious growls echoed through the vent. “If anyone finds him, call me or the Elders. This shit ends tonight.”
I slipped on a teal sundress with a built-in bra and spaghetti straps. The hem needed altering. It pooled past my feet—perfect for hiding what remained of my “condition.” I tucked Aric’s sweater beneath my arm and lifted the skirt just enough to allow me to descend the staircase. With my opposite hand I gripped the railing like a madwoman, determined not to topple down the stairs.
Aric’s eyes trailed up my legs and to my face when I appeared. “Don’t act alone,” he said into the phone before disconnecting.
With all the grace I could manage in bird feet, I walked to the couch and sat. Liam approached me with deep fascination lighting his amber eyes. He bent and lifted the hem of my dress and peered underneath. I smacked his hand away at the same time Aric growled.
He apologized. To Aric. “Sorry, Aric. I forgot she’s yours.”
My lips parted in shock at Liam’s words as Aric took a seat next to me. “Um. Here’s your sweater. Thank you for lending it to me.”
Aric tossed the sweater over his shoulder. “Why didn’t you call me?”
I glanced at my sisters. “None of us had cell phones. And there wasn’t time to use one of the hospital lines. The infected vampire would have escaped if we hadn’t chased him.”
Aric’s eyes fired with anger. “You keep putting yourself in danger, despite my warnings. When are you going to learn it’s not safe to hunt infected vampires? Shit, Celia, you could have been killed—again.”
My anger met his with equal force. “When are you going to learn we’re not helpless? The only reason you even know what’s happened is because we did chase that vampire, we did find the bad guys, and we did get the answers.”
Aric shook his head. “You don’t get it, Celia. It’s not that you’re not capable; it’s that you can’t heal. Sure, you have Emme. But what happens if she gets hurt? Or if your injuries are so severe that she can’t help you?” He focused hard on the fireplace behind me, concern softening the rage across the planes of his face.
My anger melted away. Aric’s frustration brewed from fear. Fear that I’d get hurt, fear that I’d die. He didn’t want to lose me.
I didn’t understand males and I’d putzed my way through whatever sparked betwe
en us. Yet I knew then his feelings for me went beyond the physical connection soldering us together. My hand swept along the rough stubble of his sexy five-o’clock shadow to hold his face. He moaned softly and leaned into my touch. “I’m sorry for worrying you, Aric.”
He turned to kiss my palm and tucked me against him. “You scare the hell out of me—you know that?”
I crossed a leg to be closer to him, exposing my chicken feet. His chest rumbled with laughter against my face. “Maybe I can help,” he murmured. He slid his warm hand up my bare arm, igniting thousands of arousing fireworks. He shuddered at the same time a soft sigh broke through my lips. And just like that my bizarre feet went the way of the weredodo.
The door to the deck swung open. Gemini raced in, followed closely by Taran. Gemini cleared his throat upon approaching us. “Aric, our investigative team located three residences for the fourth judge. Two are on the Nevada side of Tahoe. The bear clans are headed there, since it falls within their territory. That leaves one more in Truckee. Six wolves are already there, waiting for you.”
I stood with Aric. He gave a stiff nod. “Let’s go, then.”
Aric kissed the top of my head and stomped toward the door. The wolves’ heavy boots marched across our hardwood floors like soldiers charging into battle. A battle to the death. Fear punched me hard in the gut. Anxiety twisted my intestines. Tears burned my eyes. Aric was strong, tough, brave. But Aric wasn’t invincible.
Please don’t leave me, too.
My passion for him compelled me to jet after him. Aric wrenched open his driver’s-side door. His head jerked toward me as my bare feet reached the edge of the porch. “What’s wrong?”
I lingered at the top of the steps. A strong breeze from the lake blew my hair back. I searched for the right words, not knowing what they were until they fell from my lips. “Do you think your wolf can match the strength of my beast?”