This had to be Warlock, the sorcerer werewolf Guinevere had warned him about in her psychic message.
The Dire Wolf smiled, thin black lips framing very white teeth. “There you are.”
Heather screamed, the sound piercing with an instinctive terror even Smoke’s calming spell couldn’t suppress.
“Get the car and get out,” Smoke told the children, giving them a shove down the hall. “Run.”
As they sprinted away, he faced the werewolf, lifted his war axe, and prepared to buy the children time to escape.
“I have dreamed of finding something like you,” Warlock said, moving closer with an odd, stalking grace, studying him with pleased interest. “I can pull a great deal of power from my clans, of course, but you—the power I’ll get from you would increase that by an order of . . .”
Smoke didn’t let him finish, lunging to swing the axe in a hard diagonal arc. The blade struck some kind of magical shield and bounced away, the pain of the abortive strike jarring his arm to the elbow.
He didn’t pause, rotating the axe’s three-foot-long shaft in both hands as if it were a quarterstaff. Mentally, Smoke cursed. The walls of the hall were too damned close together to swing the axe properly.
Luckily, he had thousands of years of combat experience, and he knew how to compensate for the problem. Sending a spell shimmering down the handle, he swung the axe with all his strength. The enchanted weapon passed through Sheetrock and studs like a ghost, going solid as it shot at the Dire Wolf’s grinning muzzle. The sorcerer’s magical shield flared gold . . . and the axe slid through it, too, solidifying the instant before it . . .
Warlock jerked his head back as the blade flashed past, missing his nose by a cat’s whisker. Smoke spun to add to the axe’s momentum, roaring a battle cry as he aimed for the beast’s chest. Again the Dire Wolf danced away at the last possible instant.
And in the kitchen down the hall, the children screamed. And something laughed, a rumbling evil chuckle.
Smoke whirled to throw himself into a plunging run down the hall.
He had to get to the children.
“Where are you going?” Warlock called, outraged. “You’re fighting me. The humans are not your concern!” The floor shook as the creature pounded after him, footsteps like thunder rolling under the children’s shrieks.
NINETEEN
Heather screamed again over the bang of a screen door. Smoke shot through the kitchen entry, jumped across an overturned chair, raced to the other side of the room, and hit the screen door so hard it flew off its hinges. The splintered door banged into the garage wall and tumbled into his path again. He fended it off with a forearm and ran past the Joneses’ white Saturn into the moonlit front yard.
The bastards had backed a dark blue van into the curving paved driveway, parking at an angle so the bulk of the vehicle hid their actions from curious neighbors.
Heather hung limp and unconscious over the brawny shoulder of a female werewolf, while a male with black fur handed Andy up to a mortal human crouched in the van’s open rear door. Yelling, the boy struggled hard, legs kicking, fists swinging. The man cursed and backhanded him, a single vicious slap. Andy clutched his head and started crying, gulping sobs of pain and fear.
Smoke snarled, conjured a knife as he ran, and threw it with a hard, skillful flick of his wrist. It thunked into the human kidnapper’s shoulder, and the man fell back, yelping in pain and clawing at the weapon.
The female Dire Wolf whirled toward Smoke, her eyes going wide in her red-furred face. She grabbed Heather’s jaw in a clawed hand that engulfed the teen’s entire head. “Back off, or I’ll break this little bitch’s neck.”
He conjured another blade, preparing to launch it with an extra kick of magic to give it greater speed. The Direkind might be resistant to magical blast attacks, but steel was steel. And one could still use a spell to add kinetic energy to any weapon.
But in the instant before he launched the knife, he sensed a blast boiling toward him. Smoke ducked, but the powerful bolt caught his shoulder, spinning him off his feet and into the air. Even as he tumbled, he curled his body, trying to roll with the bolt—only to slam into a bubble of energy that sucked him in with a pop. The bubble instantly clamped down on him like a vise. Pain tore a gritted curse from his compressing lungs.
Growling in fury, Smoke tried to blast free from his prison, but the globe only drank his magic down and tightened still more. His ribs creaked from the vicious pressure until he couldn’t draw breath to scream.
“Ah, better. Much better,” the white Dire Wolf said in his deep, oily voice. “Let me attend to the hostages, and then we can get down to business.”
Andy Jones stared in numb fear at the elf man, who writhed five feet off the ground, his darkening face contorted in pain. Without even glancing at him, the giant white werewolf strolled over to the van, big head tilted in casual interest. He looked like something out of one of Andy’s video games, walking on legs curved like a dog’s, a big white monster with orange eyes and a whole lot of teeth.
Andy froze, not even daring to breathe. They’d cuffed his hands behind his back, and he felt sick and helpless.
“Take your hostages and go,” the white werewolf told his captors. “I will be busy with the godling for quite some time.”
“As you wish.” The black monster ducked his head in a kind of bow.
The white one turned and walked back to the elf, moving quickly on his big paws, like he couldn’t wait to do whatever horrible thing he had planned.
The wolfgirl handed Heather up to the black werewolf. He flopped her over one furry knee to handcuff her wrists behind her back.
“I’m bleeding!” the regular guy whined, clutching the knife buried in his shoulder. “I need to go to the emergency room!”
“Shut up,” the black werewolf snapped without looking around. He added to the wolfgirl, “Change back and drive.”
“To the target?”
“Not yet. We need time to prepare. Just find someplace to park out of sight.”
She nodded and closed the van door. A minute later, the engine started and the van lurched, backing up. It got really dark and quiet, except for the guy making kind of sobbing sounds of pain as he breathed.
The monster’s breath gusted against Andy’s arm, smelling like blood and raw meat. Andy did not want to imagine why. He’d probably start screaming again, and he had the feeling he needed to be really quiet.
The van stopped and accelerated forward. Andy braced his shoulder against the metal wall behind him and huddled on the carpeted floor next to his unconscious sister. His bruised face ached, and the handcuffs hurt. He wanted his mother.
Had the white werewolf killed the elf?
The regular guy spoke from the bench seat against the opposite wall. “If you think I’m gonna be able to rig the devices with my shoulder like this, you’re nuts.”
“You’ll find you can do whatever I tell you to do,” the werewolf said. “Because you won’t like the consequences if you don’t.”
Devices? What kind of devices?
He didn’t dare ask.
Smoke’s ribs ached as he struggled to suck in a breath against the crushing weight of the Dire Wolf’s magic.
“They say you were a god once.” Blazing orange eyes regarded him through the energy globe. “You certainly have a lot of power.” Black lips stretched into a grin. “At least, for the moment. I’m going to take it all away.”
Sheer rage helped him draw a breath. “Fuck . . . you.”
Warlock laughed. “Have a little dignity. That is no way for a god to talk.”
Smoke could only snarl in reply. I must get out of this thing. Gods knows what those furry bastards are doing to the children.
As desperation clawed at him, he scanned the trap that held him, seeking some flaw he could use to break the thing open and escape. Unfortunately, the globe was as smooth and featureless as a titanium egg. And every bit as strong.
So m
aybe he could create a weakness. Smoke picked a spot on the field between his feet and stared at it, concentrating fiercely as he focused his magic into a white-hot beam, bright and fierce as a laser. Then he shot that beam of a spell straight down into the globe’s bottom.
Which promptly sucked it up like a sponge.
Smoke curled his lip and kept trying, drawing more power, then still more, bearing down to force the spell into the tightest point he could manage.
“Oh, yes,” Warlock purred. “Give me more, godling.”
Smoke jerked his head up to meet the creature’s orange eyes. Eyes that glowed brighter as the spell burned hotter.
Gods and demons, the globe is feeding him my power. Cursing silently, Smoke shut down his spell.
“Don’t stop,” the Dire Wolf said. “I still hunger.”
Smoke called him a few choice words, rolling syllables of rage in a language that hadn’t been spoken in millennia.
“I have no idea what you just said, but somehow I suspect it wasn’t very nice.” His grin mocking, the monster walked up to the globe as Smoke glared at him. “Never mind. I’ll be able to translate it myself once I have finished draining you.” The werewolf slid his ringed fingers into the globe as the medallion around his neck began to glow. So did the rings.
Ice rolled across Smoke’s skin, growing steadily colder as the medallion glowed brighter. He could feel the boiling magic within him growing weaker as the globe drained it away.
“Oh,” Warlock purred, orange eyes shuttering in orgasmic pleasure, “that is nice.”
The line of mourners snaked through the somber red-carpeted halls of the Gayle Funeral Home. As the sheriff had predicted, hundreds of people had turned out for Mark Davis’s receiving, most of them cops from Greendale County and its surrounding jurisdictions.
They were a quiet group, as might be expected, all too conscious that going down in the line of duty could happen to any of them without any warning at all. The fact that yet another cop had fallen the day before—evidently a gruesome victim of her own K-9 partner—only added to the grim mood.
Logan, standing beside Giada in line, was conscious of being surrounded by uniforms and badges with black mourning bands stretched across them. A couple of days ago, he would have felt like a member of the family in the dress uniform he’d donned as a gesture of respect.
Now he felt like an interloper. He wasn’t one of them anymore.
He was a Magus, a vampire. One of Arthur Pendragon’s warriors. There was pride in that thought, but there was also a certain quiet ache at leaving the law enforcement brotherhood behind.
Yet painful or not, it was his duty. After they’d paid their respects to Mark’s widow, he and Giada would meet the others to continue the search for Warlock and his rogues. Logan had no doubt they’d find them, if not tonight, then tomorrow.
There wasn’t much Arthur Pendragon and his warriors couldn’t handle. A werewolf sorcerer was just more of the same.
If only he was so certain of his skills when it came to more personal relationships. Logan slanted a look at Giada, standing slim and elegant at his side. The tailored black slacks and jacket she wore over that white silk blouse would have made most women look severe. Yet somehow the stern clothing only emphasized Giada’s delicate femininity.
She really was one of the most beautiful women he’d ever met. Yet though he could feel her in his mind, a humming female presence, he sensed she was holding him at a distance. And he didn’t know why.
Logan frowned, studying her cool profile under the tight gold twist of her hair. His mother had told him it could be difficult getting used to being Truebonded. Having someone else inside your head was not the usual human state of being.
The process would probably be even more challenging if you’d Truebonded as a survival strategy rather than a matter of love.
Had he made a mistake, asking Giada for a mental link so early?
Logan shook the question off. They’d done it, and now they were going to have to learn to manage their new psychic link, much as he was learning to manage his vampire abilities. They’d figure out a way to make it work, just as his parents had.
And God knew Arthur and Gwen had gotten through a bumpy patch far worse than this. His mother had basically forced the Truebond on his father by seducing Lancelot. Enraged by the one-night stand, Arthur had demanded a Truebond so she’d be unable to cheat on him again.
He hadn’t been pleased to discover that was exactly what Gwen had intended all along. Thanks to the Truebond, Arthur had forgiven her for manipulating him—it was hard to stay furious at someone when they were part of you. Even so, he’d only recently forgiven Lance.
Logan found it hard to believe his mother had done something like that to begin with; it seemed utterly out of character. But then again, it had been fifteen hundred years ago; she’d been only twenty.
Anyway, if Arthur and Gwen could get through something that serious, this . . . distance should be nothing more than an emotional speed bump.
Surely.
Heartened, he reached out to Giada, trying to brush her thoughts with his. Once again, she fended him off. He felt a stab of pain, sharp as a dagger’s point in his chest.
Andy clutched his sister’s hand, his head aching in a savage, rhythmic throbbing. The werewolf had hit him when he’d taken another swing at Regular Guy. He’d known he couldn’t win, but he couldn’t just give in. Not to what the bastards had in mind.
By the time he woke up, they were no longer handcuffed, and the guy—the fucker—was done with his preparations.
Head down, Andy stared at his sister’s arm as they held hands. Her wrist was circled by a huge bruise that looked like the prints of the werewolf’s fingers. She must have fought them, too.
Andy discovered he was proud of her.
“It’s going to be okay,” she whispered to him. Her voice sounded funny. Kind of raw, as if she’d been screaming. “Grandpa will save us.”
“I know,” Andy lied.
How would it feel to die? Would it hurt, or would it be so fast he wouldn’t feel anything? He hoped it was fast.
Would he go to heaven?
Maybe he shouldn’t have called Regular Guy a fucker. Except RG was a fucker. Anybody who would do something like this to two kids he didn’t even know was definitely a fucker.
“I’ve lost a lot of blood,” RG said. He was whining again. Dumbass. The werewolf was going to black his other eye. Served him right. “I did what you said. All you have to do is arm the devices, and you’ve got a remote for that. Can I go now?”
The werewolf looked around. He’d gone to the front of the van to talk to the wolfgirl, who sat in the driver’s seat. She’d turned into a regular human. Probably because the cops would have pulled them over if she’d still looked like a monster.
Driving while werewolf? Andy snickered.
“You have done well, human.” But there was something in the werewolf’s voice, something that made the hair stand up on the back of Andy’s neck. “We’ve decided to reward you.”
Oh, crap. Something bad was about to . . .
One minute the werewolf was leaning over the front seat of the van. The next, he was all the way in the back, on top of RG.
Who started screaming like a little girl.
Blood splattered across Andy’s face, and it was all he could do not to scream himself. RG flailed at the monster, and more blood flew. Then the werewolf straightened and stalked away, leaving the guy lying on the floor in a bloody heap.
“You bit me!” Huddled on the bench seat, RG stared at the wolf accusingly. “Why did you bite me?”
“Because you’re a fucker?” Andy muttered.
Heather snickered, then gave him a scandalized look.
“Oh, like you weren’t thinking it,” he whispered.
“I bit you,” the werewolf said, ignoring them as he dropped into the seat behind the driver, “so you’ll become one of us.”
“If he doesn’t die,�
�� Wolfgirl said. She was sitting turned sideways in the driver’s seat. To RG, she added, “You have a twenty-percent chance of burning up in the transition.”
“Odds are you’ll survive, though.” The werewolf licked the blood off his teeth. “And then you’ll have more power than you’ve ever dreamed of.”
RG’s eyes took on a glitter Andy didn’t particularly like. “So the next full moon . . .”
“Full moon, my bushy red tail.” Wolfgirl snorted. “You’ll change sometime in the next hour. The moon’s got nothing to do with it. That’s just a myth.”
RG’s eyes widened. “In the next hour?”
Andy and his sister exchanged a sick look. RG a werewolf? Every time Andy thought this couldn’t get worse . . .
It did.
Pain clawed at Smoke, raking psychic furrows in his mind, ripping into memory, shredding his magic.
Eating his soul.
He’d battered the globe, first with spells, then with his fists and feet, trying to break through, to get the hell out before there was nothing left of him.
Nothing worked.
“Arhhhhh!” Warlock jerked his ringed fingers free of the globe and jumped back, shaking his hands as if he’d been burned. “Merlin’s balls, you have as much power as the legends say.”
Smoke managed to lift his head and snarl.
His thoughts crept like molasses through the universe of pain he inhabited. Pain in his skull, in his bones, in muscle and flesh, so great he shook with it in constant, rolling tremors.
The wolf regarded him through the globe, frowning. “This is taking too long. I’m going to miss the fun at the funeral home if I don’t speed it up.” Thin black lips rolled off shining fangs. “I want to watch the Celt’s brat die.”
He began to pace around the globe, staring at Smoke with coldly speculative orange eyes. Smoke stared back, panting in a combination of exhaustion, pain, and rage.
There had to be some way to beat the bastard, some weakness he could use. Something. Otherwise Logan, Giada, and the children had no chance at all.
Master of Fire Page 25