Son of a bitch.
It wasn’t my blood they were after.
Son of a BITCH!
My mind raced, playing over what had happened in the last two hours. We had been attacked by witches. Powerful, ancient witches who killed thirty-two people to get what they were after, something called the Blood of the Trinity. The doctors had said he would never walk again, but Larson had stood up and fought after being in a wheelchair for almost a year.
The witches had taken his blood.
Motherfucking SON of a bitch.
Special Agent Heck paused the screen, catching Selene as she stood up. The picture locked in a blur like she was a ghost. He turned and looked at me, saying nothing. Anger burned along my veins, setting my skin on fire.
My hands clenched tight. I stared at Kat. She turned her face away. Tiff stepped from her, moving closer to me. Her hand hovered over my arm, not quite touching me. “Where is Larson?”
Special Agent Heck jerked a thumb toward the tent behind him. “In there, all the way in the back in an interrogation room.”
“Take me to him.” My throat was tight. “Now.” Heck nodded once and turned to lead us farther into the tent.
Son of a bitch.
13
Larson looked up as I stepped through the tent flaps and into the room. He looked like shit. His hair was a dusty, lumpy mess, like he had tried to smooth it down, but the left side was singed, curled, and burned black on the ends. The cut on his cheek had scabbed over, the skin around it red and shiny from being burnt. Dark circles surrounded his eyes, making it look like someone had punched him. Twice. He pulled his hands off the tabletop and dropped them into his lap. He was too slow. I had seen the handcuffs.
Maybe I was projecting, but he looked guilty as hell. “What did you do?” My voice rode a bubble of fury that was lodged high in my chest, just behind the hollow of my throat.
His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down under his beard. “Deacon, please . . . let me explain . . .”
The bubble burst, fury boiling over. “What the FUCK did you do?”
“Hold on, Deacon. I can . . .”
My hands clamped on the table in front of him. It was a folding table, pressboard and aluminum. I threw it aside, flipping it away to thwap against the canvas wall of the room.
The barrel of my gun pressed against his forehead, safety off.
Kat behind me. “Deacon, don’t! He—”
“Kat, shut up.” Tiff’s voice was deadly as a razor blade.
Special Agent Heck stayed silent.
Larson’s eyes looked at me. They were huge in the dark hollows around them. The cornflower blue of his irises were fever bright, pulled inward, trying to see the gun against his head.
Calm washed over me, my mind dissociating, going to that place that lets me pull the trigger. Everything became distant, disconnected and fuzzy, except for the gun in my hand and the head it was pressed against.
“You have exactly one second to explain what you did that brought this shit down on our heads. Tell me why the witches wanted your blood.” The gun barrel pressed harder as I leaned in. “Tell me why you can walk now.”
He blinked, eyelashes slapping down and sweeping up. He swallowed. “I healed myself.”
“How?”
He swallowed again, eyes cutting away. “With magick.”
Memory flared to life in my head of the last time I’d held a gun to Larson’s head. I had been using my power to try and heal a Were-dog named Sophia who had been beaten nearly to death. She was refusing to change form to kickstart her metabolism because she was pregnant. The change would have healed her, but it might have made her miscarry so she was steadfastly not doing it. Larson had convinced me to use my power to try and force her lycanthropy to work without changing form.
He had tried to help. With a spell. I stopped him by putting my gun to his head.
My hand tightened on the grip of the Colt. I was fighting to keep my finger from squeezing the trigger. “You. Did. What?”
Tears puddled on the rims of his eyes. “It gets worse. I know why they want my blood.” His eyes closed, the lids driving the tears out to spill down his cheeks. “It’s because of Sophia’s children.”
Sophia’s children: Josiah, Gideon, and Samson. Three mixed-breed lycanthropes—their mother a Were-dog, their father a Were-lion. Lycanthropes can’t breed across type, but somehow it had happened anyway. They were being raised by their mother. Their father was dead.
I know because I killed him.
The three children were weird. They grew faster than was normal, almost one year of development for one month of living. At six months old, they looked like four-year-olds. There was always a human child, a half-Were child, and one fully in an animal form that was a strange mix of dog and lion. Always one in each form. They switched, too; shifting forms one to another. But all three forms were always present.
Larson had been monitoring their growth, keeping check on them medically since he was the lycanthrope community’s doctor, or vet. He had done hours of research on them, studying the implications of what they were.
Dammit. I should have been watching him closer.
“What does this have to do with them?”
“I used their blood to heal my spine.”
When the three of them were still in the womb, I had used my power to heal a friend of mine who was dying. Sophia had been in the room. My power had brushed up against the lycanthropy of her unborn children and it sent a tidal wave of healing out. It saved my friend from dying and healed the other five lycanthropes in the room who were also injured. Larson had been there. He knew what her unborn children had done.
And now he had used it to perform witchcraft.
My foot lashed out, slamming into the chair he was sitting in. Feet and arms flailing, he slammed into the canvas-covered asphalt that was the floor of the room.
I stepped over, boots on each side of him as he lay on the ground. My gun swung around, tracking for his chest. “I warned you what would happen if you started in with magick. You didn’t listen.” My finger tightened on the trigger. “You brought this down on your own head.”
“Deacon!” Kat grabbed my arm, yanking it. “Deacon, please. I love him. Don’t do this. Please don’t do this.” Her eyes streamed. “For me, please let him live.”
I didn’t look at her. I could see her in the corner of my vision. Kat. I loved her. She was family. I had rescued her from a hellish situation, and she had joined my fight. She had been there, by my side, almost from the beginning. Reliable Kat. Serious business Kat. The girl who was as close to me as any woman had been since my wife, before Tiff had come along.
And she loved Larson.
I shoved my fucking gun back in its fucking holster. The leather straps dug into my shoulder, driving a surge of pain through it. I welcomed it. The pain drove the anger, firing it across my nerves like lightning.
Looking down, I didn’t keep the fury out of my voice. “Get up. You are going to help me stop this thing you started. Then me and you are going to have a serious talk.”
I stepped away as Kat bent to help him to his feet.
“And if you pull any more magick shit, I will put a bullet right in your head.”
Tiff reached out, putting her hand soft on my shoulder. She didn’t say anything, just looked at me, her palm warm through the cotton of the T-shirt. Her hand was on my stitches, sending a throb of hot ache through my shoulder and back, but I didn’t ask her to move it.
Special Agent Heck was watching us when I looked over at him. “What now, Mr. Chalk?”
“We can assume Selene and her crew are after Sophia’s children so we find them and keep them safe. The witches are probably going to use Larson’s blood in a tracking spell of some kind. We have to get there first. I hope they’re at home.”
Kat and Larson stepped up beside us. Larson stayed on the other side of her, out of reach. He didn’t have to take the precaution. He was safe. As long as he didn�
�t screw up again I wouldn’t touch him. “Kat, get the number and track Sophia down. Tiff, call the club and give Father Mulcahy a heads-up as to what is going on.”
“On it.” Tiff turned, pulling her phone out of her purse. Kat took hers out of Larson’s pocket.
Special Agent Heck stepped up. “Anything you want me to do?”
“Send any information you have on this Wrath of Baphomet to the e-mail on this Web site.” I pulled a card out of my wallet and handed it over. It was a black business card. The front had a red-foil silhouette of a monster’s head on it surrounded by a bull’s-eye. On the back was my cell number and Web site. He nodded and turned away, pulling a slim steel rectangle from his inner jacket pocket. Thin fingers flipped open the lid, revealing a touchscreen. Holding it sideways, he began moving his thumbs over the surface.
Larson was watching me. I looked over. He opened his mouth to say something and then thought better of it.
Good move.
Pressure mushroomed behind my eyes, settling deep inside my skull. I looked at my watch. Almost two and a half hours had passed since the attack. I didn’t know how the witches were going to go after Sophia’s children, but I had to assume the worst.
They had a big head start on us and probably weren’t using modern transportation. When someone starts bargaining their soul and their humanity away for power, they tend to rely on magick for everything. That’s the weakness they have, no matter how much power they gathered. Sometimes they don’t even think of modern technology. Hell, sometimes witches even rode on brooms.
But they had used a LOT of power tonight, and magick isn’t unlimited. That’s why witches store it in objects to use. That’s why magick has ritual and sacrifice attached to it. There is a cost. You can’t just whip it up from thin air. Witches have to put effort into their spells, bargaining with demonic forces for power. Selling their souls on the installment plan.
That’s why there is no “good” magick. No white witches like in the fairy tales. Magick corrupts, tainting and corroding away any goodness. It always goes wrong. Always.
I looked over at Larson. His eyes slid away from mine like he could read my mind.
Tiff broke my gaze. “Father Mulcahy is closing the club. I told him what we were dealing with. He said he would get ready for our next call.”
“Good. Thank you.”
She gave me a little smile. Even with all that was going on, it was hard to tear my eyes away from it. I loved that little smile. It wasn’t the smile she gave to everybody else, the one that lit her face and made her shine. No, this one was smaller. Softer. This one was a little bit crooked and made her eye go soft. It was warm affection mixed with a bit of something lustful. It was a smile she gave only to me.
Kat broke our connection with a gasp. Both of us looked over. She was holding her phone to her ear, the lines of her face drawn tight. Eyebrows creased, mouth forming an O of horror, white showing all the way around her irises.
The pressure in my skull doubled.
She had to swallow before she spoke. “It’s Sophia. She and the kids aren’t home.”
“Where are they?”
“At the movies. By the mall.”
Realization hit me like a hammer. It was Friday night. There was a new blockbuster starring a team of misfit superheroes, a hot new romantic comedy led by the biggest celebrity couple the tabloids had ever loved, and the newest installment of a huge children’s franchise that had an actual story.
The movie theater would be swarming with people.
My mind flashed to the line of body bags that Selene and her crew had left behind.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. It would be a bloodbath.
14
The Comet screamed down the highway, tires ripping at the asphalt, engine roaring out into the night. We started out with a police escort to move traffic, but once we hit the highway, I pushed the pedal to the metal and left it shrinking in the rearview mirror. Government issue can’t compete with NASCAR level hotrodding on good old American Muscle-car. Tiff sat next to me. Her fingers moved methodically, stripping silver bullets out of magazines and replacing them with lead. Head down, hair fallen, intent on her task.
Special Agent Heck sat in the back holding on to the edge of his seat. He still had the same bland look on his face, but his mouth was so tense I could see the muscles bunch along his jawbone. My eyes flicked down to the speedometer. I guess he wasn’t comfortable driving 140 miles an hour down the highway at night.
Jerking the chain-link steering wheel to the right whipped us around an SUV that was only doing eighty. We rocketed past and I smiled to myself. I couldn’t help it. No matter what kind of bad shit we might be heading toward, there was a thrill in turning my car loose and letting her do what she was made to do.
Kat and Larson weren’t with us. I sent them to Polecats, the club I own and use as a base of operations. We needed the room to hold Sophia and her babies, and I wanted them to go ahead and start researching the Wrath of Baphomet.
Special Agent Heck leaned up. His fingers creased the leather of the seat back, knuckles white. I reached over, turning down the stereo. AC/DC’s Back in Black dropped to a level we could talk over.
“Mr. Chalk, do you have a plan I should know about?”
“Hopefully we’re going to pull up to the front of the theater before the witches arrive. Sophia and the kids will come out, get in the car, and we’ll whisk them off to safety.”
“And what chance do you give that of happening?”
“Given my luck, about two percent.”
Tiff snorted. “You do have shit for luck with this stuff.”
“Hey! Watch it. I can let you out here.” My grin matched hers.
“Don’t be mad at me for pointing out your unlucky nature.”
“I get lucky plenty.”
“That’s my good luck, not yours.”
“Ahhhhh, glad you straightened that out.”
“So to speak.”
Dirty-minded girl.
Special Agent Heck cleared his throat. “Back to the topic at hand, what is the plan if the Wrath of Baphomet is on the scene when we arrive?”
I looked at him in the rearview mirror, taking my eyes off the road. “Then it’s The Guns of Navarone time and we go Apocalypse Now on their asses.”
“What about the civilians?”
“No, not them. We don’t shoot civilians.” He gave me a sour look as I flipped the blinker and touched the brake, slowing for our exit. The Comet growled in protest, exhaust popping as the speedometer needle swung up and around toward the lower numbers on the dial. “We get Sophia and her kids and get gone. The witches want her, so they’ll follow, taking them away from innocents. We do everything we can to minimize collateral damage, but stopping Selene and her funky bunch are the best way to do that.” Tiff slapped a freshly loaded clip into one of my Colts.
Jacking the slide slipped a bullet into the chamber. Locked and loaded.
“Looks like it’s Guns of Navarone time.” She pointed out her window as we zipped down the off ramp.
The mall shone like a beacon. All the lights surrounding it blared out, enveloping it in a halo. Thick black smoke billowed, churning up to disappear into the night sky behind it. Right where the movie theater was.
15
A teenaged girl slammed into the hood of the Comet with a swirl of brown hair and pink skirts. She had been looking behind her and ran headlong into the front of the car. Bouncing back up, she shook herself, turned, and ran away.
We were on the street. The multiplex sat below us in a depression. Chaos reigned. People ran from the theater in streams, pouring out of exits on each side. Men, women, and children scurried in herds of panicked humanity. Some of them had reached their cars and were trying to get out, get away, get gone. Both entrances into the parking lot were jammed with cars that had piled into each other. A busted ass Honda Civic had run up under a jacked-up pickup truck, both of them stuck across one opening; the other one ha
d matching sedans, one white and one black, that had wedged against each other and the concrete marquee.
We needed to get down there.
“Hold on.” Stomping the gas, I whipped around the Honda and the truck, tires barking as I jolted over the curb beside them. The Comet rose up for a second and then tipped forward. There was a split second where it felt like we were suspended in air, hanging in space, free-falling; then the tires slammed into grass and we were careening down an embankment. We slalomed down the hill in the blink of an eye and bounced out into the back of the parking lot. My hand hit the horn as we surged around a group of people clotted together. They bowled out of the way as we drove by. Weaving and jerking, we got to the curb in front of the theater. I slapped the gearshift in Park and threw open my door.
Here we go.
My boots hit asphalt as I stepped out of the car. My knees went weak. I grabbed the roof of the Comet to keep myself from falling back in. Magick was thick in the air, cloying and sticky. Choking. It slammed into me like a fist. The smell of struck matches dipped in spoiled milk clotted my throat, watering my eyes. Desperately I pulled in my power, shoving it deep inside. It took a second of concentration to tamp it down so I could keep moving.
Damn, these witches were powerful.
Shoving off, I moved quickly around the front of the Comet. Stepping to Tiff and Special Agent Heck, I had a moment to take in just how surreal we looked. Pandemonium was clanging all around us, people running to and fro, smoke billowing out of the doors to the movie theater, a brittle, panicked keening in the air from people screaming and alarms ringing. And here we three stood in various stages of formal wear with guns. Special Agent Heck had on his black suit and tie with a blocky plastic semiautomatic in hand; Tiff was still in that spectacular evening gown, holding a shotgun from the trunk of the Comet; and I was in the tatters of my suit, my hand full of big bore, nickelplated Colt .45.
Blood and Magick Page 6