Playing with Fire (Judah Black Novels Book 4)

by E. A. Copen

  “I am here for Judah, not you.” Abe adjusted the collar of his coat. “Besides, what protection do the rest of you have against the spell that reduced Gideon Reed to little more than an attack dog?”

  Sal walked back to the cab where he grabbed a Tupperware bowl. He opened it when he came closer, revealing a thick, gray paste.

  Abe recoiled and coughed. “Really? That crude magick is the best you could come up with?”

  “These are sacred herbs, used for hundreds of years to—”

  Abe cut Sal off with the wave of a hand. “I’m well aware, but we don’t have time for war paint and chanting.”

  Sal narrowed his eyes.

  Abe turned, grabbed me by the wrist and yanked my arm forward. I yelped as something cold slapped against the inside of my arm, just above the elbow, and slid across it. It didn’t hurt so much as it surprised me. The stinging scent of sharpie made me wrinkle my nose, but another scent hung underneath it. The itchy, cinnamon spice scent of magick. When Abe leaned back and took his hands away, I saw he’d drawn something there in hurried lines and curves. “What the hell is that?”

  “A symbol by itself has no meaning unless imbibed with power from an expert in protective runes. I happen to be such an expert.” Abe turned and held up his sharpie. “Anyone else?”

  Sal stuck his fingers into the gray goop and drew a line with it across his forehead. “You’ve got your protection and I’ve got mine.”

  Abe sighed as Sal turned and swiped more of the ash paste over Daphne and Shauna’s forehead. One by one, everyone—including Bran and Angel went to Sal, accepting his method over Abe’s.

  I swallowed. It felt weird to be the only one who didn’t have the same gray mark over my forehead, and I didn’t want Sal to think I trusted a stranger over him, so I stepped up last. “Better safe than sorry, right?”

  Sal grinned and marked me with the ash paste.

  “What about you?” I asked of Abe.

  Abe pulled off his hat and flipped it over before waving a hand over it. The inside lit up with dozens of silver-blue runes, just like the one he’d drawn on me.

  I nodded. “Functional fashion. I like it.”

  “Do we know where in the house they are keeping them?” Abe re-affixed his hat.

  “I saw a bright light in one of the upper windows,” I said. “It was definitely magick.”

  “They may have opened a Way.” Abe drew his lips into a thin line. “It makes sense. That’s where he would be safest.”

  “That leaves just one problem.” Sal put the lid back on his container and set it in the bed of the truck. “Getting inside. Way I see it, there’s two ways in. Either we fight our way in, or sneak in. I think everyone knows which one I’d choose.” He cracked his knuckles.

  I shook my head. “If we go in guns blazing and this is a hostage situation, though, there’s going to be bodies on both sides.”

  “Bodies I will have to explain away,” Abe said and rubbed his chin.

  I turned to Abe. “Can you open the Way if you know where it is?”

  Abe shrugged. “I cannot open Ways, but I could tell you where one was should I be looking for it.”

  “A Way, you say, lad?”

  I jumped half a foot at the sound of a new voice. Pretty sure everyone else did to except for Angel and Sal, who turned to growl at the elf who’d appeared out of nowhere. He leaned on an ugly, twisted piece of wood and smiled at us.

  “Creven,” Sal growled. “What are you doing here? I thought you were in the hospital.”

  “I got better.” The elf frowned and leaned back from the stick. “The rest of you only know half of what’s going on. You’re walking blind into a trap.”

  “Hector’s expecting us?” I asked.

  “Someone is, aye, but not him. Seamus has a hand in this. He wants the sword the priest carries.” Creven’s eyes slid to Gideon Reed, who clutched his sword tighter. “I expect he’ll be making his move soon. He may even be using this situation to his advantage if he’s made any deals with Hector.”

  Sal’s upper lip twitched. “He’d trade her for the sword.”

  “Aye.” Creven nodded. “Might be best if the priest hangs back.”

  “I won’t,” Reed said, pulling himself up slightly. “Especially not on a hunch. I can help. There is more than one immortal in that compound and they aren’t easy to kill. Even your claws and teeth may be ineffective, but I know this sword can do it.”

  “I believe you.” Sal rubbed his injured side. I could still smell the blood on it. He wasn’t fully healed. “And we need all the help we can get. If Seamus makes his move, we’ll deal with it then.”

  Abe narrowed his eyes at the elf. “You are privy to a lot of information on both sides, elf. How is it you know about Seamus’ deal?”

  “Because I know Seamus better than anyone. I know how he operates and I might just be the only one of you who can stand up to him in a fair fight. So,” he said, lifting his staff and planting it again in the ground, “if ya need a Way opened, if you need to get in and out of anywhere unseen, I’m your elf. But I don’t think I can take all of ya. Even my powers have their limits.”

  “How many can you manage?” Abe asked.

  Creven rubbed his chin and surveyed the crowd. “Myself and two others. I might be able to do more, but I figure Sal here wants to go after his woman and, no offense, but your magick and mine will be oil and water. Cutting through that means extra work.”

  Sal nodded. “You’ll take me and Abe into the house and through the Way.”

  Angel crossed her arms and leaned back with her bottom lip out. “What about the rest of us? You expect us to just sit while you boys get to have all the fun.”

  “No,” Sal said. “Your job is to have all the fun you want as loud as you want. Draw everyone away from our position so that we’ve got a clear path. Think you can do that?”

  Angel smirked and looked at me. I nodded. “We can do that.”

  “Good.” Sal struck the side of his truck and stepped back. “Let’s load up.” He turned as if to go back to the cab.

  “It would be best,” Abe said, “if you and I traveled together with the elf, I think.”

  Sal tossed his keys to Shauna. “Take care of her.”

  Shauna caught them and hopped over the tailgate to go to the cab.

  The rest of us piled into our respective rides and our caravan took off with Abe’s truck bringing up the rear. After a few minutes of cruising down the road in silence, I turned around to check on the truck behind us. It had disappeared.

  “Fucking elves,” Angel muttered.

  “Fucking fae,” Bran added and sped up.

  Angel fidgeted, trying her fingers in the brass knuckles a minute. I plugged the nunchuck into the Wii remote and closed my eyes to concentrate. “What’s with the controller?”

  “It’s my magick wand.” I cracked open an eye to see her stifling a laugh.

  I couldn’t help myself. I’ve been laughed at and underestimated my whole life. People see me and think they push me around. Even well-meaning people like Angel couldn’t help but not take me seriously. Well, I was done with that.

  I pulled the nunchuck and the remote apart, stretching the cord between them, and concentrated really hard to send a burst of magickal energy down into the nunchuck. Please work this time.

  A blue bolt of lightning shot out of the transmitting end of the remote. The head rest of the front passenger seat exploded into a mess of foam padding and torn fabric. Smoke filled the cabin and we all started coughing. Bran swerved a little but kept us on the road, partially thanks to Angel’s quick thinking when she rolled down the window.

  When the smoke cleared, the head rest was nothing more than two bits of metal sticking up out of the rest of the seat.

  “Umm,” I said and looked down at my nunchuck and remote. “I’ll pay for that.”

  “Holy shit, kid,” Angel said, still coughing. She waved a hand in front of her face to clear more of the smok
e. “Glad I didn’t sit up front. That would have been my head!” She raised an eyebrow at me and slowly smiled. “You’re more dangerous than you look, aren’t you?”

  Bran frowned into the rear view. “Point that thing somewhere you can’t do any damage until we get to where we’re going, okay kid?”

  I lowered both the remote and the nunchuck, pointing them to the floor. “Yeah, okay.”

  ~

  We turned down the long driveway leading back to the compound at what might have been a hundred miles an hour. The back end of the hatchback fishtailed out. Angel and I were tossed around in the back but got righted pretty quickly. Bran slammed his foot on the accelerator and swerved to the side of the driveway, carving out a spot right next to Sal’s truck.

  The huge, three-story house loomed ahead. We were close enough that I could make out the ugly floral pattern on the curtains.

  “Um…” I started.

  “Brace for impact!” Bran shouted.

  I fell back and fumbled to get the seatbelt buckled. I had just enough time to secure it before the front of the car swerved and slammed into one of the greenhouses with a deafening crunch. A white marshmallow exploded in the front as the airbags deployed. The impact sent me straining against my seatbelt. The remotes went sailing in front of my vision and, for some reason, all I could think about was grabbing them and making sure I didn’t lose them.

  I don’t think I blacked out, but memory gets a little fuzzy directly after an impact like that. Next thing I knew, the car was sideways in a pile of metal and plastic and Angel was pulling me from inside, screaming at Bran, “He said be loud, not kill us!”

  “Nobody is dead,” Bran countered from a few paces away. He grabbed his shirt and ripped it off, tossing it in a wad to the ground beside him. “But they are aware that we are here. Hurry. I can smell the others. They are already around back.”

  I hopped down from the side of the overturned hatchback, still clutching my remotes, and looked around. Shauna had been a little gentler with Sal’s truck, opting instead to pull up against the house sideways and lay on the horn. She stood on top of the hood of the truck now, halfway through her shift into wolf form.

  The house came to life. Lights flipped on. Curtains shifted aside and curious faces peered out. We had only seconds before they’d be out on the porch with guns aimed at us, guns with silver bullets. I spotted movement in the front of the house near the windows, exactly where they’d gathered to shoot at me last time. Everyone else was still climbing out of the back of the truck, getting ready. Shauna and Daphne were in the middle of shifting and wouldn’t be done in time. I had to do something to keep whoever was coming through that door busy to protect my pack.

  I walked to the center of the yard and stood in front of the porch. The door opened and three men poured out onto the porch, pausing when they saw me standing off from the others.

  Keep calm, Ed. Keep calm and kick ass. You got this. I let out a heavy huff. “I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass.” I threaded the cord that ran between the nunchuck and the remote through my fingers and lifted the remote high. “And I’m all out of bubblegum!”

  I pointed it in the general direction of the three men and powered it up.

  An arc of blue lightning shot out of the end of the remote and struck the front of the house next to one of them. It erupted into a big puff of sparks and smoke, not quite the explosion I’d gotten in the car. Maybe the spell had a better effect at close range. Either way, it didn’t have exactly the intended effect. The other two sneered and raised their rifles to fire.

  And that’s when they were blindsided by a grizzly in blue jeans.

  Well, torn up bits of blue jeans, anyway. Bran, who was now a seven-foot grizzly with teeth and claws, jumped over the porch railing and knocked over both gunmen. I’m pretty sure that, when he roared in their faces, both of them wet themselves. Bran didn’t kill them. Not that the guy had any qualms about killing. I knew the katana he kept on his motorcycle wasn’t for show. But he suddenly had bigger fish to fry. A whole new group of people stumbled into the front room with more guns.

  When they realized there was a grizzly in the way, some of them must have turned and decided to come out the back because, a minute later, they were pouring from either side of the house.

  “Keep them coming out front!” Reed yelled and hopped off the truck. There was a glint of moonlight on metal as he did and, a second later, he had driven his sword into someone’s chest. Fire raced down the blade, setting the man alight. Reed kicked him off the sword and swung it at another.

  I am not a fighter. Even when I play RPGs, I prefer to hang back and assess the field before acting. In a real fight, I didn’t have time to think like that. There was no pause button. It was chaos and I couldn’t think.

  I froze up.

  The crack of gunfire echoed through the front yard and something whizzed past my face, close enough I could smell the air cook. One of the men who’d come out of the house ran up closer to me, pointing the gun straight at me. I knew what I should do, but I didn’t want to. My brain was still in a fog of confusion, stuck between the desire to survive and the commandment against killing.

  Before I could get myself straightened out, Angel flew by in a blur and socked the guy with a mean right hook. Blood went flying out of his mouth and he fell over, jaw broken, dazed, but not dead. She wrenched the gun from his hands and tossed it aside.

  “You okay, little buddy?” Angel asked, standing up straight.

  I swallowed and nodded.

  “Then stay close. I’ve got your back.”

  I smiled and took a step closer to her when a flash of light from the center second-story window lit up the yard. I shielded my eyes against it. Was that Abe, Sal and Creven going in or Warren coming out? No way to tell from where I stood. And no time.

  More and more people were pouring out of the house. Only some of them engaged us. Others took off running through the fields beside and behind the house. Shauna turned as if to go after some of the fleeing people. I got off a shot of blue magick that hit the ground right in front of her and she turned to snarl at me. “We’re not here to kill everyone!” I shouted. “Let them go.”

  Daphne fell into step beside me after she was done shaking a gun from someone’s hand. My sister stopped in front of Shauna and growled, showing her teeth. I felt a twinge of pride, knowing my big sister had my back, too.

  Shauna huffed and sat down, panting.

  “It looks like most of the riff-raff is taken care of,” Angel commented and pointed to the porch.

  Bran the bear sat down and yawned.

  I glanced through the crowd, looking for the people on my side to make sure they were all standing. I counted everyone except for one. “Hey, has anybody seen Reed? Where’s Gideon Reed?”

  Angel scanned the faces next to me and Bran stood up on his hind legs for a look.

  Just then an unfamiliar engine roared to life. Bright headlights blinded us. Rocks crunched as tires spun and then squealed. The car lurched forward, plowing straight for us. If Angel hadn’t reached over to jerk me out of the way, I would have ended the night as a hood ornament. As the car cruised by, I caught sight of Warren in the driver’s seat. I fought free of Angel and chased after them, but they were too fast. They were gone.

  I stood glaring down the empty lane, grinding my teeth and considering shifting to chase after them. Then, all of a sudden, the lane wasn’t empty anymore. A pair of headlights shone through the darkness, followed by another. Then, another. As they came closer, I could make out the shape of armored trucks.

  “Shit!” Angel shouted and grabbed me by the back of the shirt. “We’re out of time! BSI is here!”

  Everybody scrambled. I tried to turn and run, but with Angel gripping my shirt, it was all but impossible. Even running, we weren’t as fast as the trucks coming down the lane. We made it just a few yards further toward the house before the first shots rang out. A few of the Adventists who hadn’t
run off fell to my right. Another, an unarmed woman Adventist, took off running for the woods. A shot hit her in the back of the head and she fell, eerily still.

  Shocked and panicked, I stopped running, pulling Angel to a stop with me. “What are you doing?” she screamed. “Run!”

  But there was no time. Little red dots danced all over us. Spotlights clicked to life, scanning the yard as men with guns checked the fallen, placing bullets in every Adventist just to make sure.

  Against the light, a figure in a long coat emerged. I squinted to try and get a better look at him, but it was no use with the spotlights. His scent was masked heavily by cigarette ash and an undertone of rot. Whoever this man was, he was dying.

  “Mister Petersen,” said the man.

  I flinched as he flicked on a lighter. Long fingers with thin skin lifted a delicate looking cigarette to his mouth. The flame illuminated only the lower half of his face when he held it to the cigarette, revealing he was probably a middle-aged white guy in an expensive looking suit.

  The man sucked on the cigarette a moment before flipping the lighter closed. “I think it’s time we had a chat.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Warren’s goons tied me to the cross, good and tight. They had to unhook my cuffs from each other to do it and, when they did, I tried to take a swing at one of them. It landed but, with as weak as I was and without access to my magick, he barely noticed it. Even my best struggling was wasted and so I resigned myself to focusing on compartmentalizing my mind, creating a safe space that not even Warren could touch. I was ready to withstand whatever physical torture they were about to throw at me.

  Too bad that wasn’t what he had in mind.

  Once I was strung up, a rope tied around each arm and my ankles, my chains locked securely to the back of the wooden crossbeam, Warren stepped up to me, rolling his sleeves back. “Last time, you still had a little fight in you. I doubt it’s still there. You’re hungry, alone. No one is coming for you.” He readied his pointer and middle fingers, stretching each out toward me.