by Kristie Cook
“You’re planning something,” she accused before we even landed on the bottom step. “A covert mission you’re keeping from the council.”
“Which makes it none of your business,” I said, lifting my chin. She stood more than half-a-foot taller than me, but I refused to let her intimidate me anymore. I hadn’t liked her since the day we’d met, and the feeling was fairly mutual. We tolerated each other for Rina’s sake, but I no longer had to.
“This is a disgrace.” She glared at me as she tossed her raven-black hair over her shoulder.
My brows shot up. “Excuse me?”
“What you’re doing. Ms. Katerina would have never been so secretive, doing things unbecoming of the Amadis.”
“You don’t even know what we’re doing. And you’re right. Rina never would have. She didn’t have to. Things are different now. You of all people should understand why we need to act.”
“I, of all people, know what your grandmother would have wanted, and you are disrespecting her memory.”
My mouth fell open. Tristan stepped down, into Julia’s personal space.
“And you are disrespecting your matriarch,” he growled quietly.
Julia’s hard gaze snapped to him, then back at me. “You shouldn’t even be the matriarch.”
My jaw dropped even lower, making the muscle pop. Then I snapped it shut, my teeth clacking audibly. Because I stood shorter than both of them, I stayed on the higher step to be closer to eye level, and I leaned toward her.
“I’m going to let that slide as a statement made out of inconsolable grief for the woman you mourn, and not made as an act of treason against me,” I said. “Because I don’t go around half-assedly accusing people of being traitors. However, I honestly don’t think you knew Rina as well as you think you do, nor do you truly understand her and what she’d want me to do. She knew—still knows—that I am not her, and yet she entrusted me to fill her shoes. So think before you spout off with your advice for me.”
The vampire’s nostrils flared as we glared at each other. “She didn’t think you’d be filling those shoes until you were educated properly. And do not worry. I have no advice for you. I don’t know how to think at that level.”
She meant it as an insult, but she simply reinforced what I’d told my team earlier.
“Then consider yourself dismissed.” I pushed past her and strode for the front door. “No need to attend the meeting tomorrow. Spend your day preparing to leave the island, please. You can serve our people out on the frontlines, where you belong.”
Tristan pushed the wooden door open, and we both passed through. It shut heavily in the stunned vampire’s face.
“Well,” I said, “she’s off the council a lot easier than I expected.”
Tristan took my hand. “Rina trusted her for a reason.”
“She tried to banish you from the Amadis. I don’t care about her excuse that Martin or Kali or whoever had any kind of influence over her. I could never bring myself to fully trust her on my council. And as we just saw, she’s too old school and will never respect me.”
“I’m not arguing with your decision. I’m glad to have her gone, too. Just don’t get crazy and try to banish her from the Amadis.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t stoop to her level.”
We flashed then to the cliffs where the rest of my team waited. If not for our superior vision or the full moon striking their blond hair, we’d have barely been able to make out Owen, Vanessa, and Char, who were dressed in black fighting leathers. Sheree, however, sat in her tiger form, her black and orange tail swishing around her paws. Two others who joined us had already transformed, too, into their wolf alter-egos.
One of the silver linings of Owen spending time with Kali was that he’d learned and perfected the magical art of creating portals from one place on Earth to another. Norms had learned how to block flashing’s magical energy to ensnare us, such as when they had captured Vanessa and me in the middle of nowhere Georgia when we’d flashed from the destroyed Amadis jet last spring. So this new skill of Owen’s proved to be quite convenient, allowing us to travel even faster and farther than flashing, using a different kind of magic the norms couldn’t impede. He used the ability now to open an entry straight into the outskirts of Istanbul, and we stepped through the portal, leaving Amadis Island for a dark alley on the edges of the city in Turkey.
Charlotte and Owen cloaked and shielded us, and I reached my mind out, scanning the signatures, searching for the evil minds who’d attacked us yesterday. I came across a nest of vampires who’d just finished feeding—we’d arrived too late to help those poor norms—and werewolf packs and feline dens roamed the countryside under the full moon. Unfortunately, I couldn’t locate the mages.
“They probably have a powerful shield up,” Owen whispered.
“I sense dark magic in the air,” Char added. She wrinkled her nose. “The stench is nauseating.”
I pressed my lips together and went back to the vampires’ minds, hoping to find any clues.
“I’m not getting anything,” I said after a while.
“Then we search on foot,” Tristan said.
Since flashing was too dangerous these days, we raced through the streets of the suburbs under our magical cloaks, searching for the compound I’d seen in the warlocks’ minds after they attacked us. We split up, covering more area faster, and I kept us all connected through my mind. I tried to watch the scenery through everyone else’s eyes, but after the third time of running into Tristan or Sheree because I couldn’t see my own surroundings, I had to forego that idea.
“Quarter mile ahead,” Vanessa said. She and Owen had been running three blocks to our right. “On your side, Char. The odor is coming from up there.”
The tiger running beside me sneezed in agreement. I smelled something faint, but Tristan’s and my senses weren’t quite as strong as the vampire’s and shifters’.
“The wolves smell it, too,” Charlotte said from three blocks to our left.
Tristan, Sheree, and I cut toward her and the werewolves as soon as we could. Vanessa and Owen merged in with us. We slowed down as we approached the dead end of the road, where the compound sat on the edge of town, looking dark and empty. Owen joined our cloaks so we could see each other as we stood a block away, studying the place. I reached my mind out, searching for the Daemoni mind signatures, but found none close by.
Are we muffled? I asked Owen, and he nodded, so I spoke aloud, though in a hushed whisper. “There’s a wolf pack that lives on the opposite end of town, and I sense a vamp nest about four miles away, in the next town over, I think. They’re all hunting and terrorizing.”
Sheree dropped her big head, and a soft growl rumbled in her throat. She’d rather be helping the norms or trying to convert any newly turned. I lay my hand on the soft fur of her shoulder.
“Sorry, but we need to do this to protect us all,” I told her. “Otherwise, there won’t be an Amadis left to help anyone.”
Her orange, black, and white head nodded in understanding, but I could feel her frustration and heartache for the norms whose lives couldn’t be saved tonight. At least not by us. I felt the pain, too. War sucked.
“So no stragglers nearby?” Charlotte asked me. “No one’s going to ambush us?”
I shook my head. “I don’t sense anyone. Of course, I don’t sense anyone inside there, either.”
“Their shield is thick,” Owen said. “What we see is probably a mirage. What they want everyone to see.”
I gnawed on my lip as a thought occurred to me. “What if this isn’t really the place? What if they only made it look like the place?”
“Then they know you saw it in their minds,” Tristan said. “There’s no reason to create a decoy unless there’s somebody to trap.”
“Which means they’d given the image to me on purpose.” The fabric of this grand idea began to unravel around us. “They could be setting us up.”
“Are there any other places shielded
so heavily?” Tristan asked the warlocks. Both Char and Owen shook their heads in response.
“Vanessa’s and the shifters’ noses led here. It’s the only place the Daemoni have secured,” Owen said.
Tristan looked at me. “And you don’t sense any other Daemoni mind signatures close?”
I checked again. “None. The vamps and the shifters have moved even farther away.”
“So if it’s a trap,” he said, “they’re all hiding inside, and our mission is to flush them out anyway, not invade or fight.”
“Right,” I said. “Create a scene, attract the norms’ attention, and expose the Daemoni as the dangerous ones when their spells start flying everywhere.”
Owen rocked back on his heels. “So we proceed with the plan.”
All eyes landed on me for confirmation. I nodded. “Let’s do this.”
Everyone scattered, taking their places. Sheree and the werewolves would keep guard, Vanessa and Char hid in the shadows waiting on our signal, and Tristan, Owen, and I silently skirted around the base of the large home. I zapped electricity close to the ground to light up the coven’s shield so Owen could possibly find a weak spot.
“There.” He grabbed my wrist and stopped me. He pointed to a spot on the ground covered in tiny, white granules. “Huh. I don’t think it’s a trap. This is sloppy for their caliber, which means they’re cocky. Too arrogant to realize they’ve made a mistake.”
“That’s a sorcerer for you,” Tristan muttered.
“What is it?” I asked.
Owen swirled a finger in the white stuff, then held the tip to his tongue. He nodded. “Yep. Rock salt. One of them must have used it for a spell or incantation and didn’t clean it all up. It’s interfering with the integrity of their shield. Idiots.”
“Will it interfere with your magic?”
“Salt can help or hinder my magic, and in this case, hinder. So we’re going to blow it away. Our timing needs to be perfect. As soon as the salt’s removed, their weak spot will strengthen.”
The three of us knelt down and huddled near the small pile of salt. I held my palm close to the shield, near the ground, and let out a slow charge of electricity. Tiny cracks of blue light spread from my hand, lighting up a small area of the shield, but the charge didn’t penetrate it. After several long moments, my heart racing the whole time, the edge that touched the salt began to crinkle and retract, like a piece of plastic held above a flame. Owen moved his hand right next to mine, while I continued melting a small gap into the shield.
“Ready, Tristan,” he whispered.
From my other side, Tristan blew a huge gust of wind, scattering the salt. Immediately, the shield started reforming against my charge, reaching for the clean ground. As soon as the last granule cleared, Owen shot his own power at the shield. It increased the damage I did exponentially, opening a gap big enough for each of us to slip through.
“I’ll hold the opening,” Owen said. “You guys hurry.”
Tristan and I gave the signal, and Vanessa and Char darted out of the shadows and under the shield. I jumped to the flat roof, Vanessa right behind me in case I needed backup. While we crept across the roof, Tristan and Char stayed on the ground, doing their part. Once Vanessa and I scoped out all of the conductive materials up here, we moved to the center, and I used them to create a web of electricity across the top of the building. The charge flowed into the structure, sizzling through wires and metal, causing appliances to pop and spark. At the same time, I used my other palm to push Amadis power down through the roof and into the building. Meanwhile, Tristan was lighting up the perimeter with fire, and Char followed right behind him, fueling the flames with magic. The sleeping mind signatures inside sprang awake and chaos erupted.
“Now,” Tristan said into my mind.
Let’s go, I told Vanessa as I tried to run for the edge of the roof. Except I could barely move. My body felt suddenly weighed down, as though the gravity had shifted under my feet, and I would sink through the roof and into the house. All of my energy flowed like a river through my veins and drained out of my palm and into the building—it was being drawn out of my body rather than me pushing it. Then an ice pick shoved into my brain. Gasping from the pain, I pressed my hand to the side of my head. No, not a physical ice pick, but it sure as hell felt like one. The sorcerers were here.
They’ve got me! I managed to scream out to Vanessa, but I couldn’t be sure she heard me through the block on my mind.
She was already on the edge of the roof, ready to jump, but caught herself when she looked over her shoulder at me. She spun and charged, slamming into my body.
“Oof.” The sound came out of my mouth involuntarily as Vanessa knocked me down with her full strength. Damn, vampires were like freakin’ boulders. But it worked.
“Are you good?” she asked as she helped me up.
I nodded, keeping my hand fisted to protect the sorcerer from reaching my power. We ran for the edge of the roof and jumped. I landed on the balls of my feet only inches from the flames that already reached two-thirds up the side of the building. We ran past Owen, and he followed us out into the street, where we turned and watched under the protection of his cloak.
Over a dozen mages poured out of the house, a couple of them running to douse the flames with magic, but Char’s spell prevented them from extinguishing the fire easily. In fact, every time they tried, the flames only grew higher, casting a bright orange glow over the neighborhood. Good thing her spell would also keep them contained to only this building. The rest of the mages searched for us.
“Come out, come out wherever you are,” a female warlock taunted, her gaze sweeping side to side as she tried to locate us.
The fire must have lit up the norms’ windows or perhaps the loud roar of the blaze woke them. Several came out of their residences in nightclothes and wrapped in blankets. They only stared wide-eyed at first, taking in the scene of a massive fire, the flames casting dancing shadows on their faces. As we had hoped, some had their cell phones out, filming the scene. Then the mages started shooting spells that blasted into the street. The norms screamed and ran.
A spell shot toward a fleeing child, and I jumped behind the girl, blocking the hit. But although I was still under the cloak and shield, the ricochet showed the mages exactly where we stood.
“Go,” Char ordered. “Get Alexis out of here.”
Tristan, Owen, Vanessa, and I took off down the street, Owen keeping a cloak over us while Char protected Sheree and the wolves. They weren’t far behind us, but needed to serve as a distraction to give us time for me to escape. I’d insisted on coming, but since the sorcerer had indeed been with the coven, I was in too much danger to stay. Vanessa had been right about my electrical power being a weakness. We hadn’t come for an all-out fight anyway and didn’t need to strengthen them with my power. Or put the norms’ lives in any more danger. Our only choice was to run.
“They’ve exposed me!” Charlotte called out.
I glanced over my shoulder. She and the shifters were behind us, their shield and cloak gone. Spells shot at them, and the wolves spun around and took off running, snapping and growling, back toward the Daemoni. Sheree followed, letting out a loud roar.
No! I yelled at them. Retreat. You’re almost here!
Char reached us just then, and Owen pulled her into our protection. The were-animals came sprinting down the road, spells shooting at their heels. People screamed from behind windows as they watched the beasts run by.
“Hurry, Owen,” I muttered as he worked at creating the portal. He finished just in time to protect the shifters, and then we all scrambled through the hole in the air to safety.
We fell into the sea. Although Owen could create a portal to leave the island, he couldn’t create one that entered the island within its shield. We swam for land and collapsed on the beach near the mansion.
“Nice job,” I said, congratulating everyone as I pushed myself to my feet.
“I think our mission
was accomplished,” Char agreed. “That was cutting it close, though.”
The sky began to lighten overhead, and a spectacular sunrise probably lit up the water on the other side of the island. But we didn’t have time to watch it.
Owen jumped to his feet. “Let’s go see if it paid off.”
Except for the wolves, who’d already transformed and left for their homes in the village, the rest of us hauled ourselves to the mansion. Blossom and Jax greeted us inside the foyer.
“No problems here?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No. All’s good.”
We gathered in the media room just in time for the morning news to come on across Europe.
“We’ve received a red alert for another supernatural terrorist,” an anchorwoman reported from behind a standard news desk. A picture of a man with white hair and a white goatee, but fairly young looking showed on the screen. Lucas. I almost squealed. “This man, Lucas Emerson, is reported to be the actual ringleader of the recent and continuing attacks on the human race. He is considered powerful and very dangerous. If you see him, please alert your local authorities immediately. Do not approach him yourself.”
“Good thinking to keep the norms away from him, Blossom,” I said. She gave me a proud grin.
We watched the news come on in every country, reporting the story Blossom had submitted. The Amadis had people in the media, and we knew a couple of executive-level contacts. Since the Daemoni obviously controlled the news, though, I hadn’t been certain our people would be able to air the story. They’d come through for us.
We celebrated our victory for several hours, until the east coast of the U.S. finally began waking up. The morning news shows began with our story.
“Um . . . hold on for a moment, folks.” The news anchor, in the middle of reporting about Lucas, pressed a finger to her ear and nodded before looking back at the camera. “I apologize. There’s been some kind of mistake.”
The channel cut to a commercial. When the news program returned, the scene had changed from the anchor at her desk to several people at the front of what appeared to be the White House pressroom. The podium displayed the president’s seal, although he wasn’t present. I recognized the vice president, however, as well as the woman who had held the conference the other day.