Logan, his Elemental daughter-in-law, had promised to send someone to help them detect any intruders—no matter what masking spells were used. It went against everything in him to let a practitioner walk on these grounds. For his people, though, he would swallow his bile and let the witch work. As long as they kept the magic on the side of the light, he would put up with it. But the Canus Primus didn’t kowtow to magicians, no matter who had sent them.
Pulling a face, he yanked open the door, ready to intimidate the hell out of whoever Logan had sent, but then froze. Fuck. Why didn’t I comb my hair?
“Hello,” Hope said brightly. She was dressed in all black, looking for all the world as if she were about to grace Vogue Asia. At her feet was an oversized black leather apothecary bag.
She wasn’t alone. Mai, incongruously dressed in gauzy pastels, scowled. She pulled her sunglasses down. “Well, aren’t you going to invite us in?” she groused.
Clearing his throat, he stepped back. “My apologies. You caught me unawares. Logan didn’t mention who she was sending.” Or when they were arriving. He would have showered.
The women entered, following him past the mudrooms into the vast open space of the living room, up to the grand staircase that led to the second floor.
Douglas held his breath as Hope turned around in a circle, taking it all in. She stepped into the sunken living room area, setting her bag on the polished wood table.
As the pack leader, his home had to be big. Though most of his wolves had their own homes, he had to be able to accommodate a dozen or more on a moment’s notice. In fact, the pair Connell had sent to him, Ravil and his sister, had just left, taking up residence in a cottage near the high school.
When he built the house, all he’d cared about was making it functional and comfortable. But now he couldn’t help but take pride in the space he and his pack had made into a home.
“It certainly has your stamp on it,” Hope said with a note of approval.
“Well, I did put a lot of man-hours into the place,” he admitted, rubbing a hand over the nape of his neck.
“It shows.” Hope’s approving expression was starting to make him blush.
He hadn’t realized he was smiling back until Mai cleared her throat. “If you two are done making googly eyes at each other, we can get started.”
Flushing like a teenager, he pivoted to scowl at Mai. Undaunted, she glowered right back.
Hope tsked and fluttered her lashes, her serene and genial countenance unperturbed. “Logan brought me samples. I’ve been working on the puzzle of the masking spell ever since your trouble started.” She indicated her bag.
Before he could offer to take it for her, Mai slapped something into his hands. Fragrant herbs assaulted his sensitive nose. Coughing, he held the bag away from him.
“Are these for a spell? What do I do with them?”
“You boil water.” Mai smirked. “It’s my tea.”
“Jie Jie, you can’t order the Canus Primus around,” Hope chided, poking her sister.
A door slammed.
“Dad…” Mara, his daughter called, running up from the back hallway. She came to a stop as she caught sight of her dad.
“I heard our guests had arrived.” Mara glowered at Hope and Mai, suspicion darkening her countenance.
Like Logan, the Li sisters were both of diminutive height, so Mara towered over them. And like him, his daughter shared his prejudice of witches.
“Manners, Mara,” Douglas reminded her with a sigh. “Logan sent her mother and aunt to help us.”
Mara’s face immediately dropped its sullen aspect. “Oh-my-God, really?” she almost squealed, putting her hand to her mouth.
She held out her arms. To his shock, Mai smiled graciously, approaching to give the taller woman a squeeze.
“It’s so great to meet you in person, Mai,” Mara gushed. When she caught his incredulous glance, she shrugged. “What? We’ve been emailing.”
His brow creased. How had they even connected? Well, through Logan obviously, but how had his little girl so obviously bonded with the prickly Mai?
Asked and answered. Both his children were wonderful, strong wolves, of course, but as the chief’s only daughter, Mara felt the need to be just as aggressive and forthright as her brother Connell. It went without saying that it didn’t make things easier for her.
“Emailing about what?” he asked.
“This and that,” Mai grumbled. “Come, Mara. Show me where your kitchen is because obviously this one isn’t going to fetch me a hot mug of water anytime soon.”
The pair disappeared into the kitchen before he could think up something civil to say in reply.
Hope didn’t bother to hide her amusement. He gave himself a little shake. “I apologize for not being prepared for your visit. I wasn’t expecting Logan to send you.”
“I’ve been working on those masking spells since my daughter shared the details with me. I was able to examine most of the spell vials she found at Bishop Kane’s house. The residue on the discarded ones was most informative.”
Douglas nodded, briefly closing his eyes. Hearing his former friend’s name still stung. Bishop’s betrayal had rocked their pack. Kane’s children still dealt with the aftermath. But Douglas was fixing it. Or he was trying to.
Delicately, Hope averted her eyes. Logan must have filled her in on the details of what happened.
“Did you crack them?” he asked. The masking spell Bishop had received from John was one of several variants. The original had been invented by a Burgess by-blow and her black coven a few years back. The alchemist had taken the formula and tweaked it, giving it a special hellish twist that had enabled a traitor to mask his intentions toward the pack.
Hope lifted a shoulder. “Most permutations. I’m reasonably confident I can set up a perimeter alarm that would detect anyone crossing your borders. We just have to make sure we type everyone who belongs here in order to exclude them from the spell. Otherwise, whatever alarm we set will be going off all the time.” She paused. “With a little effort, we can make it permanent if you like.”
He sighed, passing a hand over his weary face. “I hope that won’t be necessary.”
Douglas hated the idea he couldn’t protect his own without a spell. However, with the Mother gone, these were perilous times. He didn’t want to make a decision he would later regret. “Can we table the talk of permanence for later?”
Hope grimaced, her delicate nose wrinkling. “It would be better to know now, before we get started, but—if you decide to keep such a safeguard up, we can simply start over. For now, we can focus on tagging your people, so the spell doesn’t react to them.”
“That’s a lot of wolves,” he muttered. Even restricting the number to the local pack, that was over three dozen wolves. If he counted those outside county lines, then he had to start multiplying exponentially.
Hope put her hand on his arm. “I know it is. That’s why I brought Mai. With her help, we’ll be done in no time.”
His answering smile was a trifle stiff. “That’s very generous of her—of you both. Mai is great.”
“She is, isn’t she?” Hope beamed. She held out a hand. “Come.”
Douglas blinked. For a second, he thought she’d was talking to him, but he was on the wrong side to take her hand. Then the bag she’d left on the table began to float in her direction. Wide-eyed, he watched the heavy parcel drift like a feather until it paused in front of her, waiting.
“Damn. You didn’t even say bibity-bobity-boo,” he said. He doubted even the most seasoned practitioners in the Seven families could pull off a trick like that.
Grinning, Hope grabbed the leather handles, patting it as if it were an obedient pet. “Let’s get started.”
39
Gia found it difficult to take her own words to heart. She knew she had to find a new way of conducting her work, but it was far from easy to change of habits honed over centuries.
Magic had taught her a lot of
shortcuts. While she could apply some to the research—they had to in order to find the alchemist—it wasn’t her way.
Diana seemed to be doing okay with the changes. At first, Gia assumed her younger sister let Alec do all the grunt work, but Diana had surprised her, rolling up her sleeves and pitching in. Her scholar mate had definitely rubbed off on her.
Logan would be fine, too. She was the youngest, and she relied less on the balance than her older sisters. The Air Elemental also had her voices to guide her, provided she could get them to behave.
And Serin has Daniel. The human detective would guide her sister into this new era. Which just left Gia stuck in in the old ways. Oh God. I’m the dinosaur.
Groaning at that realization, Gia allowed herself to wallow in self-pity for two minutes before gathering her composure and taking stock. She would not fade into irrelevance now—not when the world was in such dire need.
Forcing herself to set aside over a half-millennia of the magical training that had been a touchstone for her, she made and fielded calls, learning to decipher property records and do what Daniel affectionally called, ‘following the money’. Her efforts bore fruit, identifying a warehouse in Arizona that was likely a poison repository.
Alec and Daniel had been substantially faster with the research, finding two other likely storage places in isolated parts of Michigan and Southern Florida. The one in Arizona hadn’t been as likely a candidate, but Gia hadn’t been willing to leave any stone unturned.
And wouldn’t you know it… when we got here, we found an army waiting. Well, not waiting exactly. But they must have had this place under surveillance because once she and Salvador had started poking around, they had come in force.
Gia felt the rumble in the earth when the vehicles were still miles away. But the distinctive vibration of heavy vehicles coming one after another was unmistakable. They drove single file up the road, minimizing the target they presented.
Climbing to the roof of the single-story warehouse for a better vantage point, she huffed, blowing her hair out of her eyes as she spotted the two large vehicles. Both were full of men and women in high-tech tactical armor. Great.
Salvador scrambled after her, his face falling as he counted the SUVs. “Was there a tripwire I somehow missed?”
She shook her head in confusion. “I didn’t detect anything, no hidden cameras or spell traps. I checked thoroughly. There must be some kind of masked surveillance I’m not familiar with.”
Gia had taken precautions, training herself to search for any variations of the Burgess masking spell. She should have been able to detect anything remotely like it. This must something wholly new. Crap, just how innovative had John become?
“They could be using satellite surveillance.”
“What?” Gia twisted toward him.
“If these are human mercenaries, most have served in at least one branch of the armed services,” he explained. “There are a fair number of military satellites. The people who run these soldier-of-fortune companies have ties to the upper echelons of government. They can get those feeds through backchannels and favors.”
Gia swore under her breath. This was a whole new ballgame.
“Satellites? Well, that’s just peachy,” she snapped, breathing out before reaching into her pocket. She pulled out a seed the size of an almond.
“What is that?”
“Something I prepared. Think of it as a power cell.”
When she squeezed the seed, it disintegrated in her hand, coating it in a luminescent gold-and-green powder that looked like finely ground glitter. Gia activated the cloaking spell, boosting it with the energy she’d trapped in the seed. When she was done, she blew the dust into the air, sending the web of her enchantment as far as she could.
The air above began to sparkle as the breeze carried the spell out, covering the area as far as the eye could see.
Salvador tipped his head up, staring at the sparkle. He took a deep sniff. “Smells like concealment. Do you think it will work on the satellite feeds?”
“I have no idea,” she said honestly. “But it’s not as if we have another option. No sense in giving the human military-industrial complex fodder for war—more than John has already given them.”
Suddenly, Salvador grinned.
“Weird thing to be happy about,” she groused.
“You said we.”
“You’re incorrigible.” She pushed him affectionately toward the edge of the warehouse, indicating he should climb down. “Don’t get all sappy on me now. Prep your defensive spells. We should try to keep as many alive as we can. These guys are just pawns.”
“Pawns with automatic weapons,” he called as he climbed over the edge.
At least John had chosen an isolated warehouse in the middle of nowhere. It would make less of a mess. Which led to her next question—did these people even know what John had gotten them into?
Not that it mattered. She couldn’t afford to treat them as complete innocents.
Hopping down from the warehouse roof, she landed on the ground, connecting with the earth below her feet.
The line of cars was almost there now. Waiting a beat, she counted her breaths. One, two… On three, she raised her hands, lifting the ground under the asphalt just in front of the lead armored car.
The SUV flipped over as the remaining three vehicles squealed to a stop behind it. Soldiers in full tactical gear swarmed out, some immediately taking cover while those in the front ran to the flipped-over car to get their people out.
The soldiers lifted their weapons, then the bullets began to fly.
Gia pulled a chunk of concrete out of the back wall, levitating it toward Salvador to give him cover. As for her, the bullets were made of metal. She allowed them to get close, stopping them about a yard out. Then she released them. They fell to the ground like fat raindrops.
Abruptly, the bullets ceased. She could feel the confusion wash over the assembled soldiers. At some signal, though, they resumed shooting.
“C’mon, already,” Salvador shouted. “You know the bullets aren’t going to work.”
At that moment, a chunk of concrete broke away from the edge of the piece covering him, spraying him with concrete dust and shrapnel.
“Maybe just keep quiet?” she suggested.
She only took her eyes off the humans for a second, but it was enough time for them to rearm themselves.
“What the hell?” she asked when three soldiers slid out a wheeled contraption complete with canon.
“You could just let them fire it,” Salvador suggested, still wiping his face. He threw out an arm, tossing a spell ball with a chant that sent it into a curving trajectory. It hit the left flank, stunning the humans into immobility. “The point is to destroy the warehouse, isn’t it?”
She stopped to throw a chunk of asphalt at the canon assemblage, crushing it and sending the humans scrambling.
“Not before we go through every inch of it for evidence of John’s location,” she said. Only after that would she call Diana here. Together, they would burn this place to the ground. “Now stay there while I take care of this.”
Gia decided it was time to get her calisthenic on—she ran toward the group, the hail of bullets dropping out of her path like rain. Darting forward, she took the gun off the biggest man before decking him. She made sure to pull the punch. Gia didn’t want to kill him—not unless he asked for it.
Stirring the ground next to the road, she crafted dust devils for cover so she could check the gun’s composition. Good, all terrestrial ingredients. It was mostly metal. John hadn’t provided them with anything special, although she didn’t know how one would go about making a machine gun out of a meteorite in any case.
Pushing with her talent, she dismantled the gun. It fell into several pieces, but that wasn’t enough for her. Another push and the fragments melted into pools of metal that were quickly reabsorbed into the ground
A slight noise alerted her to a presence. A woman h
ad breached the perimeter of the dust cloud. She pointed another of those guns right at Gia’s head.
“Thanks,” she said, waving. The gun flew out of the woman’s hands, dissolving into a big puddle at Gia’s feet.
She lifted her hand, freezing the sandstorm and slowly putting it down so all the grains settled at once.
Putting on a show never hurt anybody.
“Holy shit,” the woman cried, falling and scooting backward until she hit her head on the door of the nearest SUV. “What the hell are you? Magneto?”
“Who is Magneto?” Gia asked before peering into the woman’s aura. “Hey, you’re a shifter.”
Scanning the other soldiers—who were continuing to fire despite keeping their distance—she noted their signatures. Over half were shifters. But they didn’t seem to recognize her, which meant they were pack-less and had never caused enough trouble to get on her radar.
She tsked and focused, pulling in with her talent. One by one, the heavy guns flew out of her adversary’s hands, disintegrating as they did.
When she was done, she was surrounded by over a dozen weaponless men and two women. She clapped her hands. “Attention, soldiers. Attacking me is a violation of the Covenant, which every Supernatural is bound by at birth. So. Stop. Trying. To. Shoot. Me,” she said, punctuating every word with a clap, shaking the ground under her feet. She was annoyed.
“The only excuse for this is ignorance—but that’s all. Ignorance does not absolve you.”
“What the hell are you talking about, lady?” the woman near her feet hissed.
“The fact you don’t know tells me that your pack leader is either a pretender or one in a long line of wolves outside the fold.”
“I don’t have a pack leader, you crazy—”
The woman blinked, drawing her head back until it banged on the door of the SUV, because Gia was in her face, having moved too fast for the woman to see.
“I don’t let anyone call me what you’re about to call me. Not even another woman.”
The Elementals Collection Page 109