Lilith spun around as Jordan stood up behind, and her jaw dropped. All four Brunswick girls stood in the crowded coffee shop, smiling a little smugly. But they were also accompanied by their mates. Four men, all gorgeous and buff in various ways. Isla’s California merman, Kai, chuckled and nodded hello. He was wearing a tank top despite the chilly weather. Freya’s griffin shifter, Grayson, looked shaggy and warm in a flannel shirt and a reddish beard, his arm wrapped around his beloved witch. The fae Prince (and future king) Dayen with his silvery ponytail stood at attention, smiling proudly, next to his future fae queen, Cara. In the back, Addy and Blaise, the dragon shifter couple, glanced at each other, amused. Lilith could swear she saw a bit of fiery steam blowing out of Blaise’s nose.
They had all come to help her, just like she’d known they would. She supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised they’d brought their mates with them. She suspected the mates would have insisted anyway. Each one of them had been integral in capturing the totems. They had seen battle before and they knew exactly what they were getting into.
Still, Lilith felt yet more nervous rather than joyful.
All she could see in her mind was her friends’ bodies scattered and lifeless.
But she put on a big smile anyhow as she shrugged and said, “Hey, guys. Welcome to New York.”
19
Jordan
Jordan wasn’t so great with new people on a good day and he always preferred them one at a time. But this was probably not going to be a good day if the laughing face with tentacles in the sky or the possessed barista had anything to do with it. This was going to be, potentially, the beginning of a kind of hell on Earth if they failed. For Lilith’s sake, he was putting on his bravest and most optimistic face. He had decided, the moment he saw her kneeling on the ground and crying her eyes out, that his own sense of occasional doom would have to take a back seat if they were to succeed. Lilith needed him, not just as a fighter but as a support, and he would do his best to be that for her.
He just hadn’t expected so many goddamn people at once.
He knew her friends would be coming, though he hadn’t really contemplated the idea of four new people either. But four of Lilith’s friends from Brunswick were one thing, their mates, all of whom looked more than formidable, were another altogether.
Jordan smiled tightly and shook each hand as Lilith went about introducing him to everyone and everyone introduced themselves to him and chatted about whether or not they’d been to New York and what they’d been doing when they’d gotten the call to come.
But one of the mates was a prince and was soon going to be a king. Most of them seemed to come from a lot of money and all but one had been to a fancy school. Jordan had come from nothing and was entirely self-taught. It was difficult not to be intimidated.
“What’s the plan?” Addy asked, crossing her arms. That one looked pretty tough to Jordan’s mind. Though all of them were probably tough in their own ways.
“Let’s get back to the Underground,” Lilith said firmly. “Get armed up and tell the other guards you’re here. Then we’re all patrolling, keeping our eyes, ears and noses peeled. We don’t know what’s coming but I’m certain it’s going to be up here in Manhattan. We have to be ready for anything. And everyone needs to know the spell to reveal Kamthis’s identity.”
“I know it,” Freya said, smiling brightly. “I can help you teach it.”
“No doubt a lot better than I can,” Lilith said wryly. “Okay. Let’s do this.”
Some of them wanted to grab coffees to drink on the way, having come a long way and not having slept much. But minutes later they were making their way back to the park toward The Ramble. The girls were all chatting and catching up with each other and Jordan and the other mates walked behind them. He felt a bit better that all of them seemed almost as awkward as he was at having been thrown into the odd social situation.
“I’ve never been to New York before,” Kai said. He was the merman and he looked like one with his long sun-streaked hair and his seashell necklace. “I’ve lived in California my whole life. I’ve been to Hawaii a couple times. I like it here too though, it’s um...exciting!”
Jordan stifled a smile. Kai reminded him of both a golden retriever and of Leif.
“You’ve lived here your whole life?” Grayson asked. Jordan nodded and he sighed. “That’s pretty cool. I’m from North Carolina. I’ve visited New York, it’s one of my favorite places but I don’t get out here as much as I’d like. Maybe I’ll get to come out more often with Freya. The orphanage does keep me busy though.”
“You work at an orphanage?” Jordan asked in surprise.
“Well, I…” He cleared his throat. “I run it. I founded it. But it’s family money.”
Ah, family money. The merman nodded in agreement. Even he had money apparently.
“That must be nice,” Jordan muttered.
“Tell me about it,” Blaise said with a snort. But he smiled at Grayson just the same. He nudged Jordan and said, “Don’t worry, man. You’re not the only poor here. I used to borrow clothes from my, well, former friend at the academy so the kids wouldn’t make fun of me.”
That made Jordan feel a little better...except for the academy part.
“I never went to academy,” Kai said, shoving his hands in the pockets of his shorts. “My folks died when I was a little kid. Just kind of raised by the merfolk settlement.”
“Oh.” Jordan nodded. “My parents took off on me. It’s rough.” Kai nodded in understanding.
Jordan started to think he might actually be able to be friends with these guys. Even Grayson who’d had the good schooling and the money seemed like a pretty regular guy.
One by one, all four of them turned their heads to look at Dayen as they traipsed through the grass. He was a fae prince and the least relatable of all of them.
Somehow, Dayen seemed to know exactly what they meant without them saying anything and he threw up his elegant hands in mock frustration. “Well, I can’t help it if I’m royalty! And I never wanted to be a king in the first place!”
All the guys laughed and it seemed to ease the bit of tension between them. Kai slapped Jordan’s back and the five of them quickened their pace behind the girls, hurrying back to the Underground.
The ten of them raided the arms cache and met up with Laya, who seemed exceptionally cheerful to be helped by a bunch of Brunswick girls and impressed by the arrival of fae royalty. She even bowed for Dayen, which Jordan had never seen her do in his life. Laya had a map of the entire city and she spread it out on a table at headquarters, marking with a colored pencil where all of them should be patrolling. They would be sticking closely to the park for the most part and following the crush of people since the theory was that Kamthis seemed to want to take as many human lives as possible in his quest for power over the globe.
“He’s a showman,” Lilith said slowly. She stood, hunched over the table, glaring at it as if for answers. Jordan watched her, always fascinated and compelled by his demon mate. She was angry but she was staying calm, especially now that her friends were here to help her. Her control was kind of a turn-on to his mind. She was powerful and he liked that. “He’s been playing games with us and he likes to draw attention to himself and be showy. I think he’ll go somewhere kind of flashy, right? But I imagine it will still be close to the Underground so not like...the Statue of Liberty.”
“Times Square,” Addy said.
Lilith circled it on the map. “Yes. Potentially. What else? Broadway? Maybe?”
“Rockefeller Center!”
“Radio City!”
“The Empire State Building!”
Laya liked the theory but also wanted to keep plenty of guards closer to the park so they determined a route and schedule to spread out and Freya taught everyone a simple flare spell to throw up that would shower big sparks over their location if Kamthis showed up or anything else happened that required everyone to come running.
Th
en they set out.
Everyone was on their guard. Jordan had not been sure what to expect exactly, but the ten of them split off from the other guards and formed their own patrol squad, heading to the first zone on their list to keep an eye on. Their M.O. was to scatter within a few blocks of each other and meet back at a designated corner before heading to the next zone.
So Jordan and Lilith split off from the others in the direction of Midtown.
It was tedious for a while. Lilith knew a few spells for revealing hidden magics and Jordan’s sensitive wolf’s nose could always sniff out trouble. Manhattan wasn’t that big in terms of space but it was massive in terms of scope. There were so many places Kamthis might attack and it was hard not to think they might miss something.
There were a few false alarms as they hiked through the city.
Lilith mistook a kid in anime cosplay for a demon, she was so wired up. She nearly set him on fire with her demonic powers and then had to catch her breath, the near-murder shaking her up. Freya also sent up a flare after mistaking an overly purebred French bulldog for a demon, but after that things quieted down a bit.
It was around lunchtime that Jordan and Lilith heard screaming coming from the direction of the Empire State Building.
20
Lilith
The Empire State Building was glowing.
That was the first and most obvious thing wrong with it, Lilith thought, as she and Jordan ran toward it. It towered over them as shiny and imposing as ever. It was usually only lit at night but now, in the middle of a late summer day, it was glowing. Except it wasn’t lights fixed throughout the building lighting it up. It was obvious something supernatural was going on. It was as if it was lit up from the inside. It also looked as if the building was growing veins that spidered out from the ground beneath it and then from window to window all the way to the observation deck.
New Yorkers who had already noticed this change were fleeing in terror.
“What is he doing...” Lilith said flatly. She was mostly speaking to herself. Meanwhile Jordan was pointing toward the sky and muttering the flare spell Freya had taught them, shooting a brilliant green firework over their heads that exploded far above them, high enough for the others to see, wherever they were.
Jordan lowered his hand, standing next to Lilith across the building. A thundering kind of wheeze sounded from within. It was like something massive was trying to break out of it or from under it.
Jordan said, “It’s…” He cleared his throat. “I don’t know. He’s changing it, he’s transforming it? Maybe he’s turning it into a weapon?”
Lilith crossed her arms and watched the building turn colors of gray and red as if trying to find a shade it liked best and then some of the windows shattered, shards of glass plummeting to the street.
“Look out!” Jordan grabbed Lilith and pulled her into a bodega as the glass fell everywhere, pushed and pulled by the wind. She stood in the relative protection of the little shop as she gathered her thoughts and they waited for the others. “Turning it into something,” he muttered again.
“Or somebody…” Lilith said. She watched through the glass door, craning her neck to see the building all the way to the top which wasn’t quite possible with her limited view.
“Holy shit,” Jordan said in a monotone of outright shock that made Lilith’s blood run cold.
Tentacles slithered out of the shattered windows.
The things were massive. She had never seen anything like them. They were sort of similar to octopus tentacles except that they were about eight feet around or more, if she had to guess. They were slimy and they broke through the wall as they busted out of the windows. There had to be at least ten of the things slithering out and they waved in the air. She wondered what the point was for a moment and then one of the tentacles nearest the ground reached down and picked up a fleeing man in its slimy grasp only to fling him away like throwing a baseball, his scream fading into the wheezing rasp of the glowing building.
Lilith gasped and allowed herself just a split second to bury her head in Jordan’s shoulder. He patted her back and she pulled away again, shaken. She hadn’t expected something so sudden and horrific but at least everyone else on the street seemed to escape the reach of the tentacles.
Except that just then another tentacle crashed through the window of a neighboring building.
Kamthis was going to destroy the Empire State Building and an entire city block before he was through and by then his atrocity would be complete.
Then he would win.
They needed the totem.
But that all depended on finding Kamthis.
“They’re all the demons,” Jordan said suddenly, just as Lilith’s friends and their mates came running into the bodega, having spotted Lilith from outside.
The bodega cashier ducked behind his counter, probably because most of them were wielding swords but he seemed to have caught onto the fact that they were fighting whatever was going on with the landmark across the street.
“What do you mean they’re all demons?” Cara asked. She crossed her arms and nodded at Jordan expectantly.
“I mean Kamthis is raising up all his demon friends, right?” Jordan said slowly. “And to finish it he needs to complete his third atrocity. But maybe he’s doing it all at the same time. What if-”
“The Empire State Building is all the demons!” Freya said, her owlish eyes bright. “They’re merging into one gigantic demon! Others have attempted to do the same! I’ve read about it!”
“Holy shit,” Lilith said softly.
“And how, pray tell,” Dayen said, “are we to fight something so big? Even with the ten of us and a powerful witch, our odds are lacking.”
“We don’t,” Lilith said, narrowing her eyes.
Everyone stared at her. “What’s that now?” Isla asked.
“We can’t fight the building,” Lilith said. “Well, we should try if we have to, of course. But we have to fight Kamthis and Kamthis is not the building. He’s hiding out. He’s been hiding out all this time like a huge coward, by the way, letting these atrocities do his dirty work for him without showing his face.”
“But we don’t know where Kamthis is,” Gray said. “Right? Isn’t that the uh...point? No?”
“It is,” Lilith said, sighing. “We have a spell of revealing, the problem is we have to cast it at someone and we don’t who or even if he’s nearby-”
“Well,” Freya said, “an incredibly strong version of the spell would reveal him wherever he is and an even stronger version would bring him to us…” She scratched her head, biting her lip. She looked more frightened than Lilith had ever seen her. “But that would be quite difficult.”
“Can you do it?” Addy asked.
“No!” Freya replied, bursting out laughing as if the very thought were utterly ridiculous. Lilith saw Grayson smile fondly at his mate and it was cute and all that Freya was a quirky yet powerful witch and that Grayson loved her for it but she was on the verge of setting her friend on fire if she didn’t come up with something useful. “I don’t know anyone who could do it!”
“But…” Lilith sighed. She was feeling impatient and the tentacles were half-demolishing the neighboring building outside and she was pretty sure people had been grabbed out of them. Every second they talked seemed like a second wasted. “Didn’t you say or...somebody said, I heard at least, that you can join forces? We can join together and strengthen a spell, can’t we? Didn’t you borrow Grayson’s power on your mission too?”
“It weakened him,” Freya said darkly.
“It was cool though,” Grayson said under his breath.
“Yes,” Freya said, nodding. “We can do that. It might work but I don’t know how we’ll all react. Sometimes it drains people of their life force and there’s no telling how that may affect them...but it’s definitely worth a shot. We could build a powerful spell that way.”
It was a huge risk. They could all end up so weakened they
wouldn’t be able to fight whatever they were faced with.
But Lilith didn’t see any alternative.
“But it’s not like this revealing spell we’ve been using,” Freya said. “I need my cauldron and my supplies, they’re back at our hotel-”
“I’ll get them!” Grayson said quickly. “I fly fast!” He was gone before anyone could argue and narrowly missed the glass door of the bodega shattering around them as a chunk of building crashed through it.
“Okay,” Lilith said, nodding. “Well, at least we have a plan now.”
21
Jordan
To say Jordan now felt out of his element was a gross understatement.
He had been ready for a fight. A fight was something he understood and it wasn’t something that scared him. He was ready to shift at any moment and tear up a tentacle with his bare teeth if it came down to it.
But magic… He could cast like many other shifters could. It was a skill he’d learned alongside Leif. Shifters all possessed the potential for great magic but it was common for them not to be able to wield it very well. Still, they could easily lend their strength to Freya who would catalyze it. As they all stood chatting and Freya described the spell to them, she mentioned that Isla was also a very powerful magic user and had been working on casting on land as well as she did in water.
At least, from what he could tell from the expressions on the other mates’ faces, he was not alone in feeling out of his element.
Grayson returned with Freya’s magic supplies much faster than Jordan had expected. He narrowly escaped getting grabbed by a tentacle as his flying griffin bobbed and weaved over West 34th Street.
“Um…” The bodega guy cleared his throat, poking his head out from behind the counter. Jordan felt a little sorry for him. Lilith had told him about her zombie-fighting battle with another bodega guy. “Are you guys fighting whatever…” He pointed out the window at the tentacle waving building, “that is?”
The Wolf's Curse (Brunswick Academy for Gifted Girls Book 5) Page 11