Bodyguards of Samhain Shifter Box Set

by Lisa Daniels

  Well, that was a bodyguard and a half if she ever saw one. Bold, blue eyes nestled in a broad face with wide cheekbones, reminiscent of some of the Native American bloodlines that ran in society. He had such a well-defined frame that Morgana wondered wildly if he weightlifted on a regular basis, since that was a mountain of a man. Good god. And that was a tattoo, poking out of his shirt sleeve. Full-on, proper gangsta tattoo.

  “We may have got him on a deal, but that doesn’t make his worth any less,” Amelia said slyly from behind, and it was enough to break Morgana’s temporary speechlessness.

  “Uh, yeah, sure,” she said, waving for the bodyguard to come in. She just knew she was never going to hear the end of it from her sister about her reaction.

  Chapter Two – Theon

  Theon felt a strange kick in his guts when he laid eyes upon Morgana Hargraves. Small, red-haired, brown-eyed and freckly, she reminded him of a former case. Not just any former case, either—but the one involving the necromancer kid who went and got herself killed to try and prove she was normal.

  He barely managed to retain a polite greeting, walking in and placing his suitcase in the second room, though he felt ill at ease with being saddled with an uncanny lookalike. It felt like failure all over again. Was his agency aware of this? Did someone set this up as a joke? He already knew the necromancer was going to be put in a dangerous situation, and he’d have to go along with it. The Carebears Agency promised him a promotion if he succeeded in this job to a danger-zone protector. More money, more danger, more excitement. The high death rate ensured lucrative payment and a good set-up for anyone who had a family.

  Not that Theon Danforth had family of his own—just the ones he’d been born into. But payment to them was as good as anything.

  “Lucky you, getting to look after a necromancer,” Morgana said with a soft, foreign lilt to her voice. Some southern Irish accent blended with American. “Though I’m not sure you’ll be good for anything but intimidation. Risen bodies tend to keep going until the magic runs out.”

  “I’ve dealt with necromancers before, don’t worry,” Theon said, before introducing himself. Morgana reciprocated with a curt handshake, with a firm grip. “I’ve already been briefed on the details of your mission.”

  “You know more than me, then,” she said with a wry glance at who Theon understood to be her older sister. He tried to keep his gaze neutral, though a part of his attention, already wrought with annoyance from her similarity with the dead girl, also couldn’t help but notice that she did have a pretty face, and a body kept well in shape. Maybe not really his type, but it was hard not to notice a certain… physical appeal about her.

  “Your main point of contact will be Rosen Grieves.” Amelia’s eyes trailed over Theon for a brief moment, and he wondered whether she was disapproving of him, somehow. Like she’d expected more.

  When the sister left, Morgana didn’t bother with conversation. She didn’t seem very interested in human interaction. That was fine. It made his work easier, if the person kept a distance.

  “You’re supposed to follow me around like a shadow, right?” Morgana finally said when she headed out of the suite, and he trailed after her instantly. “Or do I get some freedom in the matter?”

  “As much freedom as is reasonable,” Theon replied. “Given that this campus was subject to a revenant attack some months ago, and given this country’s record with necromancers—there’s quite a lot of situations where I’ll need to follow.”

  “Hmph. As long as it isn’t the ladies’ bathroom, or my own bedroom.” Then she flushed, as if only then realizing what she’d just said. Theon chose to ignore it.

  “I think you’ll be safe in those scenarios.” He deliberately cut it off there, leaving her to form her own conclusions about the tone he used.

  When she wasn’t looking at him, however, he let out a silent sigh. If this case ended up being anything like that case…

  Then his notions about continuing work in this field might be placed under serious doubt, to say the least. Even now, the failure welled bitterly within. All the things he could have done, should have done. To find a way to make that little girl have no need to prove herself, to find a way to be less imposing when interacting with her friends, though he was naturally imposing, thanks to those bear genes. People nowadays much preferred bodyguards who were deceptively weak but fiercely strong in reality. Not ones that practically held neon signs above their heads flaunting their physical capabilities.

  People on the rougher side of life tended to prefer the bulky ones. Or if they wanted to make sure no one approached the protected.

  He waited outside as Morgana went into a room for more words with her sister, then followed her silently back to the suite.

  Their routine was limited for the first week, as they waited for the Lasthearth necromancer, Rosen Grieves, to make it here and initiate contact with the underworld. In that routine, Theon learned that Morgana was incredibly fastidious. She had her rituals—makeup in the morning after a shower to help her brain become alert, and a glass of orange juice. He stuck to water and a protein-based breakfast himself, usually a couple of the bars that tasted like gelatinous rubber, and maybe a packet of electrolyte powder if he’d been cutting out the salts.

  Morgana barely initiated contact with him at all, or even bothered to ask questions about anything he did, such as when he logged into his notebook laptop to scribble a daily report, or play DCSS on the browser when he wanted something to pass the time that he could disengage from at any moment he chose. He spoke to his parents every Friday, though this Friday it was only his mother, as his father was too busy attempting to sleep from a long and tiring day.

  A week of relative ease and extreme boredom, as Morgana had to be confined to the suite and the former university. The woman preferred to entertain herself with music. He’d peeked at her iPod one night just out of curiosity, and saw randomized playlists hundreds of songs long, all with mixed genres. The most recent one was Angus and Julia Stone and a hefty selection of their tunes.

  For some reason, he’d been expecting Gothic orchestra or something. Though that was more associated with the necromancer stereotype—that all of them used to be goths in their younger days.

  With his father in Wisconsin on official business, and his mother looking after his brother’s son, Theon was now focusing on providing for all of them, to make sure that the whole family unit remained secure and without worry of the future.

  He didn’t like being set up to guard another necromancer, but he also knew that they tended to pay the most, and agencies loved to overcharge them for protection, citing higher life risks.

  Rosen Grieves was a prominent police detective from a high-profile family in Lasthearth, well known in the area due to her exploits in helping Stoneshire overcome a revenant mishap. Although that depended on which side of the news you preferred to listen to. Some liked to say she deliberately caused the chaos just to try and get people to see necromancers in a more favorable light.

  If someone had decided they didn’t like you, then you couldn’t win, no matter what you did and when you did it. That was his experience, anyway. Rosen Grieves stood taller than Morgana Hargraves, with dark hair and dark eyes, and a confidence about her that seemed to suck up everyone’s attention in the room. Like you just knew shit was going to go down. She also had a bodyguard hovering near her, and Theon figured him to be a werewolf, given his eye color.

  He overheard some of the conversation, watching Morgana’s expression turn more and more into a scowl the further they processed.

  “We’ve got your fake ID all set up. It’s possible you might need to visit more than one deadring, make a name for yourself. Officially we want the stolen bones recovered, but unofficially we want to shut these operations down if we can, as other activities are filtered through them. Hargraves—well, Amelia—says you have excellent control and use of Commands, better than most.”

  “Are you providing me any bones as
well?” Morgana replied, teeth clenched, neck tendons stretching.

  “I told them that you would need to select yourself. So you can choose the connection with the greatest affinity to yourself.” Rosen gave a dark, sardonic smile. “We’re going to be visiting the local graveyards, unless you happen to have a set on you?”

  Morgana’s eyes practically blazed in offense. “No. I do not.”

  Oh, so they were going to do a little grave-digging, were they? That sounded like a perfectly normal thing to do. Nothing wrong with that concept at all, Theon thought wildly, starting to feel a creeping dislike for the whole situation, and for the two necromancers wrapped in idle conversation about uprooting graves.

  “Just give me anything,” Morgana replied. “I don’t have to win, do I? Just be in the area.”

  “But if you want to get anywhere, you do have to win,” Rosen said. “Which means that we need to get you a soul and bones that work well together with you. We need the connection. The better the connection, the better they fight.”

  The two necromancers continued to bicker out the terms, until with a heavy reluctance, Morgana agreed to go with Rosen to find a suitable soul in the mass of ones offered within Stoneshire. And the first place they went to, after the whole sorry thing had been arranged, was Stonegrave Cemetery, the first one ever formed in the city, when it still wore its old name.

  Which meant that the oldest bodies were encased in it, though he did hear muttering from Morgana that old didn’t mean better, but more unstable. Not anything he understood about the magic, not anything he cared to learn. Really, he just wanted out of this madness. But he had sworn an oath. He had signed a contract. A lucrative contract that saw him climbing his way out of a hole into better pastures.

  One that also sent him to a cemetery late at night, when no one was around, to watch the necromancers sit there and sink into their magic, contacting the Beyond. Trying to find a suitable soul and the bones that soul was attached to, as they liked to linger close.

  “There’s quite a few hostile spirits here...” Morgana, eyes still shut, had her mouth twisted into a knot. “A few old souls turning rotten...”

  “That’s unfortunately quite normal,” Rosen said. Her eyes were closed as well. Both were as still as the grave, and offered about as much warmth as well. There was a strange, cold aura about them, as if the heat was being sucked out of the room. They both then fell utterly silent, and no more words slipped from their lips. If there was conversation, it wasn’t the kind that Theon could hear.

  So there he was. Left alone. In a cemetery which prickled the back of his head with unease in what felt like the middle of the night, only lit by moonlight and the dim illumination from the place of worship.

  Great. Just where he always wanted to be.

  The two necromancers sat there in their icy silence for what seemed like hours, but was probably only half an hour. He kept alert for any potential dangers, choosing to shift into bear form to heighten all of his senses. His bear was iron gray in color, and much larger than a grizzly. He could charge up to forty miles an hour once he got going, and could probably bowl over a truck, not that he’d particularly practiced the art of bowling over vehicles.

  “Nothing here,” Morgana said, popping out of her trance suddenly. “We’ll need to go elsewhere.”

  Rosen was out of hers, too, and she nodded, and Theon followed them to another cemetery, not as old, and also within walking distance. They slipped into their same trance again, and it left Theon feeling dirty, somehow, like they were just walking in and grave-robbing. He got that they were selecting older graves, probably so as not to disturb those with recently deceased relatives, and he knew they had permission… it just didn’t settle right in his gut. Doing things at night was always clandestine in nature, when you wanted to hide your activities from the rest of the world. If these necromancer types wanted to be more accepted in the world, then they needed to stop doing shit like this, frankly.

  Morgana slipped out of her trance mere minutes later. “I found one,” she said reluctantly. “She’s eager to fight.”

  “A she?” Rosen was shaking her head, rubbing her eyes. “I was expecting you to latch onto a male fighter or soldier. Someone who went for intensive training. There were some civil war vets there.”

  “I don’t want a civil war vet.” Morgana gave a sigh. “She’s called Beverly Heath. Lived quite the life, it seems. I’ll need to talk to her more, but she was a Changeling.”

  Rosen’s eyes widened. “Wait, what?”

  “Switched at birth. Raised in a human family though she had fae blood. Got into fencing lessons quite early, apparently was quite the accomplished duelist. Over forty men challenged her and she won every one. She was quite proud about that.” Morgana smiled. “Maybe there’s better spirits out there, but I like this one.”

  “That’s the important part,” Rosen agreed. “The connection. We’ll request permission from the local council to unearth her bones for a police sting operation. Should be good.”

  Theon followed them all the way back into the suites after that, and as usual, sat quietly in the armchair as Morgana bade goodbye to Rosen, and then her sister. She then headed to grab some chocolate milk out of the fridge, then paused. “You want something from here?”

  “I’m good, thanks,” he said, and he heard a small blast of air leave her nostrils, like a huff or a sigh.

  “Look,” she said. “I’m sure what you’re seeing is probably making you uncomfortable.”

  “Uncomfortable is an understated way of describing it,” he replied coolly. “But it’s not my job to question, miss.”

  Morgana squinted at him thoughtfully, then pulled out a beer he hadn’t noticed in the fridge before, handing it over to him. He wanted to refuse, but that determined glint in her eyes said otherwise. She wanted to talk. So fine.

  “You know, I wonder if you’d watch me murder and not so much as blink an eye,” she said with a certain wry tone. Her light brown eyes appeared wary, however.

  “It depends on the situation, miss. But I might blink a little.”

  She nodded. “What do you think about everything we’re doing right now? You understand the mission we’ve been sent on?”

  He smiled grimly. “Of course, miss. I’m aware you’re going in a dangerous place with Fight Club rules. As for what you were doing… I find it distasteful, miss. I understand that you are being as respectful as you can with the whole sorry business, but it still sits badly with me.”

  “I’d be surprised if it didn’t,” she replied, now wearing an amused expression. “And then I might wonder if I ended up with a psychopath for a bodyguard.”

  “We can establish that I’m not.” He raised an eyebrow. “Though I’m surprised you want to talk now. We’ve had a week before.”

  “We did speak,” she said, now sounding a little offended. “I’ve not ignored you.”

  “Good morning, how are you, and would you like something doesn’t count to me as proper conversation. Not that I mind,” he added. “All I need is a client willing to let me do my job, and the rest sort of fits together quite nicely.”

  “I’m sure. Well, you may find yourself affronted some more with where we’re going. Not somewhere you want to take someone on your first date, for certain.”

  “Just as well we’re not dating, then,” Theon said with a genuine smirk. “But tell me. Does your magic sit well with you? Are you happy to be involved in all of this?”

  “I’m not. But the pay isn’t something to be laughed at, and my sister requested me personally, believing I’m the best for the job. Oh, and they needed a necromancer not known in the area, as I hear all the ones in law enforcement and college have been identified already.”

  Same as me, in a way, he thought. The money wasn’t to be laughed at, either. Just a job. “Someone has to do the dirty work, I suppose.”

  “Mm. These people don’t make it easy. I work so hard, so does everyone else I know—we try so hard to
make a good name for ourselves… and then you get assholes like this who ruin everything we strive toward. Because that’s all it takes,” she erupted, and Theon found both his eyebrows traveling further and further up his forehead. “You might have nine good necromancers, but everyone’s going to judge you by the deeds of the tenth who decided criminal activity’s a better way to use their time.”

  “It’s lucrative, being a criminal necromancer?” Theon considered it a moment. “I understand why drug lords make a lot of money, if they can smuggle the goods. How does necromancy even work?”

  “You’d be surprised,” she replied. “But it’s big in the underground dog fighting and cock fighting manner. It’s your underground wrestling match, death match. Some bet thousands, even millions. Some want to test their pet necromancers, others want the dough and don’t care how they get it.”

  “Have you taken part in anything like this before?”

  There was a long, silent pause, and Morgana briefly found more interest in the floor than in Theon’s face. “I considered it once. When I was pretty hard up for cash and desperate to do something about it. I resisted… but I did some research on it. Seeing how people operated in them, what the best necromancers did. They all have pseudonyms. They all claim to have real connections to their… chosen ones.” She sighed. “It was interesting to me, but the lengths people go to in that line of work is… less than savory. Let’s just say that was what persuaded me otherwise.”

  “They kill people, don’t they? Bodysnatch off the streets and all that?”

  “Usually they just grave-dig. But yeah. Some like to go above and beyond.” She seemed to have forgotten she wanted a drink for herself. “I’m sorry in advance if anything is not to your liking. Okay? I wish I can make things more comfortable, but you are dealing with the most nefarious magic of all.”

  “There’s worse,” Theon said then, surprising them both. “Blood magic is pretty foul. Sacrifice. Your magic at least doesn’t need sacrifice. You just need people already dead.”