Bodyguards of Samhain Shifter Box Set

by Lisa Daniels

  “I can’t help but think that something awful’s going to happen, though,” Janos informed Mason. Janos was tall, confident, and Mason sensed the alpha werewolf within him, almost biting to be let out of his skin. They had a different kind of energy to dragon shifters.

  “Because of what happened when you first took the job?”

  “Of course. There was an attack at that very university. There was an assassination attempt on Rosen and Rickard. There’s been a few others on Rickard, but he’s more… resilient with that spirit inside him now. Walking down the streets can be risky at times. Talia is recognized, because she’s a councilman’s daughter. You don’t hide from that.”

  “I can think of worse jobs,” Mason said with a shrug. “Necromancers can protect themselves well...”

  “True. But nothing can protect you against getting caught with your pants down.” Both guards walked down the street towards a small café, and Mason grabbed a newspaper from a stand when headlines screamed out at him: Death in the North!

  He paid, and Janos leaned over, curious about the heading as well, and the eye-catching picture of a city that looked suspiciously like Stoneshire, with cars crashed and smoke billowing out of a few buildings. It resembled what Mason had seen of the revenant attack some months back that had plagued the city. Was this another one?

  Both men made it to the café, ordered something simple, and got to work reading the paper.

  The death toll is yet to be estimated, the paper said, but reports are coming in that it may climb up to thousands. Stonegarden, a town only five miles out of Stoneshire, has been hit by a mass assault. Thousands of bodies within the cemeteries have risen out of their graves. The army has been deployed to tackle this force, but so far, they have been unsuccessful. Neighboring towns are being evacuated, and blockades are being set up. Reporters upon the scene say that this is a necromancer at work, or perhaps an army of necromancers. The public are denouncing them and calling for all necromancers to be rounded up, and several experts are supposedly to be consulted to figure out how to handle the problem.

  The Daily Supernatural tells you, the reader, to be vigilant, watch the news, and be prepared to move. Your safety may not be guaranteed. Follow our live blog for more news at supernaturaldailyevents.com.

  Mason thought this might be widely exaggerated, but one skim upon online media sites soon spoke of something opposite. People were posting pictures, spreading the story everywhere, and there were images of glowing bodies walking the streets, including one that sent a cold dose of fear into Mason’s skin: a spirit glowing red, black… and gold. A few people in the cafeteria were discussing the news with wide eyes and indignant voices, and Janos and Mason sat glumly, absorbing it, not wanting to believe it.

  “What do you think this means?” Mason said, when Janos finally remembered that he had a drink. He was barely able to sip at it, though, too distracted by the chaos he had seen.

  “I’m thinking it means we shouldn’t be sitting here while the people we’re supposed to protect are elsewhere,” said Janos. He was contacting Talia through his phone now, not wanting to leave anything to chance. Mason held off contacting Ellie, knowing the two women were together, and still feeling the slightest bit hurt by her reaction, even though it was irrational and he should have really shaken it off by now.

  “This can’t be any worse than what we’ve been reading about in East Asia,” Mason said. “Wasn’t there something about a war between two types of supernaturals? Thousands of casualties?”

  “Eh, who cares what happens there? This is our focus at the moment. Whether or not this is going to send current necromancer hate through the roof or not.”

  “It just seems,” Mason rumbled, and he could almost imagine Ellie nodding along with this, listening to his every word, “that no matter how much good people try to do, there’s still enough assholes in their ranks to ruin all their efforts.”

  “It’s the way of things. For every hundred good humans, there’s one bad one, and that one bad one’s such an awful example that it’s easy to start thinking all the rest are the same. Especially if all the news wants to do is hunt down exclusive stories of the bad ones and portray them.” Janos texted something to Talia, nonchalant in his manner, even as he proclaimed something so bold. “I mean, if you only read stories about supernaturals hurting humans, you’d start believing that all supernaturals would hurt them in the end.”

  “True, but all the same, people should know better. It’s obvious what advances we’ve been able to make in solving crimes and finding out about the ancient world through necromancers.”

  “That doesn’t stop a scared person shooting at you. They’re not going to stand there and listen while you try to explain to them why necromancers are good while one of their corpses is chewing a relative’s brain.” Janos let out a scoff. “Talia says she’s been hearing the news. Ellie’s not aware yet, she’s still in her interview.”

  Mason felt compelled to stick up for Ellie, somehow. Try and reason that necromancers got a really bad rap and that it was exhausting, just exhausting for people like Ellie to constantly prove they were good people. But he also knew that Janos shared some overlap with him, and obviously didn’t want people attacking his client either.

  “I used to hate necromancers for a good long while. Less nowadays, but they’re a liability to protect,” Janos said, now finishing off his drink. His yellow eyes were steady on Mason, and Mason stared just as evenly back. “You can’t expect people to change just with words. Something needs to happen to them. Right now, we’re looking at what sounds like an awful lot of deaths piling up. Possibly something to do with Zaimov, as that name keeps cropping up everywhere… but the only thing that matters right now is that we do our jobs.”

  “Right.” Mason had to agree with that. He sighed, deflating. He shouldn’t feel that compulsive need to stick up for necromancers. He didn’t know enough about them, or even care about them, really. Well, any of them apart from Ellie…

  But how could he not?

  His phone buzzed in his pocket. Slowly, he tugged it out, expecting something from his sister, or maybe even his mother.

  You can’t hide, said the message from Regal. He is coming for you, and Ellie. He knows you two are together and are talking to the police.

  Mason gasped.

  “What’s up?” asked Janos. Mason showed him the message, and the werewolf’s face became grimmer.

  Can we talk? Mason sent back, his heart hammering faster, an uneasy sweat beginning to bead over his forehead.

  Not safe, came the reply. Protect her.

  Mason hesitated, then sent: Can we protect you? Can we get you out?

  A few minutes passed before he got a response, and he kept checking his phone actively.

  It’s too late for me.

  Oh… Ellie wouldn’t like to hear that. Mason sighed. He’d have to tell her about her father. No choice.

  The two bodyguards were rather grim, finding it difficult to keep up conversation when they were both worrying about their charges. That was their job, after all. To worry. To spot flaws and security risks and potential issues that might impact their immediate futures, from as small as wearing a seatbelt in a car to deciding whether or not they should attempt to bail out Ellie’s father or leave him stuck in enemy territory. If Ellie’s father was the enemy, too, then that made things every bit worse. It could be a grand trap. It could be he needed help.

  Damn it, Mason thought, angry at the mess. He and Janos switched to lighter talk, just to try and take their minds off the worst of their problems. But they were always there, burrowing in the back of their brains.

  * * *

  Ellie’s blue eyes were shining. “We have to save him,” she said, gripping hard onto Mason’s arm. “We can’t leave him there if he’s really in trouble. And with all this! With whatever the heckity-heck Zaimov’s doing now. I know I complain a lot but he’s my father, Mason. He’s all I have.”

  You have me, too
, Mason thought, but didn’t voice it out loud. That little jealous whisper had no place in this moment. “We have to consider that it might be a trap for you. We might even have to consider that your father is lost.”

  Her hands balled up, and the whites of her knuckles showed. There was so much tension in her body. She was so stiff that she seemed brittle. Heat flushed her cheeks—the kind of heat associated with anger and frustration. “I don’t care. If there’s even the slightest chance that my father’s changed his mind—he wants me to be free, he’s in trouble—we have to help him.”

  “We will look into it,” Rosen Grieves said curtly, stepping up behind them in the precinct. Rosen had a no-nonsense, determined set to her features, to her posture. “We need to consider all possibilities, including the fact that your father may be in a hostage situation. With the way things are progressing right now, and the way the media is scurrying over the whole incident like an infestation of rats—no stone must be left unturned.”

  Lest the wrath of the media fall upon your services. Mason smiled grimly.

  “It’s possible we’ll need help. We’re contacting all the friendly necromancers we know in America and across the globe,” Rosen continued, staring at Ellie. “I wonder if there are any former contacts within the deadrings that you went to that might help or not.”

  Ellie let out a small, derisive laugh. “Wait. You want me to try and talk with some of the fighters?”

  “I don’t see why not.”

  “They don’t care, Grieves. All they want is a quick and dirty buck. Pulling them out into the spotlight will make them hide back like insects afraid of the sun.”

  Rosen snorted. “All the same, we need all the help we can get. Will you consider, at least?”

  “I will. Just don’t expect any help from that quarter.”

  “I’ll try not to.” Rosen’s response was dry, though her expression became a whole lot sourer when the news updated, with a new revelation that the wake of destruction was still going, making a southward path that showed evidence of the army of undead intending to sack major towns and cities.

  “What is even on this idiot’s mind? What’s the point of this?” Rosen flung up her hands in frustration. “Why make everything so much worse?”

  Because that’s what people do, Mason thought to himself. They liked to make things worse, often without fully meaning to. It was just an end result. Just like what he’d done with Ellie, when he only wanted to tell her that she was welcome with him, welcome in a context outside of their original dynamic. That had caused a wall to slam down between them instead. It was all he kept seeming to encounter, lately. Every time he thought he might have fixed things so that their lives could progress normally again, something else threw itself into trouble.

  “Mason,” Ellie whispered, her eyes going big and pleading, in such an annoyingly cute way that it twisted his stomach into knots and made all the thoughts fall out of his head. “There has to be a way to save my father. Beyond everything here and what everyone’s saying about it being a trap. He’s in danger.”

  “So are you. You can’t go back there, Ellie. You can’t sneak off in a plane in the middle of the night and hope things will be fixed. They’re canceling flights,” he added hastily, in case he’d given her a bad idea. “They’re shutting off the area so that we can’t rush northward and into certain danger.”

  Her face fell, but her hand was still firm and strong on him. Such an earnest, beautiful face. When did she become so beautiful?

  He had noticed, somewhere, of course… he just didn’t want to fully accept in his mind what it might mean to process such thinking. He froze up, but the moment passed when she let go and turned to face Rosen and the newly arrived Morgana as she strode toward them, red-faced.

  “Someone tried to throw an egg at me,” Morgana said, rubbing at her hair as if expecting to find eggshells or yolk in it. “Shattered against the damn wall, but I feel like something got me. Anyway, you called?”

  “News. Look at it,” Rosen said flatly. Morgana peered over at Rosen’s phone, and Mason examined Ellie’s back. Wondering. Wondering if he could do something for her. The start of a stupid, insane, and possibly suicidal idea was already forming in his mind. It’d please her, right?

  Might kill him, too. Might be the single worst idea he’d ever come up with in his life, or the best. He let it burn a hole in his brain, and keep him warm, even as everyone else fell into a kind of morbid depression, unsure of how to deal with all the crap being flung their way.

  Tonight, he thought, letting the warmth envelop him as he observed Ellie. Remembering all the things they’d gone through together, all the happy and bad moments, from his uncertainty of his place in the world when first becoming a security guard, scrambling for the first opportunity presented, to their best moments before she’d become more withdrawn, more thirsty for independence away from her father.

  Tonight, he would do it. Suicide or not.

  Chapter Nine – Ellie

  Ellie woke up, and the world remained just as bad as it was before. Even the sunlight dazzling through her window did nothing to lift her mood. Her insides were a nest of worms, and there was a hollowness she usually associated with hunger, but no appetite remained in her.

  Her father was out of reach. A week ago, she would have been glad of this news. Right now, it dealt a cruel blow to how life was meant to be. Her father wasn’t supposed to be in trouble. He wasn’t supposed to grow enough of a conscience to worry after Ellie. And yet he did. She felt sick to her stomach with worry, knowing there was no way anyone would bother to extend any resources to rescue her father. She even agreed with them to some extent, but it didn’t take away that unease within. Because she knew they were condemning her father to die.

  Something was strange about breakfast today. No sooner had she finally finished her toast than it occurred to her that Mason was yet to emerge. Usually by this time, he happened to be out of his quarters, drinking something in the garden. She checked the garden to be sure, then headed to his room, knocked—no response. Tumbling into the room sent a quick spike of fear through her.

  One check of the entire house later, and a report from Rickard and one of the servants roaming the halls confirmed her worst fear. Mason was gone. Without so much as a note or any kind of explanation for his disappearance.

  Furiously, she tried to phone him, to text him, but there was nothing but voicemail, no sign of her messages being read. Where the actual heck had Mason gone?

  She contacted Morgana about this, unsure where else to go or how to quell the rising panic in her soul.

  “He’s just vanished, Morgana. He’s not responding to anything. He didn’t say anything about what he was doing...”

  “Huh,” Morgana said. “He asked for two days’ leave from the precinct Security Services. I was there when he requested it, but didn’t think anything much of it at all.”

  Mason had asked for a leave? What for? She didn’t know, but her panic calmed marginally, now registering that perhaps this was something planned, rather than, say, a mysterious kidnapping in the middle of the night, though she’d feel a little sorry for whatever kidnapper ended up dealing with a great lump of a dragon like him.

  Please be okay. Stupid Mason. She had only just come to terms with the fact that she might be able to keep him in her life.

  The worry persisted throughout the day, but at least she had plenty of distractions in an attempt to take her mind off it.

  “One thing they’ve been wondering at the precinct,” Rosen told her, having one of her free mornings and afternoons for once, “is whether or not a necromancer should be allowed a companion that they can summon, if it’s possible to get guardian angels to be more commonplace.”

  “That… doesn’t sound like a good idea,” Ellie replied. “People already dislike us enough. If we start walking with an undead bodyguard down the street? I’d be surprised if they didn’t just start shooting the body on the spot. I don’t think they hav
e laws that will get you arrested for that yet.”

  “Laws can be changed. Times change.”

  “People don’t always like change.”

  “Tough,” Rosen said with a grin. “It happens regardless. Why, in my lifetime, I’ve seen eight states take on necromancers in a legal setting. I’ve seen two countries decriminalize us, if not everything we do. It’s not madness to think one day we’d be allowed to summon our own protection. Or that maybe we will summon things for other people’s protection. We’re severely underutilized as it is because of the prejudice.”

  Ellie tried to imagine all the different ways she could be used, though her limited imagination didn’t go far. Simply because she’d never considered any other alternatives to her powers. In a way, she grew up believing that necromancers were bad. She believed she was a criminal, because that was what people expected from her.

  Rosen seemed to spot some of the thinking reflected on Ellie’s face, for she sighed and shook her head in an almost melancholy way. “It’ll always take time, kid.”

  “Kid?” Ellie now puffed up. No one called her a kid! Except… to Rosen Grieves, she probably was one. Immature. Not enough knowledge of the real world. Worrying too much about things that she couldn’t change.

  “It’s a shame your bodyguard didn’t deign to inform us about his intentions,” Rosen continued, staring off into the distance for a moment. “Obviously it’s something he can’t tell us about, or we’d be...” She paused. In that same moment, Ellie felt the passing of a shadow, a pressing upon her soul. Both necromancers regarded each other with the same inquisitive expression, before slipping into trances, entering the Other Side to see the cause of the sensation.