Cabal

by David Delaney

  Lucy turned to Morgan, her eyes filling with tears. "He didn't die that night. He somehow escaped."

  "It would seem so," said Morgan, pulling Lucy into a tight embrace. "I'm so sorry."

  “Wait," I said. "If Marcus didn't die, then where the hell has he been for the past three decades? Hiding? Because the guy I met in your memory didn't exactly strike me as the hiding type."

  "Agreed," said Morgan over Lucy's shoulder. "There's no way Morgan would have let Lucy live, especially after she decimated his coven. No, there's something else going on, a piece we're missing."

  Lucy took a deep breath, regaining her composure. "Let's find the a-hole and ask him."

  We nodded our agreement.

  Lucy stayed in Morgan's arms, but leaned back so she could look at him directly. "Where do we start?"

  "My brain is still processing all the memories," said Morgan. "It kind of feels like there's a blender in my head and a rabid monkey is in control of the on-off switch. But I do remember something, or someone, that may be able to help."

  "Who?"

  "Piper."

  It was like an invisible sledgehammer had hit Lucy in the gut. She gasped and stumbled backward, her mouth hanging open.

  "Whoa, who's Piper?" I asked.

  Lucy smacked the side of her head a few times. "I can't believe I forgot about Piper. Do you think she's still around?"

  Morgan smiled. "There's only one way to find out."

  "Her house was in the canyon somewhere, right?" said Lucy.

  "Uh," I raised my hand. "Who's Piper?"

  "The trip to Vegas," Lucy explained. "Stupid Marcus set us up with fake IDs. We're talking top-of-the-line professional identification. Piper was his supplier."

  "And you guys think she'll help us?" Elyse asked.

  "It's really the only lead we have right now," said Marcus.

  "It's like, almost midnight," said Wyatt. "Are we going tonight, because this Piper person might not take kindly to strangers banging on her door in the middle of the night."

  "Then it sucks to be her, because we're going," said Lucy.

  Morgan looked apprehensively at Wyatt. "I guess this means you're going to have to teleport us some more."

  It was obvious that Morgan wasn't happy with the thought of blinking again so soon.

  Wyatt shook his head. "Nope, I've never been to Piper's place. Can't blink to where I haven't been."

  "Uber it is, then" said Maddie.

  We ordered up an Uber X and requested a vehicle large enough to seat us all comfortably—well, almost comfortably, Wyatt got stuck in the very back of an SUV on a seat built for somebody no bigger than a third-grader.

  "Seriously, first the plane and now this indignity?" said Wyatt. "What kind of twisted engineer designs a seat so tiny? Any parent who stuck their kid back here could be arrested for child abuse."

  Morgan couldn't remember the exact address but was able to direct the driver to the general area. Then between his and Lucy's combined Swiss-cheese memories we were able to pinpoint the house.

  "This is definitely it," said Lucy.

  "Wow, who knew crime paid so well?" said Maddie.

  She was right. The house was nice, a low-slung modern style that was a favorite design of rich, canyon-dwelling, Southern Californians. The house was perched on a piece of property that overlooked the San Fernando Valley. The night was dark and the twinkling lights of the sprawling suburbs below us looked like a sea of stars.

  Morgan chuckled. "That was our reaction the first time we pulled up, remember Lucy?"

  "Yeah, and as I'm starting to recall you had your tongue hanging out after Piper opened the door," Lucy said. "She's pretty sexy."

  "I don't remember that part," Morgan said, innocently.

  "So, do we, like, just knock?" asked Wyatt. "As a criminal purveyor of fake IDs I'm assuming she doesn’t have an aversion to owning guns. Things could get kind of shoot-y."

  Maddie said, "And if she was chummy with Marcus, do we need to worry about magic?"

  "I'm such an idiot," said Lucy. "Everyone, back up, down the street now."

  "Why are you an idiot, exactly?" Elyse asked, as we all shuffled down the narrow canyon road, out of sight of Piper's house.

  "She's a shape-shifter," said Lucy. "I forgot until right now when Maddie mentioned magic."

  "A shape-shifter?" said Morgan. "I don't remember that, are you sure?"

  Lucy nodded. "Oh yeah. I was able to see her aura, just a glimpse really. And she immediately knew that I knew, and sent you off to the kitchen for something. She made the point that you seemed kind of jumpy about the whole magic thing and so I agreed not to say anything."

  "What kind of shifter is she?" Elyse asked.

  "Some kind of leopard, I think."

  "Um," said Morgan. "Are we worried about this? I mean, we've got two shape-shifters, a battle-mage, a healer and a kid who can Houdini circles around anyone of us. I think the odds are very much in our favor."

  "Being a shifter and an associate of Marcus makes her very dangerous," I said. "We need to tread lightly. Let me check the house and perimeter for wards."

  I started walking back up the street.

  Morgan's eyebrows went up. "Wards?"

  "Magic booby-traps," said Wyatt.

  "They can be lethal," added Maddie.

  I continued to listen to the gang's whispered explanations as I scoped out Piper's house. I switched my sight on and wasn't surprised to discover a couple of layers of protective wards.

  "Marcus' Bel Air house was warded with multiple killing curses," said Lucy.

  "Got it," nodded Morgan. "And Orson can what, somehow see them?"

  Yep," said Elyse. "But so can Lucy and Maddie. The only difference is Orson can shred them."

  "He can disable magic?" Morgan said, impressed. "That seems like a handy skill. Is there a class or online tutorial I can take?"

  I grinned to myself. Now that was an awesome idea for a TED talk.

  Wyatt snorted.

  "Orson is special, even for a shape-shifter," said Lucy. "Magic doesn't react well around him."

  "Okay," I said, returning to within earshot for the non-shifters. "The house is warded, but nothing that looks too intricate, so they may just be the noise-maker variety. Morgan, you can think of them as silent alarms. We trip them and Piper gets an alert to take cover or prepare a counter-attack."

  "But you can disable them, correct?" asked Morgan.

  "It's more like I absorb the energy. The ward still gets triggered—it just won't have the desired effect on me."

  "But since these are alarm-type wards, Piper will know we're here," said Elyse.

  "Yep, I can shred them, but not before they do their job."

  "So, we need to make a fast entry," said Morgan. "A tactical challenge, but not impossible, especially with the unique abilities at our disposal."

  Until Morgan started laying out his plan I hadn't realized how very amateurish our previous battle planning had been. Even Lucy was impressed with his strategic know-how.

  "Wow," said Wyatt. "Usually we just run in and start swinging, kicking, and burning anything moving that's not us."

  "Remember," warned Morgan. "Even the best-laid plans can go sideways for any number of reasons, most of them unknown or unforeseen. For instance, we know that thirty years ago Piper lived here alone, but what if she got married or decided to start a boarding house for battle-wizards?"

  Everyone had to stifle a laugh at that.

  "What?" asked Morgan, exasperated.

  Lucy patted his arm. "It's battle-mage, not wizard."

  Morgan shrugged. "Whatever, you all get my point. This plan will get us in the house, but once inside be prepared for anything."

  We formed up in a loose triangle with me on point. I was, as Morgan put it, the tank. I had the ability to pop the wards and provide cover from both magical and conventional attacks. And I was in my element, because it was like a real-life version of a dungeon run from World of War
craft. I would pull any agro thrown our way by Piper, and the rest of the group would deal out any needed damage.

  This will indeed be enjoyable.

  My inner-monster was almost gleeful with anticipation.

  Easy dude, there may only be one person inside and this will be over before it starts.

  Morgan double-checked that everyone had at least one hand on the person next to them and then said, "Go."

  I shredded the wards with two swift strikes. "Now."

  Wyatt blinked us to within feet of the front door, where Lucy immediately blew the doors with a kinetic spell.

  Morgan pushed from behind. "Go! Go! Go!"

  We rushed inside staying in our triangle formation. I had my sight up, trying to look in every direction at once. The house was dark and quiet—too quiet. The only light spilled in from the floor-to-ceiling windows that Morgan and Lucy had told us ran the entire back of the house. The ambient light from the Valley cast long shadows across the expansive living room. I was about to say that it looked like nobody was home when the magic spectrum erupted into life. Some very bad ju-ju had just been triggered.

  "There's another ward—” I tried to yell, but was too late.

  The magic crashed against me from every side. The only result was a rustling of my hair as if in a light breeze. My friends, however, weren’t so lucky. The magic gripped Elyse, Wyatt, Maddie and Morgan, and smashed them back against the walls, pinning them in place. Only Lucy's skill and experience kept her from being overpowered. She had been able to throw up a hastily constructed shield, but was still tossed back by the force of the magic. I spun in place. There wasn't one specific spell for me to trash. I could see balls of nasty energy holding the others immobile, but the magical energy wasn’t linked, and I would have to release everyone individually while watching my back for another attack.

  Tricky.

  Yeah, that's one word for it.

  I moved to Elyse. Before I could pop the magic surrounding her, a very tall, attractive black woman stepped into the living room—Piper looked exactly as Lucy and Morgan had described her.

  "How dare you!" She was pissed, but didn't seem too worried that six strangers had just blasted their way into her house. "Do you idiots know who I am? I have guaranteed protection from the highest—”

  Ka-boom.

  Lucy had tossed a fireball at the woman's head. It seemed overly aggressive to me, as we wanted Piper alive, but she was a shifter and I assumed Lucy just figured Piper’s healing ability would kick in. None of that mattered as the fireball was stopped mid-flight and exploded against a shield wall—a very powerful shield wall. Well, that explained why Piper felt secure enough to stand out in the open while a group of adversaries wielding unknown abilities invaded her living room. I scanned the magic spectrum—yep, a wall of energy bisected the room, disappearing into the far walls, ceiling and floor. It was a doozy of a spell. The magic ability needed to create that kind of shield proved that Piper wasn't just talking big—the lady was connected.

  "You bitch!" roared Piper. "You will pay—"

  Piper's mouth snapped shut, her eyes narrowing at the sight of Lucy, and then her gaze quickly flicked across the rest of our faces, stopping on Morgan, who was struggling against the magic pinning him to the wall.

  "Lucy and Morgan," said Piper. "This is an unexpected, but interesting, turn of events. Why did you feel it necessary to come smashing into my home in the middle of the night? "

  Reunion time could wait.

  Piper had obviously either sweet-talked or paid a mage—probably Marcus—for the wards protecting her house. The fact remained that she was still only a shifter and I ate other shifters for breakfast. It was also clear that she was alone or we'd be knee-deep in bad guys by now, so I moved with a speed that probably looked like a blur to Morgan and quickly released all my friends.

  My ability to defuse magic wasn't lost on Piper and she clearly wasn't going to wait around for an explanation. She shifted into her animal form—a massive, spotted leopard—and hissed at us. I had just freed Morgan whose military training, unfortunately, once again kicked in. I've got to give the guy credit, he ran towards the giant cat, firing short bursts from his rifle.

  Lucy shouted a warning too late. "Morgan, no!"

  Morgan's bullets pinged off the shield and before any of us could stop him, he lashed out a frustrated, but futile kick at the invisible barrier. Morgan's touch set off a secondary spell coded into the barricade that was the equivalent of a landmine. The explosion rocked the house and enveloped Morgan in a bone-crushing concussive wave. It's just a fact, regular humans are very squishy and when they interact with magic it can get messy fast.

  "No!" screamed Lucy.

  Piper used the distraction to turn and jump through the plate-glass window. I caught a glimpse of her yellow tail disappearing uphill, into the wilds of Mulholland Canyon.

  Wyatt didn't say a word. He just pulled his battle-baton and blinked.

  "Wyatt!" I called after him, but he was gone. "Damn it."

  I turned to Lucy and Maddie who were kneeling over Morgan. There was a lot of blood. Morgan looked like somebody had dropped him off a ten-story building, and then run over him with a dump truck.

  Through tears Lucy told me, "Go, Wyatt needs your help. And both of you, try real hard not to kill Piper, at least not yet. We need answers."

  "Got it," I said.

  Without speaking Elyse and I turned and ran for the shattered window, shifting as we leapt into the night.

  The last thing my ears picked up from the house was Lucy as she pleaded with Maddie.

  "You have to save him, please, you have to."

  Chapter Eleven

  It wasn't hard to follow after Piper. In our animal forms we could smell the path she took through the brush. Every hundred feet or so we'd also get a whiff of Wyatt from the spots he'd landed while blinking. The kid was gaining on Piper, which worried me because while he was very capable in a fight, he didn't have the ability to overpower a shape-shifter, especially if she went full beast form.

  A rage-filled roar ripped through the night. It seemed that Wyatt had finally caught up with Piper and given her a zap or two with his baton. Damn it, kid, if you get yourself killed I'm going to be really pissed off.

  Elyse and I broke through the dense foliage and into what the LA Fire department called a defensible area—a cleared area around a house to help protect against wild fires. The house at the center wasn't as big as Piper’s home, but it was obvious she owned this property also, as her smell was everywhere. I didn’t think anyone lived on the property. It seemed to be set up as part of an escape route. As we rounded the side of the house, Piper—in human form and at the wheel of a mid-size SUV—came tearing out of the garage. We couldn't let her escape. I shifted to beast form and stepped in front of the speeding vehicle, catching the bumper with my massive, clawed hands. Piper didn't let up, instead she gunned the engine. My feet dug into the asphalt of the driveway. Elyse also shifted to beast form and leaped to the back of the SUV, grabbing the back bumper and pulling with all her strength. We didn't succeed in stopping the forward motion, but we kept it moving at only a crawl.

  Wyatt blinked in from somewhere and used his baton to smash the driver side window. Piper let go of the steering wheel, turning to punch at the crazy kid. Her fists only found empty space. Wyatt had blinked into the back seat behind her, and he pressed the baton against her head and gave her a nice long jolt. Piper's eyes rolled back into her head momentarily, but she wasn't out of the fight yet. She opened the door and spilled out onto the driveway, landing on all fours. She shook her head and shifted into beast form. The magic that rules shifters is strong, it’s healing ability immense. Piper was back in the scuffle. Elyse made a running jump, attempting to tackle Piper from behind, but the older shifter had more experience and must have sensed the attack coming, because she spun and backhanded Elyse into the side of the SUV.

  A low hiss of pain escaped Elyse's lips.

/>   Nope.

  I took a step toward Piper. She turned towards me, her claws out ready to fight.

  I shook my giant bear-man head, causing Piper to pause momentarily. Wyatt blinked behind her, baton pointed at Piper’s lower back. I chuffed at him, and he squinted at me and grinned in understanding. Wyatt lowered his baton, shrugged his shoulders and waved me on.

  Hey Crazy, I hope you're awake in there and ready to help me out if I need it.

  Your foe has lost, she just does not realize it yet.

  I reached out with my new-found magic ability and stripped Piper of her animal. The startled look on her face was priceless. Her legs went rubbery and she was going to pass out like Tommy, but she was putting up one hell of a fight.

  Piper returned the favor and startled me when she croaked out one almost unintelligible word before collapsing. "Ollphiest?"

  "What did you say?" I asked.

  Piper fell face-forward onto the unyielding ground. I was so surprised by her recognizing what I was that I didn't move to catch her and her head bounced off the blacktop.

  "Ouch," said Wyatt. "That's going to leave a mark."

  Elyse shifted to human form and asked, "Did she say what I think she said?"

  I shifted so I could answer.

  "Yep. It appears Piper is well-versed in all things Ollphiest. Let's throw her in the SUV and get back to the house. We can regroup with the others and figure out next steps."

  Elyse nodded.

  Wyatt asked, "How's Morgan, is he, you know . . ."

  "We’re not sure," said Elyse. "But he didn't look good."

  Wyatt frowned and looked back down the hill.

  "Go ahead," I said. "Tell them we'll be there in a few minutes."

  Wyatt didn't wait to be told twice and he blinked away instantly.

  "I'll sit with Piper in the back seat, you drive."

  Elyse climbed behind the wheel as I tossed Piper into the SUV and slid in next to her, tucking her legs under mine and locking her wrists tightly in my hands—just to be safe.

  Elyse got us back to the house in minutes. She pulled the SUV as close to the front door as possible, and I waited for Elyse to come around and open the back passenger-side door, not wanting to let go of Piper even for an instant. I was being overly cautious. She hadn't so much as twitched an eyelid on the short ride over. I gave Piper a shake and got no response. Her breathing and heart rate remained even and regular. I checked her aura, and her animal hadn't reattached itself yet, she was still very much human. I hefted her over my shoulder and followed Elyse inside.