Authors: Sierra Dean
“Yeah. Callum’s worried about this new church problem, so I’m going to go home for a couple of days to put his mind at ease. Once he realizes there’s no threat, I’ll be back. You can stay here if you want.” Cash lived in an apartment with a buddy of his from his undergrad frat days, but Everett tended to have a revolving door of ladies over, and Cash found the constant sexcapades distracting. He had a key to my place, and I didn’t share the space with anyone else. He might as well enjoy the silence while I was away.
He kissed each cheek and my forehead. “I may take you up on that.”
“If you do, just replace the milk, ’kay? I think it’s on the verge of going bad.”
This time his grin was real, his teeth gleaming white and the lines around his eyes crinkling merrily. “Next thing I know you’ll be asking for rent.”
I gave his ass a squeeze and kissed him softly. “Nah. You pay me in other ways.”
The drive from New Orleans to St. Francisville was slightly less than two hours, but the whole way I was a writhing bundle of nerves. I’d had to turn off the radio because the news kept talking about the new threat from the Church of Morning. Apparently everyone was convinced they planned to make good on it, and thanks to Maureen’s appearance on the news that morning, people were also sure CAPA was endorsing the action.
What a mess.
I was so distracted, my blue Dodge Dart kept edging over the center line of the highway before I’d catch myself and steer back onto the right side. Drama and danger were things I’d had my fill of during my twenty-one years alive. I didn’t need any more death threats or excitement, thank you. If I could make it through the remainder of my years without any stress outside of my exam schedule, I’d be perfectly content.
Fat chance in hell I was going to get so lucky.
The sun was almost blotted out by a thick covering of trees, the shimmering green light offering the only solace I’d felt since leaving the city. I resisted the urge to take a detour to the local swamps that were more like home to me than Callum’s estate, in spite of the last several years spent back in civilized society.
For four years, following my disastrous first attempts at shifting into my wolf form, I’d gone to live with my great-grandmother in the bayou. She’d helped me control my magic to a point I was able to be both a wolf and a witch without any dangerous fallout. I hadn’t been back to see
La Sorcière
since I was seventeen, but in spite of her advanced years I didn’t worry whether she was still alive. The witch would outlast us all.
With things being such a mess I could have used a bit of great-grandmotherly wisdom. The cool, detached way she handled the worst kind of situations meant she would probably have a solution for this. Or at least she’d know a few good wards to keep would-be assassins at bay.
I snorted and gave my head a shake. How ridiculous was it to want my eighty-something-year-old great-grandmother to save my ass?
The funnier part was knowing she could.
If I thought I might be able to get away with trawling through the swamp looking for a crazy magical senior and
not
terrify the rest of my family with worry, I would. But the bayou had a strange way of shifting and moving, and though the land itself didn’t change, I’d been gone long enough I would probably get lost if I went after her right now. I couldn’t afford those extra hours.
Nothing felt like home anymore. Not the swamp, not New Orleans. I’d become disconnected from my moorings, and nothing felt like terra firma these days. Feeling lost was one of the oh-so-fun side effects of almost dying. I’d been thrown down an open elevator shaft from over twenty floors up. No shit. And the only thing that had saved me was magic. Now part of me felt like I was
supposed
to be dead, but I was still haunting the world in a living form.
Near-death was weird.
I turned the radio back on, but the stations had gone fuzzy thanks to my distance from anything resembling civilized society, so I switched over to the default CD in my deck. Tom Waits’s eerie voice crooned about lost love, and I glued my attention back on the road. “Focus, Genie,” I whispered. Today would be a bad day to get into a car accident just because I was a hopeless flake.
A car appeared in my rearview mirror, coming out of nowhere, giving my pulse a kick-start. I’d been driving over an hour with almost no other signs of life, and the black sedan stuck out like a sore thumb against the green-and-gray backdrop of the previously empty highway.
He was driving awfully close to me, wasn’t he?
“Just
pass
,” I grumbled, cutting my gaze from the road to my mirror and back. He was riding my ass now, the front end of the sedan dangerously near to my bumper. What was this asshole thinking? The opposite lane was wide open, and he could have whizzed past me no problem if he was in such a damn hurry.
The sedan bumped me, and the realization of what was happening struck me at the same moment. He didn’t
want
to go by me.
He was trying to run me off the road.
My heart pounded, and my palms were instantly damp and itchy with nervous energy. Of all the things I’d prepared contingencies for, this wasn’t among them. I’d foolishly assumed when someone came to kill me, they’d do it when I was standing on solid ground so I’d have a chance to fight back. Ramming me off the road with a two-ton hunk of steel wasn’t playing fair.
Not that assassins cared much for fair play.
I gripped the wheel as my car jerked towards the shoulder of the road, and steadied myself, steering closer to the center to allow more rebound room. This plan would bite me in the ass if a car came towards me, but I was hoping to have enough time to react if that happened.
The music coming through my car stereo was slow, Waits singing “I Hope That I Don’t Fall in Love With You”, which was sweet and melodic. The pounding of my pulse in my ear bumped the tempo up a few notches, and my mind was racing.
The car slammed into me again, and I yelped. At least no one was in the car with me to see how pathetic I was in a time of panic. Some badass werewolf leader I would make.
Gritting my teeth, I scolded myself for letting my concentration drift. It wouldn’t matter how tough I was or wasn’t if this guy succeeded in killing me. The itch in my palm was a sign of magic, but as I tried to conjure a ward, he hit me a third time, making me lose my place in the spell. This was hopeless. I needed to be able to concentrate to perform magic, and he wasn’t giving me enough time.
Spotting a flash of daytime headlights in the distance, I had a truly terrible idea, one so idiotic it might be perfect.
I veered into the opposite lane, and the sedan followed me, scraping against my bumper, making my car jerk spastically. I was grateful for small favors because my attacker hadn’t opted for a higher car. There was no chance he’d be able to see around me thanks to how closely he was hugging my ass.
The lights in the distance drew nearer, and I sucked in a breath, issuing a silent prayer to the gods. It was a big gray delivery van, and hopefully the driver had quick reflexes, otherwise we were all in trouble. The van’s horn blared, and I yanked the steering wheel at the last second, hauling my car back into the right lane. The sedan wasn’t as lucky, not expecting the van to be there when I pulled aside.
Both the van and the car swerved, and I slammed on my brakes, sending gravel flying as I hit the shoulder. Tires squealed from all three vehicles, and my car came to an abrupt stop, dust settling around me like smoke. The van skidded to a halt next to the edge of the ditch. The sedan spun around in a full 360-degree turn and came to a stop facing me from a hundred yards away. I got a good look at the driver, a clean-cut blond man in his early fifties. His cold stare showed bitter rage and the unspoken promise that our business together wasn’t through.
He restarted his car and reversed hard, sending more dust and gravel spitting out before he spun back onto the highway and hauled ass out of sight. I memorized his plate number, for all the good it would do me.
A tap on my window made me scream.
The driver of the van was standing beside my door, wearing a pissed-off expression. I considered going for the gun in my glove compartment, but this guy’s bad mood was the least of my worries at this point. My better option would be to play the sympathy card.
I burst out into tears, cupping my face and letting my shoulders tremble with exaggerated hiccups. I rolled down the window and between shaky breaths I said, “Th-thank God. I thought he was going to k-kill me.” I gave the van driver my best wide-eyed innocent expression, hoping my eyes had changed to that really dark shade of green that I’d been told made me look extra sad. Cash once said they turned almost emerald when I was in a foul mood, but normally they were a bright shade similar to celery.
“You okay?” All his rage vanished, and he had the nervous look of worry men often got when they saw a woman cry. Most guys didn’t know how to deal with a sobbing woman, and I was hoping for that kind of uncertain footing.
I opened the door, and he stepped back. He was a big guy, with a round belly and a huge bushy beard growing well past his chin. Under different circumstances he might have been imposing, but he smelled human, and that alone put me at ease. One man I could handle, even if he did decide to try something, but his manner led me to think I was safe enough to assess the damage on my car.
Both of the passenger-side tires were flat as pancakes. Glass glittered up from the gravel at me mockingly. Of course. And me with only one spare. Scooting to the back of the car, I let out a genuine gasp. The whole tail end of the Dart was scraped bare, with a dent nudging the trunk in. The bumper was damn near ready to come off. The man in the black car hadn’t been screwing around.
“Jesus,” the bearded driver said, coming to stand next to me. “That other guy did this?”
I nodded, brushing the warm metal of the trunk with my fingertips. Someone had wanted me dead
really
badly.
I managed to convince the driver of the van I would be okay waiting for a tow truck on my own. Since his ride was unharmed and he had a bunch of perishable food in the back, it didn’t take much persuasion, but I could tell the idea of abandoning me bothered him. After swearing I was close to home and well armed, he agreed to leave me but made me promise I’d call his shop once I was picked up safely.
Apparently there
were
nice people left in the world.
I called 411 and was put through to the only garage in St. Francisville. Luck was on my side because the grumpy-sounding mechanic had no other pickups, and after taking my name and coordinates, he promised to be out to me in less than forty minutes.
I sat on the hood of my car with one of my used textbooks in my lap, trying to focus on the finer points of criminology, but I only managed to absorb every fifth word. By the time I’d read the same page ten times I shut the book with a loud snap and set it down beside me. So much for studying. The nagging worry someone might come back to finish the job was too much for me.
Playing with my phone, I debated for the millionth time whether I ought to call Uncle Callum and tell him what had happened. But the last thing I wanted was him bringing half the pack out here to protect me. It was the middle of the day, and I’d proven to the last guy that I wasn’t going to be an easy target. I doubted they’d try again so soon, and I
did
have a gun handy this time.
The 9mm Glock had been a gift from Secret on my nineteenth birthday. She said there might be times when magic wouldn’t be the best defense, and having a reliable gun was never a bad idea. Considering all the stuff she’d survived, I was willing to take her word for it. I didn’t particularly like guns, though, so normally I kept it in a lockbox at home.
Right now I was pretty happy I’d opted to bring it with me.
I still preferred to use magic.
For good measure I’d also cast a safety ward in a ten-foot radius around the car. I could hold it in place for as long as it took the tow truck to arrive, if I didn’t exert myself too much.
Being both a witch and a werewolf was an interesting mix, even by supernatural standards. I tried to play down my gifts when I was around the rest of the pack. My grandmother Genevieve and her mother before her,
La Sorcière
, were both powerful witches, and even though the gene had skipped my mother and sister, I’d gotten it full force.
Sure, having the ability to blow things up with the flick of a wrist
seemed
awesome, until you did it by accident while shifting into your werewolf form. Blow a few cabins up and suddenly no one trusts you. How was that fair?
I’d learned to control my magic since my Awakening—the werewolf rite of passage cubs went through at age thirteen. Now I could change form without hurting anyone, and I had figured out how to compartmentalize my gifts when I was out with the pack. In the few years since I’d returned from the swamps, the rest of Callum’s wolves had welcomed me into the fold. But if I started tossing spells around and showing off, I wasn’t sure they’d be so accommodating.
The smell of fuel caught my attention first, and I stared down the road, narrowing my eyes to refine my vision. A rusty red tow truck was bumping along the highway towards me.
It was so old I wasn’t sure it was going to make it the next mile, let alone pull the Dart back to the garage. But in St. Francisville beggars couldn’t be choosers.
The truck pulled up in front of me a minute later, backing up so the hook end was facing my front bumper. I hopped off the car and circled around to the passenger side to grab my bag, not wanting to leave it in the car.
“Thanks for coming all the way out.” I started talking before I knew if the mechanic was out of his truck yet. Sometimes I had a nasty habit of babbling, something I’d picked up in the swamp with
Memere
. The old witch rarely spoke except to instruct or scold, so often I ended up having lengthy monologues on my own while I wandered around. I hadn’t yet rid myself of the habit, sometimes I caught myself nattering at length in public places with no one specific around to hear my thoughts. “Hope the drive wasn’t too lo—”