Guardian (The Protectors Series) (31 page)

Nancy Northcott’s childhood ambition was to grow up and become Wonder Woman. Around fourth grade, she realized it was too late to acquire Amazon genes, but she still loved comic books, science fiction, fantasy, and YA romance.

Nancy became an attorney but eventually realized her internal superheroine needed more room to play. She left the legal profession to teach at the college level and to write freelance articles and novels, most recently blending her extensive knowledge of fantasy into her own stories. A sucker for fast action and wrenching emotion, Nancy combines the romance and high stakes she loves in her new contemporary mage series.

Married since 1987, she considers herself lucky to have found a man who not only enjoys a good adventure story but doesn’t mind carrying home a suitcase full of research books. Nancy and her husband have one son, a bossy dog, and a house full of books.

She is a three-time Golden Heart finalist.

You can learn more at:
http://www.nancynorthcott.com/
Twitter: @NancyNorthcott
Facebook.com/NancyNorthcottAuthor

Renegade

Protector

Rural Georgia

Present Day
 

N
ot. Dead. Yet. Valeria Banning panted behind the sour-tasting gag. She still had half a chance to survive.

At least she’d helped that Mundane woman and her child escape the ghouls trying to kidnap them. And she’d killed two of the ghouls before the rest overpowered her. But now she was wounded, aching, and trussed like a Thanksgiving turkey in the trunk of their car.

Which came as no surprise. Seven to one odds were great for the seven. Unfortunately, she’d been the one in the equation, but no mage would turn away when humans were in danger. That went double for her as shire reeve, or sheriff, of the Southeastern U.S. mages’ Council.

At least the nausea and chills—side effects of venom—were fading as her immune system purged her blood. The talon wounds where the ghoul had injected the venom in her back still burned like flaming acid, and that wasn’t going to improve anytime soon.

Val shifted restlessly, trying to draw a deep breath. The stuffy air didn’t help. Thanks to the heat of a Georgia night in August, the sedan’s small, dark trunk felt like an oven.

Best not to think of ovens. Or the fact she was mageborn toast if she couldn’t remove the amulet her ghoul captors had hung around her neck, blocking her power. They’d tucked the pendant into her tank top, making it harder to shake off. Nice trick.

They likely meant to siphon her life energy, fueling their power and killing her. Or they might intend to rape her, force her to breed, as they often did with kidnapped mages and Mundanes. Ghouls couldn’t breed with each other and so took captives to keep their population levels high.

Her stomach did a slow, queasy twist. She swallowed against bile and paralyzing fear. She could see the bulletin now:
Valeria Banning, age 27, KIA because she let a bunch of ghouls get the drop on her.

Hell if she was going out that way.

First step, somehow remove the pendant, tough job with her hands cuffed behind her. Second step, get these restraints off.

Before the car stopped.

She could worry later about where ghouls had gotten the amulet. Ghouls were strong at night and weak in the daylight, bound to dark magic but limited in its use. They weren’t capable of the complex magic needed to create such objects.

She tried to roll, bring her knees under her, but couldn’t find her balance as the car jounced over what sounded like a gravel road.
Crap.
Breathing hard, she rested a few seconds, then tried again. And again.

If she didn’t manage this, she was totally fucked.

She clenched her jaw against the pain as tightly as the gag would allow, pushed off awkwardly with her chained hands, and finally—finally!—gained her knees. Sweat ran down her face and body in rivers. She needed a minute to gather herself. If only she knew how many minutes she had.

The rough ride probably meant the driver was heading into the country. On the upside, that gave her more time to free herself. Also, heading away from town meant there would be a lot of plants and wildlife, sources of natural energy she could draw on to replenish the power the amulet had stifled.

On the ominously bad downside, ghouls only sought privacy when they wanted to play with their prey.

Her gut churned again, and a shiver of fear rippled through her. Val drew the hot, stale air in as deeply as she could.
Focus, Val. Focus or die.

Sweat stung her eyes. She blotted it against the carpet and caught the coppery scent of blood under the more usual one of motor oil. At least there wasn’t a body jammed in here with her, thank God.

The car slowed, and the bouncing decreased. Breathing through the pain, Val bowed her back and lowered her head. The pendant dropped clear of her tank, onto the smelly carpet. So far, so good.

The heavy chain slipped down to the curve at the back of her skull. Almost off. Just a little bit more.

If she could ditch the amulet and have a few minutes to recharge, she would be able to pop her shackles and transmute them into a very big, very handy knife. Good thing they weren’t made of bespelled iron, just cheap ankle and wrist cuffs.

Pressing her cheek into the dirty carpeting over the spare tire, she scooted backward. The chain slipped down to the carpeting but tangled in her hair.
Shit.
She had no way to tug at it.

The car spun into another turn with the rasp of gravel spewing from the wheels. Val braced herself and tossed her head as hard as she could against the turn’s momentum. At last, with a painful yank on her hair, the chain slid free.

Behind the gag, she gasped in relief. Renewed power coursed through her body, though not as much as usual. The amulet lay too near. Still, she had a little strength back.

She cracked open the cuff on one wrist, but that took more power than she’d expected.

Hell, the car was slowing. She popped the other cuffs, then lay panting, drained, in the stuffy darkness.

The car stopped. Terror squeezed her throat, and she swallowed against it. She needed a minute she didn’t have to recover enough to fight. She pushed the amulet into the wheel well to hide it. That gained some distance but not nearly enough to let her recharge.

Car doors squeaked open, and footsteps crunched on gravel. Panic kicked her heartbeat up. Trying to steady it, she took as deep a breath as the gag allowed.
Do or die time.

She flopped onto her side, hands and feet behind her, but left the gag on for the element of surprise. If she was lucky, her tawny hair flopping across her chest would hide the absence of the amulet.

When her captors opened the lid, she’d have only seconds more to prepare. She drew in a slow breath to center herself.

She’d try to knock them all back magically, then go for her sword. With the amulet off, she sensed the weapon nearby, probably inside the car. It would amplify her magic and improve her odds. Without the sword, she’d have to rely on Latin words of power to make any contact lethal. She hadn’t recovered enough to shield herself or to punch a barehanded blow through ghoul shields with enough force to kill.

The trunk latch clicked. The lid rose. Redolent with the scents of earth and plants, the thick, humid summer air hit her. There was life here, and lots of it. She drew the natural energy in like a dry sponge in water and gathered herself. Moving too soon would waste her shot.

Five faces leered down at her in the waning moon’s glow. They appeared human, but her mageborn senses caught the telltale scent of ammonia from the high levels of venom in their blood and saw, even in the faint light, the muddy whites of the ghouls’ eyes. The four males looked to be in their thirties, with the lone woman, a busty brunette, on the far side of forty.

“Get her out,” the thin, blond male on the right ordered. “I’m hungry.”

Since none of the others snarled at him, Val pegged him as the leader. His grip on the trunk’s edge showed his inch-long talons already deployed behind his fingernails, ready to suck out her life energy or rend her flesh.

Suddenly cold again, Val forced herself to shrink back inside the trunk. She needed all of them as close to her as possible. The female and the dark-haired, scrawny male at the rear had retreated a few paces.

“Pull the bitch out,” the leader snapped.

Leaning in, one male grasped her knees while the other reached for her shoulders. She thrashed against their hands, whimpering for show, but kept her struggles to a minimum. If she fought too much, they’d realize she’d freed herself.

As they pulled her out, she kept her knees bent to hide her unchained ankles. The leader slammed the trunk shut. The man holding her legs dropped them to grab her left arm while his buddy held her right.

They shoved her backward against the trunk. Her heart pounded like a jackhammer. They hadn’t noticed her ankles—probably too gripped by power lust, and maybe too confident, to be careful. Their excitement ramped up the ammonia scent, stinging her nose.

She fought panic, tried to slow her shallow, fast breathing. The leader stepped in front of her, his dark, satisfied gaze raking over Val’s body. Power flared into a muddy aura around him. His taloned hands reached for her face, and the other ghouls pressed in.

Now.

Val blew out all her stored power like a human claymore mine. The gag disintegrated. Four of the ghouls tumbled backward and fell, dazed.

The one holding her right arm rocked back but tightened his grip. His claws spiked white heat into her shoulder. She bit back a scream. Her eyes teared as magic thickened into a muddy brown shield around him. His venom shot nauseating cold down her arm and side, raising the taste of ammonia in her mouth as the venom hit her blood.

Shuddering, she turned toward him, drawing power from the swamp before the venom made that impossible. She slammed her fist through his shield. With her palm against his chest, she thought,
Morere
, for
Die
, and pictured a bursting heart.

His body jerked. Face contorting, he made a gurgling sound. He clawed at her hand, raking it with new venom. The same sickening cold rolled up that arm, too.

She gritted her teeth against nausea. Twisted her fingers in his shirt to keep her grip.

Morere
, she repeated.

Her power sputtered. Faded. His friends were stirring.
Crap.

Suddenly, his claws retracted. His grip failed, and he fell, dead. She was free.

But his friends were on their feet.

Val stumbled over the dead ghoul and half staggered, half lunged toward the car’s rear door. Yanking it open, she grinned. Her broadsword lay on the seat, its leather-wrapped hilt against the opposite door.

Footsteps scuffed behind her. She mule-kicked backward with magic powering the move. Someone whoofed.

As she dived for the sword’s hilt, the female ghoul jerked open the opposite door and lunged across the seat. Her claws stabbed into Val’s neck.

Oh shit, oh shit.
Desperate, Val grabbed the female’s wrist with both hands, but ripping the claws out could be fatal if they slashed across a vein or artery.

Other hands closed on Val’s shoulders to drag her out of the car. As their claws dug in, blackness rolled over her eyes and through her soul. The female’s grip tightened.

“No venom,” the leader’s voice ordered behind Val. He sounded royally pissed. “Carl already shot her with too much, and I’d planned to breed her. At least we can still feed.”

Gasping for air, Val tried to find her feet to steady her power for a final effort. She only had seconds to do it, or she was dead.

Terror chilled her blood as the four survivors slammed her back against the warm metal of the car’s hood. Tearing at her clothes, they found bare skin and sank in their claws. No venom this time, but a drain. They sucked her power like leeches, and the blackness deepened.

Six years of exile, seven friends dead, and fuck-all to show for it. Scowling, Griffin Dare pulled the two-liter Coke out of the refrigerator. A traitor still sat on the mages’ Southeastern U.S. Shire Council, the governing and training body for the region’s mages. That unknown bastard was working with ghouls to send unsuspecting mages to their deaths.

Griff and his team, the baker’s dozen he could trust to keep his secrets, just weren’t enough to turn the tide. When he’d gone rogue at twenty-eight, he hadn’t dreamed his fight for justice would take this long.

He took a big swallow of Coke. Too bad high-fructose corn syrup couldn’t clear the ammonialike venom from his blood. He’d acquired it, as mages often did, through ghoul-inflicted battle wounds. Unfortunately, he’d been alone, unable to reach a healer, and there’d been too much venom in him for his immune system to cleanse.

At least the soda masked the faint ammonia flavor in his mouth. Grimacing at the sweet aftertaste, he set the bottle back inside the fridge. The brief blast of cold air gave him a few seconds of relief from the night’s muggy heat.

Padding barefoot across the plank flooring, he wiped sweat off his face with one arm. Only the bedroom had air-conditioning, and he rarely used it. It cut the humidity but garbled his sense of the life energy from birds and other creatures in the nearby Okefenokee Swamp. His second-floor quarters in the abandoned, run-down chair factory didn’t look like much, but living near the swamp let his power continually recharge, helped control the venom level in his blood.

A sluggish breeze stirred the blue and green glass witch balls hanging at the windows, part of his defense system. A strand of his dark hair fell in his face, and he shoved it back, frowning at the police reports and newspaper clippings spread out on the battered walnut table. The recent increases in violent crime, especially gory murders, pointed to ghoul plans for something big, something involving dark powers.

Blood magic.

The dark of the moon, in just under two weeks, would be prime time for such a rite, but for what? And where would it happen?

The ghouls usually focused on kidnapping Mundanes or mages to breed, but they wouldn’t need blood magic for that. Was this a final push to wipe out the mages, whose numbers had dwindled while the ghouls’ grew? Even with the numerical advantage, could the ghouls manage that?

If they did, there’d be no one to stand between the ghouls and complete domination of humanity.

His second-in-command, Will Davis, was an ace researcher, with two doctoral degrees to prove it. Griff reached for his phone. Good thing using his magical tracking skills as a “psychic consultant” for the Feds had netted him an untraceable cell number.

Mage power blasted through his perimeter ward, its echo like a slap in his brain. On reflex, his personal shields flared around him, a faint shimmer in the air as he summoned his quarterstaff. The seven-foot, wrist-thick, ash shaft struck his palm, silver end caps and inlaid copper runes glowing with power on contact. He wheeled to face the threat.

The wave of power broke against his shield, then rolled past him on either side. With it came fury, fear, and a desperate cry for help.