Heartache (The Twenty-Sided Sorceress Book 5) (12 page)

It was a trap. Another one. But we were tired, injured, and I was running out of juice. Chasing down Samir and playing his games was taking too big a toll on me, but I didn’t know how to stop.

Not without getting Max killed, and I wasn’t willing to let that happen. I wasn’t dead yet and nothing short of total annihilation was going to stop me from continuing to fight Samir.

We’d saved Rose at least. One down, one to go.

The problem was, I didn’t have Clyde’s heart.

I had never been so happy to see anyone as I was to see Alek. He looked tired, but was in one piece. I practically flew from the car over to him as he emerged from the barn. His big arms wrapped around me, pulling me into his warm embrace and for a long moment I let myself cling to him, breathing in his heat and his strength.

“I should never have left you,” he murmured into my hair.

“Are you okay?” I asked, ignoring his stupid statement.

“No,” Alek said. “But I’m here, and we’ll deal with one thing at a time.”

I pulled back reluctantly and looked up at him. “What happened?”

“Long story,” he said. He looked past me at the others. “For another day.”

I wasn’t sure we had another day, but he was right. One problem at a time.

Ezee carried Rose into the barn. Someone, I was betting Alek, had dragged the dead horses away.

It turned out that wasn’t Alek, but Yosemite. The big druid walked in through a stall and nodded at us. We all gave each other the quick explanation of the previous events, from Steve’s death, through my arrest, to the capture of Rose and Max. Yosemite had come and given the horses to the earth. He was done with his druid business and here to help, he said, as long as it meant not leaving the forest.

“I need Clyde’s heart,” I said, looking at Alek.

“You told me never to give it to you,” he said. Though his ice-blue gaze was calm, his lips pressed into a tight line.

“Fuck what I said. Making the trade is the only card we have left. It’s a trap, sure thing. But we need to find Samir, save Max, and end this damn thing if we can. If I can.” I folded my arms over my chest, willing him to see the necessity.

“You’re going to hand the heart over to Samir?” Levi asked.

“Just like that?” Ezee added.

“If it will save Max, I’ll do it,” Harper said, her voice tight and gravelly. “Fuck the heart. This is my brother’s life.”

“Samir is going to kill him anyway, Jade said so before about Rosie.” Junebug stretched out a hand toward Harper.

“I’m not going to hand him the heart,” I said before this could turn into a fight. Everyone was on edge and I couldn’t let them turn on each other.

I took a deep breath. I had a shitty plan, but it was better than no plan.

“I’m going to pretend to hand it over. We get to the quarry with the heart, see what is what. Then I’m going to eat Clyde’s heart and rain down all hell upon that bastard.” Which I should have done already, I knew. I didn’t want Clyde’s evil inside me. I hadn’t wanted his power, his memories. Universe knew what he’d done, but I was willing to bet it made a sick serial killer like Bernard Barnes look like a Bundy in diapers.

“You said it was power you didn’t want,” Alek said gently in Russian. “You told me to hide it for just this reason. So you wouldn’t weaken in your resolve if things got tough.”

“I was an idiot,” I said to him in the same language. The others were looking between us like kids watching a ping-pong match, but I shrugged off their questioning eyes.

“I’ve been weak,” I continued. “Samir killed Steve. Right in my fucking shop. He died in my arms and I couldn’t do anything. Do you see what he’s done? Destroyed my friends’ lives. He’s probably torturing the kid while we sit here and argue. I have to stop him, Alek. I have to protect them. Save them.

“No more weakness,” I added. “No more squeamishness on my part getting anyone killed. I need more power, and I’m going to take it.”

“Jade,” Alek said. His eyes were sad and his voice thick with resignation.

I knew I’d won. Go me.

“Take her to the heart,” he said to Yosemite.

The big man looked between us and took a deep breath. “All right,” he said. He rose and squeezed Ezee’s shoulder. “It isn’t far.”

Alek and Yosemite had hidden the bag with Clyde’s heart about a ten-minute walk from the Henhouse. Two huge fir trees towered over a large rock. The stone was cracked in half, as though Paul Bunyan had split it with an axe. I knew from Alek and Yosemite’s reactions that this was not how they had left it.

The bag was on the rock. The snow around us was pristine, only the bare grey stone a sign that something wasn’t right, that this place had been disturbed.

I walked to the stone and picked up the bag.

It was empty.

“We can’t stay here,” Levi said.

“Splitting the party hasn’t been working out well for us,” Ezee added. He stood shoulder to shoulder with his twin. Though they looked different, Ezee with his clean-cut, professorial appearance and Levi with his tattoos, piercings, and Mohawk, their expressions were identically stubborn.

“Rose has to sleep or she won’t heal. She’s practically in a coma.” I couldn’t let them come to the quarry with me. Nobody else was allowed to get hurt, damnit. This was my fight.

“I’ll take her to my grove,” Yosemite said. “Nothing can approach without me knowing. We should be safe there.”

“Thank you,” Ezee said. He glanced at Junebug and then to Levi, his meaning clear.

Junebug sighed. “Going to try to leave me out of this fight, too, aren’t you?” she said to her husband.

Levi crossed to her and slid his arms around her waist. He pressed his lips to her ear and spoke so quietly I couldn’t pick up the words. Her expression grew grim, but she finally nodded.

“I’ll help you with Rose,” she said to Yosemite.

“You should all go with Rose,” I said, knowing that even though it was futile to argue, I had to at least try. My stubborn-ass friends were going to get themselves hurt or killed. “This is a sorcerer fight.”

“That he’s brought shifters into,” Alek said. “That alone would make it my fight. Shifters working for a sorcerer? Against their own?”

“How is the Council even putting up with this? Where are the Justices?” Levi asked. His eyes flicked to the chain around Alek’s neck.

Alek bent his head and took a deep, slow breath. Then he pulled the chain out of his collar and yanked it off. The empty links fell to the barn floor.

“There are no more Justices,” he said, his voice seeming to echo around the wooden walls.

“What happened in New Orleans?” I asked, breaking the stunned silence that had descended.

“There is no time to explain. I am not even sure what is happening. The world is changing, but we have more immediate trouble.”

“Yeah, like saving my brother,” Harper said. She clenched her fists at her sides and turned. “No more arguing. We’re going with you, Jade, so suck it up and lets move.”

I had nothing to say to that. They were going to go get Max with or without me, and I was their only chance of killing Samir. I couldn’t fight him and my friends. I had to pick my battles. So I followed Levi out to his SUV with a heavy heart. The upside was that I was too exhausted and angry to be afraid. Only rage simmered in my veins, rage and power.

The last time I’d been out to the abandoned quarry, I’d killed a man and eaten his heart. Time for an encore.

Samir waited in the quarry. We drove as far as we could in the snow with the SUV, then Levi and I left the car and rode tandem on one of the stolen snowmobiles. The whole drive I talked with mind-Tess, both of us picking over as much about Samir as we could remember.

He loved objects, was very good at crafting them. This much was becoming painfully obvious. The stones, the wires, who knew what else? I couldn’t rely on him using something like that, but I could at least try to be aware of anything he was holding or had around him. Samir had been careful with Tess as well as with me to never reveal a lot about his power. Just enough, mostly showy things, to get us interested, to prove he was like us. From there he’d played the lover and teacher, his habits and demeanor insultingly similar, as though Tess and I were interchangeable parts in his life. Toys to him.

At least Tess had known. She had played him as he played her. I had no excuse. I’d been starry-eyed, thrilled to finally find someone like me, someone who understood and wasn’t afraid of my magic. My shifter family had cast me out. My human family had tried to help me, teaching me to use role-playing games to help focus and control my powers, but even they hadn’t really got it. They didn’t know what it felt like to have magic flowing through your blood in all its hot, elemental glory. To know that if you could just put enough into it, focus your will enough, you could change the whole freaking world and make the stars dance at your fingertips.

Samir had understood, and he had played the perfect boyfriend and mentor. Too perfect.

Tess tried to console me with the knowledge that I must have been suspicious on some level, or I never would have sought out his journals, never would have gone questing for the things he didn’t tell me. I was not mollified with that thought. I should have been more suspicious. Done more. Fought him sooner instead of running and running. What had he called me? A mouse. Yeah, I’d been a fucking mouse.

And now more people were getting hurt, were getting killed because of me.

Wolf materialized by my side as I strode over the snow toward the flat plateau at the base of the quarry. The boulders blocking off the entrance carried a thick frosting of snow and the whole landscape looked glaringly white in the afternoon sun, the snow freezing into ice on top and glittering like a million diamonds. At the edge of my vision, I made out a tall dark shape standing over another dark shape. Samir and Max.

Alek, the twins, and Harper had reluctantly agreed to take the flank and let me do the approach. We paused at the boulders and I looked over at the huge white tiger to my left. He sniffed at the air, his giant head swinging from side to side as he curled his lip back, tasting as well as smelling.

“Shifters?” I whispered.

Tiger-Alek shook his head. The wind was low, but present, coming toward us from down the quarry. Any of the mercenaries helping Samir would have had to be behind us to conceal themselves from his powerful senses. It appeared that Samir was alone with Max.

Somehow that worried me even more.

Wolf and I walked side by side, my right hand on her back, buried in her warm fur, my left clutching my D20 talisman. I let my magic flow into and around me, formless for the moment, awaiting my will. I wanted to be ready to attack or to shield, and had to hope that between Wolf and all the training I’d been doing, it would be enough. If I could draw Samir away from Max, the others might be able to get him. They’d promised to make his safety a priority, and I knew that Harper at least would keep that promise. The twins, too. Alek I was worried about, but he had a stubborn sense of duty, so I had to hope he’d see to their safety and trust me to fight my own battle.

The snow was melted away in a small area around Samir, the brown and grey ground barren. Max was prone and bent backward over a flat stone, held by magic that stung my senses even from thirty feet away. I recognized the dark bonds holding him. Samir had definitely eaten Clyde’s heart and taken his powers.