Authors: Cindy Spencer Pape
“’Cause if we’re going to be here a while, I’d really like to use the bathroom while we wait.”
The Novaks arrived about five seconds before Elise pulled up in her shiny blue Beemer. With Meagan’s Mustang, Jase’s car, Greg’s truck and Ric’s Jag all in the driveway, it looked like she was having a party. Ric was actually glad Meagan had suggested moving inside, as it would reduce the probability of curious neighbors wandering over to join the fun. They’d have to move to the garage as soon as he had the troops fully briefed, but hopefully by that time he’d have been able to construct some sort of look-the-other-way spell. Meagan wanted to come home after the council meeting and it wouldn’t do to have the neighbors trying to burn her as a witch.
Greg shot a suspicious look at the elegant gallery owner, but politely held her car door open after seeing Ric nod his approval from Meagan’s front porch. The three of them had barely entered the room when yet another car screeched to the curb and a tall, male part-blood emerged and strode across Meagan’s lawn to join them.
“Who are you?” Ric didn’t have time for manners.
The dark-haired man pulled off a pair of aviator shades and jerked his thumb at Elise. “Her brother. Desmond Sutton. Elise said you might need a wizard and I was in the neighborhood.”
“Lord, this keeps getting weirder,” Meagan groused as she hugged Elise. “I didn’t even know you had a brother.”
Ric shooed the motley crew into the living room and shut the door, gesturing for everyone to find seats.
“You’re a
Wyndewin?
” he asked Sutton, who nodded curtly. “Thank you, goddess, that’s the first break we’ve gotten all day. Start with a SEP spell around the property. Don’t want the neighbors thinking Meagan’s having a huge party and maybe they should come over to join in.”
Sutton nodded, stepped back out onto the porch and shut the door. A few seconds later he reentered. “Done.”
“What’s an SEP spell?” Meagan asked.
Desmond Sutton replied. “Somebody else’s problem. Making six cars invisible would take a lot of magical power, but it’s fairly easy to give the whole thing an aura that makes people want to look the other way.”
“Got it,” she replied. “Sort of like ‘these aren’t the droids you’re looking for.’”
“Exactly,” Ric replied. “Now can we get down to business? Preferably before the bad guys return and try to kill the lot of us?”
“Let ’em try.” Greg’s growl was practically a laugh.
“No,” Sutton barked. “The goal here is simple extraction. Once we get the non-combatants out of danger, you fang-faces can go hunting to your heart’s content.”
Ric didn’t much like Sutton taking charge, but he was right. George, however, snarled at the mage and Ric saw Meagan glance in surprise at the feral sound. Sutton responded with a derogatory, “Down boy!”
Greg had to physically restrain his brother from leaping across the room. Time to intervene. Opening his throat, Ric sang a high note with more than a touch of compulsion in it. Finally, everyone shut the hell up.
“Have a seat.” He didn’t actually sing the command, but he pushed a hefty note of bardic power into it. Though Sutton’s eyes narrowed and George pouted, they all sat.
“Here is what we know so far…” Without pausing for breath, he filled them all in on Meagan’s history, the council vote and Owain le Faire. He explained what he’d discerned about the magical trap in Meagan’s garage.
“They’ve also attacked on another front, trying to block Meagan from reaching Underhill. The portal at Aidan’s home has been tampered with. Gunter, one of Aidan’s security staff, tried to use it this afternoon and the end was extremely messy.”
Even though they weren’t touching, Ric felt Meagan’s horror and sorrow at the senseless death of the bodyguard, whom she’d only met the day before. He reached across the back of the chair he stood behind and squeezed her shoulder, wishing he could offer more comfort. The connection between them had grown so strong, so fast, that her roiling emotions threatened to swamp Ric as well.
He didn’t have time for that, not when Meagan’s life depended on him and this rag-tag group of defenders.
There would be time to mourn later, once she and Jase were safe.
Her spine straightened as she drew herself together. He gave her shoulder one more squeeze and continued.
“Since only key members of Aidan’s team have access to the portal, the traitor must be someone close to him. We can’t rely on any of his people. Once we release the trap and hopefully heal Jase…” he nodded at Elise, “…then we need to arrange a safe house for him and probably the rest of you until this whole mess blows over. Greg, can you handle that part?”
“Monroe will be safe,” Greg vowed with a feral grin.
“Your man messes with my pack, he’s going to seriously regret it.” Ric didn’t doubt him.
“And Elise and I will have a sudden urge to visit our parents in Vancouver,” Sutton decreed. “Our uncle lives there with them, making three retired
Wyndewins
, plus the two of us. No one’s going to get through those wards.”
Probably not, unless… “You should know, Aidan thinks they’re using blood magic. They found a dead homeless man on the edge of his estate.”
“Son of a bitch!” Now even Sutton looked perturbed.
Good.
“What’s blood magic?” Meagan asked.
Elise replied succinctly, in her cool, elegant manner, “It’s pure, fucking, concentrated evil.”
Her brother was more explicit. “The sacrifice of a living being to fuel a spell. It’s been banned by about every arcane society for at least two thousand years.”
Meagan didn’t understand much of what was going on, but she’d figured out that the bad guys weren’t playing games. The danger was real, to her and to anyone close to her. Apparently Owain hadn’t figured out yet that Jase’s lease allowed him use of the garage and he’d put his trap for Meagan in there.
“The good news,” Desmond Sutton announced to the group gathered on Meagan’s driveway a few minutes later, “is that this trap was designed with a part-blood in mind. The magic is designed to bind a half-Fae, not a full human. Which is probably why Monroe is still alive. The blast of negative energy would have likely killed Meagan.”
George growled and the vicious sound sent a chill down Meagan’s spine. Elise’s brother glared at him.
“Since the magic is elven in nature, the bard probably has the best chance to unravel it without it blowing up in our faces. I can lend support and power. Elise, you stand by.” He turned to the Novak brothers. “You two are on lookout duty. This could be a giant distraction, so keep an eye open for trouble. If the bard and I do blow ourselves up, get the women the hell out of Dodge. Keep them safe until Aidan Greene or the
Wyndewin
Council comes up with another alternative.”
Both brothers managed short, quick nods. Greg cocked his head at Ric, whispered something in his ear, before disappearing behind the garage. A few moments later, a large, black wolf appeared.
“What the hell?” Where had that come from? And why didn’t anybody else look surprised?
Ric squeezed her arm lightly. “That’s Greg. His eyes and ears are better in that shape, not to mention his nose. He’s going to patrol the yard, watch for trouble.”
“Oh.” A werewolf. Of course. It made as much sense as anything else had in the past few days. “George too?”
Ric nodded. “He wants to be there for Jase, so he won’t change unless it comes down to a fight.”
Wow. A gay werewolf. That’s something you didn’t see on the late-late show. Wasn’t anyone what they seemed?
Ric and Desmond agreed that the side door to the garage was probably a safer entry point than the overhead metal one in front. Elise had dragged some votive candles out of her oversized purse and placed them in a circle around the garage, filling in the area between them with salt, straight out of the pour-spout can. Next, she pulled out a giant Ziploc bag full of dried greenery and added a layer of that as well. Finally, a larger candle was lit right in front of the door and Elise used it to ignite a small bundle of dried herbs, which she laid on the sidewalk. The musky scent of burning sage filled the air.
A neighbor walked by on the street and Meagan managed not to wave. The young woman with the baby stroller walked blithely by, apparently unaware of the commotion in Meagan’s yard.
Elise joined hands with Ric and her brother and the three of them chanted softly, led by Ric’s beautiful baritone, while Meagan stood by her favorite oak tree several yards back, flanked by Greg and George. She managed, barely, not to pet Greg on top of the head, which came to her waist. George gripped Meagan’s hand in his, clearly as worried about Jase as she was. She squeezed back.
“I’m sure he’ll be okay.” She wasn’t sure why she was whispering; it simply seemed like the thing to do.
“He’s got to be,” George whispered back.
“Does he know…” Meagan’s voice trailed off. Her eyes never left Ric. He finished the chant, broke ranks with the Suttons and sent Meagan a reassuring smile. She smiled back, or tried to, anyway. It probably came out more like a grimace. Ric was literally putting his life on the line for Jase. She’d never been more frightened in her life.
“That I’m a werewolf? No. Not yet. That information is pretty much reserved for permanent life partners.”
“And on a need-to-know basis, I guess.” She tipped her chin at the scene before them. “Like now.”
“Yeah.”
Elise came and joined them, sliding in between Meagan and Greg. She took Meagan’s hand and rested her other on top of Greg’s furry black head. Together they watched as the two men disappeared into the garage.
“I can’t believe that all this time you were a halfling and I never knew it,” Elise murmured. “And you’re Aidan Greene’s cousin. What a small, small world.”
“And you’re a witch. An honest-to-goodness spellsand- magic witch. How come I never knew about that?”
“Need-to-know,” Elise replied with a soft laugh. “I’m not much of a witch, mind you. I’m a healer and I do okay with protective magic, but Des is the one with the power in the family. If anybody can help your bard unravel the trap, it’s Des.”
“He isn’t my bard, Elise,” Meagan countered wistfully.
“Not really.”
“Baloney. The currents flowing between the two of you could scorch lead. That kind of heat—well, it only comes along once in a while. You need to hold on to it, if you can.”
Meagan heard the sadness in her friend’s voice, knew there was a story she wanted to hear, but this wasn’t the time. She heard Ric’s soaring voice through the thin walls of the garage and she squeezed tighter on the two hands she held in hers. The others, too, lapsed into silence to wait.
After a few minutes, the song intensified to a crescendo and the garage erupted in a crack of what looked like lightning. The side door burst off the hinges, came flying out into the yard. The glass pane cracked in the single, small window and the metal garage door rattled and bowed. There was a moment of dead stillness, utter silence, before Des Sutton’s booming voice called from inside, “Elise! Now!”
Meagan and George were right on her heels as the healer dashed into the shuddering structure. Tools, glass and other debris littered the floor and protruded from the wall. As Meagan’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, she heaved a huge sigh of relief to see Ric sitting on the cement floor, leaning on Jase’s now even more battered weight bench. Jase was draped limply across Ric’s lap, but his eyes were open and he smiled weakly at Meagan and George. Elise raced to his side, knelt beside him and laid her hands on his temples.
After a few seconds, Jase’s ashen skin began to resume its normal rich color, while Elise grew pale. Finally she lifted her hands and smiled at Jase. “There. Good as new.”
She tried to get to her feet, swayed and was caught by her brother, whose own face showed a number of small cuts and bruises. George reached out to help Jase to his feet and crushed him in a bear hug, which Jase enthusiastically returned.
“Are you all right?” Meagan dropped to the floor next to Ric, her fingers trailing across an angry abrasion on his left cheek and tracing a huge lump on his right temple. A heavy crescent wrench lay next to his hip and he was surrounded by shards of wood and metal.
He drew in a ragged breath. “I’ll be fine.” He ran his hand over his face and winced as he must have found a tender spot. “Just got a bit blasted by flying objects.”
She looked at his arms, which were a road map of scratches and cuts. “Can Elise fix you up, too?”
Ric shook his head. “Probably not. She’s going to need time to recharge. Jase was pretty far gone; it must’ve taken her an awful lot of power to bring him back. And we can’t stick around until she recovers. I’m sorry, love, but we need to hit the road as soon as possible. The sooner we get you out of town, the safer they’ll be.”
She swallowed a mouthful of sour saliva and tried to muster a smile. “Let’s go.”
Ric leaned heavily on the weight bench as he pulled himself up to a standing position. When he brushed the back of his hand across his face, it left an ugly reddishbrown smear and Meagan’s stomach gurgled ominously.
She reached out a hand to help him, but he ignored it, swaying slightly as he levered himself away from his prop.
“Bard. Wait.” Desmond handed his sister over to Greg, who had resumed human form and a brief pair of denim cutoffs. “I’m not in Elise’s league, but here…” He strode to Ric and pressed a hand to his temple. Meagan wrapped a supportive arm around Ric’s waist, though she wasn’t really sure which of them was more in need. Desmond closed his eyes, as did Ric, and Meagan watched the worst of his cuts start to close and the angry swelling on the side of his head receded to a small bruise. Des was breathing heavily by the time he blinked.
“Sorry, that’s the most I can do and still get Elise and Adina to safety. If you can get some rest, you should be okay.”
“I’ll be fine. Thanks.” Ric reached out and shook the other man’s hand, while his other arm wrapped around Meagan’s shoulders. She could feel the difference in his strength from only moments earlier, but he was still a little wobbly. “That was a nasty concussion. The scrapes I can live with.”