Witch Interrupted (13 page)

In the apartment, Marcus scooped up Katie’s duffel and his supplies. When he hoisted the large briefcase, the latch Zhang Li had apparently picked to get the gun sprang open, dumping half the contents.

“Shit.” Katie dropped to her knees, shoveling Marcus’s gloves, swabs, books, test strips, granola bars, and odds and ends into the hard-sided case. “Your stuff.”

“Leave it.” He caught her arm, dragged her up. “Get us through that back door.”

“We’re parked out front.” Katie took the gun from her father. “We have to scare them off if we want the cars. Tonya’s car is parked in a long-term lot a mile away. The panic room won’t do us any good since I can’t cast the—” She broke off and looked at Vernon.

“Panic room?” Vernon said. “I can set the boundaries. Where is it?”

“I understand why we’d need a panic room in this violent neighborhood,” Tonya added.

“I had to get creative since we couldn’t afford two leases. It’s in a Dumpster.” Katie retrieved ammunition clips from a vase on the mantel and stuffed some into her pockets and one into the gun. Her efficient movements let Marcus know she’d done this, or trained for this, hundreds of times. “Just in case, rendezvous at location G-160, forty-eight hours.”

“To hell with a rendezvous.” Vern glowered. “You’re staying with me, Katie. If your dog stays too, he’s officially your problem.”

From downstairs, a small explosion shook the building. Glass crashed in Katie’s bedroom. Shouts echoed outside as a battle of fists and howls erupted between the keepers and the Birmingham pack patrol.

Tonya clutched Vernon’s arm. “What in the world are they doing, shooting bazookas? Lord, are we Mafia or something, and I forgot?”

An odd expression crossed the elder’s face as he regarded his companion. “I wouldn’t say that.”

“Hey, this china cabinet’s on wheels,” Zhang Li called from the kitchen. “There’s a door behind it.”

“I’m going first,” Marcus said. “I can smell and hear anyone outside.”

Vernon tried to beat him to the doorway. “I’m first. You can smell, but I can stun.” He pulled out another wad of herbs. It was Tonya’s turn to cast Vernon an odd look.

Vernon wouldn’t knock him out since he needed Marcus’s help. “The keepers followed you here, Vernon. They’ll be expecting your skills, and they’ll know how to counteract them.”

“It’s you they’re here for. I’m a side dish.”

“Doubt that,” Marcus said, remembering the way Lars used to talk about Vernon. “They’re as anxious to catch you committing treason as they are me. Overly anxious, I’d say.”

The keepers seemed to be operating free of the witch covenants, confronting wolves in the street, openly bombing places of business. They weren’t permitted to be this blatant. If standards had become this lax under Lars, it was all the more reason why the council’s teeth needed to be pulled.

Marcus’s experiments were the way to do it.

“Treason my ass,” Vern said. “Get out of my way.”

“I don’t know what you two are talking about,” Tonya said, “but I vote we call the police. They need to know there’s a gang war in our street.”

While they argued, Katie slipped past them.

“My gun is going first,” she called over her shoulder before disappearing into the kitchen.

She wasn’t in any shape to take on keepers or packers. No magic, no mask, bleeding. They might know he and Vern were here, but she didn’t have to expose herself. Marcus wheeled after her, growling.

Vernon hustled a reluctant Tonya along. Marcus couldn’t wait for them. He hurried Zhang Li down the narrow, dark stairwell, arriving at the bottom in time to see Katie duck through a short door. While he didn’t want to imagine what would happen if he wolfed out in front of Zhang Li and Tonya, he might have to, so he released a little of his hard-won restraint.

With the boost of speed, he zipped past Zhang Li and bent nearly double to jet through the exit. Whatever was out there, Katie and a pistol couldn’t handle it alone.

The sun and sense of openness in the alley fazed him momentarily, but he regained his bearings in a second. No people but Katie. No cars.

The weedy, rutted track was lined by deserted buildings, a few empty lots and several Dumpsters on the near side. The other side was a field overgrown with tall weeds and a low-income residential area in the distance.

Behind him, Zhang Li emerged, followed by Tonya and Vernon. Marcus caught a whiff of calming mix and noticed Tonya was content to let Vernon guide her. She smiled at Marcus when she saw him.

Katie cleared the immediate area and gave them an OK sign. He didn’t snap at her, though he felt like it.

“Which Dumpster?” Vernon whispered, looking extremely dubious. There were four within sight. He patted Zhang Li on the shoulder, and Marcus smelled the calming mix again.

“The stenchy one. Don’t worry—it’s not real carrion. It’s a ward,” Katie explained. While house boundaries had to be renewed daily, subtle aversion wards could linger for weeks if the witch who cast them was strong enough. “Vern, the packet’s center front, inside. Chalk-based, amaranth, chicory, heliotrope.”

Katie pointed across the open space toward the next structure and gestured for everyone to go.

“Run,” Vernon said.

As the packers and keepers clashed on the street, they sprinted through the gap, skidding to a halt where a half-rusted Dumpster waited. Zhang Li was spritely as hell for a man his age. Marcus stiffened his upper lip as a noxious odor smacked him like a fish’s tail.

Vernon lifted the lid of the Dumpster and began helping Tonya into it. Zhang Li muttered about the smell. Calming balm didn’t seem to work that well on Katie’s father—big surprise. Marcus turned to lift Katie in.

She hadn’t followed.

No, she crept like a shadow along the back wall of the first building, closer and closer to the side the keepers and pack could see. Her opposite arm braced her gun hand as she scooted around the corner.

Was she trying to tick him off or get herself killed? That would put her in plain view. Even if the keepers didn’t notice, the packers might. And the keepers, well, if they caught sight of Katie, she was as good as dead.

The question was, who was winning? Pack or keepers?

“Getting Katie,” he told Vernon. He dropped their bags and took off.

Marcus poured on the speed. The weeds were tall and he was fast. Even if someone glanced between the buildings, they might not see him. He snagged Katie’s shoulder before she’d taken many steps toward the confrontation.

Angry, he flattened her against the wall behind a concrete ramp where trucks could make deliveries. A decrepit wooden frame around the huge sliding door hid them from sight.

“No.” He didn’t bother making it an order, just snarled at her until she stilled.

“Need to see if they have tranqs or guns. Need to know what and who we’re up against,” she whispered.

“I’ll do it. Get your ass to the Dumpster.”

“I’m with you,” she said stubbornly. “Remember?”

Marcus breathed fast and deep. The wolf wanted to haul her ass away. Careful, careful. Stealth was required, and deliberate cunning. The situation was too crucial to waste time on a clash of wills and his unstable id.

He heard the yelp of a wolf, a muffled gunshot, curses and shouts. His wolf growled. No, he growled. The keepers and pack weren’t being discreet, even though the pack would have no idea it wasn’t facing humans. Did none of them care about the people who populated this area?

“What do you hear?” Katie mouthed the words. Her pupils had dilated so much her eyes were black.

The keepers and elders could clean this mess up if they had to, but Marcus didn’t intend for the five of them to be part of the crackdown. He leaned back, his hands trapping Katie against the wall, and peered around the wooden frame. She strained to see as well, angling her line of vision through a broken slat.

The pack wolves weren’t winning. Two shaggy four-legs were crumpled in the middle of the street. Dead or asleep, he had no idea. Several denim-and-flannel-clad bodies were also strewn on the ground. One in black, a keeper. More keepers, in dark military gear and bulletproof vests, were arrayed throughout the tangle of minivans and trucks, pistols up and ready.

Most looked like tranq pistols. One tiny favor. They wouldn’t die immediately if shot.

Several keepers broke from cover and darted to a truck. A naked two-leg, perhaps a wolf unable to shift fast enough, hurled out of the bed and took two of them down.

But not for long.

Almost casually, a tall, lean man stepped out from behind a minivan. Though he was dressed like the other keepers, Marcus instantly recognized him. Recognized the arrogance in the posture, the thinning gray hair, the icy profile.

Hiram Lars.

Katie clutched Marcus’s shirt with trembling hands. “Fucking hell.”

He let her lean on him. Her heartbeat pounded against his chest. They watched as Lars raised a weapon, a handheld pneumatic launcher with a fat, short barrel. Held it straight up, like a Roman candle. Pumped it.

Something shot out the opening.

Marcus’s ears popped, and Katie grabbed his head, yanking him toward her.

She caught him in a desperate hug. Her fingers jerked his hair. She spoke in his ear, her words urgent. “Spell bomb. We should be safe here.”

Magic buzzed him like a swarm of bees. The urge to shift assaulted him in a thousand stings of need.

What the hell? A berserker spell, here?

With the council, he’d studied what compelled wolves to go feral—to shift in passion and commit mayhem. He’d wanted to know what might transform a wolf back into a witch, while Lars had only wanted weapons.

Marcus had given him one.

Savagery knifed through him, and he fought. Fought hard. Katie’s grip on him tightened.

“What the hell is going on? They’re all shifting. In the middle of a populated town.”

Marcus’s skin twitched. Redness like fire misted his vision. This woman, restraining him. She couldn’t stop him if he wanted to shift. He was wolf. She was nothing. Two-legs. He grew dizzy, struggling against it.

On the street, wolves howled. Many wolves. He bared his teeth. They sharpened. Claws sprouted.
Yes.

“Not you too.” Unafraid, the woman pushed her face into his, their noses an inch apart. She had black eyes. Bottomless. “Come on, Marcus. Stay with me. Stay up here. Look at me, Doc. Focus.”

Marcus’s lungs heaved out like bellows. He needed to be free! Katie hauled back and slapped a hand over his mouth. Hard. The sound cracked through the air. He tasted gunmetal, blood and skin.

Katie’s skin. The magic passed. As one, they turned to look at Lars.

He was staring right at them.

And he started running first.

Katie didn’t waste a second. She sprinted for the back of the building, Marcus on her heels. Hiram Lars. After all this time. She could feel him, like a dragon’s hot flames scorching her neck.

He’d know what she could do. He’d know how she could hide, what escape routes she might have planned, where she might run. They’d been trained by the same council, except he’d taken it over and she’d played dead to escape it.

The Dumpster wasn’t safe anymore. She had to get her family out of that trap.

She wheeled around the corner, intending to do that, but Marcus clutched her arm and spun her into the field.

“Lead him away from the panic room.” Half dragging her, he bolted through the tall weeds. She caught the tempo quickly, met him stride for stride. Briars whipped her exposed arms.

Her father. Tonya. Vernon would have to take care of them. Could he?

The field blurred on either side as they fled. Katie settled into a ground-eating pace so Marcus wouldn’t have to lug her. Weeds smacked her. She didn’t slow, praying to the Goddess her feet wouldn’t stumble on rocks or holes. Though fit, she couldn’t maintain top speed forever.

Would it be long enough?

Lars wasn’t as young as she was. He was in his third pass-through. He wasn’t a wolf, with wolf senses to track her essence. But his underlings would be faster and hardier, maybe faster and hardier than Katie. And it was possible, if Lars had grown cannier, he could enlist—force—the Birmingham wolves to help.

If he did, there was nowhere she and Marcus could go on foot that a wolf couldn’t find them. Not without magic, without the primed masks they’d left with Vernon and the others.

She risked a glance back. Lars was nowhere to be seen. Slower than expected. Had he been distracted? She couldn’t forsake her family. She and Marcus could drop behind this tree and wait, then circle around…

Lars tore around the corner, a group of keepers at his heels. Even at this distance, Katie could see the hate and rage twisting his face. “Chang Cai!”

Katie stumbled. Her blood chilled.

Hiram Lars had resented her position as Vern’s protégée. He’d hindered her work with the council, whispering in ears, ensuring she had the worst jobs, the worst backup. As Lars’s influence had grown, he’d opposed Katie at every turn. He’d almost killed her once, and she’d always wondered if it had just been the once. Not that she’d liked her job, but he’d been most of the reason she’d had to resort to desperate measures to escape the keepers.

Now he knew the truth, and he’d never stop coming after her and her family.

One keeper halted, raised a rifle, but Lars cawed out an order like a bird of prey and smacked him in the head.

Guess he didn’t want her dead by anyone else’s hands.

Marcus grabbed her arm and shoved her forward. “Don’t look, just run. I’ll let you know if they’re close.”

They were already closer than Katie liked. Three states away was closer than she liked.

“Describe this neighborhood. Streams? Public places?” Loping beside her, Marcus didn’t seem winded. From the blue of his eyes, his wolf was up. But he was sticking beside her when he could outdistance her and save himself. She knew monkshood scared him, despite his bragging about an antidote.

“Residential.” Her feet sped through the dead grass and scrub. She kept her elbows tight, her fear focused. “Then farms.”

“River would be good. You swim?”

“Yes, but no river.” Katie envisioned an area map. They were headed north. Beyond this neighborhood was another residential one, then farmlands, then an unincorporated bump in the road with a gas station and dentist’s office. That was…four miles. Marcus’s Airstream in the state park—not that they could escape in it without a tow—was much farther north.

They needed supplies. Masks. Heal-all. Her blood from the broken glass would make it easier for any trackers.

If they were going to outsmart Lars, they had to have a better plan than
run away, run away
.

“All-Guard Parking,” she panted, glad she’d worn her running shoes along with a dark-colored T-shirt, light jacket around her waist and loose pants. Standard getaway couture. “Left on Crosby. Downtown.” The streets they’d need to take led through a warehouse district and past a school.

“Key?” He wasn’t wasting his breath on words. She shouldn’t either, but if she wanted him to follow her, he ought to be told why.

“Hidden there.” She hoped Tonya, Dad and Vern wouldn’t need the car, because she was going to appropriate it. They’d have to find another way to the rendezvous point.

Cries of pursuit mounted behind them. No lupine howls. She and Marcus neared a line of saplings and pines. A barbed wire fence marked the end of the large field. Cuts from the glass, now from thorns, stung her arms. Terror and guilt stung her heart.

The worst that could happen. Right here, right now.

She’d brought it on herself.

If she hadn’t tried to wipe Marcus… If she’d been smarter. If she hadn’t fought him, driven him to kidnap her… If, if, if.

If Lars caught her, the torture he’d inflict would put all her past terrors to shame.

She couldn’t dwell. She couldn’t fall to pieces. She could only run.

They slowed at the barbed wire. It stretched from the road to the other side of the field. As short as she was, she’d have to climb it.

Or not. Marcus hauled her off her feet and leaped, thudding onto the shorter grass on the other side with a
whomp
. Without a word, he set her down and they resumed running.

Now they were among houses. Buildings. People. Humans who might not appreciate two strangers bolting across their properties. Humans who might call the cops. In three seconds, once they passed the first house, Lars would lose sight of them, giving them a small advantage.

As if realizing it, Lars roared behind them.

Gunfire.

Something whizzed past Katie’s ear.
Way to be discreet, assholes.
If no one had called the cops yet, they would now.

Grimly, she dodged left, then right. It would slow her progress, but a gunshot wound or a tranq would put a much bigger crimp in her escape plans than zigzagging.

“Dammit,” Marcus cursed.

More gunfire. Just in time, they reached the other side of the backyard and banked a hard right behind an outbuilding.

“Follow me.” Katie, decelerating enough to avoid a parked car, guided him on an evasive course through backyards, side yards, gravel driveways and outbuildings. The sounds of pursuit split apart. A horn honked as a van zoomed past. Since it didn’t stop, she assumed it wasn’t a keeper vehicle.

Now would come the crucial test. Would Lars release the hounds? Or the wolves?

She plotted a route, an alternate route and a third route. Did Lars have wolf noses on his team? If he did, raising a ruckus and hoping the human cops showed soon would be the smartest ploy.

For her. Not for the humans.

But should she die to keep this confrontation hidden from a few cops and locals whom the elders or keepers would memory-wipe anyway?

Marcus was breathing heavier now, though she could barely hear him over her own huffing. Then she realized he wasn’t panting so much as sniffing.

“No wolves with Lars,” he assured her. “Unless they’re masked.”

She had no air left for words and managed a nod. It had been twenty years since her life had been in this much danger. They skidded to a halt at the edge of a house, peering into the side street they intended to cross. Another car cruised past, driving at normal speed. Nobody right or left. Her hearing distorted as her pulse thundered in her ears. Her lungs and muscles hating her, she charged across the space.

Marcus’s forearm bumped her as he nudged her off her trajectory. “That house—there. Children in the backyard.”

No good. No kids. She veered into another yard. Even as a keeper, her job hadn’t usually required running flat-out for long distances. Tall fence around the fifth house on this street, but they could fit behind it. Next they’d reach an intersection where they needed to head west.

There wouldn’t be cover for several hundred yards on that street. It would be busier, a highway leading downtown. It couldn’t be avoided if they wanted to reach the parking garage.

“Traffic. Bridge,” she managed. She pointed in the direction she wanted Marcus to go as he took the lead.

They pounded toward the overpass. No shouts behind them, but they were in the open now, arrowing for the road.

Could they make it?

The whine of an overtaxed motor blasted her surge of hope to smithereens. Tires squealed on pavement. A minivan roared past them, fishtailing into their path.

Marcus whirled around and cursed. Katie froze, like a rabbit with a hawk circling above.

She hadn’t lied when she’d told Marcus Chang Cai was dead. That hated life and dismal person were gone. She was Katie Zhang now, tattooist, daughter, friend, lover of jeggings and organic produce. Katie hid from danger instead of confronting it, because it was the easiest way to keep herself and her family alive.

She’d failed.

Marcus tried to goad her back in the direction they’d come from, but her legs wouldn’t cooperate. A harsh command stopped him from tossing her over his shoulder.

“Halt or you’re dead,” Lars ordered. A car door slammed. “Turn around slowly with your hands in the air.”

Katie didn’t. Marcus didn’t. She looked at him, and his eyes were completely wolfed out.

Not even when she’d threatened to wipe him had she seen him look so fierce. But no wolf could outrun a bullet at this distance.

“Now!” Lars barked, sounding as much like a wolf as any shifter Katie had heard.

Slowly, Katie did as requested.

“I don’t believe it. It’s really you.” He squinted at her, as if his eyesight was poor. Perhaps it was.

The years had not been kind to Hiram Lars. His tall form was gaunt, his skin tinged by yellow. Sweat beaded his brow and his gun barrel shook in his hands, like palsy. Witch remedies couldn’t cure some diseases—like old age—and she hoped whatever he obviously had was miserable.

Katie didn’t say anything. Marcus hadn’t turned around, but Lars didn’t seem to care. The keeper who’d been driving the minivan slid out from behind the wheel, a rifle in his hands. Two more men stepped out of the backseat.

Four men and their large guns against Katie and Marcus and their small gun. She had great aim, but drawing her pistol would not improve this situation.

“How?” Lars demanded.

If she pretended to be someone else, it would just annoy him. Then again, if she annoyed him, would he lose his temper and kill her quickly? Would he focus his rage so acutely on her that her family could escape?

“Magic,” she answered, proud her voice didn’t shake. Maybe she had a little Chang Cai left. “You look like hell, Hiram. You sick? Or have years of bad living caught up with you? Sucks to be two-seventy.”

“Tiresome bitch.” Lars had lost none of his elegant way with words. And none of the madness in his smile. The skin tightened across his haggard face. “You’ll be telling me soon enough. You’ll be telling me everything.”

“Thanks for asking how I’ve been.” Katie’s false bravado probably wasn’t fooling anybody. “Pretty fantastic, really. I’m rich and successful and have a good laugh every day at how easy you were to trick.”

“You can’t provoke me, Chang Cai,” Lars said, but his teeth snapped on the words. He was provoked, all right. “This might be the best day of my life.”

“I get that a lot.” Katie didn’t want to take her eyes off Lars, but she glanced at Marcus. His head turned slightly to one side, and his nostrils flared. So far, no humans had taken notice of the confrontation. A car cruised past the turn to the bridge and didn’t slow down to rubberneck.

She knew this neighborhood was rough, but a van full of dudes waving guns around should have attracted a few onlookers, at the least.

Or maybe the onlookers were as scared as she was.

“Get her gun,” Lars told one of the men. “She might use it on herself. She was always a coward.”

“A coward? Really, Lars?” A man Katie didn’t recognize from her keeper days strode confidently forward. “I went after the worst of the ferals, the ones that killed people, the ones you were too chicken shit to handle.” Granted, she’d been sent in as a distraction most of the time, a sweet-smelling juvenile female with a bad case of wolf lust. But she was no coward.

Or she hadn’t been then.

Right now, she was terrified in a way that facing down a pack of rapacious shifters couldn’t equal. Now, not only was she about to die, but Marcus would too. Marcus, who simply wanted justice for his sister. Then Lars would find her father, Tonya and Vern.

They’d all die because of Katie.

“Who’s your friend?” Lars asked. “Best apologize to him now for the pain he’ll be suffering.”

He didn’t recognize Marcus? Could she use that?

“Human,” she said. “A customer who got spooked when you guys started shooting in the street like a bunch of idiots. Involving or harming him is against the covenants. Not to mention harming the cops on their way.”

Surely there were cops on the way.

Lars laughed, a raspy chuckle like a serrated knife on wood. “The covenants have no jurisdiction over me. I do as I wish. The elders are so busy chasing mongrels we pretended we couldn’t find that they have no idea how powerful we’re becoming.”

Tonya had mentioned the council had been less competent since Vern and Katie’s departure and the sympathizers more successful.

Except in the case of Marcus’s sister.

“However, we do capture a few mongrels and primitives. Enough to hone our skills. Test our weapons. I confess, we prefer females for that. I like the way they cry. I’m excited to show you the advances we’ve made in your absence, Chang Cai.”

Beside her, Marcus growled low and deep. He had to be thinking of his sister and the way she’d died.

Goddess, Katie hoped Elisa had died and not been one of Lars’s torture victims.

The keeper who intended to take Katie’s gun had nearly reached them. Marcus stiffened and cocked his head to the side.