Magick Rising (40 page)

but despite his one-handed efforts, she slumped to the floor. His stomach

seized, anticipating more reactions, perhaps even a deadly one. But checking

her vitals, her strong heartbeat brought him a small measure of relief.

However, what worried him most was the sudden look of pain filling her

face.

No, maybe not pain. Maybe that was simply what it looked like when

someone changed.

She cracked open one eye. “Wh-what’s going on?” she managed to grit

out.

“Your face is trying to change, but you’re going to have to give it

direction.” It was an overly simplistic explanation but the only one he had at

the moment

“What do I do?”

Jon tried to put his own process into words, but he’d been doing it

automatically for so many years, it was hard to break it down into simplistic

steps. “It’s not a matter of looking like someone in particular—just not like

yourself. Work on your features one at a time. Hair color, eye color, facial

shape, skin color. All you have to do is change your face, not your height or

your body shape.”

She squeezed her eyes shut and hunched forward in obvious

concentration. After a few moments, he watched her blond hair darken and

shorten until it just grazed her shoulders. Her face structure morphed,

giving her higher cheek bones, erasing almost ten years from her age,

making her look too young for a club like this .

Or maybe like someone who could jeopardize a liquor license unless

she was immediately escorted out of the building.

“That’ll work. I can sell the fact you’re underage and need to be tossed

out. Can you stand up?” He held out his good hand and steadied her as she

rose shakily to her feet. “Let’s get out of here.”

Serenity had difficulty moving at first. Evidently, she’d made a few

alternations to her body and now had to adapt to a different height and

proportions. But the dire necessity of the situation helped her adjust on the

fly. Soon she moved in a more natural and almost smooth gait.

“You’re doing great,” he said in honest encouragement. He

remembered suffering many uncoordinated moments after his first change.

“Once we get onto the floor, if we get separated, you head to the car. Still

have the keys?”

She fished around in her skirt pocket which had luckily remained intact.

“Yes.”

“Lock yourself inside and hide in the back seat. We don’t know how

long the effect is on someone normal.” Or what the consequences might be

once it wore off.

“What about you?”

“I’ll hide in a crowd if I have to. But I’ll find you.”

As they reached the door to the main floor, they could hear the music

and voices beyond. Serenity placed her hand on the knob, but Jon stopped

her.

“Before we go, one thing—”

She kissed him.

In his mind’s eye, he was kissing the face he was familiar with, rather

than this different and much younger edition. And she was responding as

Serenity would—a bit hesitant but soon embracing the concept, sharing a

brief moment of measured passion. When she broke away, her borrowed

features sported a rosy blush.

“That’s for luck,” she said in a hoarse voice as she gently touched his

cheek.

Jon did everything he could to suppress the resulting shiver of desire.

He found his real voice. “Let’s double our chances of success.” He pulled

out one of the pill bottles. “Take this one.”

Serenity complied, tucking the bottle into her pocket. He reached into

his coat and held out the lab reports, but she pushed them away. “Don’t.

You keep them. It’s better that way.” She tried to give him a smile of

assurance. “Don’t worry. We’ll both make it.”

“I hope to hell we do. Ready?”

When she nodded, he opened the door, and they stepped out.

JUST AS JON FEARED, they’d walked into a big complication.

Plains-clothed security personnel were running a sweep through the main

floor, casing the crowd, probably looking for Worth. The moment they

spotted their “boss,” they split, half continuing the sweep, the other moving

through the crowd toward him and Serenity.

“Shit,” he said under his breath. “They saw us. They probably have

orders to protect Iceman.” He leaned closer to Serenity and whispered,

“Change in plans. The jailbait bit isn’t going to work.”

“Now what?” she asked, her fingers tightening on his arm.

“See that door?” He nodded toward the main entrance to the room.

“Work your way over there. In a minute, there’s going to be a stampede

toward the exit. You need to blend in with the first few people who exit,

before things get rowdy. Then once you’re outside, get to the car.”

“I’m not going to leave without you.”

“I’ll only be thirty seconds behind you.”

“What’s your plan?”

“Pull the alarm and trigger that stampede. But I won’t do it until you’re

in position.”

When she reached over and grabbed his hand, instead of a sudden

explosion of sensation, there was a continuous thrum as if a more

permanent connection had been made between them.

“We’re going to succeed, Jon. I just know it,” she said, her voice full of

the confidence that he lacked. The smile she gave him made her look less

like a teenager in the wrong place and more like a twenty-something in the

wrong place. That’s when he realized she’d managed to age her features, a

skill that had taken him years to master.

For one fleeting moment, he wondered what impossible shifts he could

achieve under the influence of Glue. But as soon as the thought formed, he

batted it away, berating himself for entertaining such a notion.

“Go,” he said, nodding toward the door.

“Thirty seconds?”

“Promise.”

Serenity broke away, slipping into the crowd. While she escaped, Jon

worked his way to the closest fire alarm, making small changes to his

features as he shouldered his way between the clusters of people. As he

made his minute alterations, he realized his crushed fingers had already

healed and were functional again, a welcomed side-effect of the Glue.

However, his plan to use the alarm as a diversion fizzled when a security

guard stationed himself next to it.

Jon hated his fallback plan; it was risky and dangerous. But it was the

only avenue of action he had. So he waited as long as he could to give

Serenity a chance to get closer to the exit, and then he acted.

“Gun!” he yelled and pointed across the room. Heads turned toward

him and then toward the direction he indicated. With most of the room

distracted, he reached into his pocket, pulled out Iceman’s weapon. Leaning

into the wall to shield his actions, he fired three shots, angling them into the

place where wall and floor met and hoping to avoid collateral damage.

As expected, panic ensued. Men yelled, women screamed. People rose

en masse and surged toward the exits. Several patrons drew their own guns,

but to Jon’s relief, no one fired. However, with everyone trying to exit

simultaneously, a bottleneck formed, ramping up the panic. People began

pushing and shoving to escape. He prayed Serenity had gotten out in the

first wave and was headed to safety. But his plans to escape undetected died

when the real Iceman stumbled through the door next to him.

“What th’ hell?” Iceman glared at Jon in confusion and shock.

That hesitation gave Jon enough time to react and plow a fist into the

man’s gut. As Iceman doubled over, Jon slammed him in the temple with

the gun’s butt. Thanks to the general hysteria, no one noticed the assault or

the large man that Jon deposited into a nearby chair. With Iceman

incapacitated, Jon turned away and ducked into the surging crowd.

Maybe it was the adrenaline.

Maybe it was the proximity of so many faces to borrow. In any case, as

the crowd rushed toward the exit, Jon managed to steal enough from other

men to change himself from Iceman into a homogenous version of those

around him.

Now, essentially anonymous, he moved with the group toward, then

through, the exit. Once outside, he resisted the urge to break out into a run

and instead, stayed in the middle of a pack of evacuated patrons who were

going in the right direction.

Once he reached the car, he peered through the side window but didn’t

see Serenity at first. After a few scary seconds, he made out the overcoat

lumped in the floorboards. He knocked on the glass. “It’s me. Jon. Open

up.”

The lump shifted, then Serenity peered out from beneath the garment.

Her slow smile of recognition and relief triggered something in him he

hadn’t felt in a very long time.

When the door unlocked, Jon slid into the driver’s seat.

“You made it,” she said, still breathless. “Thank God.”

“Give me the keys.”

She complied, and he started the car.

“What do we do now?” she asked.

He gunned the engine. “Get the hell out of here.”

As Serenity pushed herself off the floorboards and climbed up to the

back seat, she tried to tell herself the danger was over. They’d escaped with

the formula and the pills, and hopefully it wouldn’t take long to figure out

how to create an antidote or find a way to break the addiction. Until then,

they could provide the drugs to the shapeshifters so they wouldn’t be

dependent on whoever ended up with control of the club.

“Do you think—”

Jon slammed on the brakes. She lost balance and fell to the floor again.

“What are we stopping for?” she asked as she pulled herself back up into the

seat.

He nodded toward the windshield. “Him.”

After she righted herself, she realized he meant David, who was

standing in the middle of the road and pointing a gun at them.

“Just play along. He saw you, but he doesn’t know it’s
you
. Just let me do

the talking. Okay?” He rolled down the driver’s side window. “Thought you

ran out on me, Worth.”

David moved closer then lowered the gun. “Craft?” It took a moment

or two for David’s look of challenge to fade to relief. “Thank God. I

thought you were someone else who boosted the car.” He ran around the

front of the car and jumped into passenger seat. “Sorry. I got jumped before

I could do anything. Were you successful?”

Jon slammed the car in gear and took off. “Yeah.”

David straightened in his seat. “You mean you got it?”

“Formula was in the safe, just like you said.”

“Let me see.”

Jon shook his head. “No. We’ll be keeping it.”

“We?” David looked over the shoulder at Serenity. “Damn, you work

fast. Hello beautiful. Who are you?”

Before Serenity could speak, Jon jumped in. “She helped me get out.

I’m returning the favor.”

Sirens punctuated the air as a string of fire engines flew toward them in

the opposite lane. Jon slowed and waited until the vehicles passed and the

sound died away before he sped up. “Who’s Tanaka?”

Serenity watched David’s shoulders tense. “Just a guy.”

“Just a guy trying to take over Sinema?”

Her ex had the audacity to shrug. “So I’ve heard. But I doubt Iceman

will sell.”

Jon slowed for a red light but didn’t stop, sailing through the empty

intersection. “Sinema won’t remain exclusive if you steal the Glue formula

and sell it to his competition.”

David’s laughter sounded forced. “True. But that’s the beauty of the

free enterprise system. You have to expect some competition every now and

then. It’s good for the economy.”

Serenity finally spoke. “For
your
economy, you mean.”

He turned halfway in his seat. “Who are you? Cherish? Devine?

Doesn’t matter. You remember what happened to Laila, don’t you? Loose

lips . . .” He touched his own lips with his forefinger.

“Just one problem.” Jon took the next corner at an ambitious speed,

forcing Serenity to fumble for the seat belt.

David fell toward the door. “Slow down, cowboy. What problem?”

“The formula works too well.”

“What do you mean?”

“Glue works on normal people, too. Gives them the ability to shift.”

David shook in laughter. “You’re crazy. That’s impossible.”

“No, it’s not.” Serenity found her natural voice. “It worked on me.”

“Huh?” David turned in his seat to glare at her.

The idea that she knew something David didn’t, made her sit up

straighter in her seat. “I said the drug allowed me to change, David.”

His glare faded into confusion and then curled into a smile. “Well, I’ll

be damned. Sere!” His second look was far less cursory, and he had audacity

to whistle. “I really like the new look.”

Serenity resisted the urge to slap her ex’s insufferable, smug face. “Why

didn’t you tell us that it affects regular people?”

Worth’s grin faded a bit. “Because it doesn’t. Trust me—we tried them

on regular people. All it did was make them sick.”

Serenity reached into her pocket and pulled out the plastic bottle.