Page of Swords (The Demon's Apprentice Book 2) (8 page)

“What are you talking about?” I asked him. “
She
came to
me
for help.”

“I came here to warn her about you. Looks like I was just in time. I've known what you are for months, Fortunato. Yeah, I know your name. I know a lot about you. I've talked to your victims, I've even been to your little website. I know how you operate.” His voice was filled with venom.

I stood up straight and gave him a dark look.

“No. You don't.” I walked across the room toward him. “You don't know a damn thing about me, asshole. Until you do, I suggest you shut the hell up.”

Only the memory of his strength kept me from swinging at him. That, and we were in someone else's house. Trashing her place would have been kind of rude.

“I know enough not to be sucked in by your lies,” he spat.

“Do you feel evil from him right now?” Lucas asked. “Do you? I told you last night, he's not evil!” He stepped between Donovan and me, body tight and ready to spring. Wanda moved to his side.

“His actions say different.”

“What are you going to believe? My actions six months ago, or your evil detector now?”

His brows crawled together and his mouth went crooked. Deep thought might not have been his strong suit, but he
was
thinking. It was a start.

“Okay,” he said after a moment. “So, maybe you're not evil. But you still use black magic. That's a fact.” He crossed his arms and gave me a defiant look.

“It's more of a plaid magick, really,” I told him.

“Kind of a tartan, really, if you're going to be giving it a color,” Lucas grinned.

“Now you're being childish.”

“I won't tell you how to swing a bat, you don't tell me what color my magick is. Deal?”

That got me a grudging nod.

“Good,” Wanda said with an acid tone. “Now that the two of you are done splashing the walls with testosterone, maybe we can get back to helping Dani out?”

I frowned at her, and caught Steve looking about as annoyed at her as I felt. Our eyes met, and I gave him a raised eyebrow. He shrugged, and our bruised egos called an unspoken truce in the name of male solidarity.

“I don't know who to believe here,” Dani said.

“Dude's heart's in the right place, it's just his brain that's misplaced,” Lucas offered.

“I know where it is, and it's a wonder he can sit down,” Wanda said.

“Guys, chill. Look, Dani, I can protect you from pretty much any spell he can cast. He can't do anything without a circle, I'm betting.”

“How can you be so sure?” Dani asked.

“Because if he had more serious mojo going on, he would have been able to fight me when I took his deck last night. But if we're going to find Crystal, we have to find Julian.”

“I can help you with that,” Donovan said.

Lucas and Wanda gave him a disbelieving look, while I went more for a skeptical scowl to balance things out.

“He goes to the same school I do. I asked around. There's a place where the trenchcoat crowd hangs out, near the Square.”

“All right, then,” I said as I shucked my pack. “I'm gonna make you a protection amulet, Dani, then Lucas and Wanda, I need you guys to get her out of the house for a while, until we can find Julian.”

“But won't the amulet do the job?” Dani asked, as I pulled the bag from Mitternacht's out of my pack and sat cross-legged on the floor.

“Between that and your home’s threshold, it'll stop the bulk of the spells he could cast. But he'll probably target the places he thinks you'd be with things other than spells. And this is the safest place you can think of.”

“But if she's not here, won't he just—” Donovan started.

Lucas shushed him as I set out the silver amulet and supplies I'd bought from his grandfather's store. Moonstone, a double-terminated quartz crystal, sea salt, sage, and cedar were set on the floor, and I pulled my own tools from my bag. My black-handled athame, my abalone shell, and my white working candle would have to do for a protection amulet on the fly.

I lit the tea candle with my Zippo, so anything I lit from it would come from a more pure flame, and picked up the silver amulet. I'd chosen a Celtic cross for Dani, an old symbol with meaning for both Christians and pagans. Its true meanings were long lost, at least to most people, so they tended to apply their own. For my purposes, that worked just fine. The circle around the intersection of the arms would provide the right shape for the protective ward symbols, and the ends of the four arms would hold the runes for body, mind, heart and spirit.

I lit the end of the sage bundle and the cedar needles, then set them to smolder in the shell. The wooden handle of the athame warmed to my hand when I picked it up. I drew on the touchstone in my front pocket and added the other two stones in my hand. Magick surged through my arm and the sound it made in my head was beautiful. For a moment, I just sat there and enjoyed the feel of it flowing through me. But all I could spare was a moment. All that magick needed a place to go, something to do.

I willed the power through the copper blade of the athame and pulled the protection ward symbols from my memory. In my mind's eye, I saw them as I wanted them to appear on the amulet, blazing with blue light, then tapped the power of the moonstone and the quartz. Both stones had a strong protective energy about them, and by channeling my magick through them, I added a little bit of that aspect to the amulet. My own instinct was to draw it out with pure brute force, but I found that the stones added their own aspects easily enough. My eyes closed on their own as I felt the magick just . . . flow.

Nothing I'd ever done before could have prepared me for the rush of power that coursed through me. Always before, I had pushed and wrestled with magick, making it do what I wanted through sheer force of will. The words of my spells, the symbols, all of those had channeled power to do what I told it to do. This spell seemed to flow on its own, as if it knew what needed to be done and couldn't wait to get to it. The symbols seemed to reverberate in my head, each one like a note of beautiful music as I imagined it, all coming together to in a melody that brought tears to the eye and made the heart beat faster. My hand moved on its own, and it seemed like the symbols were leading me through their own creation, instead of me setting them in place.

Magick filled my head and washed over me. I could feel the hair on my arms stand on end as my whole body tingled with the touch of something wondrous. The last of the symbols coursed through me and found its place on the top arm of the cross. I set the athame down, but the spell didn't seem to be done and I didn't really want it to end. My hands cupped the amulet and magick kept flowing into it. The backs of my hands felt warm, as if they were being held from below by a pair of gentle hands. I didn't understand what I was doing, but something did, and I wasn't about to argue with it.

As if that agreement was all that the outside force was waiting for, I felt a gentle nudge against my palm. My hand opened and I felt the cross lift away from my palm, caressed by an intricate pattern of mystic energy that I could see even though my eyes were closed. A blue-white glow was visible through my eyelids, and I finally opened my eyes. The glow faded and the amulet slowly descended until it lay warm, smooth, and perfect, on my palm.

Dani was looking at me with a look on her face of disbelief, mingled with hope. Lucas had a huge grin on his face, while tears streaked down Wanda's slack face as she touched her pentacle reverently. Donovan was frowning like he'd just seen a gorilla sing opera.

“This is yours,” I told Dani.

She reached for the amulet as I held it out and plucked it delicately from my hand.

“What's the price of your
gift
?” Donovan asked as she slipped it over her head.

“It's not a gift,” I said. My voice felt distant, disconnected from me. “It was never mine to give. It was always hers. I just . . . carried it for her for a while.” The words sounded right, even though I didn't really understand where I was getting them. I had the feeling that there was more to what I was saying than I understood. All I knew was that it felt like my mind was quiet for a little bit, like someone had turned the volume way down on my thoughts.

“Wow, Chance,” Wanda whispered. “Is it always like that?”

“No. This was . . . this was different.” I gathered my stuff as I spoke and tucked it away in my backpack.

“That was beautiful. I could feel it . . . here,” she put her fingers over her heart. “It was like . . . hearing the voice of the Goddess.”

“I think we all felt it,” Lucas said.

Dani gave an enthusiastic nod, while Donovan's head inclined reluctantly.

“I still don't like it, but if the only way to fight dark magic is with more magic, then it'll have to do for now,” he said as I got to my feet. “I've got my bike here. You can ride with me, Chance.”

Lucas inclined his head at Donovan and gave me a meaningful look. He still didn't like the guy. I wasn't sure about him myself, but he was a lead on Julian. I'd have to take that risk.

“Take Dani with you, Lucas. Hell, take her to Dante's or something. Just make sure it's some place she wouldn't normally go. Steve and I will go find Julian.”

Half an hour later, Steve and I were getting off his bike. He'd told me it was an '83 BMW K100, which meant a big bunch of not much to me, but he was proud of it. He'd parked us at the top of the same parking garage Lucas had chosen last night. While he locked the helmets to the bike frame, I went to the edge of the garage and looked out over the Pittsburgh district’s upscale version of downtown, which at the moment was pretty much limited to the theater and the other parking garage.

“We need to talk,” Donovan said from behind me.

“When a girl says that on TV, it's usually a break up,” I said without looking at him. “But our relationship hasn't gotten there yet, so you're just scaring me now.”

“I'm serious. You have to stop using magic. It can only have one source, and we both know it's not a good one. I'm not saying that to judge you. I just have to warn you, that's all.”

“Gee, thanks. So, when are you gonna stop using yours?” I asked.

“Chance, I don't use magic. If I did, I wouldn't be saying anything to you,” he said earnestly.

“You really believe you've got room to talk, don't you?”

“Of course I do. The Bible forbids dabbling in those kinds of things.”

“You knocked my shield spell down with a freaking baseball bat, man. That thing's tough enough to stop cars, and you're strong enough to drop it with a Louisville Slugger. You can sense 'evil' from people, and that ain't magick?”

“Well, no,” he said, but his voice wasn't as confident as it was before.

“Why not? Does it have a label on it somewhere that says 'Made in Heaven' or something? Cuz it sure isn't normal!”

“Because I use it to fight evil.” He was grasping at straws now, and I started to feel like a heel. I'd gotten him to where he was thinking again, though.

“So, you don't know where it comes from, but the way you use it makes it right?”

He hesitated, and I pressed on.

“Magick is a tool, man. We both use it. I know where mine comes from. You don't. And believe me, I know a lot more about evil than you do.” I turned and headed for the stairwell. His footsteps sounded behind me a moment later. Another thought occurred to me as I took the steps down, and I stopped on one of the landings to face him again.

“Your parents don’t disappear for a couple of days each month, do they?” I asked. “Right around the full moon?”

“Wouldn’t matter if they did. I’m adopted,” he answered with a shrug.

“I was thinking you might be a born Were, but that still doesn’t explain the Spidey sense for evil.”

“This only started last summer,” he said. “If it was something I was born with, wouldn’t it have started earlier?” I nodded.

“Just a thought,” I told him as we hit street level.” We can figure it out later.”

Saturday night was just as busy on the Square, so we skirted around the west side and crossed College near the same alley we'd met in the night before. Steve took the lead from there, heading north down Boonville until he hit the railroad tracks at the bottom of the hill. We made our way along the alley that paralleled the tracks until we saw flashing red and blue lights. Blue and white New Essex P.D. cruisers were parked in a semi-circle, and two silver Essex County Sheriff's patrol cars blocked the street at each end of the arc of PD cars.

“Cops,” Steve grumbled.

“Thanks, Doctor Obvious, I would never have known.”

Steve's pace slowed but I never let mine falter. The quickest way to get a cop's attention was to act nervous as soon as you saw them, I'd learned. Besides, it wasn't like I had anything to hide at the moment. It was an odd thing for me, and I wanted to enjoy it a little. As we got closer, I saw a familiar figure emerge from the crowd of uniforms. An easy six feet tall, with dark brown skin and a lean frame that I knew from harrowing experience could run faster than me.

The last time I'd seen Demetrius Collins, he'd been standing over the body of the alpha werewolf I'd just killed, ready to tell the police he'd shot the man in self-defense. I owed the man big time for that. His curly black hair was cut shorter now, not much more than stubble next to his skull, and he wore an off-the-rack tan suit instead of an officer's uniform. Light caught the badge at his belt, and I saw the round sheriff's deputy's star instead of the P.D. shield he used to wear. Officer Collins was Deputy Collins now, it seemed. I filed that away for later as my eyes went to a gap in the wall of black uniforms.