Shifty Magic (10 page)

Time slowed as my senses sharpened, making
me acutely aware of the chilling sting of his teeth as they slid
into my flesh, and the warm trail of blood as it dripped down my
neck. I fought to hold onto the points of agony in my body as the
first wave of ecstasy hit me.

I could feel his throat contracting against
my collar bone as he swallowed my blood. I knew the venom sacs in
the roof of his mouth now pumped anti-coagulant and venom through
his hollow fangs and into the wound, quickening the feeding while
subduing the victim. With my last shred of determination, I grabbed
his throat and willed him to die.

Another wave of bliss spread over me,
dulling my pain, making me feel warm and softly happy. As I
realized that I'd failed, my body went limp and my senses spiraled
gently down into peaceful darkness.

I didn't care about anything anymore...not
even dying.

* * *

I came to lying under a bush, surprised as hell that I was
alive.

As I rolled out from under the thick tangle
of cedar-scented branches, a sharp wave of dizziness and nausea
convinced me that the dirt might be a good place to relax for a
moment. After a few minutes of controlled breathing, the world
stopped spinning. I noticed that my left shoulder was back in the
socket and had settled into nothing more than a grumpy ache. My
Browning was back in its holster, and my neck hurt like the devil.
When I touched the spot to determine the damage, I discovered the
presence of a med patch.

I remembered the silver and black wolf and
suspected who my hit and run rescuer and medic had been. I didn't
like the idea of being in debt to anyone, but I wasn't quite so
stubborn that I didn't feel grateful to still be in one piece.
Fortunately, I didn't have time to dwell on it too much.

About five feet from me on the sidewalk was
a large blood stain that looked black in the crystalline light of a
newborn morning. No insane Were lay sprawled beside it, which meant
he'd been killed and his body disposed of, or retrieved and carted
away. Both solutions were good as far as I was concerned. The
vampire had either run off with daylight coming, or more likely was
dead.

The blood all over the sidewalk, and all
over me was the problem on my mind at the moment. If I didn't get
moving soon, life would become unpleasantly inconvenient. Once
daylight fully hit, someone was bound to come along, and I didn't
want to be there when they did. The last thing I needed was a
wasted day filling out paperwork at the precinct.

I willed my stomach to behave and rolled
over. Wincing, I leveraged myself into a sitting position. The
broken, pothole-filled street was empty, so I stiffly turned to the
left to make sure the forest was just as deserted. After everything
else, the headless body crumpled at the base of a tree about six
yards away hardly phased me at all.

With careful deliberation, I climbed to my
feet and stumbled over to it. I immediately recognized the denim
work shirt of the vamp who'd attacked me. I stared at the chewed up
neck and wondered where the head had gotten to. A quick scan of the
area turned up a gloppy mess on another tree and the crushed head
in the weeds below it. Yuck.

Since no scanner was sensitive enough to get
an ID from a corpse, I did a quick search of its pockets, looking
for a clue to the guy's identity. They were empty.

The sound of a car coming down the road from
Morrocroft sent me scurrying for cover. Hard-working citizens eager
to help was not something I wanted to deal with at the moment. From
the cover of the overgrown grass and weeds at the edge of the woods
I watched as an old Ford minivan rattled past. Behind the tinted
windows, I could see the driver earnestly gulping down coffee from
a large travel mug, oblivious in her hurry to get to work. I let
out a relieved breath as the van sped past and disappeared down the
road.

I waited a moment longer, listening for the
approach of more early commuters as the deep orange glow of coming
morning seeped into the sky. The events of the last two days sank
into my bones with the rising sun and my exhaustion deepened.

There was no way to know how much of my
blood the vamp had sucked out before he'd lost his head over it, or
how much of his venom I'd been exposed to. That plus my various
aches and pains were taking their toll on my ability to think
straight. Falling into my own bed and sleeping for a week sounded
like a good immediate plan.

The vampire's body began to hiss and pop as
the first rays of the sun hit it, cooking it from the inside out.
The process was disgusting, and I had no interest in witnessing it.
I knew that in the end nothing would be left, even the fine, rusty
powder would blow away as the day wore on.

I headed back to the road and slogged toward
Colony and the hoverbus platform. Let whoever found the traces of
blood from the fight wonder what had happened, I had better things
to do; like figuring out who had the power to sic a Were and a vamp
on me.

The image of cold, soulless
eyes staring down at me flashed through my mind and sent a chill
down my back. I remembered what Laiyla had said about the eyes of
the guy at the hotel
...a nothingness...a
lack of soul
.

Was she responsible for the attack? A strong
enough enslavement spell might explain the bizarre circumstance of
the two species working together. Normally vamps and Weres
cooperated only never. Something about my interview with Laiyla
must have alarmed her enough to decide that I was a serious threat.
I wished I knew what.

I rubbed my sore shoulder, glad to see the
hoverbus platform coming into view as the sky brightened. My mind
churned over everything that I knew about the case, but nothing
useful rose to the surface. There had to be something I was
missing.

But what?

* * *

The next night I was back at Morrocroft Farms
Lane. I'd awakened just before sunset with Wizard curled against me
and knowing exactly what I needed to do. I'd eaten, packed water
and a few snacks plus a couple of items I might need, and then
headed out of town.

In the light of my flashlight, I examined
the area where I'd been attacked. Nothing remained except a small
amount of damage on the bark of the pine tree where the vamp's head
had been fast-pitched. Everything else had been cleared away, even
the blood stains. Someone knew how to be thorough.

No calls had gone out about the wounded Were
or the dead vamp, and I'd checked several times. I wondered who had
a high interest in a hush up.

Bellmonte and his team were an obvious
choice and fully capable of both an attack and a cover-up. Except
they would've met the sun before recruiting a Were. Plus, if the
vamps wanted me taken out, I'd have been dead before I knew what
hit me. If the Weres were behind it, I would have seen the wolf but
no vampire would have been within twenty miles of it.

Laiyla was the key to the attack, I felt
sure of it. It would have been impossible for her to have pulled
something like that together so quickly, but someone associated
with her might have. If there was another player on the field, I
wanted to know about it.

When I found out that Laiyla led a novice
group of practitioners every Sunday night at the Athena coven's
center, I knew I had my in. Tonight was the night, and if I could
get over the electric, barbed wire wall, snooping around Laiyla's
place while she was gone would be a piece of cake.

I crossed the street to the patch of trees
and underbrush on the other side. Clipping my flashlight to the
utility belt I'd strapped on, I took out my gun and stepped into
the deeper shadows a few feet from the road.

I set my weapon to discharge bullets and
moved an extra clip to my front pocket. If I got attacked again, I
planned to shoot first and worry about survivors later.

The narrow forest that ran up to the wall on
this side of the neighborhood was quiet. Clouds had wandered in
over Charlotte that afternoon and now blanketed the half moon,
muting its light into a thin glow that filtered through the leaves
and branches of the trees. Around me, the forest grew silent.

My grip tightened on my Browning. Quiet
woods were never a good sign. Big, bad things tended to inspire
little bad things to run and hide.

I slid from tree to tree, my senses alert.
Some very unpleasant creatures fed on magic, and the power level
that Laiyla had chugging around the compound was certain to attract
some of them. Blocked from entering, their frustration and hunger
would lead them to roam.

The quicker I got up and over the wall, the
better for my health. I crept toward the wall and was disappointed
to see that the trees and plants had been cleared in a strip about
six feet deep along the entire length. Apparently I wasn't the only
one who'd thought that climbing a tree and hiking over would be a
nice, easy way in. I listened closely to the silence around me and
a shiver ran down my back. On to plan two, and fast.

With my left hand, I
unclipped the discharger I'd brought with me, one of the
experimental gadgets my friend Falcon liked to create. Falcon was
two years younger than me, skinny and mostly legs and arms, with
just enough of a crush on me to be endearing. He ran his uncle's
shop, aptly named
Magical Gadgets and
Bits,
and was a genius inventor of the
unusual and occasionally illegal creation. My Browning was some of
his handiwork.

The device he'd put together a couple months
ago was based on an old TV remote he'd found at the dump. One end
had been cut back and three thick wires ran across it: red, green
and purple.

I aimed the wired end of the disrupter at
the top of the fence and—

—
A truck slammed into me.
At least that's what it felt like.

The impact of a solid, muscled body ramming
into me fast and hard catapulted me toward the wall. Just before
the moment of impact, my attacker spun us around so that his back
hit the wall instead of my face. At the same time a buzz of
recognition vibrated through me, and I realized it was Cooper.

One of his arms banded across my chest just
under my collar bone with the other one clamped around my waist. I
could feel the bulge of his biceps against my right arm and the
left side of my ribs. His heart beat steady and strong between my
shoulder blades, and my body pressed that intimately against his
made me a little short of breath.

Angry that he could do that so easily to me,
I tightened my hand around the handle of my gun. "That's a great
way to get shot," I snarled, leveraging against him with my
shoulders and hips to get out of his grip.

"Powering down the magic isn't a good idea,"
he said in my ear, his voice low and velvety. "Any glitch in the
electricity or flow of magic and things explode."

Hadn't found that little specification
tidbit on the Internet. Might be time to upgrade some of my
snooping software.

"Next time be a little less dramatic about
stopping me," I groused, shoving my gun back into its holster.

"No time to say please, sweetheart."

I stomped down on the toes of his right foot
with the heel of my work boot. Cooper gave a grunt and let go.
Staggering a couple steps forward from the sudden lack of support,
I did my best to ignore how cold my back felt without him.

Turning around, I backed away a few steps.
The more distance between Agent Daine and me, the better. "Why are
you here?"

"Same reasons you are."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "I doubt it."

"You'd be surprised." He watched me, looking
relaxed and pleased with himself.

I wondered if he'd guessed
that my plans included some breaking and entering. Then I wondered
if
he'd
been
planning on doing the same thing.

I weighed my options, feeling wary and
defensive. "Go home, Cooper," I finally said. "You'll never get
past the paranormal filter, and if you did, she wouldn't talk to
you anyway."

I could feel him studying me as he pulled in
a deep breath through his nose. A Were's eyesight was ten times
better than a human's in the dark, and his sense of smell about a
hundred times better in any lighting. I waited, knowing I couldn't
do a thing about what Cooper's Were powers would tell him.

"Liar," he said, not sounding the least
surprised.

"Duh." I crossed my arms over my chest.

"You know she's not there. You were going to
break in."

I gave him the evil eye knowing he could see
me quite clearly. "You're getting an awful lot like a stalker, you
know that?"

"Just doing my job."

"Like you were last night?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about."
He turned and started walking down the length of the wall in the
opposite direction from the gate. I caught up to him and matched
his pace as well as I could. Weres moved with a smooth, powerful
grace that no human could ever hope to duplicate.

He glanced at me and then was suddenly
walking between me and the woods. I tried not to jump, but I
couldn't stop the twinge of annoyance that sped up my heart
rate.

He was constantly putting himself between me
and anything he thought might be a threat, and I wasn't sure what
that meant or how I felt about it. I don't think he even did it
consciously, which made his actions even more puzzling. Maybe it
was nothing but a male wolf thing and he'd have done it for
anyone.

As we cruised along the edge of the cleared
area, I noticed that the crickets and rustling critters got quiet
and then started up again after we'd passed. I drew my gun in case
the big bad wolf wasn't Cooper, but I was a lot less worried than
before.