[Southern Arcana 1] Crux (34 page)

Mackenzie pulled a pair of loose cotton shorts and a tank top from the duffle, both of which she could wiggle out of in seconds. She shucked the T-shirt and reached back to unhook www.samhainpublishing.com 373

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her bra. “I just hate knowing I’ll always be a reminder,” she whispered as she pulled on the tank top. “That she’ll be unhappy when she sees me.”

“She won’t.” He nodded toward the dresser. “The amulet?”

“Yeah, I dropped it next to the TV.” She kicked off her pants and underwear, tugged on the shorts, and tried not to imagine what she’d look like if she changed before she managed to get out of her clothing.
A cougar in cute pajamas.

Charles can laugh himself to death.

Jackson raised an eyebrow as he snagged the talisman from the scarred surface of the TV stand. “Good thing it’s warm out.” He sat on the edge of the bed and took a deep breath. “This’ll only take a minute.”

“Mmm.” She folded her clothes haphazardly and shoved them into her bag. “Don’t get distracted by how naked I am under my teeny-tiny shorts.”

“I’ll try,” he murmured absently, already intent on his task. After several seconds, his fingers clenched around the wooden disk. A shudder wracked him, and he almost slid off the end of the bed.

“Jackson?” Mackenzie closed her fingers around his shoulder. His entire body had gone stiff, and his muscles trembled under her hand. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?” 374

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Crux

His eyes shot open. “No.” He grunted and grabbed his head as magic slashed tangibly through the room, stealing her breath. “He’s—”

The door flew open, flew
outward
as if someone had torn it from its frame. Mackenzie stared in shock as it landed in the parking lot with a deafening crash.

Dust billowed up from the dirty sidewalk, and Charles waved a hand as he stepped through the open doorway. A small smile, devoid of any real feeling, curled his lips as he looked at Jackson. “The backlash from a location spell can be painful if your target happens to be standing outside.” Jackson’s eyes locked on hers as he reached for his ankle.

“
Now
, Kenzie.”

There wasn’t time to take off the clothes. Mackenzie closed her eyes, reached for the power inside her—

—and found herself blocked.

Her eyes flew open when Charles laughed again. “Not right now, dear.” He flicked his fingers in an absent gesture, and a solid wave of power slammed into her so hard it knocked the wind out of her. She barely realized her feet had left the ground, not until the solid bulk of the wall crashed against her back. Pain arced through her as her head cracked into the aged wallpaper, and the last thing she saw before blackness overtook her was Charles’s tiny, chilling smile.

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Fuck.

Jackson watched Mackenzie slump to the floor. His head pounded from the backlash, but he edged off the bed and toward her. If he could reach her, rouse her somehow…

“Did she lose consciousness? That’s a pity.” Charles walked into the ratty motel room, and a wave of malevolent power washed over Jackson. “I suppose she’s not as sturdy as I thought.”

Jackson lunged for Mackenzie’s prone body. Charles clucked his tongue and Jackson froze, his muscles shaking and rigid. Rage washed through him, and his trembling worsened.

“Let me go, you son of a bitch.”

“Temper, temper, Mr. Holt. I don’t want to hurt you. Not yet.” The invisible force of Charles’s magic knocked Jackson back onto the bed. “I’m afraid it’s probably inevitable, though.

Your death is the only lesson harsh enough to teach Mackenzie her place. Unfortunately she needs to be awake to learn it.”

Crux

Jackson reached inside, but his ready supply of magic had been drained by the joining spell and the fouled-up locator spell.
Not that it would do a damn bit of good, Holt.
He inched his hand toward his ankle holster. “Her place in what, Talbot?

Carrying on your life’s work? Marcus is long gone.”

“Do you think he’ll be any harder to find than you were?” Jackson shook his head. “I wasn’t talking about geography. He won’t go along with it. Not anymore.” A crack appeared in Charles’s calm façade, revealing a hint of madness. His hands shook as he curled them into fists, and the power in the room swelled. “He won’t have a choice.

If he refuses…” He smiled suddenly. “Mackenzie is indispensable. Marcus is not.”

Realization stunned Jackson. “Another kid made it.” Anger gripped him, along with a fresh wave of what he’d known in his gut even before he’d watched Steven die.
He
won’t stop. He won’t ever stop.

“We got two boys before our sweet little Jessica came along.” Charles looked at Mackenzie again and all the man’s barriers fell away, showing a terrifying pride and possessiveness. “She’s my greatest accomplishment. And you can’t have her.”

Jackson bit the inside of his cheek to hold back his retort.

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had a chance. His fingers again crept toward his holster.
Don’t
blow it, Holt—

Mackenzie groaned softly, a pained noise that made his chest tighten. Charles took a step forward, his gaze locked on her. “I’m sorry it has to be this way,” he murmured. “You forced me, Jessica. Forced me to do this to you.” With Charles’s back to him, Jackson took the opportunity to snatch his gun from its holster with numb, nerveless fingers.

He thought he might drop it, but his arm didn’t waver as he aimed at the broad expanse between Charles’s shoulders and fired.

Light and magic flared even as the muzzle flash faded, and searing pain tore through Jackson’s leg. “Fuck!” Charles glanced over his shoulder at the bullet wound in Jackson’s thigh, and sighed as if Jackson had done something terribly inconvenient. “Why do you persist in these ineffectual shows of defiance? Your wolves couldn’t stop me. Your Seer couldn’t stop me. What advantage do you think you have they didn’t?”

Through the haze of pain, Jackson saw Mackenzie’s eyes flutter open. She met his gaze and dug her teeth into her lower lip as her face screwed up in concentration. She shimmered, and for a brief second he caught a glimpse of a cat tangled in the skimpy clothes she’d pulled on.

The power hit him.

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The wave of sheer strength that washed over him was staggering. It dwarfed everything magical he’d ever felt, from the smallest glamour to the most involved, multilayered spell, and he laughed. The blood welling between his fingers seemed inconsequential, meaningless.

A bullet can’t kill me.

Another laugh bubbled out of him, and he looked at Charles. “I think the odds just evened out.” Charles blinked at him, confused incomprehension fading into shocked realization and, for just a moment, a hint of fear.

Even with Michelle’s halting description of what it felt like to force a change on someone, it should have been harder.

Jackson shouldn’t have been able to so easily command the magic racing through him, to turn and focus it on Charles Talbot. To use it against him.

But it was terrifyingly simple.

The Seer glinted, blurred as the magic curled around him.

For several tense seconds Charles battled it, but the power of the spell plowed through the Seer’s attempts at resistance with an ease that left Jackson breathless. Charles’s human form slid away, leaving an aged, angry cougar in its place. He fought the confines of his clothing, and Jackson slumped back against the wall as nausea swept over him. A wall of misery stronger than any magic hangover he’d ever had crashed in on him, www.samhainpublishing.com 379

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obnoxious and suffocating, and he struggled to stay conscious as a snarl of challenge echoed through the room.

Mackenzie sent her most heartfelt thanks to Steven for his parable of the underwear-entangled cougar as she tore free of her tank top and lunged across the room. Charles struggled, his front legs tangled in his ripped shirt. She barreled into his side and knocked him over, but a quick twist of his body sent her tumbling past him before she could pin him down.

She scrambled to regain her footing and found him biting at the tattered shirt. He was wiggling out of the clothing more quickly than she’d thought possible, destroying her initial advantage.

So she braced her back paws against the ground and launched at him again, a fierce snarl erupting from her throat.

He managed to free his front legs and rose to meet her, his teeth scraping across her shoulder and back. They rolled again, one over the other, and he landed on top of her. He swiped at her face with one paw, unsheathed claws digging through her fur.

She kicked out with her back legs and writhed away from him, clawing at his neck with another snarl. When she came to her feet this time, she put herself squarely between her opponent and Jackson.

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She heard Jackson whisper something, but the words made no sense. She didn’t have time to dwell on them anyway, because Charles hunched down and jumped at her.

She met him with one shoulder, but his weight knocked her back. He clawed at her belly, and his jaws snapped on one of her hind legs.

Charles was larger, maybe even stronger, but he was slower too. She raked her claws down his side, and he screeched his pain and twisted to protect his vulnerable stomach. She didn’t give him a chance to recover this time, just leapt on top of him and sank her teeth into the back of his shoulder.

He hissed, but her weight bore him to the floor. She growled and bit him again. He screamed and bucked, but she held tight, her claws digging into his sides. Mackenzie bit him again and again. Finally, she felt the grate and crunch of bone between her teeth.

Charles thrashed. He convulsed, his claws digging into the cheap carpet, and stilled.

Mackenzie rolled away and lay panting on her side as the adrenaline faded and pain took its place. She tried to regain her human form, only to remember too late that she couldn’t, not while the spell was in place that gave Jackson power.

Jackson.
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limped across the room and found Jackson leaning against the peeling wallpaper.

He’d gone pale, and sweat poured down his face and neck in rivulets. His jeans were soaked with blood, and the metallic tang of it stung her nose. She nudged his face with hers, but he didn’t move.

Fear made her whimper as she did it again, harder. He mumbled something, and she lowered her mouth to his hand and nipped him gently.

His bloodied, weak fingers stroked her fur. “Did you get him?” he rasped.

She nipped at his fingers again and lifted her head to nuzzle his cheek with a low purr.

Jackson snorted and moved his hand to the top of her head. “
Finire
.”

It felt uncomfortably like the time she’d shocked herself trying to change a light bulb. Electricity raced through her, leaving a trembling exhaustion in its wake. Her back leg gave out and she sank to the floor next to Jackson as the last of the feeling faded.

Change. You have to change and get a doctor—
She closed her eyes and reached for the power inside her. It was there again, a warm, gentle glow that unfurled as she willed herself back into her human form.

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“Jackson.” Her voice sounded hoarse to her own ears as she pushed herself upright again. She was covered in bloody scratches, along with a few more painful puncture wounds, but the pain was tolerable. Jackson, on the other hand—

She registered the faint sound of sirens as she caught Jackson’s face between her hands. “Someone must have heard the gun and called the police. Is Talbot going to change back to a human?”

“No. He isn’t.” He looked down and grinned. “This is the weirdest damn thing I’ve ever seen in my life.” He turned and opened his clenched fist. A lump of metal lay in his blood-slicked palm.

“Is that—” She lifted the spent bullet from his hand that should have still been in his leg. “Jesus. How are we supposed to explain any of this to the cops? A wild cougar attacked me in the shower and you shot yourself?”

“We don’t explain it.” He climbed to his feet with a pained curse. “We have to get out of here. Can you drive?”

“Only if it’s to a hospital.” Pulling on clothing over the bleeding scratches wasn’t appealing, but driving down the road naked was bound to draw attention. “Can you keep yourself from bleeding to death in the car?” she demanded as she dragged on a pair of pants and her T-shirt.

“I’ve stopped it for now.” He moved slowly, laboriously, but he wasn’t dripping blood on the carpet. “Grab my gun, and www.samhainpublishing.com 383

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get Talbot’s wallet. Hopefully they won’t print the room for a dead cat.” He snatched the bags of herbs and stuffed them into his bag.

She gathered Charles’s clothing and wallet, and shoved the bundle into her duffel. She held Jackson’s gun gingerly in one hand as she swung the bag over her shoulder and took his for good measure. “Here, make sure this doesn’t go off. Give me the keys.”

He handed them over and secured the gun in its holster. It took them only another minute to get into the car, and Jackson leaned back in his seat as she pulled out of the parking lot.

As soon as the sirens had faded away behind them, Mackenzie held out a hand to Jackson. “Cell phone. I need to find a hospital—”

“Get back on the interstate,” he muttered. “Toward home.

There’s a hospital right off I-10.” He handed over his cell phone. “Call Alec. He’s the first listing…” The phone dropped to the seat beside her, and Jackson slumped against his seatbelt.

“Shit.
Shit
.” She ignored the phone and fumbled at Jackson’s neck with one hand before she remembered she didn’t need to feel for a pulse. She could hear his heartbeat, weak but steady. So she turned onto the interstate and prayed like hell as she dialed Alec’s number.