Twenty-Sided Sorceress 3 - Pack of Lies (15 page)

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “Max?” I turned and looked for him.

Max shifted from wolf to human, his face scrunched with pain. “Broke my leg,” he said, rubbing the human limb, which appeared straight and unhurt. “I’ll be okay if Mom doesn’t kill me.”

“I’ll tell her you saved my life,” I promised. “Idiot.”

Ezee called out to us and we all moved back toward the house, leaving the bodies where they had fallen. Ezee and Vivian were unhurt, but Levi walked with a limp even in his human body, and cradled an arm against his side.

“I’ll live,” he grunted at his brother. “Stop looking at me like that. You’re worse than my wife.”

Alek disappeared into the trees and returned a few minutes later with an arm load of automatic weapons. “Shouldn’t leave those out there,” he said.

Rosie nodded and brought a sheet to wrap them in. Junebug arrived with the Mustang, gunning down the driveway with a reckless speed that rivaled Levi’s driving.

“That’s my princess,” he said with a pained smile.

I convinced the others they had to stay at the Henhouse. Levi, Harper, and Max were in no condition to fight more, and Alek and I had no idea what we would face at the Den.

“We still don’t know where the assassin is, either,” I pointed out. “Alek and I can handle Eva.” After seeing Alek fight, I was pretty sure Eva was worm food. Especially if I was there to make sure it stayed one on one. Turned out, dire tigers were really scary in action.

There were protests, but Alek and I were out of time. He took the keys to the Mustang and I followed him out the front door and past the bullet-riddled cars. Even his truck had eaten a magazine or two. Broken glass crunched beneath my feet.

“Have fun storming the castle,” Harper called out from the porch.

I turned and waved, yelling back, “Think it will work?”

She grinned at me, obscuring the fear in her expression if not in her posture. “It would take a miracle,” she said, finishing the
Princess Bride
quote.

I was fresh out of miracles, but I still had magic. And I had a Justice with me. It would have to be enough.

“We need to make a detour,” I told Alek as we drove away from the Henhouse. “I left Samir’s knife in the quarry.” The knife was magical, a blade able to hurt things that shouldn’t have been able to be hurt by physical weapons. I couldn’t leave it lying around. Besides, having a weapon like that going into whatever we were driving toward at the Den wouldn’t hurt.

“All right,” he said. His expression was grim. His eyes met mine for a moment before returning to the road. “Are we all right?” he said softly.

I thought about the dead wolves. The blood still drying sticky on my shirt. I’d wiped the worst of it off, but I could still smell it, feel it on my skin. They had made their choices. We had made ours. All we could do was keep fighting, keep making choices, and hope the scales balanced in the end.

“Yes,” I said grimly. “We’re just fine.”

The sun was high enough by the time we reached the quarry to fling shadows across the stones and highlight the scars and ridges in the naked rock. Alek drove the Mustang right up to the boulders.

“Keep it running,” I said. “I’ll be quick.”

I jumped out of the car and jogged toward where Levi and I had found Alek’s body the night before. There was still a dark stain on the ground from his blood and I shivered remembering his crumpled, dying body.

Samir’s knife was still there. The air felt oddly still, though the scene looked undisturbed. Another shiver ran up my spine and goosebumps broke out.

A hint of smoke touched my nose as I reached the blade. Smoke and ink. Magic. Enough of a warning that I dropped flat and the first shot missed.

One of the boulders moved, resolving itself into the assassin as he raised a gun and fired again. He’d made a mistake, coming this close, choosing terrain that wouldn’t burn, choosing a place where I didn’t have to worry about witnesses or collateral damage.

I lashed out with magic, ripping the gun from his hands. My power raged through me. I was ready for this shit now.

I sent my magic out in a circle, throwing up a dome of force around us, boxing him in with me. He was faster than I was, in better physical shape. Clearly he knew how to fight. All advantages I didn’t have.

The assassin tried to back away, drawing two more kunai as he sprang backward and slammed into my magical Thunderdome.

His breath hissed out through his teeth as he steadied himself, and his face lost its perpetually bland expression.

“Who are you?” I asked. I tied off the spell, anchoring it to the rocks. It wouldn’t last forever, minutes perhaps, but I couldn’t keep channeling it and shield myself as well. Or go on the attack.

“Who are you?” he asked back, his beetle-hard eyes narrowing.

I pushed my magic into a shield just over my skin, much like I had at the Henhouse before trying to attract the attention of men with machine guns. One of his kunai spun toward me and I slapped it out of the air with a glittering, shielded fist.

“Jade Crow casts harden,” I muttered. “It’s super effective.” I tightened my grip on Samir’s knife and crouched. “Only way to get out of here is to kill me,” I told him. I figured saying “come at me, bro” would have been too much. Adrenaline pumped through my brain, carrying me into a high that fueled my power, made me feel like I could do anything, take on anyone. I felt giddy with magic and bloodlust.

The assassin came at me, darting in so quickly I barely got my knife up before he was slashing at me with his own blades. I felt every cut and impact on my shields, felt my power being used up, draining, each blow pushing me around, off balance. I tried to slash back, but he was far too quick, my dome giving him just enough room to maneuver on the uneven ground and circle me.

I threw bolts of force at him, recklessly spending magic. Beyond the slight shimmer of the dome, I saw Alek rush up. Saw him pause, his mouth moving. I couldn’t hear his words.

Looking at Alek distracted me, and the assassin came at my back, his knife slicing into my leg, cutting through my weakening shield. White-hot pain lanced up my hip. The assassin slapped something to my back and retreated. Reaching back, I snatched the paper and flung it away from myself, dropping low as fire raged around me.

The air grew thin, breathing more difficult. My shield had cut off everything, apparently. Things to think about and refine later. Smoke filled my nose, made my eyes water. My leg gave out under me and I slashed at the dark shape as the assassin hit me again, this time taking me to the ground. I couldn’t breathe. The fire had eaten all the oxygen.

He rolled me under him, trapping my legs. I looked up into his face as he sat up and pressed a kunai to my chest. His skin was blotchy, his lips turning blue. He was out of air as well.

I don’t need to breathe
, I told myself.
Air is optional. Remember the lessons of the pool
. I stopped breathing and focused on the magic inside myself, pouring my power out to encase the assassin in icy cold, envisioning everywhere he touched me as frozen, dead.

He tried to scream as frost rimed over him, speeding up the blade to his arm, wrapping itself around his throat, locking his limbs. Ice didn’t need air. Ice was good against fire.

I pulled my arms free and smashed the dome, breaking the circle.

Air rushed in and I gasped for breath. I put Samir’s knife against the assassin’s throat, exhaustion making my hand shake. He was still frozen, though I felt his skin warming where he knelt on my stomach, his body starting to twitch.

I jerked the kunai out of his hand, pushing his frozen arm away from my chest, keeping my own knife against the pulse in his neck. The assassin’s eyes watched me, unafraid. He was ready for death.

I wondered if he was ready for worse than death. I set my hand against his chest, felt the beating of his heart. Samir had sent him to kill me. This man had tried to kill my friends, had hurt people I loved. Plus, he had really pissed me off.

Old Jade Crow might have let him go. Months ago, I might have. He was human. A week ago, I would have merely killed him.

Today, I flipped the switch inside. No more defensive. No more playing by rules that only got people I loved hurt.

New rules.

“I’m sorry,” I said softly. Then I focused my magic into my hand and ripped out the assassin’s heart.

Power and knowledge surged through me as I swallowed a bite of the assassin’s heart. His name was Haruki and he was forty-one years old. He hadn’t lied about growing up in the Oki Shoto islands. His life flitted through my mind and I pushed it away for later examination.

I felt Alek pulling Haruki’s body off me and opened my eyes, still vibrating with the new power as it mingled with my own magic, joining. Like dumping a pond into an ocean, the ripples went on for a while before fading away.

Alek helped me to my feet. I carefully sheathed Samir’s knife and then tossed the remainder of Haruki’s heart onto his body.

“You are injured,” Alek said.

I tested my leg. The cut was already closing. “I’ll live,” I said. “Go to the car, I’ll be there in a moment.”

He studied my face for a breath and then nodded. There was no judgment in his eyes, only concern. I watched him walk away before turning back to Haruki’s body.

I wiped my bloody mouth on my equally bloody teeshirt, annoyed that the blood tasted almost sweet, almost good to me. Then I crouched and closed Haruki’s clouded eyes. Using his own blood and his own memories, I drew a sigil on his forehead, imbuing it with power.

“Good bye, Katayama Haruki,” I said softly in Japanese, using his surname first and then his given name. Then I turned and limped to the car as his body ignited behind me, a last wave of inky heat following me. I did not look back.

Stonebrook Hunting Lodge, the official name of the Den, was about six miles out of town down a partially paved road that wound up a hill through pristine old-growth forest. It was a faux-castle, a hulking stone and wood building with two main wings joined by a three-story-tall great hall and flanked by squat, mostly decorative stone towers. There was only one approach to the Den; a long driveway that climbed the hill and terminated in a circular drive in front of the huge stone steps leading to the giant red doors of the great hall.

Cars filled the parking lot carved into the hill beside the Den, shining like Skittles in the morning sunlight as Alek and I stopped the Mustang at the bottom of the hill, pulling as far off to the side and into the shadow of the trees as we could.

“How many alphas are here?” I asked.

“Counting their seconds?” Alek thought for a moment as we stared up at the big stone building. Only the upper part was visible from where we were. We’d have to go farther up the drive to see the doors. “Two hundred and thirty wolves, I believe.”

I wondered who the wolves we’d killed at the Henhouse had been, what pack they were with. I hoped it wasn’t Wylde’s pack helping betray everything their former alpha had lived for, had worked to build.

“I believe your line is ‘time’s up, let’s do this,’” Alek said with a slight smile.

“We live through this, I’m going to make you watch that YouTube video,” I said, smiling back at him. Nerves fluttered in my belly and then calmed. We would live through this, I promised myself. This was a beginning, this new start between us, and I wasn’t going to give it up so easily this time.