hidden talents (23 page)

It was a partial consolation that they focused on her.

“Get the girl,” one said to the other.

Ari didn"t know why they wanted her, and she didn"t care. She didn"t kid herself that she could fight off two eight-foot tall tusked demons, but she did want their attention. With this in mind, she seized the athame from Francis"s cooling hand. Hopefully, she was holding it like she meant business. The anti-magic cuffs probably ensured that she wasn"t. The spinks were grinning as they approached.

“Stay back!” she ordered. “I"ll stick this right in your family jewels.”

“I"ll show you my family jewels,” both demons said in unnerving unison.

Ari retreated so fast she coshed the back of her head on a metal shelf loaded with specimen jars. She would have said there was nothing left to do then but pray, except one of the spink demon"s necks abruptly disappeared in a spray of blood. Adam had completed his transformation. His wolf had bitten through the demon"s throat from behind. The head dropped and bounced off the demon"s foot.

Adam"s balance was so perfect he rode the headless body to the ground, then used it as a springboard to attack the other spink. The demon was considerably bigger than the oversized timberwolf, but Adam was both ferocious and lightning quick. He darted in and out at his opponent, snapping like a crocodile and ripping big bites from him. Ari guessed spinks weren"t tasty. Adam was spitting out the bites.

In another corner of the room, Lord Grygir was rolling on the floor with his former guard. Despite being gagged and bound, he was putting up a fight by using his head and legs as weapons. Blackwater ran over to them and dragged Grygir back by his binding.

“I"ll give you the faerie!” he cried to the purple demon. “He"s got plenty of juice.”

The demon had his head and one arm squeezed out of the portal. He seemed unimpressed by this offer. “I"ll take you all,” he swore.

He wasn"t going to get the chance just them.

The second spink demon had succumbed to Adam"s vicious bite-by-bite

assault, freeing Adam to make quick work of Secret Service guy. He was just a human, and Ari swore that only took two seconds. Then, with his wolfish lips curled back and his eyes afire, Adam streaked toward Blackwater. His furious snarls stood Ari"s hair on end. The Eunuch didn"t like them either. Clearly terrified, his grip on Grygir faltered. The fae lord wrenched free, and Adam"s wolf leaped straight for his target"s chest.

Kareem McKenzie couldn"t have executed a better tackle. Blackwater

literally toppled into the demon"s hand. Adam twisted in mid-air, neatly squeaking out of danger. Blackwater screamed as the demon hauled him through the portal"s slit and into its own realm.

The sounds that followed were indescribably awful.

“Well,” panted a beautiful male voice. “That ought to keep the demon

occupied for a few minutes. Too bad I can"t close this thing.”

Lord Grygir was on his feet but none too steady. His magical trussing still bound his arms, though he"d worked off his gag. His eyes were red-rimmed, either with sorrow or anger at the loss of his men. His former captor was lying very still - dead, she presumed - leaving her, the fae lord and Adam alone with the ripped portal.

Adam padded to her with his tongue lolling, wolf claws clicking on the

electrum floor. He stationed himself between her and the faerie, as if he felt a need to guard her. The bloodied fur on his back came up as high as her waist. Ari went ahead and buried her cuffed hands in it.

“Um,” she said, feeling a little shy what with one sexy man leaning into her all furry while another stood before her naked as a jaybird. “Do you mean you"re too weak to close the portal or that you don"t know how?”

She must have insulted the faerie. He answered a tad stiffly.

“I mean it takes a specific sort of magic to close a door someone else opened, a magic I personally don"t have access to right now. Blackwater probably intended the spink twins to be backup to perform the spell.”

“They were twins?” she said, surprised she actually had the energy to be startled.

Before the fae lord could answer, Adam whined softly and nudged her thigh.

“Oh!” Ari exclaimed. “Adam knows how to close it. At least, I think he does.

His parents used to work in Portal Management. Maybe you could help him change back to human form? I don"t think he can shift soon enough without the moon.”

Grygir studied her with more attention than she expected. “You and the

werewolf are lovers?”

“Yes,” she said, then blushed for no good reason.

“Very well,” said the faerie. “We may have some cause for hope after all.”

∞

Adam wasn"t surprised the fae lord knew enough werewolf lore to be familiar with the concept of twin flames. Twin flames weren"t as rare as - say - unicorns, and many species had similar ideas, but those who were mates in spirit as well as body were mystically special. Though werewolves weren"t known for performing magic aside from the change, twin flames working together could accomplish marvels trained sorcerers could not - shutting down portals being a notable one.

Anything to do with magic interested faeries, partly because they always wanted to command the leading edge.

Adam"s sweet and eccentric parents had been considered a successful

example of a twin flame pair, going into law enforcement from their own unique angle. When he was young, they sometimes took him to empty fields, where they"d practice their special craft. One of the fae who rotated on assignment with Portal Management would call up small doors for them to close. Adam had seen his parents work the tricks of their trade many hundreds of times. He knew how to shut this portal.

The real question was, could Ari shut it with him?

He didn"t have time for doubt. The noise of the purple demon rending

Blackwater into pieces wasn"t as loud as before. Likely, the demon was too angry to draw the process out. When it finished its current meal, Adam was certain it intended to cross into Resurrection for more victims.

Adam waited for Lord Grygir to pull himself together enough to cast off his magical bindings. Faeries didn"t have to worry about using up their life force the way sorcerers did. Near immortals, they had too much magic to draw on to ever run out of it. Still, they could momentarily tire themselves. By the time Grygir had freed himself and shook out his tall sparkly wings, he looked ready to collapse.

Perfectly willing to spare his pride, Adam sank to the floor at his feet, his bloodied muzzle resting on his paws. Now the fae could sit without admitting he needed to. He did so with a sigh, laying his hands very gently in Adam"s fur.

The touch of most fae was pleasurable. Grygir was a lord, and his magic was especially potent. If Adam had been pure wolf, he"d have wriggled ecstatically.

Since he was a man, and not entirely comfortable with getting boners for other guys, he gritted his teeth against the truly wonderful tingles.

Luckily, Grygir was aware of the need for haste and didn"t prolong the

procedure. He murmured an abbreviated spell for shapechanging, then shot one final big wave of tingles into him.

“Rise,” he said. “Walk as a man.”

Just like that, Adam was back in his own skin, the shift too speedy to have hurt. He uncurled from the floor and stood. As he"d feared, he had a hard-on stiff enough to pound nails. Ari glanced at it and fought a smile.

“Faerie dust,” he said. “It would happen to anyone.”

Ari shook her head, her blue eyes twinkling. “Who said I was complaining?”

“What do you need for your ritual?” Grygir cut in politely.

He needed two struts of metal to form an X, preferably long enough to cover the door from corner to corner. He and Grygir pried them from the room"s steel shelving, doing their best not to disturb the noisome specimens it held. That done, they brought the bars to the now unnervingly quiet portal.

Stepping into Francis"s circle caused tiny jolts of electricity to shoot up his body hair. They couldn"t see what was going on behind the barrier. The surface of the portal had reverted to muddied swirls of black and purple.

Adam turned back to Ari. “I need you,” he said.

She heard the meaning beyond the moment. Her eyes widened, but all she did was step closer and take the hand he wasn"t using to hold the metal bar. Her palms were warm and a little sweaty. Handcuffs notwithstanding, he thought he"d never felt a clasp as nice.

By changing form, he"d broken the moon bond between them. When her gaze met his, that didn"t seem to matter. In his heart, in his soul, he"d always be linked to her.

“What do you need?” she whispered.

“I"m going to say some words and cut our fingers. When I tell you, we"ll both squeeze a drop of blood onto the center of the X.”

“Better hurry,” Grygir said, from the other side of the metal structure. “It"s awfully quiet in there.”

Adam hurried so much the faerie had to correct his pronunciation a couple times. He hadn"t quite finished when the purple demon began to snarl. Knowing he must have figured out what they were doing, Grygir grabbed the athame and pricked their fingers.

“Now,” Adam said to Ari just as the demon slammed into the

interdimensional barrier. The force of the impact caused the strange skin to bulge.

“No,” the demon growled in its deep sea voice. “I paid for this portal!”

Again, it slammed the door with its massive shoulder. Adam and Grygir dug in and braced. The X trembled badly enough that their first drops of blood missed the spot. Fortunately, they hit the mark on the second try.

A blinding flash of light swallowed up the room. When it faded, not only was the portal gone, but also the X that had sealed it
and
all of Francis"s chalk circles.

“Wow,” Ari said, blinking rapidly at the place they"d been. “Now all we have to do is get past the dozen armed goons outside the door.”

“They"re gone,” Adam and Grygir said at the same time. Apparently, both their ears were sharp enough to have heard the soldiers leave.

Ari snickered at their unplanned chorus, a reaction that wasn"t quelled by them turning together to frown at her.

“You guys are too adorable!” she exclaimed.

Considering how she"d ogled the fae earlier, Adam"s inner wolf didn"t like her inclusiveness. It wanted to be the only male she adored.

∞

Adam and the faerie dressed as quickly as they could in what were

unavoidably dead men"s clothes, though Ari noticed neither of them touched Blackwater"s. They were correct about the basement outside the spell room being empty. The house above was a different story. There, a heated battle raged, marked by thumps, crashes, small arms fire, and the shouts and cries of various species. It sounded like a zoo was at war.

Halfway up the cellar steps, Adam cocked his head in a wolfish way. “My men are fighting up there. Grant must have gotten a message through.”

Grant"s name clutched at her throat. Adam turned to her.

“You stay here,” he said. “I don"t want you getting hurt in the confusion.”

“Here?” she said, not liking that idea. This cellar had been creepy before it was scattered with dead people.

Adam lifted his brows at Grygir, who was a step behind her.

“Oh no,” the fae lord said, continuing their bromance thing by immediately comprehending Adam"s silent message. “I"m not hanging back to guard her.”

“Some people would claim you owe me.”

“Not that much,” Grygir said darkly.

“Fine,” Ari surrendered, understanding he wanted retribution for his fallen men. “I get it. Guns bad. Me not have one.” She also wouldn"t have known how to shoot one if she"d been given it. There was a possibility she could stop a bullet with her telekinesis, but perhaps that theory would be bettered tested under more controlled conditions, and without her handcuffs. “I"ll wait out the fighting here.

But -”

Adam had been moving upward to join the fray. “But?”

“You will come back for me, won"t you?”

And there it was: the whole stupid snarl of fear that sometimes seemed to have replaced the person she was supposed to be. Was there anyone she could truly count on to stick by and defend her?

The craziest thing was Adam"s eyes filled with tears. He reached out to squeeze her shoulder. “I"ll come back for you, Ari. You can ... bet your Yankees jacket on that.”

She smiled, because he"d understood what the garment meant to her.

He and Grygir paused at the cellar door before going out. “She can bet her
Yankees jacket
?” she heard Grygir ask dryly. “You wolves sure are romantics.”

Ari begged to differ with his sarcasm. One wolf at least was the perfect romantic for her.

∞

Ari meant to keep her word. She just couldn"t sit on her thumbs in that damned basement. It wasn"t the dead bodies that got to her. It was the noise of the fighting over her head.

Though she was no pro, she had some experience picking locks from the days when she and her friends would break into empty buildings to squat in bad weather. Trying to open her cuffs with Francis"s athame seemed worth a shot.

Actually, it was better than a shot. The magic left in the blade was strong. Ari had barely stuck the tip in the key slot when the things snapped open.

She wished she"d known the knife would do that when the spinks had been closing in on her.

The regret wasn"t important now that she was free to sneak out. She told herself she"d be careful; hide behind a door or a corner and use her gift to help.

The damping wards remained around the house, but she could feel they weren"t as solid as before. There were frayed places to get through them, if she kept her focus. She prayed the rune in her hair did what Grant had claimed. Good concentration was going to be vital.

Just in case it failed, she took the knife with her as well.

Creeping out onto the ground floor was more nerve wracking than she"d

expected. She wasn"t prepared for the reality of groups of people trying to slaughter each other. Fortunately, there were places to hang back out of the way.