Inquisitor (Witch & Wolf Book 1) (43 page)

“As I’ve seen. As always, I’m impressed with your ability,” the man replied. I decided he wasn’t from France or Quebec. I’d heard French and Quebec accents before, and his accent wasn’t it.

“It helped that they came right to me,” Ajahine murmured.

“The werewolf is an interesting catch. And the woman?”

“An Inquisition witch, of course. I was surprised to see her here. She belongs to a sect down in Georgia.” The woman laughed. “I love how they fight among themselves. It makes my work so much easier. Still, you’ll want to be careful, sir. She’s quite old for a witch, and you may break her.”

I bristled at Ajahine’s pleased tone.

“And the wolf?”

“Probably one of those victims the Inquisition has been buzzing about. It looked like they were taking advantage of the storm to escape the outpost.”

“You’re lucky the storm let up when it did,” the man chided. Then he chuckled, a deep throaty sound. “You’re no use to me dead.”

“I had to act then, or never, Max.”

Max snorted. “I understand that. Well, show them to me, woman. I don’t have all day to waste. What type of wolf did you bag me?”

I heard the cloth rustle and flap as it was whipped off the cage. Lying still took all of my effort. I drew a deep breath. The only wolf I could smell was me.

Humans.

I considered Ajahine’s words. While I had been aware of splinter groups within the Inquisition, why would Amelia risk shooting the head of the order? Why would she shoot Anderson, with whom she’d worked for so many years?

I was about ready to howl my frustration at having no answers.

Max whistled, drawing my attention back to the him. “That’s no gray wolf.”

“A beauty, isn’t she? Definitely my best catch.” Pride infused Ajahine’s voice. “Want me to have the boys trot her out?”

“She’ll fetch a pretty penny on the market for certain. Bitches are rare enough. With her looks? Packs across the world’ll be lining up to have her.” His gleeful tone forced a growl out of me.

“Ah, she’s coming around,” Ajahine said.

With my play dead ruse busted, I opened my eyes and bared my teeth. A man and woman, both middle-aged, stared at me from a safe distance. Max was a Caucasian, though I couldn’t tell where he was from on appearance alone. Ajahine was covered from head to toe in dark, form-concealing robes. Even if I managed to get my head through the bars, they’d be able to dodge my efforts to bite them.

“Should we separate them? It would be a shame if the wolf were to kill the witch,” Max said.

Ajahine laughed. “With that much silver on her? She’s lucky she isn’t writhing in pain. A tough one, this bitch, but she’s in no shape to kill her cage mate.”

“And the witch?”

“There’s enough rue-infused cold iron in her chains to keep a fae down, let alone a mere witch.”

“Not yarrow? Curious.”

“It’s in the cage bars. Don’t worry, Max. These two will be going nowhere. They’re ready for transport as soon as you’re ready to take them.”

“Excellent. How long until the storm clears enough for us to take off?”

“Several hours to clear the runaway,” Ajahine replied, twisting around to stare at something behind her. “Another hour to de-ice the plane, then prep and take off.”

“See to it,” Max ordered.

Ajahine bowed. “As you wish, sir.”

Max pivoted and marched away.

Once the man was gone, Ajahine turned to face me. “I hope you’re skinned for your pelt, wolf.”

I put my ears back, my growl rumbling in my chest. To my surprise, Ajahine recoiled, fleeing from my presence as though something from hell chased after her.

~*~

“Those fools.”

Amelia’s voice cut over my growls, startling me into silence. The steel form of a cargo plane emerged as the snow lessened outside. The open space around us proved to be a hangar, one spacious enough for a 747.

I cursed my inability to speak English while trapped as a wolf. At least, for whatever reason, I wasn’t dying to scratch my way out of my fur.

Maybe Anderson had been right, and I had somehow concocted my allergies due to my fear of not being a human. Maybe I was a one-trick pony of the witch world because I was too busy manifesting symptoms of allergies to do anything productive with my abilities.

“Any idea where they are taking us?”

I shook my head.

“Did you see them?”

I nodded.

“Americans?”

Putting both of my ears back, I exposed my teeth and growled.

“No? They weren’t British. African?”

If I could have put my paws over my eyes, I would have. Charades didn’t work so well without hands. I didn’t know what Amelia was expecting of me. Maybe she’d been hit on the head? I twisted around to stare at her with a baleful gaze.

“Another no, then. Asian? No? Eastern European?”

At the rate we were going, I feared she’d name every stereotypical racial group before she guessed the correct one. I sighed.

The cargo plane roared to life.

“Ah, Middle Eastern,” Amelia chirped in a pleased tone.

I whipped my head around, raising the volume of my growls threefold. Max and Ajahine approached the cage with five men following in their wake. Thug was too nice of a word for any one of the men making up the scarred, muscle-bound group. They reeked of sweat, blood, oil, and snow. I sneezed at the onslaught of scents.

“Good morning, Amelia,” Ajahine said sweetly. “You’re looking well for a dead woman.”

“I’m afraid you have the advantage,” Amelia replied in a neutral tone that I recognized as her preparing to play dirty with a lawyer. As a judge, Amelia had been frightening. In her role as a lawyer, the woman was downright terrifying.

Ajahine smiled. “You’re right. I do. Here’s how this is going to work. I’ll ask the questions. You’ll answer them. Satisfy me, and you’ll still be alive when the plane lands. Have I made myself clear?”

“As crystal,” Amelia replied, her voice so cold it sent shivers crawling through me. “May I begin with an observation?”

With narrowed eyes, Ajahine regarded the witch in the cage with me. “What is it?”

“Unless this is a particularly short flight, you may wish to remove some of the silver from this wolf. I’m afraid she was shot with a silver bullet recently. This excessive use of silver will have an adverse consequence on her health.”

“A silver bullet,” Ajahine murmured, eying me with the same sort of trepidation someone viewed an angry cobra.

On cue, I whined and shuddered. While the silver wasn’t bothering me all that much, I hoped Amelia had a plan, because I didn’t. It beat doing nothing at all. Staging a convulsion was painful. The chains bit into my skin, and not even the witch part of me could protect me from that.

Burnt wolf fur dulled my sense of smell, and the pain of silver poisoning stabbed through me. My yelp wasn’t faked.

“Nasty things, silver bullets. Tricky as hell to make, and only old silver works. Heirlooms, prized pieces of jewelry, things like that. Things as old, or older, than the wolf you’re trying to kill.” Amelia sounded smug.

“And silver this old does what to a wolf?”

Amelia looked surprised. “It kills them, of course. Gets in their blood. Burns them to crisps from the inside out. Unpleasant business, silver bullets. Takes a little longer for it to get into their blood when they’re exposed to chains or jewelry, but it’ll do the job all the same. Takes longer, but it’s a pretty popular interrogation tool in the Inquisition. I thought you knew.”

Max frowned. “That’s not what we were told.”

Amelia’s laugh rang out, sweet with her amusement. I growled at the old witch’s pleasure. “I’ve been killing wolves for longer than you’ve been alive. If you want to make sure a wolf stays dead, you use silver and cut off their heads. Anything less, and they might get back up again. Your loss, then. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I decided Amelia was far more frightening than I had ever imagined possible. She was either a really good liar, or the woman was a natural-born killer of my kind.

How had Marrodin turned from the sanctuary I had envisioned to the ultimate hunting ground for the Inquisition? How long had I been blind?

Max’s frown deepened.

“We can’t unbind that thing,” Ajahine hissed through clenched teeth. “She’s a blight, a profanity against—”

“Silence.”

Ajahine shuddered, rubbing her arms through her robes. After a long moment, and a glare from her companion, she nodded.

“This is what we’ll do. Ajahine, remove the chains, one by one, until the witch says the wolf will live for an eighteen hour transport. Any tricks, and you’ll die. I want that wolf alive.”

With a violent shake of her head, Ajahine recoiled from the cage. “I will not release such a blasphemous creature—”

“Ajahine,” Max whispered low enough I struggled to hear him over the plane’s engine. “You will do as I command, or you will become food for the wolf.”

My stomach soured at the thought of eating a human. Ajahine’s fear overwhelmed all of the other scents in the hanger.

“Open the cage,” Max ordered.

Two of Max’s thugs obeyed in silence. The first of the locks fell away.

Amelia stilled, her gaze predatory, focused on Max and Ajahine.

The second lock fell away. With a metallic groan, the cage’s door swung open.

“Go, Ajahine,” Max ordered. “One chain at a time until the Inquisitor witch deems that the wolf will survive the journey.”

“I recommend removing the silver from her head. A steel and leather muzzle will suffice,” Amelia said. “The silver will get into her blood faster through her head. It’s one of their weak spots.”

“Do it.”

Ajahine took a hesitant step forward. I met the woman’s eyes, challenging her with my stare. With a faint gasp, she froze.

“Ajahine.” Max’s voice deepened with the promise of violence. “Do you intend to defy me? To defy our cause? Such a wolf will make us wealthy. Without her wealth, we cannot succeed.”

Like Amelia, I stilled and listened. What did they want?

Amelia’s eyes brightened with some unknown victory. “She is a very, very valuable wolf. Priceless, even. Why, you could start wars with her existence alone. I could help you.”

“Wars?” Max breathed the question out on a sigh. “Speak.”

“You didn’t know what prize you had, did you?” Amelia laughed, loud and long. “Why, you’ve captured Aurora, the Shimmering Wolf, Caretaker of the Seasons. You may have heard of her.”

“Aurora? This wolf is
Aurora?
” Max’s laugh rumbled out of him. “I could do so much more than cause wars with her, indeed. You are correct. Amelia is your name, yes? She
is
priceless. Ajahine, remove the silver from her this once.”

Ajahine hesitated for a moment too long. Max drew a gun from a concealed holster, firing before I realized he was armed. The silencer made a quiet pop.

Red blossomed from Ajahine’s chest. She crumpled to the ground, eyes wide from shock. Blood bubbled from her lips before she twitched and stilled.

“Do not make me repeat myself.”

Max’s four thugs fell over each other in their attempt to enter the cage at the same time. Amelia pressed close to me.

“Close your eyes,” she whispered.

I obeyed.

A few moments later, all I could hear was screaming.

~*~

In some horror movies and books, death
from fear was a reality. In my lifetime, I’d never seen it actually happen—not to a human, at least. Rabbits, some birds, and even the occasional deer would tip over dead, victim to nothing more than the awareness that I was hunting them.

The stench of terror filled the air, but the cloying scent of deaths I hadn’t caused polluted the hunger-inducing aroma. The screams stopped, leaving the sputtering of the dying plane engines to echo in the hangar. That too died away, guttering out in the same fashion of a candle burned down to a stub.

“You can open your eyes now,” Amelia whispered in my ear. There was a tired, wavering quality to her voice.

I cracked open an eye. The four brutes lay piled on top of each other in front of the opened cage door. Blood oozed from their noses and mouths. A little farther away, Max still lived, though I doubted he would last long.

“Fae. . .” he gasped.

I jerked away from Amelia, whining as the silver wrapped around me bit into my skin. The woman’s smile widened. “No, child. I’m not a fae. Who were you working for?”

A spark of resistance lit Max’s eyes before the life fled from him.

“Fool,” Amelia muttered.

I stared at the bodies in turn, wondering what had frightened them so much it killed them. What sort of power could do such a thing?

The man’s final accusation chilled me.
Fae
. The beings of myth, folklore, and poetry probably did exist somewhere in the world. Smart wolves avoided the quiet places where magic ran wild. Smart wolves were content to believe without seeing or knowing.