Master of Fire (34 page)

Ice rolled across Smoke’s skin, growing steadily colder as the medallion glowed brighter. He could feel the boiling magic within him growing weaker as the globe drained it away.

“Oh,” Warlock purred, orange eyes shuttering in orgasmic pleasure, “that
is
nice.”

 

 

The line of
mourners snaked through the somber red-carpeted halls of the Gayle Funeral Home. As the sheriff had predicted, hundreds of people had turned out for Mark Davis’s receiving, most of them cops from Greendale County and its surrounding jurisdictions.

They were a quiet group, as might be expected, all too conscious that going down in the line of duty could happen to any of them without any warning at all. The fact that yet another cop had fallen the day before—evidently a gruesome victim of her own K-9 partner—only added to the grim mood.

Logan, standing beside Giada in line, was conscious of being surrounded by uniforms and badges with black mourning bands stretched across them. A couple of days ago, he would have felt like a member of the family in the dress uniform he’d donned as a gesture of respect.

Now he felt like an interloper. He wasn’t one of them anymore.

He was a Magus, a vampire. One of Arthur Pendragon’s warriors. There was pride in that thought, but there was also a certain quiet ache at leaving the law enforcement brotherhood behind.

Yet painful or not, it was his duty. After they’d paid their respects to Mark’s widow, he and Giada would meet the others to continue the search for Warlock and his rogues. Logan had no doubt they’d find them, if not tonight, then tomorrow.

There wasn’t much Arthur Pendragon and his warriors couldn’t handle. A werewolf sorcerer was just more of the same.

If only he was so certain of his skills when it came to more personal relationships. Logan slanted a look at Giada, standing slim and elegant at his side. The tailored black slacks and jacket she wore over that white silk blouse would have made most women look severe. Yet somehow the stern clothing only emphasized Giada’s delicate femininity.

She really was one of the most beautiful women he’d ever met. Yet though he could feel her in his mind, a humming female presence, he sensed she was holding him at a distance. And he didn’t know why.

Logan frowned, studying her cool profile under the tight gold twist of her hair. His mother had told him it could be difficult getting used to being Truebonded. Having someone else inside your head was not the usual human state of being.

The process would probably be even more challenging if you’d Truebonded as a survival strategy rather than a matter of love.

Had he made a mistake, asking Giada for a mental link so early?

Logan shook the question off. They’d done it, and now they were going to have to learn to manage their new psychic link, much as he was learning to manage his vampire abilities. They’d figure out a way to make it work, just as his parents had.

And God knew Arthur and Gwen had gotten through a bumpy patch far worse than this. His mother had basically forced the Truebond on his father by seducing Lancelot. Enraged by the one-night stand, Arthur had demanded a Truebond so she’d be unable to cheat on him again.

He hadn’t been pleased to discover that was exactly what Gwen had intended all along. Thanks to the Truebond, Arthur had forgiven her for manipulating him—it was hard to stay furious at someone when they were part of you. Even so, he’d only recently forgiven Lance.

Logan found it hard to believe his mother had done something like that to begin with; it seemed utterly out of character. But then again, it had been fifteen hundred years ago; she’d been only twenty.

Anyway, if Arthur and Gwen could get through something that serious, this . . . distance should be nothing more than an emotional speed bump.

Surely.

Heartened, he reached out to Giada, trying to brush her thoughts with his. Once again, she fended him off. He felt a stab of pain, sharp as a dagger’s point in his chest.

 

 

Andy clutched his
sister’s hand, his head aching in a savage, rhythmic throbbing. The werewolf had hit him when he’d taken another swing at Regular Guy. He’d known he couldn’t win, but he couldn’t just give in. Not to what the bastards had in mind.

By the time he woke up, they were no longer handcuffed, and the guy—the
fucker
—was done with his preparations.

Head down, Andy stared at his sister’s arm as they held hands. Her wrist was circled by a huge bruise that looked like the prints of the werewolf’s fingers. She must have fought them, too.

Andy discovered he was proud of her.

“It’s going to be okay,” she whispered to him. Her voice sounded funny. Kind of raw, as if she’d been screaming. “Grandpa will save us.”

“I know,” Andy lied.

How would it feel to die? Would it hurt, or would it be so fast he wouldn’t feel anything? He hoped it was fast.

Would he go to heaven?

Maybe he shouldn’t have called Regular Guy a fucker. Except RG
was
a fucker. Anybody who would do something like this to two kids he didn’t even know was definitely a fucker.

“I’ve lost a lot of blood,” RG said. He was whining again. Dumbass. The werewolf was going to black his other eye. Served him right. “I did what you said. All you have to do is arm the devices, and you’ve got a remote for that. Can I go now?”

The werewolf looked around. He’d gone to the front of the van to talk to the wolfgirl, who sat in the driver’s seat. She’d turned into a regular human. Probably because the cops would have pulled them over if she’d still looked like a monster.

Driving while werewolf?
Andy snickered.

“You have done well, human.” But there was something in the werewolf’s voice, something that made the hair stand up on the back of Andy’s neck. “We’ve decided to reward you.”

Oh, crap. Something bad was about to . . .

One minute the werewolf was leaning over the front seat of the van. The next, he was all the way in the back, on top of RG.

Who started screaming like a little girl.

Blood splattered across Andy’s face, and it was all he could do not to scream himself. RG flailed at the monster, and more blood flew. Then the werewolf straightened and stalked away, leaving the guy lying on the floor in a bloody heap.

“You bit me!” Huddled on the bench seat, RG stared at the wolf accusingly. “Why did you bite me?”

“Because you’re a fucker?” Andy muttered.

Heather snickered, then gave him a scandalized look.

“Oh, like you weren’t thinking it,” he whispered.

“I bit you,” the werewolf said, ignoring them as he dropped into the seat behind the driver, “so you’ll become one of us.”

“If he doesn’t die,” Wolfgirl said. She was sitting turned sideways in the driver’s seat. To RG, she added, “You have a twenty-percent chance of burning up in the transition.”

“Odds are you’ll survive, though.” The werewolf licked the blood off his teeth. “And then you’ll have more power than you’ve ever dreamed of.”

RG’s eyes took on a glitter Andy didn’t particularly like. “So the next full moon . . .”

“Full moon, my bushy red tail.” Wolfgirl snorted. “You’ll change sometime in the next hour. The moon’s got nothing to do with it. That’s just a myth.”

RG’s eyes widened. “In the next
hour
?”

Andy and his sister exchanged a sick look. RG a werewolf? Every time Andy thought this couldn’t get worse . . .

It did.

 

 

Pain clawed at
Smoke, raking psychic furrows in his mind, ripping into memory, shredding his magic.

Eating his soul.

He’d battered the globe, first with spells, then with his fists and feet, trying to break through, to get the hell out before there was nothing left of him.

Nothing worked.

“Arhhhhh!” Warlock jerked his ringed fingers free of the globe and jumped back, shaking his hands as if he’d been burned. “Merlin’s balls, you have as much power as the legends say.”

Smoke managed to lift his head and snarl.

His thoughts crept like molasses through the universe of pain he inhabited. Pain in his skull, in his bones, in muscle and flesh, so great he shook with it in constant, rolling tremors.

The wolf regarded him through the globe, frowning. “This is taking too long. I’m going to miss the fun at the funeral home if I don’t speed it up.” Thin black lips rolled off shining fangs. “I want to watch the Celt’s brat die.”

He began to pace around the globe, staring at Smoke with coldly speculative orange eyes. Smoke stared back, panting in a combination of exhaustion, pain, and rage.

There had to be some way to beat the bastard, some weakness he could use. Something. Otherwise Logan, Giada, and the children had no chance at all.

As he glowered, the werewolf gave his hands another absent shake.

And in a flash of inspiration, Smoke realized how he could escape the monster’s trap.

But the price—Gods and devils, the price would be high . . . It might be better to die. But no, dead he was no good to those who needed him. Alive, there was still a chance to get back what had been stolen.

And make the bastard pay.

 

 

The widow looked
like a Katrina survivor, as if she’d seen her entire world washed away and was wading chest-deep in the filthy remains. Lori Davis’s brown eyes were swollen pits of dazed suffering that defeated the makeup she’d so painstakingly applied. She wore a simple black dress and a string of pearls, and she leaned on the stool someone had brought her, half sitting, half standing. The sheriff stood protectively behind her, his expression grim, looking as if he’d been aged ten years by the weight of sheer guilt.

When Logan and Giada stepped up, Lori’s tired eyes brightened, and she managed a smile, though her lips trembled. “Lieutenant MacRoy—I’m glad you could make it.”

Logan shook her extended hand, his smile warm and kind, despite the pain Giada could feel reverberating through the Truebond. “I wouldn’t have missed it. Mark was a hell of a cop, a great bomb tech, and a good friend.”

“He thought a lot of you, too. He told me there was nobody he’d rather go through a door with.”

This was high cop praise, Giada knew. It meant you knew the other officer had your back, regardless of the danger.

Logan drew in a breath as his smile faltered, and Giada winced at the stab of guilt and grief in his mind. “I’m . . . so sorry. More than I can say. If there’s anything you and Tara need—anything at all—just let me know.”

She gave him a sad, tired smile. “Thank you, Lieutenant.” She thought his offer was rote, but Giada knew otherwise. The department had started a fund for Lori and her daughter; Logan had put fifty thousand dollars in it, funds from investments and savings, plus the nest egg his parents had given him when he went out on his own. An anonymous donation Lori probably wasn’t even aware of yet. Knowing Logan, he’d probably add to it as soon as he could.

Giada murmured her own sympathies, even as the momentary animation drained from Lori’s features, leaving her eyes dull with grief.

The line carried them onward after that, toward the casket covered in roses and star lilies and great puffs of baby’s breath. Mounds of floral arrangements surrounded the gleaming oak box, in baskets or vases filled with flowers Giada didn’t even know the name of.

Normally at events like this, the casket was left open so the mourners could view the deceased. Not this time.

There wasn’t enough of him to view.

Giada could feel Logan’s rage grow as they stared at the casket, a fury so intense, his hands started to shake.
I’m going to kill those bastards.

I’ll help,
Giada thought back.

He shot her a faint smile and rested a hand on the small of her back as they started to turn away.

Their attention fell on a uniformed deputy winding his way toward the sheriff. Heather and Andy followed him, both dressed oddly in Windbreakers zipped all the way up. The jackets hung on their bodies, as though somebody had put them in coats intended for adults.

Giada stiffened. Both children’s faces were bruised, blood trailing from Andy’s nose and Heather’s split lip. “What the hell!” the sheriff said, alarmed. “What happened?”

The deputy leaned over to whisper in his ear. His eyes widened, and he went pale as he jerked as if someone had Tased him as he stared at his grandchildren in horror. “Evacuate the building.” Sheriff Jones’s voice rang with command, sure, steady, though Giada could sense his fear. “MacRoy, you’re with me. Where’s Billings?”

“Probably standing in line. I’ll get him.” Logan pulled his department-issued cell off his belt and called the last surviving member of the bomb squad. Meanwhile, a flurry of voices rose around them as the deputies began herding the civilians out of the room.

“What?” Lori asked in bewilderment as the sheriff gently urged her to her feet and handed her off to a deputy. “What’s happening?
What about Mark?
” That last was a wail.

Giada and Logan exchanged a single tense look. They’d be lucky if Mark was the only one in a closed casket when this was over.

 

 

Smoke glared through
the wall of his magical prison. His captor smirked at him before stepping closer.

That’s right, you bastard
, Smoke thought.
Come on. Let’s fi nish it
.

“Such eyes . . .” The Dire Wolf laughed, but if he was going for confidence, he didn’t entirely succeed. “You look as if you’d love nothing better than to rip me open.”

Smoke smiled with bared teeth. “I like to eat the heart first.”

Warlock jolted, then recovered enough to snarl. “We will see who eats what,
pussy
.” He plunged his ringed hands into the globe and sent his power rolling.