Master of Shadows (32 page)

“Who the hell are you to preach to us, murderer?” somebody shouted.

Davon froze. “Yes.” The word emerged in a low voice, and yet somehow it seemed to fill the room. “I did kill an innocent boy. That’s why I surrendered myself to your justice.”

His dark hands curled into fists. “But since I’ve been your prisoner, I haven’t seen any justice. I’ve seen cowardice. I’ve seen corruption. I’ve seen people who’d better pray neither Merlin nor Jesus ever comes back to Earth.”

“That’s enough!” Rosen snapped.

“No, it’s not! Come over here, Carl. Let everybody take a sniff while you lie and say you weren’t paid to vote for war.”

The chairman took an angry step toward him, then hesitated, eyeing Tristan. The knight stood just behind Davon wearing an evil grin. “Nobody paid me! And there is no Warlock.”

Davon looked out over the audience. “Take a deep breath, folks. I can smell the stink from here. Can’t you?”

“Are you going to listen to a murderer?” Tanner shouted. “He cut off a boy’s head—from behind! Like a coward! And he has the
gall
to accuse us of anything?”

“I was under a spell,” Davon snarled. “Though you’re right—it doesn’t matter why I killed that child. It doesn’t matter that I thought I was saving other children.” He stalked up to Tanner through the blinding red haze of his rage. “But the difference between us is that I killed because I thought it was my duty. I didn’t sell other people’s blood for money.”

He poked a stiffened index finger into the werewolf’s chest. “If you take these people to war, you will be just as guilty of murder as I am. But you’ll do it deliberately, because you have no more conception of honor than a dog.”

“Kid sounds like Arthur when you get him on a roll,” Lancelot observed in the boiling silence.

“Shut up,” Gawain told him. “I’m enjoying this.”

Tanner growled, the sound dropping into a throbbing rumble as magic detonated around him. A heartbeat later, he loomed over Davon, better than seven feet of fur and claws. “You little fuck,” Tanner snarled, “you’re a dead man.”

He lunged. And Davon thought,
One bite and it’s all over . . .

 

Miranda dropped her
hands to the floor and sat there, so weary it was all she could do to breathe. Healing the damage the bullet had done had left her dangerously drained.

Hannah opened her eyes and blinked up at her. “Randi?” She licked her lips and frowned. “Randi, what happened?”

“Robbers.” Miranda pulled her shoulders back and managed a smile. “Robbers happened. They must have hit you on the head or something. When I came in, you were unconscious.”

“Really?” Terror widened her eyes, and she tried to sit up. “Oh, man! Are they still here?”

“Don’t worry about those guys.” Catching her friend by the shoulders, Miranda gently pushed her back down and sent magic rolling with a flick of her fingers. A moment later, both men lay beside the register just out of Hannah’s sight, trussed up in electrical cord. “They’re still out cold,” Miranda said brightly. “They were trying to figure out how to get the register open when I walked up behind them and hit them in the head with that big ol’ heavy mop we use in the back. Boom goes the dynamite,
et voilà
—unconscious idiots.”

“Wow.” Hannah lifted her head with an effort, obviously still dazed. Miranda might have healed the worst of her injuries, but she still wasn’t clicking on all cylinders. “That was really brave. You saved my life.”

Alarmed, Miranda said hastily, “Oh, don’t be melodramatic. I hit the silly bastards with a mop. Big deal.”

“It
is
a big deal,” Hannah insisted. “People get on CNN for that kind of thing.”

“More like
America’s Dumbest Criminals
. Look, the one thing I don’t need is fifteen minutes of fame . . .”

“Oh,” Hannah said wisely. “You’re running from someone.”

Miranda blinked at how close this was to the mark, started to deny it, then changed her mind. “Yeah, I am. I’ve got this ex-boyfriend who put me in the hospital a time or two.” Almost true, except for the boyfriend part. And the hospital part; she’d had to heal herself.

“I know what that’s like.”

“I know. Thing is, he swore if he couldn’t have me, nobody else could, so the one thing I don’t want is airtime. So don’t say anything about me to the cops, okay?”

“But how will I explain the robbers?”

“Say you hit ’em. Then you can be the hero. You’d probably enjoy fifteen minutes of fame. God knows you deserve it after the crap you put up with.”

Hannah looked doubtful. “Well, I don’t know . . .”

“What a pretty lady,” a male voice purred just before the sense of power hit Miranda: huge, dark, and as threatening as a hurricane. Her heart shot into her throat as she whirled to see a man move out of the kitchen as silently as a snake.

He was tall, better than six-five, and his shoulder-length brown hair was streaked with gray. He had angular, sharply cut features that might have been considered handsome—until you saw his eyes. They were cruel and black, and magic burned behind them, blazing hot with glints of werewolf orange.

“Warlock sent you.” It wasn’t a question.

His mouth twitched into a smile, as though he found her funny. “Yeah. Seems you’ve really pissed Daddy off, little girl.”

“Who the hell are you?” Hannah demanded.

Panic stabbed Miranda. “Go to sleep!” she snapped, and her friend’s head dropped back so fast, it bumped the floor. She’d probably have a lump in the morning, but that was better than being dead.

The assassin grinned, and Miranda snarled at him. “She’s got no part of this. She’s just a human. Let her be. I haven’t told her anything about Warlock.”

He shook his head. “You didn’t get that soft streak from Daddy, that’s for damned sure.”

“No,” Miranda said. “But I did get this.” Reaching into the Mageverse, she seized the magic, dragged it into her soul, and sent it blasting into the assassin’s face.

The bolt picked him up like a paper doll in a tornado and blew him through the swinging kitchen door. He slammed into the solid steel freezer unit and slid limply to the floor.

Miranda whirled and bolted, banging through Flo’s front door into the night beyond. The killer wouldn’t waste time hurting Hannah if Miranda wasn’t around to watch. He’d come after her instead.

And with the kind of power he had, he’d kill her.

Miranda raced across the dark, empty street and down the first alley she came to, then zipped left up a side street, then right down an alley barely wide enough for her shoulders.

Her objective was to put as much real estate between her and the killer as she could. She’d need time to work the spell she had in mind, which meant she had to hide and shield herself.

Flo’s wasn’t located in a particularly nice part of Derry, South Carolina—not that there were many nice parts of Derry, South Carolina, aging textile town that it was. The route Miranda chose took her into a section that was even worse. Graffiti marked every building she passed, some written in the code used by the local gangs, some just poorly spelled obscenities. Half the streetlights were dark, and windows were broken out or boarded over. The smell of rotting trash was so strong she wanted to gag.

She swallowed hard and ran on, knowing she hadn’t put enough distance between her and the killer.

Normally her father sent his Bastards to discipline those who’d displeased him. But when Miranda extended her senses, she could detect only one magical creature in the area—the one she’d just blasted halfway across the restaurant.

He was already coming after her, and he was moving fast.

Miranda figured she had one chance at survival: La Belle Coeur. She’d been trying to come up with a way to contact Belle since she’d accidently blasted the Maja.

Fortunately, Miranda had touched the witch’s mind once before, during that disastrous tea party a month ago. If she concentrated on the memory of that mental contact and gave it all the power she had, she might be able to make contact. Maybe. If she got lucky.

She’d hesitated to try it before because that kind of psychic bellow was just the sort of thing Warlock was bound to notice. But since that was a moot point now . . .
Time to find a hiding place and launch the spell.

And pray.

 

Davon watched fanged
jaws shoot right for his throat. One bite . . .

A big hand fell on the edge of the gorget that protected the back of his neck, gripped it, and jerked him backward.

Tanner’s teeth snapped on empty air the instant before Tristan’s shield hit the werewolf hard across the side of the head, sending him spinning. “Bad dog!”

But seven-feet-plus of fur, fangs, and temper does not add up to wimp. Tanner caught himself and lunged at Tristan, his yellow eyes crazed. The knight spun into a kick that would have done Jackie Chan proud and landed an armored boot upside the werewolf’s skull. Tanner staggered backward, shaking his head hard, blood flying from his muzzle.

“Stop it!” Reverend Sheridan cried. “This is a church!”

But no one was listening. Women and children wailed in fear over male shouts of rage and wolf howls of fury. Fights had broken out between the knights and the werewolves, mostly fists and feet, but it was only a matter of time before somebody bit somebody and somebody else used a sword. Then the shit would really hit the fan.

Davon turned his back on Tristan and headed for the preacher. “Sheridan!” he shouted, bounding down from the stage. The reverend gave him a panic-stricken look and backed up, looking as if he was trying to decide whether to transform.

“No!” Davon yelled. “I don’t want to fight. We’ve got to stop this before somebody gets killed!”

A complex expression crossed Sheridan’s face—relief? Fury that it was his son’s murderer trying to come to his rescue? It was hard to tell.

And it didn’t matter anyway. Davon caught the man by the shoulder and drew him toward the front of the sanctuary. “Stop it! There are kids here! Somebody’s going to get killed.”

Sheridan added his deep bellow. “Break it off! Now!”

Nobody paid them any attention at all—except for Belle. The Maja studied them for a heartbeat and nodded as if coming to a decision. One hand swept in a graceful gesture toward the sanctuary’s soaring ceiling, and a blast of fireworks exploded over their heads in a thundering salvo. Everybody ducked for cover with yelps of alarm.

“This is over!” Davon shouted into the sudden silence. “There are too many children here—one of them’s going to get hurt.”

“We’re not giving you up, killer!” a werewolf roared back.

“I’m not asking you to. I came here for justice, and I’m not leaving. But the rest of the Magekind are.”

“Kid . . .” Tristan began.

“I’m not a kid,” Davon snarled. “But I did kill one, and his family deserves justice. And if you keep trying to take me back, somebody’s going to end up dead.”

 

It was so
dark even Miranda had trouble seeing a damned thing. A dog had turned over a garbage can, scattering reeking debris the length of the alley.

Perfect.

Both the smell and the shadows would help hide her from the killer long enough to give her a few more crucial seconds to cast her spell.

Miranda headed for a stack of rotting wooden crates and slipped behind them, pressing her back against the rough brick wall of the building. Closing her eyes, she centered herself and worked to control her breathing. Between the robbers, healing Hannah, and blasting the killer, she’d used a lot of magic. Casting this spell with enough power to punch through to Belle was going to drain what little was left. If it didn’t work, she was dead; she wouldn’t have enough left to defend herself.

Miranda remembered the moment she’d touched Belle’s mind. She called up the taste of the tea her werewolf hostess had served, the smooth, cool texture of the communication stone Belle had teleported into her hand. She recalled the moment when she’d met Belle’s blue-gray eyes and sensed the power burning in them.

Then she flung her will and her magic out into the night. And
called
.

 

Dice ran through
the darkness, grinding his teeth in fury, his stomach a burning, anxious knot in his belly. The little bitch had disappeared. She must have shielded herself somehow. If he lost her and she got away, Warlock was going to kill him—literally. At the very least, his master would torture him again with that damned magical whip.

And Warlock
was
his master. He was no better than a slave—or a dog. He . . .

It blazed across his consciousness like a comet, a shriek of power that dragged his head around. He stopped his headlong race and scanned the darkness, locking in on the pure, ringing note of the spell.

There
.

Whirling, Dice ran back the way he’d come, shot across a side street, and hung a left down a stinking alleyway. At this range, the sheer power of the girl’s spell was almost deafening to his magical senses.

And all that energy was coming from behind a stack of rotting crates.

He padded around the barricade and found her crouched there, pressed against the wall, her eyes squeezed closed as she concentrated.

“Hello, you little bitch,” Dice snarled. “Daddy says hi.”

Her eyes flew open, terror flooding them.

He grinned. And shifted.

That idiot Davon
stared at them from the middle of a crowd of werewolves, his gaze so calm Belle wanted to scream. “If we don’t want them to believe we’re evil, we need to show them we’re just,” he said. “So I’m not leaving with you.”

“God, I hate rookies,” Tristan muttered in her ear.

At the moment, so did she. “Davon, don’t you see that you’re . . .”