Authors: Angela Knight

Master of Smoke (14 page)

BOOK: Master of Smoke

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When the blue glow faded, her jeans and T-shirt had returned from wherever they went when she shifted. And she was looking up at David, who loomed over her with that big blade dripping blood. She tried to square her shoulders and meet his gaze with the fearless courage of Lois Lane staring down Lex Luthor.

Unfortunately, a cowardly squeak emerged from her lips and blew the whole effect.

He blinked. Took a step back and lowered the sword, looking confused.

She gave him a broad, totally unnatural smile. “It’s me, David. It’s Eva.” Voice dropping, she added on a mutter, “
Please
don’t chop me into teeny tiny bits.”

He blinked again and frowned, as if coming back to himself from a very long way away. “They were going to kill you.” His voice growled around the consonants in a way that didn’t sound like him at all.

“But you stopped them, didn’t you?”
Boy, did you. The coroner won’t even know what species they are. Good thing, too. Werewolves on the front page would be bad.

David’s gaze turned catlike and intent again, but this time his mood was visibly more horny than homicidal. He reached for her.

“If you kiss me covered in blood,” she informed him with brutal honesty, “I’m going to yark on your shoes.”

David froze. His face worked, expressions flashing over it too fast for her to be entirely sure what they were.

And he ...
changed
. His shoulders drew back, his head came up, and something shifted in his eyes. He blinked, a long, slow drop and rise of his lids, and when he met her gaze, something new looked out of his eyes. Something ancient and intelligent she didn’t recognize.

“Well. We can’t have that, can we?” He made an intricate, graceful gesture with the hand that wasn’t holding the sword. Sparks shimmered above his head, spiraling down his body in a glittering double helix. When the glow vanished, so did the blood. His clothes were wrinkle-free, as if freshly laundered, and his hair lay smooth and dark over his broad shoulders, clean enough to gleam in the moonlight. Even his formerly gory sword was bright and shining again.

Eva blinked in astonishment. “David, how the hell did you do that?”

He shrugged. “Magic. But my name isn’t David. I’m Smoke.”

“You’ve regained your memory?” Eva frowned, surprised at her sinking heart. This should be good news. Why did it feel like a disaster?

“For the moment.” He cocked his dark head, studying her with that alien intelligence that made her skin creep. It was as if he’d been possessed by something very, very old.

And not human at all.

“What do you mean, ‘For the moment’? You think you’ll forget again?”

“If Warlock has anything to say about it. Which unfortunately, he does.” Turning, he moved away to crouch over one of the butchered bodies. The feral bloodlust was gone from his face, replaced by a clinical interest. Definitely not the man she knew.

But whoever he was, he was scary as hell.

He rose and circled the bodies, studying them, head cocked. “Warlock isn’t here.”

“Uh—Warlock?” She watched as he sank onto his haunches to examine a particularly mangled corpse, breathing deep as if seeking the man’s scent. He didn’t even move like David. There was something animal about the way he held his head and placed his feet, something more tiger than man. “Who’s Warlock?”

“The Dire Wolf who tried to steal my magic and memories.”

“Dire Wolf?”

“That’s what they’re called. That’s what you are. Except unlike the rest of you, Warlock is a sorcerer. He attempted to strip me of my powers.” He glanced up at her, teeth flashing in a snarling smile. “So I rammed it all down his throat and tried to choke him with it.” Broad shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. “I did not quite succeed, but at least I escaped. Or rather, most of me did.”

Realization dawned. “You’re talking about when I found you—when you fought that big white werewolf—Warlock?”

David—Smoke—nodded. “He wishes to become a god to his people. Fool. There is more weight than worship in being a god. And I would know.”

She swallowed. “You’re a god?”
Oh, great. Time to fit Dave for a tinfoil hat.

“Not anymore.”

What the hell does that mean?
“Ummm. Not
anymore
?”

The blue gaze went distant. “Once I was. Many, many years ago. I do not remember how many centuries gone. After a thousand years or so, even such dark memories dim.” Rising to his feet, he started across the field in the direction of their wrecked car. “We must leave. Warlock will try to steal my powers again, and I don’t have the strength to stop him. He’s kept just enough of what he has taken to bar me from taking my power back.” A muscle flexed in his angular jaw as if he ground his teeth. “But he won’t keep it long. And he will regret the theft.”

Centuries? Did he say
centuries? Eva hurried after the stranger in her lover’s body. “Look, what exactly are you? And what happened to David?”

He looked around at her in surprise. “I am David.”

“No. No, you’re really not.”

Smoke started to speak, then closed his mouth and shook his head. “No, I suppose as far as you’re concerned, I’m not.”

“Then what the hell are you?”

He hesitated a moment even as he lengthened his stride until she had to run to keep up. “That would take entirely too long to explain, and we must get out of here
now
.”

Eva jolted to a halt in the knee-high kudzu, eyeing her poor Ford Focus in dismay. “We’re not going anywhere in
that
car.”

Her baby had gone into the ditch at an angle, hard enough to crumple its front end like a crushed beer can. The right front wheel was bent completely under the body, and the vehicle tilted as it sat nose-down so the left rear wheel was completely off the ground. Looking through the shattered windshield, Eva saw the limp white shapes of both deployed air bags. “It’s totaled.” She felt sick, thinking of her thousand-dollar deductible. Managing that and the rent this month was going to be a bitch. “I’ll have to call a wrecker and have it towed.”

“Warlock will be here before the wrecker arrives.” Smoke handed her the sword and stepped into the ditch.

Biting her lip, Eva eyed the werewolves’ vehicles. None of them were damaged at all, though she couldn’t imagine herself playing Hell’s Angels on one of those big hogs. As for Smoke/David—who the hell knew what he could do? “We could take the Hummer. Bet Wolfie left the keys in the ignition.”

Smoke shot her an impatient look. “Do you really want the police to find you driving a vehicle whose owner has been chopped into very bloody pieces?” He shook his head. “The cat outdid himself. He’s quite protective of you.”

Puzzled, Eva frowned. “What cat?”

“Our third spirit brother.” He bent, hooked his hands under the car, and heaved upward, jerking the Ford’s front end out of the ditch with a grunt of effort.

Damn,
Eva thought in stunned astonishment,
I’m sleeping with Superman.

Smoke dropped the crumpled front end of the wrecked car on the shoulder with a grinding crash.

“Wow.” Eva took a step back as he scrambled out of the ditch. “That was damned impressive, but the car’s still not going anywhere. Not in the shape it’s in.”

“Patience, child. I’m not finished.” Smoke grimaced as he put a hand to the small of his back, arching his spine and rolling his shoulders. “Gods and devils, I think I pulled something. Feh. Well, I’ll heal it later. If there’s time.”

He set his feet apart and closed his eyes, bowing his head. His dark hair tumbled forward.

“What are you doing? And who are you calling a child?”

“Shush.” When he raised his head again, his eyes glowed a blue so bright, they lit his face like torches. His hands lifted. Blazing power poured from his palms. The magic made Eva’s skin tingle and warm, as if she was standing too close to a roaring fire. Instinctively, she took a step back as the glow engulfed her battered Ford, winding around it in a blinding double helix that grew brighter and brighter. She smelled ozone and heating metal, heard a grinding pop and the tinkle of glass.

Smoke let his hands fall in an abrupt gesture, and the blinding glare faded.

“Hot damn,” Eva muttered when she could see again.

The car sat on all four wheels, looking as if it had just rolled off the showroom floor, its chrome glittering in the moonlight. Not so much as a ding marred its paint job.

Awed, she walked the length of it, running her fingers along its cool metal skin. Not only had Smoke repaired the Hummer damage, he’d fixed the dent in the front door inflicted by an errant shopping cart. Even the scrapes from her run-in with a concrete pylon a year ago had disappeared. The car hadn’t looked this good when she’d bought it. “Damn.” Eva turned to grin at him. “It looks ...”

Smoke’s face was white as paper and streaming sweat. He swayed like a man fighting a gale, his hands shaking as he lowered them to his side.

“Oh, hell.” She dropped the sword and dove for him. She barely managed to catch his shoulders before his knees buckled.

“No, you bastard.”
Warlock’s lips curled back from his teeth. “The power’s
mine
now. You don’t get it back.”

He knelt in the center of the silver spell circle, both hands fisted on the grip of a massive battle-axe planted butt-down on the stone floor. Lips curling back from his fangs, he stared into the great red gem that tipped the shaft between massive double blades. The stone, responding to his will, blazed a sullen crimson, the glow burning its way along the deep runes engraved in the alien steel.

Arthur had Excalibur. Warlock had Kingslayer.

Kingslayer’s gem could act as a focus for his power, amplifying it as a ruby intensifies light into a laser. Kingslayer was Warlock’s most powerful weapon, and he guarded it jealously. No one living even knew of its existence, not even the core leaders of the Chosen. He had not used it in decades. Hadn’t needed to.

Panting with effort, Warlock stared into the heart of the gem, seeking the bright cord of magic that stretched tight between him and the godling. He could feel Smoke fighting him, trying to drag the power away, to steal it back into himself, reassemble his fractured mind.

Too bad, Cat
, he thought, gritting his teeth and tightening his psychic grip.
It’s mine now
.

Gathering all his power, Warlock blasted mind and magic through the stone, sending it ripping into Smoke’s wounded consciousness. He heard a short, psychic howl that suddenly cut off.

And he smiled.

The new magical cage Warlock had conjured with his axe was much stronger. Strong enough to separate Smoke’s power from his memories and the fragments of his godling’s soul.

He wouldn’t escape again. And once his body was dead, the elemental’s rebellion would be over.

Forever.

“Arrrrrrrghhhhh!” Smoke’s powerful
back arched as he screamed, his arms flinging wide, hands clawing at empty air.

“David!” Eva fought to support his writhing body. If not for her supernatural strength, she’d have gone down with him in a heap. As it was, she barely managed to hang on to him as she dropped to her knees, cradling his head and shoulders in her arms. His eyes squeezed shut, his lips pulled back from gritted teeth as he twisted in her grip like a man tortured. His face gleamed with sweat, and she could feel his heart slamming in his chest. “David, what’s happening? David!”

As suddenly as he’d begun to convulse, he collapsed, his body going boneless in her arms.

A dead weight.

Her heart jammed her throat until she saw the rise and fall of his chest. She put her ear to his sternum and listened with desperate attention.

Yes, his heart still beat. It was slowing down, which was probably a good thing, considering it had sounded as if it was about to burst from his rib cage a moment ago.

She sat up again, licking dry lips. “David?”

A long tense moment passed. Finally he stirred, a frown line forming between his thick dark brows.

“David, we need to get out of here. That Warlock guy you were talking about ...”

His eyes flared wide at the name, rage hot white in their depths, pupils tightening into ovals in the moonlight. His lips peeled back, revealing fangs, and he growled, a low, savage sound. His alien gaze met hers, burning blue.

Who the hell is he now?
Eva thought, staring at him in sick despair.
That’s not Smoke, and it’s sure not David
.

Wait. Smoke had said something about a cat—
“The cat outdid himself. He’s quite protective of you.”

So he had multiple personalities now? David, Smoke, and this “cat.”

And where in the name of God and little fishes did Warlock fit into this mess?

BOOK: Master of Smoke

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