Authors: Angela Knight
Master of Smoke (27 page)
At last it was time for the spell’s finishing touch. Still chanting softly, Miranda used the athame to slice her left hand. Tilting her palm carefully, she let a few drops of blood drip onto the back of the cameo.
The spell snapped to life. With a sigh of relief, Miranda tied the necklace around her throat.
Now she could make her escape.
By the time
Miranda left the house half an hour later, her mother lay in the big bed upstairs, hands folded neatly on her chest, sightless eyes closed.
Miranda left the house half an hour later, her mother lay in the big bed upstairs, hands folded neatly on her chest, sightless eyes closed.
She’d left Gerald’s corpse where it fell.
Miranda clicked the key fob on Gerald Drake’s Lexus and tossed her suitcases in the trunk. Just before she got in, she looked back at the mansion that had housed generations of Drakes. She sketched a design in the air and murmured a spell. Sparks of blue magic trailed her fingers.
And the house burst into flame.
“That’s all the warning you’re going to get from me, Warlock.” She slid into the driver’s seat and started the car.
Belle sat six
inches above the floor, her golden hair whipping back from her face on a magical wind, her eyes glowing the same milky moonstone as the pewter cat she held in one hand. Her long legs were folded in a lotus position that made Tristan’s thighs hurt just looking at them. All while wearing a black lace teddy that made her breasts look like mounds of fresh cream.
inches above the floor, her golden hair whipping back from her face on a magical wind, her eyes glowing the same milky moonstone as the pewter cat she held in one hand. Her long legs were folded in a lotus position that made Tristan’s thighs hurt just looking at them. All while wearing a black lace teddy that made her breasts look like mounds of fresh cream.
Sadist.
When he’d commented on her choice of magic wear, she’d told him he could always leave. Damned if he would, though, with her working some kind of potentially dangerous spell.
So Tristan made a point of leering at her until she was so far gone in the magic that she didn’t even see him anymore. Then, and only then, did he pull up a chair and sit down to keep watch.
The floor beneath her floating backside was covered with an intricate pattern drawn in golden light on the blue hotel room carpet. Apparently, the pattern was designed to act like a lens, gathering and focusing whatever magic Belle could pick up from the cat statue she cupped in both hands.
She looked like she was having really good sex. Her glowing eyes were wide, her full mouth parted and glistening under a coat of that gloss stuff she wore. Tristan was getting a hard-on just looking at her.
But then, he’d basically kept a hard-on the entire time he’d been working with her. When he didn’t want to strangle her, anyway.
Tris hated to admit it, but he was actually enjoying himself. The Majae he’d worked with before had tended to fall into two camps: the hard-core professionals who acted like they had Excalibur up their butts, and the party girls who wanted to do him solely because he was a Knight of the Round Table. Maybe while lying on it.
No thanks, he’d had that with Isolde.
Unlike all the other witches, Belle took his crap and dished it right back with a sarcastic twinkle that made him want to laugh. Or smack her. She ...
Belle screamed, the sound deafening and shrill. Her slim body flew out of the pattern as if hit by a cannonball. She slammed into the wall behind her, and the wallboard cracked with the impact, the floor shaking under Tristan’s chair.
“Shit!” He leaped to his feet as Belle fell on her face, plaster dust and bits of Sheetrock raining around her.
“Belle!” Tristan dropped to one knee beside her. His first instinct was to jerk her into his arms, but he’d been in enough fights to be wary of internal injuries. Instead he bent to look into her face and cautiously touch her slender back. Her skin felt like fine Chinese silk. “Belle?” His heart was hammering, and his mouth tasted metallic with fear. “Belle! Wake up, dammit!”
She groaned. “Jesu, stop yelling.” The words came out as a rasp. Bracing her hands on the floor, she tried to push herself upright.
“Stay down! I’ll call a healer ...” He reached for his belt, where a cell phone rode a clip. It was spelled to reach Arthur or Morgana at a word.
“No, that’s ...” Belle swallowed and rolled onto her back. “Not necessary. Bastard just took me by surprise, that’s all. Threw me for a loop, but I’m not hurt. Much. I’ll have some nice bruises, though.”
Sitting back on his heels, Tristan studied her. She looked too damn pale for his peace of mind, and he decided if she didn’t start looking better in a minute, he was calling Morgana anyway. “I gather whoever the hell it was you contacted, it wasn’t Smoke.”
“No. I think ...” She swallowed and closed her eyes. “I think it was Warlock. And he was not happy to be pinged.”
Tristan frowned. “What’s he doing responding to Smoke’s communication spell?”
Belle started to sit up. He slid an arm around her back and steadied her. She gave him a what-the-hell-are-you-doing look, but he stubbornly refused to back off. He didn’t want her eating carpet again.
Bracing herself back on her arms, Belle sighed. The deep line between her blond brows suggested a ferocious headache. “He must have usurped Smoke’s powers. God knows how.”
Tristan frowned. That didn’t sound good. At all. “So was it Warlock you sensed when you thought you felt Smoke?”
“No, it was definitely Smoke. I’ve touched his mind before.”
She had? When the hell had she ...
Shut up, Tristan.
Shut up, Tristan.
Unaware of his flash of jealousy, she continued, “Or at least, it wasn’t the same person whose mind I just touched. Warlock felt ... well, evil. And paranoid.”
“Really? I never would have guessed,” Tristan drawled.
She ignored him. “There was such chaos in his thoughts. I only touched him for a moment before he blasted me out of his mind like a feather in a leaf blower.” Raking her blond hair out of her eyes, Belle frowned. “Where did that pewter cat go?”
Tristan glanced around before spotting it under a straight chair sitting at the opposite end of the room. “There it is.”
He got it for her, and dropped it into her palms. She was sitting up again, her legs bent and crossed at the ankles, tailor fashion. She no longer looked quite so pale, much to his relief.
“Thanks.” Belle eyed the cat thoughtfully. “I wonder if I could use it to break Warlock’s grip on those stolen abilities.”
Tristan stiffened. “Only if you can avoid getting your skinny little butt blown across the room again. And somehow I doubt it.”
“Skinny?” She snorted. “Hardly.” Scrambling to her feet, Belle erased the designs on the carpet with a sweeping gesture and a wave of magic, then started redrawing them again.
Since her attention was now safely diverted, Tristan leaned a shoulder against the wall and closed his eyes in relief.
That had been too damned close.
David had disappeared.
Her heart in her throat, Eva galloped down the stairs of the apartment complex, frantically scanning for him. Still nothing.
Her mother spoke from the landing. “Oh, damn. I’m sorry I let out your cat. You want me to help you look for him?”
Eva ground her teeth to keep from screaming,
Just go!
Instead she managed a relatively sane “Don’t worry about it, Mom. I’ll find him. You just go take Dad his prizes.”
Just go!
Instead she managed a relatively sane “Don’t worry about it, Mom. I’ll find him. You just go take Dad his prizes.”
Charlotte sighed. “Yes, he’s probably going to be pawing at the ground by the time I arrive. I’ll see you later, darling.” Her heels clipped down the stairs.
Eva gave her mother a wave, eyeing the shrubbery as Charlotte got in the car and drove off.
“David!” she hissed when the coast was finally clear. “David, where the fuck did you go? Don’t do this to me! Somebody’s going to
eat
you!”
eat
you!”
Which was when she heard a sound that sent terror sliding down her spine on a river of ice: a growl. Low, rumbling, and savage.
It was definitely not a house cat, and it was coming from the other side of the building.
“Shit!” Eyes widening, Eva raced through the breezeway toward the sound. There was a strip of grass, a few spindly trees, and still more bushes between her building and the back of the next one.
Right in the middle of all that stood a dog the size of a pony. It looked like a Great Dane with thick red fur, but the wind blowing past told a different story.
It was a werewolf.
Another snarl brought her head whipping around.
A black Doberman eyed her with drooling malice, next to a German shepherd larger than any dog she’d ever seen. They were flanked by a muscular pit bull with a curly steel gray coat. All three were downwind, but Eva didn’t have to smell them to know they were werewolves. The vicious intelligence in their eyes told the story.
Eva was changing before she was even consciously aware of calling her magic, pain exploding in her awareness as her body transformed.
Damn you, David,
she thought.
I’m screwed now.
Damn you, David,
she thought.
I’m screwed now.
David stared in
horror from the shadow of one of the shrubs that stood against the building. Sable fur gleaming in the moonlight, Eva stepped back, her head swiveling frantically as she watched the four werewolves move closer.
horror from the shadow of one of the shrubs that stood against the building. Sable fur gleaming in the moonlight, Eva stepped back, her head swiveling frantically as she watched the four werewolves move closer.
They transformed in a fur-ruffling rush of magic, each dog shooting upward and outward as it grew to full, powerful Dire Wolf form. If anything, they were even bigger than the werewolves he’d faced the last time.
And David was much, much smaller.
Magic,
he thought desperately.
I have to change. I have to defend her, or she’s dead
.
he thought desperately.
I have to change. I have to defend her, or she’s dead
.
Panic soured his stomach, but he pushed it down. He couldn’t afford fear now. He had to be calm. He had to open a psychic path to Smoke, or at the very least to Cat.
“Where’s your friend, bitch?” demanded a tall, red-furred werewolf who stepped out in front of the others. “We know he’s around here somewhere.” He made a show of sniffing the air. “I can smell the little fucker.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Eva said, lifting her chin in a gesture of defiance. Unfortunately, the scent of her fear came to David’s nose as sharply as a scream.
She was terrified, and he was hiding under this bush like a coward. Yet until he could transform, emerging would only put Eva in more danger, because she would try to defend him. It just wasn’t in her to do anything else, despite the odds, despite her fear. And her courage could get her killed.
Sick with fear, he watched the werewolves move toward Eva in a slow stalk. “Smell that, boys?” the leader purred, making a show of inhaling. “She’s scared shitless.”
“I like ’em scared.” This from a wolf whose muscles lay in thick slabs under his black fur. “Makes me horny.”
The leader raised his voice. “Don’t you think you’d better come out, Cat? Otherwise, we’re gonna fuck up your scared little girlfriend. And then we’ll just track you down and tear you apart anyway. But if you grow a pair, we’ll let the girl go.”
Eva spoke up in a surprisingly deep growl, glaring at the werewolves in contempt. “Bet you feel like real men, huh?” Her voice shook, but now there was as much rage as fear in her scent. “Four of you against one woman. You sure you don’t want to go find a few more friends to back you up? I might hurt you.”
The leader glanced at her, anger sparking in his hot red eyes. “We can handle you just fine, bitch.”
For God’s sake, Eva, shut up!
David thought in despair.
David thought in despair.
She curled her lip. “You want me, asshole? Come get me.” It was the same doomed defiance that had led her to tryaagroin punch on the werewolf who’d transformed her. She thought she was finished, and she wanted to spit in her enemies’ faces.
But he couldn’t let her die. Wouldn’t. There had to be something he could do. Yet he’d fought all day to reach out to both Cat and Smoke with every ounce of his will. Nothing had worked.
“You need to learn a little respect, bitch.” The werewolves’ leader lunged at Eva, swinging out with one clawed hand. She ducked, but not fast enough. Blood sprayed from the raking blow across her lovely breasts. Striking out in rage, Eva caught the leader across his muzzle with a hard, clawed swat.
“Oh, that’s it! You’re done now, cunt!”
They all jumped her at once, grabbing for her wrists as they dodged her snapping jaws. A fist hit her head with a meaty thump, and their combined weight forced her to the ground. She cried out.
Anguish knifed through David’s chest, a searing psychic pain. Unable to suppress the sound, he snarled. At that, the leader’s gray-furred head came up. Yellow eyes speared through the sheltering leaves of the bush. And found his.
FIFTEEN
A universe away,
a creature of pure energy swirled like smoke within the spell that caged it. For endless hours Smoke had battered at the cage, fighting to escape fighting to reach the powers Warlock had stolen.
a creature of pure energy swirled like smoke within the spell that caged it. For endless hours Smoke had battered at the cage, fighting to escape fighting to reach the powers Warlock had stolen.
Nothing worked.
Smoke had called for his spirit brothers out beyond the spell cage, begging them for help. He could feel himself eroding without the body and wills of his spirit brothers to give him form.
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