Soul Guard (Elemental Book 5) (5 page)

I was leading us to the library I knew Stephen was
usually in when we ran right into Marcus. He was dressed in a blue t-shirt and
jeans and his hair was a little too long, but he looked happy and healthy. Not
living in constant fear of being assassinated was a nice change for him.

“Hey! I’m glad you two could make it! What are you
doing here?” he asked.

“You realize those two statements are---” Henry
began.

“Don’t get him started,” I interrupted. “Marcus is
about as easy to follow as Darwin.” I turned to the newly converted vampire.
“Stephen said he needed to see us.”

His smile fell. “Oh, okay. Yeah, I’m not supposed to
know about that, so I’ll let Stephen tell you. I’m surprised he called you, but
I’m glad. It’s not good.”

“Where’s Darwin?” I asked.

“You asked him to check out a hacking case,” Marcus
said.

“Yes, but I expected you would help him. With the two
of you working together, it should have taken you an hour at the most.”

“Twenty minutes, thank you. He’s dealing with
something else at the moment and will be along in a few days.”

He led us to a different office than Stephen was
usually in. I wouldn’t have thought it was odd if I didn’t hear the sound of
construction as we passed that hallway. “What did you do?” I asked.

“Why do you think I did something?” When I gave him a
deadpan stare, he shrugged. “I might have used the room right underneath
Stephen’s favorite study to test out a new electromagnetic pulse bomb.”

“E-pulse bombs only damage electronics.”

“Yeah, that’s what went wrong; it was a little heavy
on the ‘bomb’ part.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to hack or use a computer
virus?” Henry asked.

“It depends on the company you’re trying to bring
down. Say for example that Darwin got some dirt on me and threatened to release
that information. The only proof he has is on his network. Hacking is
impractical because he can control his system from anywhere. He’s got a really
cool program called a funnel web that---”

“Skip,” I said.

“Okay. Anyway, the only reasonable way to stop him
from getting information out is to destroy his means. Of course, as a wizard,
you can do just as much damage to his system naturally. You can fry all the
electronics you could want without the risk of the building coming down on top
of you. Darwin and I are each working on our own way to bring down… let’s say a
company. If humans ever found out about the paranormals, it could be a shit
storm.”

“I don’t see this going well. You do remember that
you were human a few months ago, right?”

He scoffed. “Semantics. The point is, we’re working
on a way to stop someone from getting information out. We’re each building and
testing our own method, and then we’re going to test it out on each other.”

“You’re going to try to crash each other’s servers?”

“Well, he’s going to try. I’m going to annihilate.”

“What is stopping them from becoming super villains?”
Henry asked me quietly.

“Laziness.”

We arrived at a door, Marcus knocked, and we were
invited to enter. Inside was a plain room with one small wooden desk and a very
irritated vampire king. He scowled at Marcus but spoke to me. “Good evening,
Devon. Please tell me you came to take Marcus back with you.”

“Actually, I’m here because you said you had a case
for us.”

He nodded. “Marcus, leave us.”

With false sorrow, the young vampire left and shut
the door. “He doesn’t mean any trouble,” I said. “He needs a lab or something
to play in.”

“And an assistant,” Stephen said, dropping his scowl
instantly. “He forgets to eat and sleep. I don’t mind the energy, and he’s not
fighting with the others, but he does act like he runs the house and that can’t
continue. When I have to relocate my main office because of his accidents, we
have a problem. On his second day here, he walked into a vampire’s bedroom,
said he got better reception in it, and kicked the older vampire out.”

“Yeah, he did that to me when I took him in.”

“It sounds like living with Darwin,” Henry said.

“Put him in charge of something,” I advised. “Let him
design a security system or something.”

“Actually, that was what I asked you here about. My
coven has been attacked.”

“Well, I expected there would be some problems with
your treaty after the council fell. You should take it up with Hunt and
Vincent, since they’re in charge of redesigning the council.”

“It’s not wizards attacking us, it’s humans. A small
group of humans banded together and somehow discovered my coven. They’ve been
attacking during the day. Fortunately, Maseré’s pack has been able to keep them
at bay so far, but they get more reckless each time.”

“Why would humans be attacking you?”

“Because they’re human and we are vampires. Most
humans are not as violent towards us as wizards, but there are several clusters
of humans who think all paranormals should die. That’s why our secrecy is so
vital to our survival. If we retaliated, we could slaughter them easily, but
more and more would follow.”

So they were like Gale. “Are any of your vampires
that don’t live in the mansion getting attacked?”

“Not that we know of.”

“I’ll take care of it, but I still suggest putting
Marcus in charge of your defense. There is no one I know who’s better at
computers and it’ll keep him out of your hair because he’s damn sure not going
to consult you.”

*          *          *

Henry and I decided to stick around until the humans
attacked in the morning. Marcus wanted to join us until sunrise, but I convinced
him that he had better things to do. He was ecstatic when Stephen told him he
could set up a security system. Of course, Marcus wanted to modernize the
entire house. When we last saw him, he was talking about installing cable TV
for the vampires who stayed at the coven.

Although they had food for visitors and spare
bedrooms, Henry and I denied the offer and headed outside to wait. We sat in
the truck parked in a visitor lot, where we could see the front and left side
of the mansion. I was in the driver seat and Henry was in the passenger seat.

“What are we going to do when we confront these
humans?” Henry asked. “Humans who hate vampires will probably hate wizards and
I know you still feel a kinship with them.”

“Just because they’re human doesn’t mean they can
attack like this. If we can’t scare them away, we can convince them to leave.”

“How?”

“I will use my mind control.” Henry frowned, since he
knew I preferred not to do that kind of thing, but he didn’t argue. If I used
my power for personal gain, I would be no better than John, but this was
different.

“We have seven hours before sunrise. Should we take
turns sleeping?”

Normally, I didn’t get that option because I didn’t
have a partner on my stakeouts. “Sure. You can sleep first.”

“I’m not tired.”

Neither was I, so we just sat in silence for a while.
Then my phone rang, and I instantly jumped to all the worst conclusions when I
saw the number. “What’s wrong? Is she okay?” I asked.

“It’s not your mother,” Kyle said quickly. “She’s
fine. A big storm came on suddenly and Scott is freaking out. He needs to hear
his father’s voice, and Henry’s phone is off.”

“Okay, I’m putting him on,” I said, holding back a
sigh of relief. “Turn your phone on,” I told him as I passed my phone to him.
“I thought you said the storm wasn’t heading towards them.”

“It wasn’t, but storms can change direction.”

*          *          *

After a few hours, I tried to get a little sleep, but
every time I was just about there, I would sense something close by. Because it
wasn’t something watching me and Henry didn’t seem to notice, I wasn’t terribly
worried. It was, however, a very uncomfortable feeling.

When sunrise came and there was still no sign of
humans, I managed to fall asleep, only to start dreaming of zombies. Soon, the
same presence that had prevented me from napping became so strong and sinister
that it woke me. I finally just gave up trying to sleep.

*          *          *

At eight in the morning, Henry sat up straighter. “I
heard something,” he said.

“Alright. Let’s do this.”

Henry opened the door, got out, crouched between the
truck and another car, and began stripping. Unfortunately, he couldn’t use his
camouflage abilities in his person form, so he had to change into a jaguar
before he could become invisible, and he couldn’t do that dressed.

Once he was invisible, I opened a link between us. I
could see through his eyes due to my mind control magic. It was still odd,
though; until I did finally call my familiar, I had a very strong suspicion
that Henry was my familiar. Several times, when I needed help, he sensed it.
Also, I saw through his mind once while he was imprisoned by the wizard council
and again when he was imprisoned by Gale, where I saw into his mind without
conscious effort. Darwin’s theory was that it was because I communicated with
them so much using my mind magic.

I watched through his eyes, trying to be as
unobtrusive as possible. His jaguar seemed to appreciate that I convinced Henry
that he hadn’t killed his wife, yet the cat was still very reticent. I could
feel the cats mind pushing aside both mine and Henry’s. While I spent so much
time trying to control my magic, I never really considered that Henry was
trying just as hard to keep the jaguar under control. I knew it was always a
struggle for him, I just didn’t know how much. Fortunately for both my friend
and me, the cat was perfectly happy hunting down prey. Of course, he usually
hunted at night, but he was pleased enough to be out that he was willing
anyway.

He tracked the slight sounds to three camo Jeeps. I
knew they must have gotten in through a break in the fencing around the coven
somewhere, but the jaguar didn’t care; he wanted to kill them. He didn’t care
who they were or why they were here, and he wasn’t hungry. He just wanted to do
it because he could.

Henry’s mind tried to take some of the control back,
but the jaguar had too much pent-up energy. Each Jeep had two people in them
and the people were conversing using small communication devices on their ears.

The jaguar wasn’t concerned with what they were
saying; he was more interested in finding the best angle for attack. He had
enough of a connection to Henry’s mind that he knew he didn’t want to go
through the glass and that the people would eventually open the door and get
out of the car.

“
Find the one in charge
,” I said to the
jaguar. He growled, not liking that he could feel and hear me like he could
Henry.

I was about to try to reach out for one of the
people’s minds when my awareness returned forcefully to myself. At first, I
thought it was because the jaguar had forced me out of his head, but then I saw
movement. A young woman was sneaking around the corner of the mansion. She was
athletically built, wearing black shorts and a matching tank-top, with her
chocolate-brown hair in a ponytail. She pulled a cell phone from her pocket,
ducked down behind a hedge, and checked it before cramming it back into her
pocket and standing.

Because she was out in daylight, she couldn’t be a
vampire. That phone was high-end; not the disposable kind that a wizard or fae
might have.
She’s probably a wolf shifter
. Fortunately, she didn’t
change, or she would have smelled Henry. I could have fried her phone, but her
determined expression told me she had already gotten the order she needed. The
connection between Henry and me was still open, so anything I told him would be
overheard by the jaguar. “
There’s a wolf shifter headed your way
.”

The jaguar sent back an acknowledging thought. 

I changed my focus from Henry’s mind to Maseré’s. His
mind was welcoming, but his wolf’s was not. “
Is she one of yours
?” I
asked, sending him a mental picture of the woman. I didn’t receive an answer,
but I should have expected that. Instead, my phone vibrated. I answered it.

“You realize you have a phone, right?” the alpha asked
immediately.

“Yeah, I know.” Actually, I had forgotten all about
it.

“Her name is Veronica Biegen. She’s the daughter of a
wolf alpha in Canada.”

“There’s a rival pack here?” 

“They had a treaty with Stephan before I even got
here. My pack usually just calls them Canada, because their alpha is a little…
wishy-washy. I believe they changed their alpha a dozen times in the last
decade.”

The woman was now out of sight, so I focused on
Henry’s mind again. The jaguar was watching her. She was no longer creeping
around like she was afraid to be caught.

“What’s going on?” Maseré asked.

“I’m not sure yet. Do you trust Canada?”

“I can’t trust a pack who admittedly eats its
betrayers.”

“Gross.” Veronica paused for a moment and glanced
around as if she smelled Henry, but then got into the back seat of one of the
Jeeps. After a couple of minutes, she got out and walked back to the castle.

“What’s going on?” Maseré asked again.

“I’m going to check it out. I’ll call you when I know
something.”

I hung up, which was not the best way to ensure a
long and healthy life. I knew I should have been more respectful to the alpha,
but I seemed to always cut the conversation short. The jaguar didn’t know
whether to follow the shifter or stay and continue watching the humans.

“
Stay with the humans
,” I told him. I knew
Veronica’s name and could find her later. The humans got out of their Jeeps at
that moment, giving me the perfect opportunity to do what I did best.

There were five men and a woman, all dressed in black
clothes and scowling at their surroundings like they were trying to be the
characters in an old spy movie. I wasn’t impressed so far. I locked onto the
closest man and pushed my power out of the jaguar and into the human.