Black Magic Woman (29 page)

It didn’t even appear to be written in English, though if it had, it would have provided only marginal amounts of help. In the center of the small page an oddly arranged collection of letters formed what looked almost like a compass. He assumed the letters formed words, though he could make neither heads nor tails of them, couldn’t even tell which way they were supposed to be read, whether to shift his gaze left to right or top to bottom or another direction entirely.

The two longest lines of letters ran straight across two planes of the sheet, intersecting roughly in the center. The right angles they formed, however, were each bisected with another word that did not follow a straight line but curved in an elongated S-shape from one end to the other. At the tip of each of the straight-line words, a triangle had been drawn almost like an arrowhead pointing toward the edges of the paper. D’Abo had also apparently indulged his artistic senses by adding small star shapes in each quadrant and inserting two others in place of missing letters in the S-shaped words. The whole mess was completed by a circle drawn around where the central words met with two small circles contained within at the top.

“What? Was he
high
when he did that?” Graham demanded, peering over Asher’s shoulder to scrutinize the drawing. “That’s a complete piece of horseshit. How the hell is that supposed to help us?”

Rafe reached for the paper, and Asher handed it over without hesitation. It wasn’t as if the damned thing were going to provide them with any help.

The Felix examined the drawing for a moment in silence. He shook his head and cast Asher a look of apology. “I am sorry,” he said simply. “I had hoped for more.”

“Hadn’t we all?” Graham grumbled.

“Still, we cannot discount that there may be a meaning here that we are at present unable to discern.” Rafe gestured with the paper. “I will ask Erica to look at it. It may have a symbolic meaning, or the words may represent a spell. Magic often uses language of its own devising for such purposes.”

“Fine,” Asher bit out, “but I’m not going to sit around in the meantime and twiddle my damned thumbs. We need to get moving and find the mystery man. I’m not letting Daphanie stay like that.”

The other men followed his glance to the motionless, wide-eyed form on the bed. He knew they sympathized with him, knew they cared for Daphanie themselves, in their own ways. Both men considered her a friend, a part of the extended family formed by the bonds between their wives and their brothers-in-arms.

But none of them could possibly understand how he felt, how seeing her helpless and vulnerable while he had been sworn to protect her cut like a killing blow to the abdomen. None of them could understand how the sight of her made him so weak he could barely summon the strength to stand and so enervated with rage that he could have lifted Atlas’ globe with one hand.

Whatever he had to do to save Daphanie, Asher would do it. He didn’t care if it cost him his own damned life. He was no good without her anyway. She had already ruined him for his solitary life.

“Of course not,” Rafe agreed, clapping him on the back. “We will waste no time. While Erica sees what she can discern from the message, we will gather the Silverback trackers and commence the hunt. One way or another, Asher, we
will
find him.”

“Right. You and Asher come with me. We’ll join Logan’s group.” Graham glanced at Missy and Corinne. “You two should stay with Daphanie.”

Missy cast her husband a sharp look, and he shook his head. “No, don’t argue. I’m not excluding you from the hunt for my own male-chauvinistic-pig reasons. Daphanie will need to be watched carefully and protected from both physical and magical attacks. I’m trusting you to see to that, Miss.” His voice softened. “Plus, she is your friend. If she wakes up before we return, she’ll feel better having you with her.”

Missy nodded, her expression easing. “Of course. This building is warded so tight, it’s a wonder light can get in, so I’m not worried about a magical attack reaching her while she’s inside; but we’ll make sure that no one can physically get to her. I’ll ask Samantha and Annie to set up a guard outside, just in case.”

Graham pressed a quick hard kiss on his wife’s mouth. “Good idea. I’ll catch Sam in the office on our way out and fill her in.” He turned back to face Asher and his face wore an expression of fierce resolve. “Don’t worry. I promise you, if the man responsible for this is still in Manhattan, the pack will find him. If he tries to leave, the pack will find him. There isn’t anywhere he can hide from us. We won’t stop tracking until he’s found.”

Asher nodded once, rage already clouding his vision. “And when he is, you can all stand back, because I’m going to kill him with my bare hands.”

Twenty-one

A werewolf on the trail of an enemy is an amazing thing to witness, though not many humans get the opportunity. The Lupine’s acute sense of smell allows him to track a person’s or an animal’s movements twenty times more easily than the best-trained bloodhound in the world.

Plus, since a Lupine can be fully aware of the source and behaviors of the creature he’s tracking, he can make educated guesses to stay with a trail, while an animal, with its limited cognitive abilities, would likely be forced to give up the chase.

—A Human Handbook to the Others,
Chapter Five

Daphanie screamed her frustration, then screamed again when no one took the slightest bit of notice. Admittedly, since not a single sound emerged from her throat, it must have been easy to ignore her, but that didn’t make it any easier to deal with.

She wanted to talk to Asher. She wanted to tell him that she was all right, that she might be trapped inside her own body, but her mind was whole and healthy and missing him with a ferocity that was hard to bear. She wanted to speak his name and feel the heat of him as he leaned over her. She wanted to smooth her hands over the lines of worry on his face, the ones that only got deeper with the passing of every minute in this ridiculous nightmare.

And she wanted him to kiss her good-bye so badly it felt like a knife blade twisting in her heart.

Instead, she had to listen helplessly while he and Rafe and Graham marched out of the room on a maddening quest to save her from the forces of evil.

God, she felt like she was trapped not just in her body, but in the plot of a bad made-for-TV sci-fi movie. How the hell had this happened to her? How the hell had she gone from ten days before, when she’d thought
The Others
referred to a creepy Nicole Kidman movie, to this? How had it happened? And how could she make it unhappen?

“She hasn’t said a word?” she heard Corinne ask softly, and Missy sighed as she made her way back to the bedside.

“She hasn’t even twitched a muscle.” Missy reached out to fuss with the blankets, tucking them more securely around her friend. “If her eyes weren’t open and blinking every once in a while, I’d think she was in a coma.”

“Would Annie know if that were the case?”

“I’m sure she would, if she were here. Unfortunately, she’s been in Germany for the last week attending some kind of scientific symposium. She was supposed to be back sometime around now, but I haven’t heard from her.” Missy gave a short, unhappy laugh. “I’m almost afraid to call her in case she’s not home yet. If she can’t come, I don’t know what to do.”

“If she’s not home, you’ll call another doctor. We’ll find out what’s going on, Miss, and we’ll find a way to help Daph. You know we always find a way.”

“God, I hope you’re right.”

Daphanie heard the sound of Corinne rising and the soft glide of skin on skin as she took Missy’s hand.

“I know I’m right,” the reporter said, injecting her voice with the sort of confidence Daphanie associated with her. It was funny how she’d never considered before now that that kind of confidence could take effort to be achieved.

“Come on, though. I’m sure you’ve been up here with her since the moment Asher brought her through the door. You look ragged enough for that to be true. Come downstairs with me and get something to eat.”

Missy shook her head, her fine blond hair shushing against the shoulders of her top. “I’ll eat later. At dinner.”

“It’s past dinner, sweetie. When was the last time you looked at the clock? It’s after seven.”

“Seven? That’s impossible!”

“No, just surprising. Our world might have stopped when Daphanie got into this mess, but the rest of world didn’t. Come get some dinner. Even if you’re not hungry, I am, and you know I suck as a cook. You’ll have to fix us something to keep me from destroying your kitchen with my ineptitude.”

“I shouldn’t leave Daphanie alone. You heard Graham; someone needs to keep an eye on her.”

“We’re only going downstairs,” Corinne pointed out, “and I think this place is the origin of the expression ‘safe as houses.’ You know it’s like a fortress.”

“But—”

“One hour, Miss,” her friend insisted. “I’ll let you come back up in a hour. But you need to eat and you need to rest. Don’t make me threaten to sic Graham or Samantha on you.”

Daphanie heard Missy sigh, and knew the woman had given in. “All right. One hour,” she said, her voice now fading toward the hallway. “Then we’ll both come up and sit with her. You can keep me company. We’ll play gin, or something.”

“Poker,” Corinne corrected, her voice coming from outside the room as the pair headed for the stairs to the first floor. “I need to keep in practice for the next time I find myself in a strip tournament.”

Missy’s laugh floated back toward her, then Daphanie heard their voices disappear into the depths of the house.

She was alone.

It took a minute to push back the fresh surge of panic. Nothing had changed, she hurried to reassure herself. She had nothing to fear. Or at least, nothing new to fear. She remained in exactly the same situation she’d been in when she’d woken a couple of hours ago, and while that situation sucked and blew and scared her all the way to the soles of her feet, at least she could say it hadn’t gotten any worse. That was something, wasn’t it?

And something, as her mother would say, was always better than nothing.

The thought of her family conjured pictures of her sister’s wrecked apartment, and Daphanie gave thanks yet again that Niecie hadn’t been around to see that; it would have broken her heart. Daphanie’s little sister wasn’t what she would call a homebody, by any means—that was Missy’s official title—but she was proud of her things because she’d worked too damned hard to get them. And she’d been so excited about the new apartment she and Mac had moved into just a month before the wedding. Neither had been able to agree which of their old places they’d rather be in—Danice had voted for hers, Mac for his—so they’d compromised by looking for something that would be
theirs
. Daphanie intended to see that before they returned from the honeymoon, the place looked exactly the way they had left it.

She was also glad, Daphanie acknowledged to the blank white surface of the ceiling, that Niecie wasn’t around to see her like this. Her sister would just have worried, and Daphanie couldn’t have stood that. Daphanie was the big sister; it was her job to ease worries, not to cause them.

She didn’t appear to be doing a great job of that at the moment.

Exhaustion threatened to swamp her. She closed her eyes, grateful to be able to at least do that much on her own. Whether she was tired from the culmination of a week’s worth of worry or from the exertion of using her senses in an entirely new way for the past few hours, Daphanie wasn’t sure, but in the grand scheme of things, it didn’t much matter.

The room was empty, so she had nothing to listen to. The ceiling was unchanged, so she had nothing to look at. And Asher was gone on the hunt, so she had everything to hope for.

When he returned, he would bring with him the answer to her prayers. She really believed that. She had to. Without that belief, she had nothing left but despair.

He would return as soon as he knew something, she reassured herself. In the meantime, she could do nothing except lie there and worry.

Sleep, she decided, would be a much more constructive use of her time.

Surprisingly enough, that resolve was all it took. Before the thought had finished forming in her mind, she slipped under, offering up one last prayer that the bad dream would stay away for one more night.

*   *   *

Daphanie woke again to utter darkness and to the stunning realization that she was sitting up in her bed.

Well, not
her
bed precisely, but the bed she’d been occupying in Missy and Graham’s guest room. The details were insignificant. What
was
significant was that she was no longer trapped on her back and unable to move. She was
sitting. Up.

Damn, it felt good.

Smiling, she reached out to flip the blankets off her legs and slide to her feet, but her hands refused to cooperate.

Goddamn it! Not again!

But either God wasn’t listening to her, or he really had as much trouble with his name being taken in vain as her mother had always tried to tell her, because once again, she found she couldn’t move of her own free will. Once again, her body had been removed from her own control.