Bladed Magic (5 page)

The Assembly, our governing body, had decided the time had come and the non-human community was outed. Just like that. The theory had been if we controlled how it was done, it would go better for us.

Too bad you can’t control things like fear and paranoia. Eventually, the fear and paranoia had led to a war between the NH species and the humans. Nearly ten years and millions of lives later, a treaty was reached. Cities like Orlando that were heavily NH populated were split. Nobody outright
called
it segregation, but it was what it was.

NH children weren’t allowed to go to school with human kids. The government didn’t much care if the NH kids got an education at all, really. There were lukewarm attempts to set up schools in the districts populated by the NHs, but since NHs couldn’t hold any sort of government job and since most humans didn’t want to work in an area where they were outnumbered by the monsters, the schools didn’t last long.

The kids did get educated, but usually by their own—shifter kids educated within their packs or clans, while witches schooled their own young.

We didn’t live in a world where everybody played very well together. Not at all.

“It’s just ahead.”

I managed, barely, not to jump at the sound of Justin’s voice. Peering around him, I looked around, but saw next to nothing. Just trees, more trees, and the strip of road that unfurled in front of us, a busted, broken ribbon of pavement.

It looked rather serene.

It felt anything but.

And the punch of magic in the air was enough to suck the air out of my lungs. As we drew closer, it all but burned my skin.

“What are you protecting in there?” I asked, my teeth starting to chatter in reaction. I had to learn to control that. It couldn’t be wise to let people see how much magic affected me, could it? “All the gold in Ft. Knox?”

“Is there gold there? I bet they moved it out.” He brushed a hand through the air in front of us and just like that, the magic faded away. It didn’t
pop
the way a lot of wards did; it was just gone. He glanced back at me over his shoulder, his eyes gleaming. “As to what I’m protecting…well, this is home. I don’t want just anybody come by. Call me weird.”

“You’re weird.”

He blinked, then chuckled. “Well, yeah. But I still don’t like unexpected company.”

“So you’ll fry them with magic?”

“You felt all of it, huh?” His voice was thoughtful. “You’re pretty sensitive to magic for somebody who isn’t a witch. Just what
are
you?”

Useless…weak.
Her voice echoed in the back of my mind and my hands tightened. It wasn’t until a few seconds later that I realized I was gripping his waist almost desperately. It took a conscious effort to make myself relax my grip. Still, her voice whispered to me. “None of your business,” I said, battling back that voice. She didn’t matter. None of it mattered now. Right? I was gone. Far, far away and for all they knew, I’d died in the mountains.

A moment of silence passed as he took a turn in the road and then the trees opened up, revealing an innocuous looking cottage. He stopped the bike in front of it and I climbed off so fast, it was a miracle I didn’t end up on my face. Determined to get away from him, I moved toward the house, ready to jump back at the first feel of magic.

“It was the power wards you felt,” Justin said from behind me. “I use quieter ones, too. But the big ones, the strong ones are there to warn people off, without them realizing it. By the time they cross the ones you felt, then they are here for one of two reasons. Either they want something from me, and in that case, they can call. Or they want to make trouble. I’d rather be the one to throw the first punch.”

He had me inside within another thirty seconds and I felt the skitter of more magic dance over my skin. I raked my nails over my arms, wishing I could banish the sensation.

“If you can feel it that much, then you need to learn to shield against it.”

I looked up and met his eyes. “I’m not a witch.”

“Doesn’t matter. You don’t have to be a witch to know how to shield against basic magic—especially if you have magic in your blood, which you do. It’s not my kind of magic, but it’s still power.” He cocked his head, his green eyes intent on my face. “I can show you.”

“Yeah? What’s it going to cost me?”

“Nothing.” He frowned and moved a little closer. “It’s not like it’s that hard for me to show you how to do it. It’s basic shielding and you have magic in you—it should be second nature once I show you how to do it. Why should it cost you anything?”

“Everything has a price,” I said softly.

Something danced across his face. I might be crazy, but it almost looked like sadness. “It shouldn’t,” he murmured. Then he shrugged. “If it will make you feel better, maybe you can show me how much you know about those weapons. I see you carrying them—can you use them?”

I scowled. “What good would they do me if I couldn’t?”

“You’d be surprised at how many people carry things they can’t use.” He smiled, a slow, easy curl of his lips. “I don’t have too many people to spar with. I can always use a partner.”

I lifted a brow at him. “A partner. You want to fight me?”

“Fight?” He chuckled and then shook his head. “No. I want to spar—it’s practice. Surely you are familiar with the idea. Nobody gets hurt—well, not too much. It could be fun.”

Bone breaking—the taste of blood in my mouth. “Oh, dear…Kitasa, you’re so sloppy…”
Fun. How could that be fun? “Ah…I’ll think about it.”

I spun away from him and wrapped my arms around my middle, staring around the room. The only word to describe it was spartan. Weapons decorated the walls. Well, 
that
I could appreciate.

“Yeah,” he murmured behind me. His voice was closer.

Reflexively, I whirled, staring at him. Justin just watched me. “You do that,” he said. Then he gestured. “Now. Why don’t you sit? We’ve wasted enough time.”

“
I
wasn’t the one who decided to go for an hour long ride,” I pointed out, defensiveness bleeding into my voice.

“True.” A faint smile edged its way into his voice as he settled on a chair. I took the couch across from him, nervousness starting to creep through my veins at the look on his face.

I braced myself, uncertain of just what to expect. I didn’t really expect the next question.

“Do you know him?”

Justin held out a disc and it flashed white before projecting the image of a man. Mid-forties, I’d have to say, with one of those comb-overs that fool nobody. White male, brown hair. His eyes were pale, light green or blue, if I had to guess. Heavy in the forehead, soft in the cheeks, in the belly. All over soft, really. But his eyes were…weird.

Off.

“No.” I hadn’t seen him before. I’d remember those eyes. He was the kind of person I’d steer clear of. And if I couldn’t steer clear of him, I’d make sure I had a weapon in my hand if and when I had to be close to him.

“Never seen him, not even once?”

“No.” I shook my head, uneasy at the intensity of his question. Through the semi-transparent image, I focused on Justin’s face. 
Where are you going with this
?

“Somehow, he knows what you look like. Drew a picture of you so close to the mark, I’d swear you either posed for him or he’d known you most of your life.” Justin continued to watch me from the other side of the projected image and the effect was disconcerting, to say the least.

He knows what you look like
.

Fear burned on the back of my tongue. Very few people would know what I looked like, unless they knew me from the bar. If they didn’t know me from the bar, then…

No. He’s not one of hers. He looks all wrong. If he was, you’d be able to tell. He’s too soft
.

I silenced that fear as I leaned back onto the couch, keeping my posture relaxed even though what I wanted to do was run. Run, or put my back to a wall and grab one of those weapons. I had a few blades, all of them short enough to comfortably carry, and I could use any of the ones Justin had on his walls—

Calm down.
I didn’t have any reason to be this worked up. Not yet.

“I don’t know him,” I said again.

“Damn.” He rubbed his temple.

“Don’t tell me you dragged me all the way down here for that.” My gut twisted. That voice in my head shrieked. It wasn’t the drive—although my skin was still buzzing from the contact. It hadn’t been…unpleasant. For the first thirty minutes, mind-breaking fear had gripped me, but then, slowly, it had faded and I’d started to realize it was…almost nice. Almost like flying, the way he maneuvered the bike.

And his body was warm, strong against mine. Not brutal and cruel. His hands gripped the handlebars, steering the bike. They didn’t hold me pinned—

My hands were shaking as I shoved them through my hair and forced myself to focus.

“Oh, no. You’re not getting off that easy,” Justin murmured.

The tone in his voice had me dragging my gaze back to him.

He watched me, his gaze intent, the lines of his face hard, almost stark in their beauty.

“You see, I have to hunt this monster. You’re a connection, and I think I even understand how. You’re supposed to help me find him. And he knew it. That’s why he ran.”

My jaw dropped open.

“
What
?”

This was bullshit.

But as much as I wanted to demand Justin take me back to Wolf Haven, I’d made the mistake of giving him ten minutes to explain.

That was what he’d asked for—ten minutes.

Stupid me.

That was how I’d found myself in his workroom, staring at a board he’d fixed to the wall. It was covered with hard copies of nearly a dozen pictures, all of them girls under the age of thirteen.

That was all it had taken, really.

He hadn’t even had to say anything.

I’d seen their faces and I was done.

“His name is Larry White.” Justin hit a button on the tablet he had on the table and I watched as it projected an image up in the air. I blinked at the clarity of it. Computers, tablets, phones, even cars, all of that tech were things I hadn’t known existed until a few short years ago. I had a phone now, a basic unit, one that TJ had told me really should have been recycled sometime around the end of the war—that was exaggerating a bit, but it did the job and I was able to afford it. Other than that, I was fairly unfamiliar with most of the tech people here used. They hadn’t had any of this where I’d grown up, cut off from the world.

Script filled the screen next to Larry’s name and something hot, wild twisted inside me.

Multiple complaints for suspected sexual assault
—

That one line leaped out at me.

“Sexual assault.” I turned my head and stared at the young faces in front of me. “Those are his victims.”

“Yeah.” Justin crossed his arms over his chest, staring at the faces of the children as well.

“He’s been arrested. Why hasn’t he been charged?”

His laugh was caustic and his anger stung my skin. “Well, you see, it wasn’t priority for the cops. Cops are human. They have human priorities. Our pal Larry falls into that weird grey area—if he wasn’t a scum-sucking pervert, I might feel bad for him. He’s been fired from multiple jobs, mugged and had the shit beaten out of him multiple times. Labeled a pariah because he has an ability that people decided made him NH—he’s got a weak psychic gift, you see.”

I curled my lip. “Psychic ability is found in the human populace. Doesn’t make a person non-human. Not by human law and not by the Charter.” The Charter was the laws created by the Assembly. People lived—and died—by the Charter, or they did once they decided they wanted to be part of the Assembly of NHs. Being a member had its advantages, the protection that came with those laws. It had its disadvantages, too. Like being
registered
. I wasn’t too keen on the idea of putting my name down anywhere.

“Trust me, I’m aware.” Justin continued to study White’s victims. “Thus the reason for the stipulation. White is human. Plain and simple. His ability is strong enough to make him useful, which is why he was shacking up with the wolf you tangled with. But he’s still just human. And the cops don’t care if a psychic goes around preying on little kids—if those little kids are NH.”

The fury that punched through me felt hot enough to set the room afire.

“They just let it go,” I murmured. “They turned away.”

“Yeah.” Justin inclined his head. “They turned away.”

He glanced at the wall behind me and then said softly, “Your ten minutes are almost up. Are you ready to go?”

“No.” I had to force it out through clenched teeth. I
wanted
to be ready to go. But I couldn’t walk away now.

And damn the bastard, he knew it. He continued to stand there, thumbs tucked into his pockets. “The son of a bitch was lucky enough to hook up with a wolf who could and would kill for him, as long as he proved himself useful. A few of the girls had parents who came looking for him and they did track him down, only to get gutted by the wolf. He was a lone wolf—didn’t belong to the Wolf Pack that lives in East Orlando. That, my darling Kit, is a fucking shame. If he did, both the wolf and White would be nothing but a bloody memory. The MacDonald doesn’t hold with child abuse. The victims’ parents got together—a couple of them were witches and they were sort of the key there. They put two and two together, figured out what was going on. One of the victims was a baby cat—her parents were in the Cat clan and they tried to go to the Alpha, but…”

Even I’d heard about the Alpha of the Cat Clan. She was a psycho. She might care if one of the victims was somebody related to her. Other than that? Nope. “She didn’t care.”

“Worse. She beat the father for wasting her time on such a trivial matter and the mother went out alone. They still haven’t found her body.”

Shoving my fist against my palm, I closed my eyes. Sometimes I hated this world. It was better than the hell I’d run away from, but not by much. Not always.