Dead Shifter Walking (29 page)

His warmth seeped into my body as my arms
wrapped around him, eyes closing, feeling his energy pushing into
my own to help support me. I sucked in a shocked breath. What the
hell was going on?

Outside the door, the noise had stopped. I
opened my heavy lids, heaving a deep sigh as naked Grandpa stood
outside the destroyed door with Steven’s head in his hand, dripping
fresh blood onto the carpet.

“You may want to consider tile,” I muttered,
feeling Logan release me, turning to survey the scene.

He sighed, annoyed and back in control.

We both turned as the bathroom door opened and a
tear-stained Lorraine emerged. I cringed seeing her; she was not a
pretty crier.

“Logan,” she wailed, throwing herself into his
side.

Untangling myself from him, I felt my core cool
reluctantly at the reminder of who and what we were. Logan didn’t
take his eyes off of me as I gave him a half smile; energy did
weird things to people. Certainly, after all of this was over, we
would get a killer laugh at the absurdity of this situation.

Shaking my head, I turned to Gramps. “Release
me,” he commanded.

“Do you know how?” I asked, looking down at the
head of the now dead mage who could have answered that
question.

He growled as I scratched my head.

“I have an idea,” I said, feeling exhaustion
seeping into my bones. “Logan, you good to drive?” He nodded, still
awkwardly holding Lorraine.

“Let’s take this party on the road,” I
muttered.

Chapter 26

Pulling up to the dilapidated warehouse, I could
hear my trusty band of fighters arguing as they battled against the
energy field keeping them locked inside.

Gramps awkwardly got out of the backseat, still
carting around Steven’s dead head. I wasn’t sure if he even
realized it, but I certainly wasn’t going to bring it up,
considering his unstable mental faculties.

“Logan!” Darren yelled, “it isn’t safe!”
attempting to warn us as we walked to the mental rollup door.

“I believe we are in the clear,” Logan answered,
motioning to the head hanging down from his grandfather’s hand.

“Shit,” Darren muttered as I took in the red
field holding them in.

“Everyone alright?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Darren responded, “pissed as hell,
though.”

I smiled. “I can only imagine. So any ideas on
how to get you out of here?”

“None. Jerry took Blake and Blue to try and
gather supplies for some super magic.” He shrugged. “That was a bit
ago. None of our cell phones work. This barrier is no joke.”

“How can it exist if Steven is dead?” Logan
asked.

We all shrugged. Magic wasn’t something I
dabbled in.

“Twins alright?” I asked with a sigh, resting my
hand against the field.

“Yeah, just shaken up,” Darren answered, casting
a look over his shoulder.

I nodded, my eyes no longer seeing into the
warehouse but the energy running through the shield. Cords of burnt
orange tangled with brilliant yellows weaved with blood reds in my
mind, and I pulled against them gently at first, curious, before I
tugged again, feeling a give.

“Get DOWN!” Jerry screamed, right before I
pulled with all my strength.

The cords snapped like an elastic band does when
pulled too far past its capacity, flinging outwards with a force
that smashed me against the car window shattering the glass and
sucking into my body.

“No one TOUCH her!” Jerry screamed again as the
pounding footsteps slid to a stop uncertainly.

Drawing a ragged breath, I had to blink a
handful of times before I could actually see the blue sky above me,
rolling to my side on the black car.

“Fuck,” I whispered, feeling my entire body
pounding.

Jerry looked down at me, pissed, actually livid.
“What the fuck were you doing?” he demanded, his teeth
clenched.

“Oh, you know, attempting to blow myself up,” I
said good-naturedly, sitting up, regretting it as my head swam and
I sagged back down.

“How the fuck did you do that?” he asked,
glaring at me.

Pushing all the way up Blake’s worried face came
into view. “It had bands; I broke them,” I said with a shrug.

“No, how did you absorb Steven’s power?” he
asked again, dark eyes intent on my own.

“Uh, I… oh, shit,” I muttered, casting a glance
at Logan’s Grandfather. “Probably when I freed Gramps, which would
also explain why he’s still functioning.”

Jerry nodded, watching me closely as I stared
back at him unblinking. I suppose getting himself trapped in a
warehouse was bound to make him cranky, but I wasn’t in the
mood.

“Do you have any idea what you have done?” Jerry
hissed at me as I stood on unstable feet.

“No, Jerry, I do not, but you speaking in
cryptic questions sure as fuck ain’t going to help me figure out
how to fix it,” I yelled back, cradling my head.

Jerry stepped back as I leaned heavily against
the damaged car. “We need to go,” I reminded him as the sirens
wailed in the distance. I would explain everything to Mercer, just
not right now. Being detained with a naked dead shifter didn’t seem
like a good idea, not to mention the head he was still clinging
to.

…

Straddling a naked Gramps in his destroyed
coffin, six feet below ground, still clutching the head of Steven,
I focused on what Jerry had tersely told me.

“Draw all of the magic into yourself from him,
every last drop; it is the only way he will have peace,” Jerry had
said intently.

“Right, because clearly I, the succubus
executioner, can see magic,” I mumbled to myself.

“What?” Jerry called down.

“Nothing,” I answered, my irritation and anger
wanting out of the tight confines as I bound them deeper inside of
me.

My anger left a red trail as I pushed it deeper,
locked down tight. Sighing, I tilted my head to see the orange
surrounding Gramps.

“Oh shit,” I whispered, raising a hand and
seeing the faint outline of Steven’s magic surrounding it.

Finally, now we were in business. Drawing the
magic, as I manipulated my own emotions, I pulled, twisting and
sucking every drop of orange that wanted to stick onto Gramp’s
body.

From the gasps and muttering above, I assumed it
was working.

Magic, unlike my emotions, burned hot, pricking
my skin, boiling under the surface, and, unlike my emotions, it was
damn hard to control, strands kept reaching out, trying to get back
into the now lifeless body.

Once I felt fairly confident I could remove my
focus from the magic and climb out of the coffin, I did so very
ungracefully and without help.

Panting from the effort to contain the magic, I
looked up, on my knees, into Jerry’s cold eyes.

“Done,” I told him as I pushed myself into a
standing position.

“This is going to hurt,” he warned, his voice
emotionless.

“Bring it on,” I demanded as he reached out and
gripped my hand.

Fire sliced through my veins where he pulled the
magic from, tearing apart the delicate framework of my body into a
thousand pieces. I was certain, even with my advanced healing, I
would never recover from it. The orange magic screamed as it was
pulled, echoing out of my mouth in a pitch so high I could never
produce it on my own. Throwing my head back, I could see Jerry’s
own dark energy pulsing as he absorbed the new influx of power.

His dark power silenced the voice and left me
dry. Shoulders hunched, I looked at him with new understanding. He
wasn’t just a driver and magic dabbler; Jerry was a powerful mage
who could level city blocks if he decided to.

So why was he hanging around my little old town
pretending differently?

As he saw the knowledge in my eyes, his
shoulders straightened, preparing for words every smart person
would have said.

I’ve never been accused of being intelligent,
but I have been called a whore, violent, mindless, demon; all those
I could relate to. Whatever secrets he was hiding, I wouldn’t be
the one to force them to light.

Instead, I just nodded. “Done being cranky?” I
asked, rubbing the hand he touched.

Shock registered across his features for only a
moment before he put on his good ol’ boy smile. “Nope, not hardly.
We still got a hell of a mess to clean up.”

I groaned, trudging pass him back to the
cars.

He was right; we did.

Chapter 27

“I cannot believe I let you drag me here,” I
hissed at Grams.

“Relax, Olivia, they don’t know we’re
supernaturals, only that we are part of the Council, here to
support the vampires and update the public on the death of the
horrible person responsible for killing all those innocent
families,” Grams said, smoothing out her turquoise pant suit. She
looked good, unlike me in jeans and a matching turquoise tank top
under my leather jacket. I wasn’t sure what confidence I was
supposed to be bringing to the table.

Tate nodded at me across the long white table
with some random sport sponsor logo behind us printed on cheap
plastic. Really?

Logan and his band of shifters were nowhere to
be seen, while it was his total and complete fault that Steven was
allowed to become so out of control, it was politically better if
only one group of supernaturals were present at this press
conference, wrapping up the puppet master case.

“Ladies and gentlemen, if you will all please
take your seats, we can begin the update from the Supernatural
Council,” Governor Hash began with a fake smile on his slimy face.
That man sent disgusting shivers down my spine every time his false
smile stretched his thin lips.

“But before we do, I would like to say a few
things.” I scowled; should have seen that one coming. Grams kept
her calm and composed smile. “We have done everything in our power
to identify and stop the supernatural monster behind these
senseless and brutal killings. The Supernatural Council has been
assisting our lead Detective Mercer on the case and he has the
update on the gritty details of how this went down. For now, please
know that everything has been taken care of and the threat
eliminated.” Hash finished, his eyes attempting to intently relay
that everything was under control.

He was a fool; tomorrow there would be another
monster to vanquish, another supernatural or human psychopath
walking free or created in the darkest hours of their own
psyche.

I glanced at Mercer’s face turning red;
apparently, he didn’t enjoy public speaking. Stepping stiffly to
the podium, he fidgeted with his jacket before stuttering into the
microphone. My chair, scraping against the stage, was brutally loud
in the silence. I smiled at Mercer as his shoulders relax.
“Actually, I’d like to hand this off to Olivia, who has been
working with me.”

I smiled, clapping Mercer on the back. “We can
finally say we have successfully ended the killer named, the puppet
master.”

“Where is he?” asked a reporter.

“Dead,” Mercer said, his shoulder stiffening
back up.

“Why did it take so long and so many deaths
before you found him; was it due to the supernaturals who kill
everything in their path?”

“Only the ones who deserve it,” I said, leaning
toward the microphone as Mercer went back to his seat.

“Who made you judge, jury, and executioner?” he
asked with pure hatred lacing his words.

“No one, those are constructs of your justice
system,” I answered him honestly, wrapping down the need to kill
him. I certainly didn’t want to prove his whole mindless killing
theory was accurate.

“It seems like a poor way of dealing with your
problems, killing so many,” he said with a flick of his pen in his
notebook.

“We protect our own from any and all threats,” I
answered.

“What about your own threat to us?” he asked
with plain hostility.

“You create enough threats for yourselves,” I
answered right back quickly.

“No, we protect everyone and give the accused
rights, something you and your kind, could never understand,” he
finished, his lip curling in malice.

“You are telling me you are happy with your
current system of dealing with sex offenders?” I asked, astonished
at the thin reporter who began this dialogue before my eyes roved
over the crowd. “You are perfectly happy that they are arrested, if
the children they abuse are ever brave enough to come forward and
someone believes them, then go to trial, where they may or may not
be found guilty, serve their time, and are released back into the
community?”

No one spoke up.

“That is a pathetic attempt to protect your
innocent children. The Supernatural Council, when given evidence of
a supernatural sex crime, eliminates said supernatural. They kill
them, they destroy the body so it cannot be reanimated, and protect
the children. Because we understand something you clearly have yet
to comprehend, hurting others by choice is a choice that will
always be made again.”

“But you sickos have sex clubs,” a blonde
middle-aged woman in the back yelled out.

“Correct, and no one there is forced to be
there,” I answered, growing bored.

“How can you be so certain?” The annoying skinny
reported asked, clearly having been thrown a lifeline.

“Because we have a reputation,” I began “of
being ruthless to those who force others into the sex clubs, who
use drugs to coerce, but, more importantly, we have a reputation of
protecting our own,” I finished with heat.

“You are inhumane,” the blonde woman said again.
“You vamps feed off our blood.”

“But we don’t kill,” Tate said over the chorus
of outcry.

“Show them, Tate,” I said, slipping off my
leather jacket and pulling my hair out of the way. He stood up
abruptly, his eyes ambering.

“Are you mad to show them what they fear the
most?” he hissed at me.