Defensive Magic: A Paranormal Urban Fantasy Tale (Lost Library Book 3) (18 page)

Lizzie started to speak, but John interrupted her, heading off her question. “I’m fine. I need you to quickly tell me exactly what kind of help he was getting.”

Lizzie nodded her understanding. “Healing, primarily.” She closed her eyes. Small wrinkles formed in her forehead and her head cocked to the side. “Lightness. A sense of lightness or weightlessness.”

“Lizzie?” John touched her arm.

She opened her eyes and blinked. “Sorry. Maybe his weight was altered? Or he was lifted?”

“Increased speed,” John replied.

“That would fit,” she agreed.

Without his helper, Gregor would be slower. And if he bled now, he wouldn’t spontaneously heal. Sounded like a fighting chance to John. He hoped his impromptu medical care would get him through the next half hour or so. He couldn’t be slow, and he sure as hell couldn’t be light-headed. He reminded himself that if Gregor won, he wouldn’t leave any witnesses.

Ben tapped his shoulder. “You ready?” Ben reached up and gently squeezed the fluid bag.

John replied, “Half a bag is better than none.” He reached down and removed the catheter. He took stock and decided the odds weren’t totally crap. He threw the equipment back in the bag and pulled out an EpiPen. He shucked his jeans, and jabbed his thigh. Then he changed.

Chapter 22

L
izzie watched John head toward Gregor, moving at a ground-eating trot. “Just like nothing’s happened,” she muttered.

The Escalade turned into the clearing just as John and Gregor met in the center.

Ben cleared his throat. “You cast a sensing ward earlier?”

Eyes trained on the two wolves circling but not engaging, she said, “That’s right. Just to track John’s movement.”

“But the cheating—how did you detect it?”

Lizzie cast a quick sideways glance in his direction. “Are you asking me to cast another sensing ward without actually interfering in the fight?”

She could hear the smile in Ben’s voice when he said, “I am. Just to keep the fight honest. If there’s no magic on their side—”

“I’m not to interfere,” she finished for him. No way did she agree, but she could keep that to herself. “What’s up with the IV?”

“Just fluids—to combat the blood loss. He’s fine,” he said in a reassuring tone.

Well, shit. She’d forgotten the basic rule of Lycan healing: the change healed what was broken but couldn’t replace what wasn’t there. What did blood loss do? If she got out of this mess, she was taking some kind of medical class. She was around too much blood, too many injuries, and she
hated
feeling helpless.

Her heart stuttered. The fight had begun.

Several seconds later, Lizzie realized she’d been holding her breath. She reminded herself to exhale. This wasn’t so bad. She winced as Gregor darted in, lunging for John’s neck. Even with her human hearing, Lizzie heard the snap of Gregor’s teeth as he missed his target. John danced away, circling around behind Gregor to grab a hind leg. Okay—it was bad.

She reminded herself—breathe. The fight did look more fairly matched. And she recognized the style, John’s style—fast, efficient, and clean. She wiped her sweaty palms on her pants. Who was she kidding? Fairly matched or not, until John walked away in one piece, she’d be sick with worry.

Gregor was snapping at John and drawing blood around his nose, ears, and face, but John held tight to his prize. Lizzie had seen this before. She knew what happened next. An incapacitated opponent couldn’t fight back or run away. With a final, vicious jerk, she heard the loud snap of breaking bone. She knew it was coming and she still flinched, her stomach lurching. Shoving the gorge down, she refused to look away. She wouldn’t minimize what was happening.

Rather than struggle ineffectually or wait for death, Gregor chose to change form. But he wasn’t fast enough. The moment his human throat appeared, John ripped it apart.

Remaining in wolf form, his muzzle and chest bathed in Gregor’s blood, John backed away. His form now still, the signs of exhaustion were evident. His legs were staggered apart, and even with this wider stance, his body swayed. He took one step back and staggered slightly. Froth and blood had mixed to create a pinkish foam around his mouth and spattered on his coat. His head dipped lower with each labored breath. By the time she and Ben arrived, John had dropped to his haunches and was sitting calmly in the grass, his nose turned into the wind. His chest was still heaving and his tongue lolled out the side of his mouth, but he didn’t look like he was going to fall over.

“Why hasn’t he changed? Is something wrong?” Lizzie asked Ben. She wanted to touch him—see that he was actually okay, but he was preoccupied and probably wouldn’t appreciate it.

John flicked an ear toward her.

“He’s fine—just not done,” Ben replied.

What else could he do? He needed to change and heal himself. But even as she thought it, she could see he was recovering. The heaving of his sides had subsided to a heavy pant. Ben pulled a bottle of water out of his cargo pants.

“Wanna rinse?” he asked.

John pulled his nose out of the air and turned to them. He made a short chuffing sound that sounded an awful lot like a laugh.

“Hey—just asking.”

Then Lizzie saw what they were waiting for. The two enforcers—moving with no particular speed—were heading to the center of the clearing, Scott and Max on their heels.

Lizzie checked the truck, but she didn’t see anyone inside. The fourth man must have escaped. Her head hurt even thinking about how that would complicate this situation.

The two enforcers wore similar, stony expressions. And it didn’t take long for Lizzie to realize that this wasn’t like last time. These men weren’t mourning the loss of a pack member, like Carlos’s enforcers had. They were mourning their own lives.

“Die quickly and with some small honor—or not. Your choice.” Ben waited patiently for the two men to respond.

Lizzie blinked. She was about to see two men killed. She blinked again. The fighting was bad enough. This… She took a breath. But it didn’t help, didn’t center her. For the first time since her introduction to magic and the magic-using community, she was angry at her family. Her parents, her grandmother, or whoever in her life had known that she was a spell caster—and said nothing. How could they have left her so unprepared for a world where the rules were so different from everything she’d grown to understand was fair and just?

Now wasn’t the time. Not to be angry at her family. Not to draw an arbitrary line in the sand and say this death is okay while that one is not. She’d seen people die. That the threat to her life or her loved ones had been immediate, yes, that had helped her conscience. But these men were a threat, as well. And if she understood what was happening, then they’d knowingly committed an act punishable by death. She sighed. Her head and her heart still hurt.

The dark-headed one spat at Ben. Unblinking, Ben calmly wiped the spittle from his face.

The other Oregon enforcer, the one with medium brown hair, looked older. He eyed his companion with disgust. Then he turned, addressing himself to John, who was still sitting in wolf form. “What we did was wrong. Even if this pup doesn’t know it, I do. But the changes you’re bringing are a cancer. You and those like you will eat away at everything that is Lycan if you’re not stopped.”

Scott spoke with a low voice, the intensity of his emotion shining through in more than just the words alone. “We choose change over stagnation and death. You can choose a dying way of life. But don’t drag the rest of us down with you.”

John turned his head to Scott and stared with his head slightly lowered.

Scott backed up a step and said, “Alpha.”

Ben walked up to the older man and shoved him to his knees. “Your Alpha sent you?”

“No.”

Ben walked behind the older man, a hand on his shoulder. “There are others in the Pack who support your cause?”

“Yes.”

“You’re working with someone outside the Pack?”

On his knees, head bowed, and minutes, at most, away from dying, and he smiled. “Yes.” Satisfaction rang in his voice.

“Who?” Ben asked.

“Go to hell.”

Ben looked at John. A small dip of his nose, and Ben swiftly broke the man’s neck.

She heard Ben call out, “Max.”

She must have been standing motionless for several seconds, staring at the body of the dead man. Because the next thing she realized, Max was next to her pulling gently on her arm. “Let’s go.”

She pinched her lips tightly together and turned to look at him in confusion. “Lizzie, come with me. Let’s go to the truck.”

He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. His hand came up to cup her ear and push her head close to his chest. And then he carefully pulled her along until she was walking with him in the direction of the car. She understood why when she heard the first scream. Max had tried to muffle it, but there was no escaping that terrible sound. John hadn’t changed back yet, because he was the one making that man scream. Max kept walking, the soft cotton of his shirt soaking up her tears.

Chapter 23

L
izzie sat in the back seat, waiting but not watching. Max cranked the ignition and turned on the radio. She might be in shock. The thought absently floated through her mind.

The door opened and John climbed in next to her. He leaned forward and said something to Max. The car started moving.

“What would have happened if he’d won?” she asked. Her thoughts were still disconnected. Like they were hovering near her, but not a part of her.

John picked up her hand. His hands were always so warm. “He would have torn the Pack apart. Probably killed the Council members, if they didn’t flee.”

Her thoughts pulled closer. “And killed me.”

He squeezed her hand. She frowned. He was hurting her hand. The pressure lessened. “No. Ben and Max would have taken you away.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“If anything ever happens to me, you’ll be okay. I’ve made arrangements.”

She could feel the muscles of her face pulling and tightening, a scowl forming. “No.” And it was like she snapped back into herself. She turned to him and said, “No, I won’t.” She scanned the SUV. “Where are Scott and Ben?”

And when had he cleaned himself up and dressed? She’d been more lost in her in thoughts than she’d realized.

His body tensed. “Taking care of the bodies and the car.”

She nodded. “Of course.” Her tone turning brisk, she said, “What did you learn?”

“Hey”—he moved closer to her on the seat—“are you all right?”

She considered her response, suppressing the urge to utter an automatic reply. Was she all right?

She looked down at the hand he was still holding and twined her fingers with his. “No.” She looked back up at him, making eye contact, and said, “But I will be.”

She infused as much confidence into her assertion as she could. Then she kissed him once, hard on the mouth. Settling back into her seat, she said, “So—who was behind this challenge?”

“There are at least three factions operating within the Oregon Pack. Their Alpha is old, but strong. That alone creates a lot of conflict in traditional packs—the younger generation is waiting for the moment when the Alpha is weak enough to be overtaken by a younger leader. Add in three ambitious groups, and they were ripe to be exploited.”

It was easy to forget how different John’s Pack—her Pack—was from others. The peaceful transition of leadership from Logan to John was just one way Texas was creating a more stable community for Lycan.

“Did you find out who’s doing the exploiting?”

“Witches. More specifically, the Pacific Northwest Coven.”

“A name—finally.” Her body fell back against the seat cushion.

“Don’t get too excited yet. Apparently this coven has shared interests with Gregor’s faction. They support a traditional pack structure—probably because it leaves Lycan weaker against their well-developed, large territory communities.” A cynical note crept into John’s voice. She couldn’t blame him. Lycan were sometimes their own worst enemy. “And both were isolationists, preferring talent groups not intermingle. But—and here’s the big news—witches don’t usually involve themselves in much outside their own communities. They were hired.”

“Gregor?” she suggested doubtfully.

“Not by Gregor. If anything, Gregor was pushed into the challenge by the witches.”

She bit her lip hard. “Worth. He likes his hired guns.”

“I’d say that’s a strong possibility.”

A pensive silence fell between the two of them as they each considered how the pieces were starting to fit together.

That meant Gregor’s magical help was likely a witch. Lizzie didn’t see how earth, water, fire or air had anything to do with rapid healing. “So witches can heal?”

“Ah. We were working on the flawed assumption that there was a fourth man. In fact, there was a fourth and a fifth. Scott caught two scent trails, but they’d left by car by the time he and Max arrived. Our informant confirmed there was both a healer and an air witch.”

“That is too cool,” Lizzie exclaimed. Excitedly, she explained, “I think I know how they did it. The healing part was confusing me. But if the witch’s medium is air, then maybe he used the air as a conduit to bridge the space between the healer and Gregor—”

John interrupted her. “Then it would be as if the healer were there, touching Gregor.” He whistled. “That is one seriously powerful healer. And the speed?”

“I had a sense of him being lighter or being lifted, which let him move at an increased speed. I could see how an air witch would make sense, in retrospect.”

Max cleared his throat. He’d been so quiet as they’d spoken that Lizzie had forgotten he was ferrying them around in Ben’s car. Although, in her defense, she had
been pretty out of it when they first left.

“I hate to interrupt—but where are we going? We’re about to hit the turnoff for Ben’s place. Your house? Ben’s house?” Max asked.

“Shit. Vicky.” John gave Lizzie an apologetic look, then told Max, “Ben’s house.”

Lizzie waited. After two miles passed, she finally said, “You’re gonna make me ask?”