Inferno (19 page)

She began a deliberate, sniffing appraisal of their surroundings. She had no doubt that Duncan could See magical traps better than anyone. As a shifter, she could
smell
magic. Such skills had stood her in good stead many times in the past and this situation was proving more dangerous than she had expected. Their intrepid group could use all the help it could get.

They were caught between trying to appear normal to anyone who might be watching and doing their best to avoid booby traps. From the looks of the house, Megan didn’t think anyone was home. Still, they wouldn’t know for sure until they got closer.

Duncan moved quickly up the path seeming more confident. Then, out of nowhere, Megan smelled something. Something bad.

“Duncan, hold up.” She tried to keep her voice to a whisper. The half-fey knight stopped, turning slightly to look at her, and that’s when it struck.

From a low hanging branch in the tree overhead, a creature out of nightmares jumped onto Duncan’s back. He immediately crouched, giving Dante a clear shot at the hideous thing, and that glowing, magical armor suddenly appeared to protect Duncan’s back.

Dante move faster than her eyes could track, wrestling with the creature who was about the size of a child but cunningly quick, inhumanly strong and ferociously dangerous. It wasn’t any kind of animal that occurred in nature. No, this thing was something dreamed up by a warped and twisted mind.

It had three-inch claws, and it tried to sink its vicious teeth into Duncan’s armored neck. Megan finally understood the value of being able to conjure armor out of thin air. It was the only thing protecting Duncan’s vulnerable body from this surprise attack.

Dante did a partial shift. Being a bloodletter of advanced years, Dante had the ability to shift into anything he could imagine, including mythical creatures and imaginary monsters like the one he faced. He shifted his hands into fierce claws, using them to rip the creature off of Duncan.

It landed in a crouch, ready to do battle. Dante had its full attention, but Megan wouldn’t let him fight it alone. She moved off to the side, taking up a flanking position. Dante gave her a brief nod as she kicked off her shoes, readying herself for a half shift. Her pants were stretchy enough, as was the T-shirt she had chosen to wear this night. With any luck, she would be reasonably clothed when she shifted back to human form after the much larger
were
wolf fighting form she called from within.

The familiar change took only a moment, yet in that moment the nightmare creature charged Dante. A quick look at Duncan told her he was busy conjuring. He now held a glowing silver sword in his hands to match the magical armor. In all likelihood, he was using the blade to focus his spell, but Dante couldn’t wait. The monster was already making him bleed.

Megan swiped at it with her clawed hand. It shrieked and jumped away from Dante to face its new attacker. Megan eyed it with both triumph and wariness. She’d succeeded in getting away from Dante, but now she had to deal with it. The thing was small, fast and judging by Dante’s wounds, deadly accurate with those wickedly sharp claws.

“Hold its attention,” Dante called to her.

She nodded briefly, beginning to dance around the monster, making short feints with her clawed feet and hands. She managed to score a few hits without taking any herself. She knew her luck couldn’t hold for long. She had the advantage of reach on the short creature. That was all that was saving her from some nasty gashes.

Dante came in from behind, ramming the monster’s unprotected back with claws he had conjured that were like something out of a comic book. The little monster started screeching so loud it hurt Megan’s ears. Dante let go, and Megan went in for the kill.

Between the two of them slicing and dicing, they cut the ghastly creature to ribbons. Satisfied it wouldn’t be bothering them again, Megan shifted to human form. That’s when she noticed a rustling in the trees.

“Oh, crap.” Megan eyed the dark canopy overhead with wide eyes.

“I think that thing had friends,” Dante observed in a tight voice, also looking upward.

“Get out from under the trees!” Duncan shouted as they made a run for it. The only way to go was forward, toward the house.

They turned on the doorstep to make a stand. Duncan faced the creatures that were massing for an all-out assault. His spell was finally ready. He raised his gleaming magical sword and let loose on them, a jagged bolt of pure power blackening each of the foul creatures it touched. And there were a lot of them. Too many for them to have fought.

Duncan’s magic fried each and every one of them, leaving black smudges on the lawn where they’d once stood. Even the one Dante and Megan had torn apart was incinerated in Duncan’s cleansing white fire. Megan breathed a sigh of relief.

“Well, if nobody saw that, I’ll be amazed,” Dante said wryly. “So much for keeping a low profile.”

Duncan sheathed his sword, keeping his armor in place for the time being. “I begin to think the entire property is shielded from observation. We can see out, but nobody on the street sees anything out of the ordinary inside the fence. That’s why the gate was so well fortified. I think if you get past there, you get what you deserve, in Siobhan’s warped mind.”

“Nice girl,” Dante commented wryly.

“Who is more than likely not at home,” Duncan observed. “If she was in there, I think we would’ve seen her long before now. Either that, or she’s bolted through some escape hatch we’ve yet to discover.”

“True. It’s best to tread cautiously. If she is in there and waiting to choose her moment to confront us, we’ve given her ample warning at this point.” Dante rolled his eyes and Megan realized this hadn’t gone at all the way he’d probably wished.

“Well,” Megan said, trying to be positive, “we made it as far as the doorstep. Now what?”

“We’ve already established that the grounds are dangerous and more than likely, no one’s home,” Duncan reasoned in a low voice. “I’d prefer to take my chances inside, even though being inside the house may be more hazardous than being out in the open in some ways.”

“I concur.” Dante nodded. “It’s more likely we can pick up good information in the house.

Besides, we can always search the yard more thoroughly once we have a peek inside and make certain nobody’s around to try and stop us.”

“So we’re going to do a little breaking and entering?” Megan raised one eyebrow, challenging them.

“No one can see us from the street,” Duncan shrugged. “Only the dark mage will have any idea we’ve been here and personally, I’m not worried about pissing her off.” That startled a short laugh out of Megan.

“We were just lucky she didn’t have any surprises for us between the trees and here.” Dante’s frustration level was easily heard in his voice.

“Thank the Lady for small blessings,” Megan intoned, turning to Duncan. He was on point again, taking the lead looking for any more magical traps that might challenge them. “There’s little doubt she protected the front door, right? I mean, that’s pretty standard, isn’t it?” Duncan shrugged. “It makes sense.” He cautioned them to stand back. “Let me have a look.” He waved his hands around in an intricate pattern and even Megan saw the results. Glowing, evil looking glyphs erupted around the portal. They shone an angry red.

“What’s that?” Megan breathed. She’d never seen anything like it.

“It’s another nasty bit of work, but seeing it is half the battle.” A cunning smile spread over his handsome face. “I believe if I just tweak the sequence here…” He did something that gave off the aroma of intense magic to her sensitive nose and the characters moved, reforming into something different. Something tangibly less evil. The glow on that section of the door dissipated, the characters fading into something benign. “…and here.” Duncan repeated the process on the other side and even more of the intimidating pattern changed and faded.

“Once more,” Duncan spoke to himself as he changed the last of the glyphs. “Ah. That’s it.” He stepped back, looking a little worse for wear. “Now it’s safe enough. Megan, will you do the honors?”

She was surprised at first, when Duncan asked her to kick down the door. Then she remembered the old stories about bloodletters needing to be invited inside a structure. She did the honors, as he’d called it, with pleasure. Duncan went in first, then turned and gestured to Dante.

“Won’t you come in?” Duncan seemed genuinely amused, and Dante scowled as he pushed past the half-fey knight to stand inside the doorway. Megan followed, bemused.

“So that bit about you having to be invited is true?” She couldn’t help asking.

“This isn’t the time for this discussion, but suffice it to say we are creatures of tradition. While the invitation isn’t strictly necessary, it’s hard for any of us to go against centuries of custom.”

“Wow.” She filed the information in her mind for later consideration. She’d love to ask him more, but he was right. This was neither the time nor place.

Megan took a look around as Duncan started moving warily into the house. They were in a small entryway that branched in two directions. The living area was off to the left and a short hallway leading to what looked like the kitchen was to the right. Duncan headed left first, the opening to the living room being larger and more inviting than the other direction. Dante and Megan followed cautiously behind him.

The first things she noticed were the curtains. They were black and stark against walls that were painted a sickly cobalt blue. Normally, cobalt was one of Megan’s favorite colors but whatever they had done—it looked like some weird combination of texture and pattern in the paint—made the color ghastly. The combination with the black curtains gave her the creeps.

“Our girl Siobhan needs some serious decorating advice,” she muttered.

There wasn’t much furniture and the house had an unused feel to it. Megan couldn’t explain exactly why she thought it, but she believed the sorceress didn’t spend a lot of time here.

Duncan moved ahead of them checking out a side room. He paused in the doorway, a scowl on his face.

“Damn and blast!” Duncan scooted backward as a dark miasma filled the portal.

It looked like black smoke, billowing and roiling in the room beyond. It didn’t spill out into the living room and Megan suspected that was Duncan’s doing. He was conjuring something, his hands moving and his voice a low rumble that was just audible to her sensitive ears. He was speaking another language—something she’d never heard before. The cadence of it was lilting and lovely to her senses. It
sounded
magical, if such a thing were possible. In all likelihood, he was speaking the language of the fey.

“What is that?” she asked when he finally turned to them.

Looking around she realized Dante hadn’t paused in his search of the room, trusting to Duncan’s skill. Only Megan had been distracted from the search by a clash of magics she had never seen before.

The living smoke inside that small room had both looked and felt like pure evil. By contrast, the words and motions Duncan had used to prevent it from moving farther felt like the exact opposite. Here was the nature of their conflict in microcosm—good versus evil. If she hadn’t realized it before, the point was driven home to her now.

“Whatever it is, it’s shielding this room in particular. Give me a few moments to figure out how to counteract it. I suppose whatever it’s concealing might be worth looking at.”

“Unless it’s a true smokescreen—a red herring, if you will,” Dante chimed in from the side of the living room where he was searching through an antique bureau.

“There is always that possibility,” Duncan allowed. He grimaced and turned back to the smoke filled doorway, looking as if he was ready to do battle.

“Look at this.” Dante drew her attention to the other side of the room where he was looking at a photograph displayed in a cheap plastic frame on the mantel. “This is Patrick,” he said, something like regret in his dark eyes.

Megan took a closer look. This was the magic user who had conned Dante. She’d heard enough of the story to know that Patrick had played upon Dante’s tragic past to coerce him into acting as an unwitting blind for Patrick’s own attack on the
were
lords. Even though she’d never been part of
were
society, she did feel sympathy for the twin Alphas and their mate who had almost died because of Patrick Vabian and Dante’s willingness to believe him.

“He doesn’t look like a monster.” Megan spoke softly, putting one hand on Dante’s shoulder, offering comfort.

“No, he was very convincing. And I was a fool for believing him. I thought my chance for revenge was at hand and was so focused on that goal, I nearly forgot about everything else—about fairness and honor and truth.”

“From all accounts, you remembered in plenty of time to make up for it. All things considered, it probably worked out for the best. Without your involvement, the
Venifucus
threat might still be hidden. They say the Lady works in mysterious ways.”

Dante turned and gathered her in for a quick hug. She was surprised by his actions but went willingly into his arms.

“You’re good for me, Megan.” He kissed her¾just once¾a quick buss before releasing her. She felt warm and tingly all over, a sensation of joy bubbling up through her bloodstream.

“I’ve got you now.” Duncan was muttering, his expression one of triumph as the black smoke inside the room began to billow violently, then slowly recede. A moment later, he turned to them with a smug grin on his face. “It’s safe. We can go in.”

“Good work, my friend.” Dante strode forward, confident as always, delivering a pat on Duncan’s shoulder as he passed.

Megan followed behind, looking around the small room with interest. It looked like a rather ordinary home office with a cluttered desk and some computer equipment. There were papers scattered around, a filing cabinet and two full bookcases.

Megan scanned the spines of the books finding everything from gardening manuals to travel guides. One shelf held some rather innocuous looking hardcover novels. As she ran her fingers near them a shock ran up her arm, making her gasp. Both men turned to stare at her.