Undercover Magic (13 page)

Picking it up, I tentatively opened the note. Scrawled in tight, old-fashioned handwriting
was an address.

He was using me to do his dirty work, the bastard. If it meant saving Cooper, I had
no problem with that.

*  *  *

Dusk had faded into night, filling the air with the chatter of insects and the crisp
scent of coming autumn. I hunched down closer to the pile of debris the yard crew
had left at the bottom of the property belonging to the address Bellmonte had given
me.

A monstrous, medieval-looking mansion glowered down from the slight rise of the hill
like something out of a cheesy horror movie. Whatever else this Santos Navarro guy
was, understated wasn't on the list.

Marc crouched down next to me. "Looks like fun."

Constructed of rough cut sandstone, the mansion slash castle had once belonged to
a notorious 1930's bootlegger. According to the blueprints Falcon had illegally downloaded,
a maze of tunnels ran under it as well as a mind-boggling number of what seemed to
be secret passages. Great for sneaking around. Bad if you needed to find people and
get them out.

"I saw only four guards patrolling around the house," I said, noting the two that
had just passed. They wore the same black fatigues as the others and also carried
no obvious weapons. "Probably vampires."

One of the joys of working against vamps. Their pride was always their Achilles heel.
In their minds one of them could take on a dozen Weres and three times that many humans
without breaking a sweat.

"There's also a boatload of mega spells woven around the outside of the house," I
told him. "The decorative wrought iron on the front windows alone is an intruder fry
baby waiting to happen."

"Four more guards are stationed at lookout points in the top windows," Marc noted.
"I'll deal with them after the ground crew."

"They're only a problem if he's being held on the top floor. My bet's on the tunnel
system."

"And when they come down on top of you, do I get to say 'I told you so'?" Marc said,
amusement dusted through his gravely voice.

"Point taken."

"When you hear screaming, don't look back. Go as fast as you can for the access point."

"You sound confident no one will stop me."

His eyes flashed green in the moonlight. "I am."

All righty then.

With a nod, Marc headed for the front. I concentrated on keeping my breathing steady
so that I'd be ready to move. The minutes seemed like hours and worry gnawed at my
gut. What if something happened to Marc? Could I afford to wait for whatever he had
planned?

My heart urged me to move. To find Cooper and Chiwa and get them out. My head ordered
me to stick with the plan. Marc looked like he could handle himself, and Cooper's
safety was as much of a priority for him as it was of me. I had to trust him.

I was about to change my mind when a roar split the night, cutting straight through
logic to a dark primitive place in my brain. Panic shot through me and I froze. The
roar came again and a man screamed, a sound of complete and horrible terror, cut off
abruptly.

Realizing I was hyperventilating, I unclenched my teeth and told myself to exhale.
Marc was doing his part. I needed to do mine. I pulled in a long slow breath.

Another inhuman scream sliced through the darkness, cut off abruptly. I darted away
from my cover and raced for the crumbling tower on the back East side of the house. 

Once the structure had protected the bootlegger's outlawed inventory. Now it was my
access point to the tunnels that had perviously been used to get the booze into the
house. The guy had been known for his parties.

It took me a few minutes to spot the cellar grate Falcon had pointed out to me on
the blueprints. Weeds had grown up around it and the tower blocked the moonlight,
making the shadows thick and inky on this side. Good for hiding, bad for seeing.

I probably never would have found it if it hadn't been for the smell of cold, musty
stone drifting through the thick iron bars of the half grate. Crouching down next
to it, I took out the upgraded magical field disrupter, shielded my head with my other
arm and treated the window to a dose.

The special filaments wired into the remote fizzed and sputtered and the hazardous
energy coming off the bars popped like a bubble. Pocketing the MFD, I grabbed one
of the iron bars and braced for impact. Like Falcon had said, it was a prototype.

When I didn't get fried, I released the breath I'd been holding and slipped my laser
cutter out of the top pocket of my vest. A handy tool not much bigger than an ink
pen, the cutter shot out a thin, red beam when I flicked it on, and I sliced through
the edges of the iron bars like they were butter.

Pocketing the cutter, I slid the grate out as quietly as I could and put it aside,
though still within easy reach once I was in. I slid feet first into the cellar, a
drop of only about four feet, just as Falcon had predicted. Retrieving the bars, I
eased them back into position and made sure everything matched up. With luck, the
magic would come back up in a few minutes and no one would ever know the fortress
had been breached.

I moved deeper into the cellar, surrounded by the sweet, tangy scent of wine that
still permeated the empty shelves and walls. Visions of banquets and weddings with
jazz bands and elegantly dressed people raising their glasses to toast everyone's
happiness filled my imagination as I crept to the heavy wooden door on the other side.

The information Falcon was able to get stopped here. From this point on, the mission
became one of skill and chance. I had no way to know how many guards Navarro kept
in the house, where he was making the drugs, or where Cooper, Chiwa and the other
kids might be. All I could do was pray, keep moving, and not get killed.

I listened for a moment at the door and then slipped into the hall.

*  *  *

The tunnels running under the mansion were dank and dimly lit, but surprisingly free
of rats and the ick they so generously left behind. No rats meant the tunnels were
used—probably often. The last thing I needed was to run into a guard...or three. Definitely
not on my To Do list.

I slid a look around a corner, saw it was clear and crept forward past a row of empty
cells. A familiar scent hit me and my knees nearly buckled. Cooper.

My gaze ran over the eight by eight cell with its narrow bed and rusty bedpan. Blood
stained the thin mattress of the cot and the floor under, making anger burn in my
throat.

Cooper had been held in this cell without medical attention. Probably collared so
he couldn't shift and heal himself or fight his way out.

I wanted to hunt down everyone who had hurt him and kill them. I wanted to feel Navarro's
neck under my knife. I wanted to—

I needed to focus. Stay on the mission. There would be time later for revenge, after
Cooper and Chiwa were safe.

I grabbed the cluster of keys hanging on the wall and tore off the sleeve of my black
T-shirt. If they brought him back, they'd have a hard time locking him in. Maybe it
would give him a chance.

Wrapping the keys in the material to keep them from clanking, I stuffed the bundle
into another pocket in my vest and moved on, heading steadily up and praying I remembered
the blueprint well enough to keep from going in circles.

I struggled to stay centered, my imagination tormenting me with what Cooper had endured
in that cell. Later would come soon, I promised myself.

Navarro would pay.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I held my breath and pressed tightly against the wall of the room I'd ducked into.
On the other side, another pair of guards ran down the hall. They were the third near
miss in the last twenty minutes.

I was one floor below what should be the center of the house—the area that had been
gutted to create a garrison during the war. Two hundred vampires had been burned alive
in their coffins in a counterstrike there. I couldn't help seeing the irony of the
place being inhabited again by vamps bent on destroying humans. Maybe history does
repeat itself.

When the hall outside my hiding place stayed quiet for a solid three minutes, I took
a chance and opened the door a crack to see if the coast was clear. No vamps were
within sight or earshot, so I glided cautiously out.

As quietly as I could, I headed for the stairs I'd spotted when I'd heard the guards
coming down. When I reached the first step, the faint sound of high-pitched chanting
raised the hair on the back of my neck.

A squeamish repulsion crawled down my back. The ceremony had started.

The energy of dark magic was heavy and charged with hate, and anyone with an ounce
of sense stayed away from it. Even during the attacks it had been used sparingly.
Without a sacrifice, it drained the practitioner of life. With a sacrifice, it slowly
leeched power from their soul.

I took the stairs, hurrying toward the sound, a choking feeling of dread compressing
my throat. The narrow doorway at the top opened onto an empty wooden walkway that
ran around the walls of a cavernous three story room. Built about ten feet from the
ceiling, and still smelling faintly of pine, the construction looked recent.

Suspended at eye-level, Cooper hung spread eagle by chains attached to his wrists
and ankles. Bruises and cuts covered his face. His jaw was swollen. Metal stakes had
been pushed into his bullet wounds to keep them open, one in his thigh and one in
his side. My stomach rolled with nausea and fear gripped me.

He was unconscious and looked to be barely holding on. The only indication he wasn't
already dead was the steady dripping of the blood from his wounds. 

Below him a circle of children, some dressed in black body suits, others in blood
red robes swayed to the rhythm of their chanting. An obscene and unnecessary drama—the
raw adolescent energy the young practitioners generated was the real power.

In the middle of the circle, a shallow vortex simmered like a sluggish living fog,
oozing through dozens of rows of beakers full of clear liquid. As every drop of Cooper's
blood hit the vortex, the malevolent hunger of it churned and swirled around the spot
as if consuming his life force one drop at a time.

Bellmonte hadn't lied. He'd lead us to the source of the VR.

Vampires stood at each of five entrances below, one apiece, their focus on the vortex
and the steady rain of blood. I unhooked the coiled rope strapped to my back and snapped
open the grappling hook attached to the end of it.

First priority, save Cooper.

A boy who looked no more than sixteen materialized next to me from out of nowhere.
He was short with a stocky body thick with muscles and a swarthy complexion marked
by scars as if he'd survived small pox as a child.

With a flash of movement too fast to follow, he grabbed my wrist and dislocated my
thumb. The shock of pain exploded through me. My rope disappeared from my hands. Something
brushed my hip and my gun was gone from my holster.

Santos Navarro stepped back, my rope and grappling hook in one hand and my gun in
the other. A smile spread over his adolescent face, showing the gap in his teeth where
his canines should be.

"Boo."

*  *  *

Dislocating a joint feels like your bone got snapped only worse. Ligaments, muscles,
and tendons stretch and tear beyond what they're designed to do, sending a five alarm
alert of agony radiating up your arm. Your brain freaks out. For the larger joints,
some people lose consciousness.

When a nearly six hundred year old vampire was three feet away gloating, you sucked
it up and took care of business.

The knuckle at the base of my thumb crunched as I popped it back into place. Without
pausing, I went for the knife in my boot. I was slower than Navarro.

He disarmed me and nicked my ear with the blade as I shifted my weight to lunge at
him with my now empty hand. My ear felt like he'd lit it on fire. 

Real fear iced through my blood and I darted away, pressing my back against the wall
to limit his access to me. Not that it would matter. I was completely outclassed and
we both knew it.

I was about to die and I was helpless to stop it.

With a smirk of triumph, he looked me up and down. "A human hunter is the best Bellmonte
can send against me? How sadly ineffective."

I watched him, my eyes wide, a thin trickle of blood running down the side of my neck.
With a cocky flick of his wrist, he tossed the knife into the air end over end. He
deftly caught it by the handle and the amulet around his neck bounced against his
chest.

The medallion caught my attention. Old and made of what looked to be solid gold, it
had an etching on it I'd seen before. A triangle with a circle in it.

Navarro had sent the assassins.

Fury heated through my heart, bubbling and popping as it burned away my instinctive
fear of him. My shock vanished. I would still die. But I wouldn't go easily.

He studied my blood on the knife. "Remove your weapons, if you please."

"Where's Chiwa?" I demanded.

Navarro twitched and my holster fell to the floor, the strap cut. Blood welled up
from the thin, stinging cut across my thigh.

"Remove your weapons."

Clenching my teeth, I obliged him, moving slowly as I studied him for any weakness
I could exploit.

"You must mean the morsel that showed up on my doorstep just after I awoke," Navarro
said. "A delightful child. Happily offered me her throat and then skipped off to join
her sisters and brothers." He pointed the knife at my feet. "Boots, too."

He watched me remove my boots as if contemplating whether to make me strip all the
way down. "Freely offer me your blood and I'll keep you safe. A guarantee your previous
master has no hope of achieving."

"No, thanks. I can manage." I kicked away the last of my gear.

"Can you?"

The vampire stepped closer and inhaled my scent as if evaluating a fine wine. "Your
werewolf lover dies to make me rich. Soon you will join him, easing my eternal hunger
as your final gift to this world. As you fade away in ecstasy, take comfort knowing
that all of your plans to stop me have failed."

He stroked the blade of the knife down my cheek leaving a damp smudge of my blood
behind. "Take off your clothes."

Outrage bristled down my back.

Behind Navarro, Cooper stirred, regaining consciousness. He saw the vampire and lifted
his head, making the tendons on his neck stand out in stark, vulnerable relief. His
gaze met and held mine. "Shift," he mouthed silently. I shook my head.

"You still defy me?" Navarro asked, amazement lacing his tone.

Cooper gave me a fierce, "it's your only chance" kind of look and mouthed the word
again. Then his strength failed him and he fell back, swinging slightly.

No. I couldn't bare to see the terror and repulsion on his face again.

I knew I wasn't human. I accepted it and that was bad enough. The other thing, that
creature I turned into...even among the Weres I was a beast.

"Poor abandoned human orphan." Navarro's expression softened with false sympathy.
"It seems to me that you need all the protection for which you can barter. Your clothes,
please."

I scowled at him. Did everyone in the paranormal community know my freaking life story,
or just the vamp leaders? That little girl was long gone and she didn't need protection.
She never had.

A fierce madness flashed across his face. "Now," he snarled.

Fine. He wanted to play? I was willing to oblige him. Cooper was right. I had nothing
to lose.

I unsnapped my vest and threw it to the floor. "Orphaned, yes," I said, pulling my
shirt off over my head. "Abandoned? Without question. State records can prove it."
I unzipped my pants and stepped out of them.

"Left without a legacy?" I faced him in my underwear, furious over all the suffering
he had caused. "Not so much." I took a deep, focused breath and concentrated on the
light deep in my being.

He contemplated me. "The rest. I will have you humiliated and helpless as Lord Bellmonte's
whore deserves. And then I will feast." He brought the knife to his mouth and licked
my blood from the blade with the tip of his tongue.

...Feel. Picture. Trust.

The source of my life, the source of all I was, pulsed gently from the center of my
soul as the vampire's eyes went wide. Psychotic fury raged across his face as I focused
on the peaceful, nurturing energy. As it grew, I reached with my heart toward the
father I could barely remember.

A warmth touched me. A vibration of life. The blurred image of a man's face appeared,
just beyond my understanding. He looked back at me and surprise ignited in his strikingly
vivid blue eyes.

Navarro spit out the blood and then spit again. "Poison! Bellmonte has filled you
with the poisoned blood of a filthy shifter!"

The orb of light burst out around my body as the vampire lunged for me. From inside
the peace and silence of that light, I saw Navarro pull up short and stumble away.
He stared at me in shock.

The buzzing vibration of the shift swept over me and my consciousness rose above my
body. From that balanced, soothing place, I watched my light form bulge and stretch
as it climbed to over eight feet in height.

Monstrous reptilian legs, muscular arms ending in clawed hands, the gargoyle-like
head and snout, wings and finally a powerful, dragon-like tail.

Details focused...claws, spikes along the tail, leathery skin, rows of shark-like
teeth.

A snap of bright light exploded in my head—

"Your master will die for this!" Navarro screamed.

—and I found myself straddling a four foot circular hole in the walkway as I looked
down on the vampire. Panic shimmered through his dark eyes.

I raised my hand and flexed the reptilian, claw-tipped fingers. They were six inches
long and deadly sharp. An experimental flap of my wings puffed Navarro's hair up off
his forehead and rage contorted his face.

"You cannot exist!" he hissed, backing away another few steps.

I slashed my tail and the end of it slammed into the wall. No more impactful to me
than slapping my human hand down on a table, but the rock crumbled leaving a dent
the size of a pony.

I gazed down at Navarro and rage seethed through my heart. I was going to kick his
ass.

"Our creator annihilated your race ten thousand years ago. How—"

I snapped my teeth at him and he danced away. I advanced, a distant part of me wondering
if this was what it had felt like to be a T-rex hunting down some pitiful herbivore.

I chomped at him, then quickly turned and swept my spiked tail across the floor, hoping
to knock his feet out from under him. He dodged both.

I hissed and a flush spread over his face.

"I will destroy you, Demon-Were," he snarled.

Navarro swiped at me with my knife. I hopped out of the way and he dodged forward,
darting in to make a shallow slice across my side.

Oh no, he didn't.

I roared, the sound rolling off the ceiling like thunder, and kicked boxed the jerk
with my giant dragon leg. He flew backwards and smashed into the wall.

He pulled himself from the debris and charged me before I could follow through. I
grabbed for his head with my claws, but he shied away. Pivoting, he made a stab at
my stomach with the knife. I flexed my wings as I sprang back, slapping him on both
sides of his body.

He stumbled and I snapped at him, missing taking his head off by inches. If he wasn't
so fast, I would have had him and my failure infuriated me.

I made another tail sweep, this time higher, hoping to break his back. He cut the
tip off as he sprang away.

I slashed with my claws and caught him in the shoulder, but it was shallow and didn't
slow him down anymore than the pitiful slice on my tail did me.

We were evenly matched. Two vicious monsters circling, stabbing and clawing as we
each struggled to gain the upper hand, and getting nowhere. The battle would come
down to who could outlast the other.