Gray witch, p.20
Gray Witch, page 20
“Avoid the chain and the pendant if you can,” I warned her. “Retreat into the cup if necessary.”
“Eww.” She wriggled against me. “I’ll take my chances with the strap.”
Once she was secure, I resumed my careful prowl around the outskirts, keeping a wary eye on the combatants.
The smell of blood got my adrenaline pumping, and my heart was a drum within my chest. I could all but taste how that dragon heart would flavor my tongue with iron and salt. And power. So much power.
“Rue?” Colby rested her head against my chest. “Are you okay?”
“No.” I tried very hard not to lie to her. “But I will be.”
“Will Clay be all right?”
“Not much can hurt Clay.” I kept going, kept weaving my spell. “Maybe avert your eyes, though. The dragon burnt off his clothes.”
“Oh no.” A faint vibration from a laugh she tried to swallow hit me. “His poor wig.”
“This case has been brutal on his hairdrobe for sure.”
With us combining our focus, we managed to finish setting anchors without ending up charbroiled from the effort. Then came the fun part, summoning enough power between us to raise the barrier without falling to old habits. I could have taken a bite out of a heart and done it without breaking a sweat, but I would rather let the humans watch the monster brawl than cave in now.
There comes a point where you must stop looking back on the person you were and judging the person you are by their standards. You can’t be two people at once. You’re either New You or Old You. There is no in between.
Me? I had a crick in my neck from looking over my shoulder.
Finally, I was ready to…maybe not forgive…but cut my younger self a break for doing whatever it took to survive.
“This is going to be rough.” I found us a sheltered position where I could keep an eye on Dad and Parish. “We’ve never pulled this much magic.”
“We can do it.” Her wings twitched with determination. “We got this.”
Heart in my throat, I began the spell under my breath and let everything else slide out of focus until the churning of power within me spilled from my fingertips and burned bright on the tip of my tongue. The words grew sharper, gruffer, and the illusion snapped into position with an audible click that caused Dad and Parish to pause and reassess.
Dad understood first, but he didn’t seem to care one whit.
Parish, on the other hand, went ballistic. Biting, snapping, clawing. He attacked the ward, desperate to escape my father, but there was nowhere for him to run.
When Parish turned his back on Dad, Dad shot a bolt of blue-black lightning into his spine. Parish jolted from the shock, twitching and flailing, hitting the ground with an impact that rumbled the streets. I expected Dad to finish him, but he only hovered and watched as Clay grabbed the dragon by the tail and yanked him away from the barrier. As if they had coordinated it, Dad touched down beside Clay, who kept his grip on Parish, and he dismissed his whirling shadows.
Darkness pulsed in the air around Dad as he prowled toward Parish’s great head and fisted one of his horns.
“You will tell me where to find the rest of her bones, or I will tear off your scales, one by one. I will cauterize the wounds to prevent regrowth, and you will be left defenseless against the attacks of your kind. I will shred your wings to ribbons so that you can’t outfly your challengers. I will sand your horns and spikes smooth and dull. And then I will lock you in a silver cage and ship you to your aunt and uncle, and let them decide the punishment for your crimes against your ilk.”
For that threat to carry any weight, Parish must have been turned over to Black Hat by his relatives.
And here Dad was, offering to return him to their tender embrace gift-wrapped for their pleasure.
“I would rather an ice lizard castrate me than help you.”
“If you’re interested in castration,” Clay drawled. “I have a pamphlet around here somewhere.”
Before Parish got a word in edgewise, Dad struck him with a spear of black magic.
“The great Hiram Nádasdy, brought to his knees over a white witch yet again.” Parish laughed, a wet and hacking noise. “You were the greatest of us all, and you have sunk the lowest.” He whipped his tail, but Clay caught and subdued it. “When I heard you had escaped, I knew the right bait to lure you out. All I had to do was get the director out of his own way long enough for me to do what needed to be done.”
“You expect us to believe you’re loyal to the director?” Clay took the words right out of my mouth. “You’re admitting that you’re responsible, directly or indirectly, for the attack that sent him to his own infirmary.”
“He admires strength and cunning.”
“You know what he doesn’t admire?” Clay chuckled, low and cold. “Independent thinkers.” He jerked his head toward my dad. “Ask him.” He scanned the night. “Or his daughter.”
“They are traitors to the Bureau and to the Nádasdy legacy. It’s no coincidence rogue black witches have banded together after the director’s granddaughter resurfaced. Or that her father escaped after decades of confinement in secrecy. Elspeth intends to claim her birthright. She wants to bring the director to his knees and destroy the Black Hat Bureau and all it stands for.”
Vertigo swept through me at hearing them discuss me as the Nádasdy heir so baldly.
No one knew that. No one. Yet the director had told Parish. Or had Parish figured it out for himself?
Either way, he had me confused with someone else. Say, my father. Those were his goals, not mine.
And Parish, tired of living under the Sword of Damocles since Dad escaped the compound, had gambled that recapturing Dad would redeem him in the director’s eyes. He didn’t want to be the next Mikkelsen, a victim to my grandfather’s rage, but he didn’t hide himself within his web of misdirection well enough. The gamers were all cannon fodder meant to take the fall if his plan failed to bear fruit, but he miscalculated the greater danger. His preemptive strike missed the target. By a mile. Or fifty.
And now, fresh grief tracking down his cheeks, Dad would kill him for it.
“You have no idea what my daughter’s ambitions are, or what she’s capable of,” Dad growled the threat. “She’s better than us, better than the Bureau. She doesn’t want your seat at the table. She doesn’t want any of this. She craves the same things I once did. A life. A family. Her freedom.” He blasted Parish again. “People like you don’t understand.” Again. “We were forced to live another man’s dreams.” Again. “And when we dared to dream our own, he destroyed them.”
“He can’t take much more,” Clay warned him. “Lay off unless you want barbeque for dinner.”
“He would rather die than help me.” Dad sounded past caring. “And I won’t let him live.”
The next bolt of magic struck, and it didn’t stop until Parish’s twitching body hit the pavement and the stink of charred flesh clogged my nose. A moment later, Parish quit moving, and the street fell silent.
Following protocol to the letter, Dad touched the dragon with the tip of his wand, and its hulking corpse disintegrated into ash the wind scattered across the pavement. Done with that, he rested his palm against the barrier, and it collapsed around him as if it were nothing.
“I have to go.”
Dad cast his voice to where I hunkered down with Colby, and I stepped from my hiding place.
He pressed a piece of paper into Clay’s hand, met my eyes, and rolled his shoulders.
Magic burst from either side of his spine, exploded into those same giant wings, and he flew away.
When Clay didn’t join us, I figured he was avoiding how he was on Team Dad in the fight while the rest of us were relegated to onlookers. That, or he was in mourning for his wig. Either way, I went to check on him. I wanted my team secure before I attended the humans Asa had gathered to contain the incident.
On the way, I scooped up the jacket Parish had discarded and pocketed his phone as evidence.
“Oh no.” I located Clay frozen near the spot where he left his jacket. “Hold on, Clay, I’ve got you.”
Circling around, I expected damage to his shem, but the design remained whole and untouched on his forehead. As I stood there, studying him, he broke out in shivers, and then he began to cough.
“Hey.” His voice came out graveled and low. “What are you doing here?”
“The fight’s over,” I told him slowly, giving him a second to catch his breath. “I came to check on you.”
“What fight?”
“Are you okay?” I ducked down to search his face. “I checked your shem, but…”
A light breeze swirled hair into my eyes and ash into my lungs.
From the horror spreading across Clay’s face, it must have tickled him too.
“Where are my clothes?” He cupped the space between his thighs then crossed his legs. “What the hell?”
That about summed it up from my point of view too.
15
“What’s the last thing you remember?” I helped Clay knot his suit jacket like an apron to cover his front. His anatomy was his business. No one else’s. Sadly, his backside was a view we all had to endure. “Let’s start there.”
The note Dad had pressed into his hand resided in my pocket, but I hadn’t worked up the nerve to read it. Clay didn’t know who it was meant for, and if it wasn’t intended for me, I wasn’t sure I could deal with Dad passing me over again.
“We were on our way here...” He scratched his scalp and earned ashy fingertips. “Where’s my hair?”
“The dragon got your wig too.” I took his hand and led him to an out-of-the-way space. I helped him sit on a carpet of pine needles beneath the trees and lean against a trunk. “It was Parish.”
“Why was Parish here?” He shifted to get comfortable. “Fucking pine needles.”
“You’re having a short-term memory problem.” I touched his shoulder. “Just stay put, okay?”
“I’m not going out there naked. The world isn’t ready for that.”
“I’ll stay with him,” Colby volunteered. “I don’t want him to forget again and wander off.”
“Good call.” I helped her out of my shirt then set her on his shoulder. “I’ll be back soon.”
Without a handy pocket to hide in, Colby was exposed. But, I rationalized, she could fly up into the trees if she required cover. Plus, naked Clay would prove a distraction if he was discovered before I got back to him. That would give her time to escape.
“Do me a favor.” I handed her the note. “Does this have any bearing on our present circumstances?”
Chicken I might be, but idiot I was not. I couldn’t afford to ignore what might prove to be a lifesaving tip, even if I wanted to believe ignorance was bliss for a while longer.
“No,” she said softly and passed it back. “You can read it later.”
“It’s for me?” I bit my tongue, but it was too late. She was already nodding. “Okay.” I forced a smile. “Later then.”
After a quick sweep of the area, both to ensure Clay and Colby were secure and to escape her pity, I went in search of Asa.
Cleanup on this scale required professionals, but I couldn’t help spinning out possible scenarios.
Earthquakes got a bad rap in monster-infested cities, but it wasn’t a popular excuse in Mississippi. Hurricane would have worked better, but those didn’t appear out of thin air. Tornado?
With the options available to me, that sounded the most believable.
An EF5 was nicknamed the Finger of God for a reason. Damage from those storms was catastrophic.
“Rue.” Asa flagged me down. “Over here.”
After jogging across the street, I smacked into his chest, breathless. It was the exercise. Not the urge to sob on his shoulder about my daddy issues. He gathered me against him and kissed my forehead as if he sensed the wild spin of my thoughts. Too soon, he released me, and we were forced back to the task at hand.
He had corralled nineteen people in a sub shop and offered to pay for their food if they waited out some vague emergency important enough for the FBI to be on scene. That had done the trick, but now I had a lot of memories to wipe and not much time to do it.
Small events gave you a larger window to act. Big events dug in and seized hold of the mind, rooting the memory. If I screwed this up, these people were at risk of being tornado victims on the nightly news.
“I can erase this event,” I confided in Asa, “and I can suggest an excuse, but I can’t create a true memory.”
Better that they lost an hour of time than their lives. The showdown outside had disastrous potential if even one person filmed Dad or Parish in their other forms and uploaded it to their social media sites. I didn’t have any mind-altering tea for them to drink, which meant I had to reach into their brains and jiggle the wires myself.
“I called the cleaners after I rounded up everyone,” he assured me. “They’ll handle the fine-tuning.”
“Good.” I wanted to shut my eyes and sleep for a week. “That’s the best news I’ve heard all night.”
As I approached the first table, I noticed a kid eating dino nuggets and inspiration struck.
“Can I have everyone’s attention, please?”
Thankfully, they were eager for an update. Especially after noticing the blood and dust on me.
Once I held their entire focus, down to the last child, I yanked hard on Colby and summoned a light mist from my wand that spread through the restaurant. As the patrons inhaled, the spell latched on, and click went their brains. They switched off, leaving me front and center before a roomful of zombielike stares.
“A monster movie was being filmed downtown tonight. What you saw were animatronic creatures doing battle for the final showdown. The buildings will be repaired by the production company in a timely manner.” I smiled, and, as one, they smiled back. “Everything is okay. Everyone is okay. We need your cooperation for a bit longer, and then we’ll let you all go home.”
The room nodded in sync then fell into staring at me again, their empty eyes following my every move as I met Asa at the door.
“Clay helped Dad fight off Parish,” I told him quietly, “but he doesn’t remember any of it.”
“That’s not like Clay.” Asa scanned the street behind me. “His mind is like a vault.”
“Exactly.” I hated to think it, let alone say it. “But there’s a key.”
The director.
He gave Clay orders, and Clay always followed them to the letter. He had no choice.
But, as much as I would love to pin this on him, he wasn’t here. So where did that leave us?
Tires squealing drew us out on the sidewalk as three vans skidded into the parking spaces in front of the restaurant. Men and women dressed in biohazard suits spilled onto the street, broke into teams, and set about earning the title of cleaner. Each one carried a kit resembling a tacklebox, and one of them hefted a case of the supernatural equivalent of bear spray with a yellow sticker reading EXPERIMENTAL.
Kudos to them for trusting an R&D project to save them from a rampaging dragon.
“Thank the goddess. I really didn’t want to be responsible for scrambling this many people’s brains.”
These folks stood a much better chance of making a full recovery with pros on the job.
“I hoped the cleaners would arrive in time for me to join you, but I didn’t trust the humans to stay put.”
Put more than two people together, mix in an ounce of excitement, and you became an instant cat herder.
“You were right to keep watch over them. It’s not their fault Parish earned a smackdown, or that Dad was too enraged to see straight. This is an incident with a capital I. They exposed themselves to humans in a populated area with no attempt to deescalate the situation.”
As far as I could tell, Dad didn’t care who got hurt so long as he got answers from Parish. I had to hand it to him. One sure-fire way to dethrone the director and abolish Black Hat was revealing the existence of the supernatural community. And if the cleaners missed one speck of evidence tonight during their wipe down, that was exactly what he had done.
“Let’s greet them.” He rested his hand at the small of my back and guided me. “Then we can go.”
“I need to make a statement.” And yet, I allowed myself to be led. “This is going to get…sticky.”
“The cleaners will have their hands busy with the humans,” he reasoned. “They can find you later.”
“After I’ve had time to think up a good story?”
“Precisely.”
With the director wounded, and his second-in-command dead, the Bureau was rudderless.
We had to do one of two things: Get the director back on his feet or elect our own interim director.
The latter was laughable, really. Who could we trust? No one.
Anyone who snatched leadership out of the jaws of this turmoil wasn’t looking to save the Bureau, or its agents. More than likely, they would run Black Hat into the ground faster than you can say chupacabra. I doubted anyone left would make that power grab except as an escape route.
With the title came the power to abolish the Bureau, to release the agents from their service, to free the prisoners in the belly of the compound.
Agents, pardoned from their duties, would fall into old habits and wreak havoc.
Prisoners, half-starved and brutalized, would devour entire towns to sate their hungers.
The world would descend into bloody chaos, and humans would never trust the night again.
Asa handled the cleaners when I failed to rise above my churning thoughts, but I came alert in time to show him where I parked Clay and Colby.
“Ready to go?” I offered Clay a hand. “We’ll bring the SUV around so you don’t have to flash anyone.”
“They should be so lucky.” He let me help him up with a grunt. “This butt is a work of art.”
