The rain was heavy and cold as I crossed the deserted parking lot to the abandoned industrial building with its smashed windows and layers of graffiti. I looked around for Zane but couldn’t see him.
The headlights from the car lit up the side of the building and the slumping wire fence beyond. The clamor of the rain made hearing hard.
Not a good setup for us. But at least Clint was still in the car, talking to dispatch.
I had my wand in my hand, Arthur at one side and Taig at the other. Neither of them bitched about the weather. I wasn’t about to, either, even though my socks were already soaked.
Taig had called in the address, but they weren’t sending in beat cops. They weren’t trained for this type of clusterfuck.
“Rory!”
I tried to look in the direction of the shout without getting a face full of icy rain.
Beo, Zane a half-step behind him, jogged over to us. “Situation?” Taig asked, lifting an arm in a half-hearted attempt to protect his face.
“One person inside,” Beo said, the words directed at me. “Place reeks of magick. And something else.”
I nodded grimly. “Hear that, King? Get the counter-curses ready.”
“Do we know who’s inside?” Taig asked, stepping in front of Arthur to slow him. “Victim? Perp?”
Beo glanced at Zane, who shrugged. “Either it’s Rory’s witch, or the attacker rolled in her scent. No smell of death. One heartbeat.”
“Shit, I could’ve used you a few times,” Taig muttered. “Wait—or come wait in the car. I’ll update Clint, get him on our six. How much warning can you give us if the perp returns, Velvela?”
Beo stood, relaxed, in the rain. “Plenty.”
“Willing to wait with Clint?” Taig pressed.
Beo’s eyes flickered to me, then back to Taig. “Of course. You go ahead, I’ll catch him up.”
I didn’t watch as Zane and Beo moved toward where Clint lurked in the cop car. Dierdre was in that building. I trusted Beo to be okay.
The entrance of the warehouse was perfectly framed by graffitied double doors hanging half off their hinges. Complete darkness lay beyond.
“You feeling okay?” Arthur asked me, hovering at my elbow.
I was feeling focused. The rest had fallen away in the rush of adrenaline that had spiked when we’d pulled up. I didn’t waste words, just kept pace with Taig.
Magick, and something else. Something of this world.
Determination filled my bones with steel. Maybe I was biased, but it seemed like shit from this world was always the worst.
Taig stopped beside the door, peering into the darkness. “Dierdre?” he called. “It’s the police!”
From deep inside I thought I heard a muffled shout.
With his hand going into his jacket, Taig moved forward, only for Arthur to step in his way.
"Traps," Arthur said, brandishing his wand with a flourish before stepping into the dark.
Or, he tried to.
The sound of a ringing bell made my head ache and I wanted to laugh. That was my gig.
“Impenetrable Ward,” Arthur said, frowning. “I can try to break it. But I’m not very familiar with them.”
No, he wouldn’t be. I was the only living magi I knew about in the Southern Hemisphere who could pull that spell off. And it amused me, a bit, that this bitch was trying to weaponize my own specialty against me. I didn’t worry much about how she’d learned it. If I could figure it out, it couldn’t be as hard as everyone made out.
The blow back from breaking that ward would knock that witch on her arse. If we could do it. But it was a solid ‘if’. “Breaking Wards is a Class C offense,” Taig said, grimly. “We know she’s here. We can post a watch and wait for Retrievals.”
Arthur looked at me and raised his brows in question.
Wards were my thing. You didn’t know how to make one without knowing how to break it.
Arthur’s hand went to my arm and then stopped right before touching me, his eyes on the wand attached to my keyring. “It’s broken. Your wand. It’s snapped.”
I brushed him off, irritated at the reminder. “It’s fine.” I’d gone from ‘if it’s not broken, don’t fix it’ to ‘if it works, don’t knock it’ in one horrible afternoon. And we didn’t have time for me to explain that even if I’d wanted to. “Hey, Taig,” I said, gathering my magick, the words that would channel it. “What’s over there?” From without or from within, this dome will not impact where I go. The words came, hard, clear and strong. The magick behind them didn’t feel quite right, but I pushed through.
Another sound like a hammer striking a bell filled my head, but it went on, a clamor of discordant chimes. Like a bell falling, maybe. Satisfaction darted through me.
I lifted my face to the rain to feel its icy stroke and smiled at the thought of her seeing us as she reeled in pain.
Knock knock, bitch.
“Santa’s watching, Caretaker,” Taig said, dryly, stepping inside.
I snorted, following after him. He hadn’t looked away, but he wouldn’t rat me out. “If Santa is so all-seeing, all-knowing, then that jerk knew the reindeers were all harassing Rudolph and just let it go until it suited him to exploit Rudolph’s red nose. So Santa can go fuck himself.”
Taig’s grin was fast and hard as he swept his flashlight around. “I do enjoy your—”
Fire.
Searing, choking, dazzling.
My heart leaped into my throat. I went down as it swept up around us like a cyclone, driven to the ground by a solid weight on top of me. I had no idea whose arms were around me. Out of sheer reflex I reached for my magick, my one tried and trusted tool. Through this dome none shall leave or come unless it is with me. But it felt wrong—fragmented, tattered.
Heat. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t hear.
My magick—
The broken charm—
As I will, so shall it be. I pulled it back in and kept my face on the floor. Dirt, rat shit, some sort of wrapper—all unimportant. I needed something smaller. A smaller spell. Something targeted. A shield, buffer—
Through this shield you can’t touch me.
The shield spell coalesced, formed, and held. “Arthur!” I shouted, over the roar, desperately fighting to breathe. The barrier in front of us redirected flames, but they weren’t the deadliest thing here. Smoke billowed threateningly. “I can’t hold the shield! Rain! Rain!”
Words. The rise and fall of a spell. I couldn’t make out individual sounds but I knew the rhythm, the flow, in my bones. Arthur, casting a rain spell. He’d heard me. Taig was trying to pull me outside, but there was no way we’d get through that.
Natural or magick, that fire meant business.
Fury pounded at my temples. Deirdre was in there, alive. She had to be. She’d be inside some sort of ward. And I’d put money on the fact that I’d be able to break it…if I could get to her.
My head spun. I tried to breathe shallowly. And when I heard the roar of a downpour, felt the cold, wet drops not as individual drizzle but like a firehose full blast, I had a flicker of relief.
Hissing, sizzling, steam and smoke. Double double, I thought, grimly amused. The weight on top of me eased and I lifted my head just a little, spat out whatever the fuck had ended up in my mouth. Toil and trouble.
“The building!” Taig shouted from beside me. Some of the pressure on me eased as he moved away, but Arthur was mostly on top of me still.
I glanced up. Smoke shrouded the concrete floor, piles of steaming litter and building refuse. There was a half-melted or half collapsed drum near the wall to the far side of us. Rain, steam and smoke made visibility shit. I had no idea what Taig was bellowing about.
“What?” I asked, half-turning my head. Even moving that much, with the pressure of the water, was a tall ask. And, right then, I didn’t mind. It beat the shit out of being burned alive. I’d never considered myself a classic witch.
An ominous crack seemed to go on forever. The beams. The roof. I got my hands under me, my heart in my throat. Whatever ward Dierdre had to be in, I hoped it was tough enough, because this whole shitshow was going down.
Then the rain vanished. Or, rather, I couldn’t feel it, but I could hear it, see it all around, rivers of whitewater. And a massive paw with neatly trimmed nails and long, wet hair appeared in my vision, too close for me to assess how gigantic it truly was. A huge leg was attached. And an undercarriage with dark, glossy fur.
My heart stopped in my chest.
Lycan.
Creaking came from all around us. Beams, walls, roof? I couldn’t breathe, much less think.
“Elders—” I heard Arthur choke.
That was a lycan paw. That was my lycan’s paw.
And then the sound of timber splintering. Falling roof tiles shattered around us. Something sharp and hot hit my face and I shielded myself with my arm as the whole world came apart.
Movies made it look quick, or at least dramatic in slow motion. But in reality, shit collapsed slowly or in waves. Even knowing that, even having seen it, my heart was in my mouth and it was all I could do to breathe through the smoke and humidity and terror.
And Beo was our shield. If he was so much as scratched—
Fuck. That. Witch.
Who the fuck used fire wards and love potions? Where was this woman’s sense of class?
I felt Arthur try and move at one point and a low growl came from our lycan protector. I yanked Arthur back. “Wait!” I shouted over the roar. “And kill the rain!”
He said something, but it wasn’t discernible to my ears over the pop of bricks exploding nearby. I felt the ripple of shock go through Beo above us and horror arced through me.
He’d known we couldn’t get out. So here he was.
I reached out and put my hand over a part of the paw I could see, my heart aching. Carefully he put my hand beneath his paw. The rough pad scraped, but he was infinitely gentle, just like he always was with me.
My heart swelled. I drew air in, then let it out slowly. I was soaked to the skin, couldn’t smell anything except smoke, and felt like I’d just run a marathon. But we were okay.
The sound of immediate aftermath came from nearby; shoes scraping against concrete, wet clothing, half-muffled coughs. I glanced over to see Taig had his collar flipped up over the lower part of his face. It had been white earlier. It sure wasn’t, now, but it looked like a good idea to me.
I added collars to a list of things I wanted on clothing, right under pockets.
“Clear?” I heard Taig say, and realized the roar of the rain had eased to the natural flow that had, earlier, felt like a downpour.
There was a deep rumble from above us. Taig glanced at me as if I could speak growl. I just shook my head. “He’ll move when he’s confident,” I said, because that made sense to me.
“You okay, Velvela?” Taig asked, glancing upwards. I didn’t follow his gaze. I could see all the dark hair, the seemingly endless bow of his chest. A ripple of unease went through me.
I’d known what he was.
A part of me sort of wanted to see if that fur was as soft as it looked. Another part of me wondered if it was really rain that made hair clump together wetly on his legs.
From behind us in the darkness, Zane shouted, “He’s fine, but stay still! The west wall hasn’t gone yet!”
I had no idea which way west was or where we were in relation to said wall, but if Zane—and Beo—said to sit, I’d sit. I dropped my aching head back down onto my arm and tried to gather some strength for the next push.
We had to get Dierdre and get the fuck away from here before this witch returned because she wasn’t pulling her punches and this building was less than no protection now.
“Fire Ward,” I said, and the words were scratchy. “That’s, what, Class B?”
“Usually, yes, but this scale? A,” Taig said, and, curse him, there was a bit of amusement in his voice. “I definitely noticed this breach.”
I snorted. “Yeah. Me, too.”
“Must’ve mistaken that ward earlier though. Couldn’t have been one. Right?”
“Right,” I agreed, feeling strangely disconnected.
“Pretty sure the rain was all natural too,” he went on, thoughtfully. “Lucky us.”
Oh, fuck, I’d forgotten messing with weather was, like, off-the-charts illegal. Well, not off the charts. Taig could chart that, if he was an arsehat. “Love me a good winter storm.”
Arthur chose that moment to say, “No, that was my spell.”
Taig cleared his throat.
“I’ll explain later, King,” I said, on a sigh. “Just trust me, okay?”
He was quiet for a moment and then said, suspiciously, “Are you flirting with Taig, Rory?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” I sighed and climbed to my knees. “No, you big lump, we’re pretending none of us broke the law because illegal and immoral are two separate things, and Taig here is smart enough to know when to focus on the immoral part of the equation.” I took my hand back from Beo and stood, carefully. Shit, I could almost straighten under him.
I refused to think of another lycan, another time.
A quick glance around showed warped, fallen roof, smoldering beams and walls that were blown out to show the gravel and weed parking lot beyond, lit by the glow of a few stubborn coals and the wash of Clint’s headlights.
A sickening crash from nearby had me ducking and lifting my arm to shield my face as bricks spewed over the dark ground before us. But the noise was far more dramatic than the reality, and I felt Beo moving carefully from his position on top of us. A twisted metal beam slid off him. It hit the ground and my stomach lurched to see the size of it.
He’d stood in a collapsing building to save us.
Get Dierdre. Get out.
“Light, Arthur?”
Obediently, Arthur murmured a light spell. I straightened, my head spinning.
The destruction was enormous. Shattered bricks, melted iron, smoldering beams, cracked cement. To complete the post-apocalyptic picture, a chocolate bar wrapper floated drunkenly down the makeshift river beside us.
A shout came from the direction of the patrol car. When I turned to look, I saw the door that had been off its hinges was now much closer to the patrol car. The brick wall it had been attached to had exploded outward into the darkened driveway. A thistle lay, half-flattened, its purple flower resolutely poking up between some brick and mortar. Hey, that’s me. I’m a thistle.
Taig raised an arm. “We need to get clear,” he said to me, the rain washing soot and smoke off his skin. “No one’s survived that, Rory.”
I saw a blurring in my peripheral and averted my gaze as Beo shifted. Arthur, the ignorant jerk, turned to look. I heard his reflexive puke a moment later. Rookie mistake.
“She’ll be warded,” I said, ignoring the fact I was shaking.
The bitch had pumped more power into the death trap than she did into the protective ward she’d put around the building. Well, label me unimpressed and ship me to Tasmania.
“Everyone okay?”
The words were rough. Beo was back in his human form standing beside a half-melted drum of some sort. Like us, he was smoke streaked. There was a big red mark on one of his arms and deep gouges on another. I took a step forward to check him over before I caught myself.
“Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.”
He jerked his head to one side of what used to be the building. “She’s over there. I don’t have shoes. I’ll have to shift to get back to Zane, or be picking glass out of my feet for a week or two.”
My heart twisted and I breathed through the ache. “Shifting sounds wise. I’ll get her.” I couldn't touch him, hold him, press a kiss to his head. I wasn't allowed. And it hurt.
He could have been killed. We would have been. And I couldn't even acknowledge that. Not yet.
Arthur, whose guts were apparently empty now, staggered over to me. “I’ll protect—I mean. I’ll go with you. In case you need me.” And then he coughed hard enough that I almost patted him on the back.
I drew a deep breath and swiped my sleeve over my forehead so I didn't end up with too much grit in my eyes. We set out across the rubble that had fallen off Beo, picking our way carefully through the carcass of the building.
The area Beo had pointed out was a perfectly round, untouched segment that had probably once been a back room. As Arthur followed behind us, his light spell made the shadows from our movements dance and jerk in a way that kept my adrenaline running. I could see Dierdre wearing a comfy, oversized hoodie and slippers, her red hair plastered to her skull in the rain, her eyes trained on us. “It’s warded,” she said, as I approached, her face twisted in grief. “I’m so sorry, Rory…”
Arthur rapped on the very obvious ward, his expression one of deep consideration. “It’s another Impenetrable.”
“No. Really?”
“Yes,” he said, quite seriously. “Can you penetrate it?”
All of the childish jokes that swam in my head made me feel mildly spaced out. “Hold my beer,” I muttered to Arthur, whose gaze flickered down to my hands. For Taig’s benefit, I added, “Look away, Santa.”
“Can I request a new nickname?” Despite the wry complaint, Taig turned. “Fire department’s on the way.”
I drew in a breath and let everything fall away. I was done. I needed a shower, sleep, TLC, sex, and fried potatoes. The order that happened in was totally negotiable.
The words for the spell came slowly, the magick slower again. “You okay, Rory?” Arthur asked, and grimly I fought to keep my focus. Shit, a shattered charm wasn’t a joke.
Well, this bitch’d be feeling worse than me tonight.
From without or from within, this dome will not impact where I go. I sent the magick out, hard, into the seams, into the cracks of the spell. My head rang from the resounding sound that followed but, shit, that was satisfying.
Taig crossed the threshold of the ward, lifting his badge. “Ms. Summers, I’m Detective Taig O’Malley—”
She hit me like a missile, her arms going around me, sobs shaking her deceptively willowy frame.
“Told you,” I murmured, folding her into my arms. “I look after mine.”