Black Wolf (11 page)

"What the
hell...? No, never mind, tell me later. I'll look at your hand at
home." He glanced past Jesse, then shook his head. "I don't even
want to know. Come on."

"How'd you
find me?"

"Walk."
Shaine's arm around him urged him into motion. "At least half a
dozen people told me they saw you running from something they
couldn't see and you looked freaked. Obviously not a bad trip.
Move. Home. Now."

* * *

Kevin faced
the predator, much more calm outwardly than he felt inwardly,
especially without the reassuring strength of the circle to
reinforce his own; the severing of the connection as the gate
closed had been distinctly uncomfortable. The wolves flanked him on
either side, both crouched with teeth bared and hackles raised,
ready to attack. At least Jesse and his friend were leaving. "Back
off," he said coldly. "These two are both under protection of Coven
Sundark and our friends."

The other
laughed, mockingly; Kevin blessed the fact that it was standing
near enough to a metal-caged light over a back door that he could
see it. "A pretty name. It has to be a children's coven." Its
appearance rippled again, to a much less ordinary man. This one
looked perhaps thirty, darkly beautiful... if one could overlook
the pointed teeth and clawed hands and eyes that were the flat
black of oblivion, without iris or white. "The dark one should be
quite a treat. To be able to have one who normally could fight
me... delicious."

"You'll have
to go through us. I told you, they're under our protection."

"Perhaps I'll
have you first. Your silly little coven-link only protects against
the lesser ones, you know." It sauntered forward, reached towards
Kevin.

Bryan snapped
at the offending hand; had the predator's reflexes been less quick,
he might have removed it altogether.

Kevin prayed
that the wolves didn't have to fight; this predator was vastly
unlike the nuisances he was familiar with, dangerous to the gifted
but easily dealt with by a wolf.

Bane, his ears
flat against his skull, advanced, snarling. An angry
two-hundred-pound wolf was an intimidating creature; all the more
so since his long dense fur, thickest around his neck, made him
look still larger. Bryan angled his own approach to one side, to
make it harder for it to track both at once.

The predator
hesitated, fell back a step as though involuntarily, then another.
Kevin thought it looked undecided.

It decided. It
shifted its own shape to that of a tiger, grave-black stripes on
the rusty-brown of dried blood, and lunged at Bryan.

He slipped
agilely out of its way, and Bane attacked it from behind, teeth
tearing a long scarlet stripe too shallow to hamstring it; it
whipped around, hissing.

Kevin
retreated so he had his back against the cool stability of a wall,
watching the battle, switching alternately through various kinds of
sight in order to keep track of it as they moved in and out of the
light.

The wolves
made a smooth team: one would distract it from in front while the
other made an assault from the rear, then, when it turned, they
traded roles. Claws raked down Bane's ribs, not deeply, but enough
to make him yelp in pain; the yelp became a growl, and he circled
around it, looking for an opening. Bryan ghosted in and was gone
again before the tiger even had time to realize he'd scored another
wound, just behind its ribs and low on its side. It spun around to
go after him, chased him a few feet, and swiped at him with one
huge forepaw; it connected with Bryan's shoulder, but the heavy fur
deflected the worst of the damage. The blow knocked him off his
feet, though, and the tiger paced towards him. Bane seized its tail
in his jaws and crunched down, getting its attention and giving
Bryan a heartbeat's time to find his feet and get out of reach.

Kevin
reflected that it was obviously unused to dealing with multiple
opponents: it allowed itself to be too easily distracted. The
brothers, on the other hand, had a lifetime of teamwork behind
them.

Bane, by skill
or luck or more likely both, seized a foreleg in his jaws when it
came sweeping towards him again. The sheer power pulled him
off-balance, but he held on. Nothing Kevin knew of could make a
werewolf let go unwillingly; the force of their grip was legendary
in the mixed-race villages. The tiger, with rumbling growls of
rage, snapped at him and shook its trapped foreleg.

Bryan slid up
beside it, closed his teeth on the back of its neck, and bit down
with his full strength.

The tiger made
an untigerlike squeal, and went limp.

The wolves
released it, and Bane sniffed at it to make sure it was dead.

It was: it
faded to transparent, then vanished altogether. Back to whatever
non-physical plane it came from.

Bane shook
himself, gave his wounded side a few quick licks, then turned his
attention to Bryan. Reassured that he was all right, he looked up
expectantly at Kevin.

"Hold on. I
know the usual predators wouldn't dare touch Jesse if they found
him at all, and that the greater ones are rare... but I think I
know a way to hide them magically. It won't hold forever, but maybe
by then Jess'll heal enough to take care of himself. If we're
really lucky, it might even protect Jess from ambient power so if
he comes back to Haven, it won't hurt him. Are you okay for a few
minutes?"

*Perfectly
fine,* Bane assured him. Being a telepath was useful, Kevin
reflected; it must be frustrating for wolves to be in a coven
lacking one. *Nothing Gisela or Liam can't fix for us. Do what you
can, I'd rather not repeat this. Moonwolf and Horned God, what a
fight...* He didn't sound distressed, more satisfied.

Kevin turned
his attention to tracking Jesse and his friend. He found them
mentally, and followed them undetected with the wolves keeping pace
docilely on either side. In the darker areas between streetlights,
he tangled a hand in the long thick fur of Bane's ruff, trusting
the wolf to keep him from walking into anything.

The pair
stopped at a house, circled around to the side to unlock a door,
and he heard a deadbolt snap shut behind them.

Something
tickled the back of his mind; he scanned the street intently,
looking for heat patterns. An elf, to show a body temperature that
hot; a mage, to have cast an illusion of absence that could keep
the wolves from noticing; not a strong one given how effortlessly
Kevin had seen through it. And he or she was watching Jesse and his
friend with far too much interest.

"Mage," he
murmured. "Across the street. I don't like how intent he is on
Jess."

*I know how to
handle mages.* Bane growled aloud, low in his throat, a
warning.

"I know you
do." Kevin collected power from the city lights around him, though
it was a poor substitute for sunlight or moonlight or true
firelight, and tossed it in the direction of the other mage. It
landed neatly at the other mage's feet and shattered, the shards
coalescing into a fiery phoenix visible only to mage-sight, the
sparks dancing off the feathers spelling out his name.

* * *

Patrick
recoiled sharply, then turned a dark look at the source of the
flashy challenge. A Lioren; it figured, arrogant bunch that they
were, so certain they ruled the mixed villages by right of
strength.

The mage
across the street glowed with power as though it were the sun
itself he wore like a cloak of light, almost eclipsing the
heat-image of his presence. Patrick scowled. Worse, it was all his
own, not so much as a trace of any kind of outside power tingeing
it anywhere.

What right had
this Lioren to such dazzling brilliance, when he himself had been
born with scarcely enough of the mage-gift to be noticeable?

He'd found
ways to even the odds, however, and if this braggart thought to
meddle with his life, he'd learn that quickly.

*Excuse me.*
The mindvoice dropped into his head with the clarity of diamond,
precise and calm. *Do you mind? The two you're looking at are under
the protection of my coven, and I'd really appreciate it if you'd
just forget they exist.*

Under the
protection of a coven? Both of them? The fairer one was simply
human with no hint of power, hardly worth wasting any effort on.
The darker one, on the other hand, intrigued him. A wolf, with such
heavy damage psychically that any touch of magic would be sure to
be unpleasant for him... how had he gotten into such a state?

Curiosity
wasn't really worth a fight, was it?

Curiosity
alone, no, but the tone of that Lioren mage's voice was another
matter.

He snatched up
the lingering power from the phoenix image, rewove it into a dragon
of crimson and saffron and sooty black, and flung it back
violently.

*You do not
command me,* he hissed. *Mind your tongue.*

The Lioren
mage's shock was so strong that it spilled over before being firmly
reined in.

*I asked
nicely,* the other said evenly, after a moment's silence. *I'm
asking politely once more. They are under Coven Sundark's
protection, and if need be we will fight, although I would prefer
not to.*

*I do as I
please! If I want that crippled little wolf to study, I'll have
him!*

*He's not
crippled!* The shout made him flinch in discomfort, laced as it was
with hot blinding anger and no more controlled than a shotgun
blast. Patrick cried out, in outrage and surprise as much as in
pain, and hastily flung shields around himself. The effort made his
breath catch, as nerves damaged by the attack protested, but he
willed them strong and steady.

Want to fight,
do you?

He pulled at
the light of the streetlamps and coiled it into a tightly focused
whip, bound into that form by his own fury. Viciously, he lashed it
outwards across the vacant street, to flay the upstart where he
stood.

It snapped
against glassy-smooth shields, which scarcely trembled, then far
too much happened far too quickly.

The shields
winked out. Patrick blinked, tried to trace where the power used in
those shields had gone, but there was no sign of it... surely no
one could draw that much power back into himself so quickly without
damage?

Something
seized the whip, jolting him roughly out of his distraction, to
discover that the Lioren mage had coiled the whip's far end around
his wrist and was holding it firmly.

What in all
the hells...

No more than
three rapid heartbeats after the disappearance of the shields, a
scorching flood of sheer raw power surged back along the whip,
forcing the flow of his own magic into reverse before it, pouring
into him.

For the space
of another three fast heartbeats, he realized just how dizzyingly
high a tolerance for power the Lioren mage had and the utter
ecstasy of it, then it collapsed into the shrieking pain of severe
backlash shock. Only distantly was he aware of it when the power
flow abruptly reversed again. He swayed, and stumbled backwards to
lean against a wall, trembling.

*Leave. Him.
Alone.* Each word came out tightly, with anger and deadly power
coiled behind it.

"You've made
yourself an enemy," Patrick snarled aloud.

"So be it,"
said the cool light voice from across the street. "Just don't touch
our friends."

He held still,
watching, while the Lioren mage built shields around the dark
little wolf and his companion. Clever shields, too, deftly created
to deflect both detection and active magic, the shields themselves
subtle and near invisible unless one knew where to look—designed to
shunt senses and magic away, not counter them directly.

Light swirled
and gathered into a gate; against it, he saw the silhouette of the
Lioren mage and the two wolves flanking him, then they vanished
through it, and the gate imploded neatly.

Showoff! No
mage should be able to walk after pulling that, let alone be
capable of gating!

Livid with
humiliation and rage, he drew himself together and went in search
of a place to sleep... one he'd have to pay for, he realized in
disgust. His gifts would be of no use to him for some time to come.
He didn't dare even summon his allies; in this condition, he'd be
easy game for them.

I'll find you,
Lioren and you'll regret ever starting this! Next time I'll be
ready for you!

* * *

"Here they
come," Flynn warned, a heartbeat before Kevin's familiar gate
coalesced in the centre of the circle to bring the trio home. Kevin
sank to his knees in front of Deanna and buried his face in her
shoulder, shivering.

Deanna wrapped
her arms around him, hugging him close. "What happened?"

The wolves
shifted calmly to human, and Cynthia and Naomi moved quickly to
examine what wounds they had.

"Mage-fight,"
Bane said.

"I lost my
temper," Kevin said, pressing close against Deanna miserably. "He
wasn't very strong at all, I backlashed him, might have burned him
out completely, I don't know if I managed to pull it back fast
enough..." He looked up at her, tears in his eyes, but couldn't
find any more words.