Devious Magic (9 page)

Circling my head just like boxers do whenever they need to ease a crick or an ache, I rested my vision on the shape-shifter impersonating my friend. I could see the vague outline of a person, a woman underneath the shell. Whoever she was, she was good at concealing herself because I couldn’t get an impression of exactly what she looked like. I could only be sure that she wasn’t who she was supposed to be.

I must have looked at her too oddly, or for too long because her hand shot out and grabbed my neck, strong fingers pressing against my carotid. Despite the intense pressure from her fingers, she didn’t lose her shape, or waver at all. I clawed at her, trying to pry her fingers from choking me. She held on tight with one hand, while the other steered. Breathing was painful and I knew if I didn’t do something soon, the air would squeeze out of my lungs. She’d either choke me unconscious or kill me.

With one hand still pulling at her fingers, I squeezed the lid off my coffee with my free hand and threw it in her face. Apart from a scream of anger as the hot liquid hit her, she barely decreased the pressure on my throat.

I scrabbled around my seat for a weapon of some kind but all I found was a map book tucked into the pocket on the passenger side door. I latched onto it and slammed it at her head, hitting hard once, twice, distracting her long enough that I could yank at her fingers. With a sickening crack, I heard one snap. She screamed and let go of the wheel, punching wildly at me with both fists.

I slunk down into my seat, pushing my bag onto the floor. Swivelling, I raised my legs, pulling my knees back as far as I could and kicked her firmly in the solar plexus.

Pulling back again while she was winded, I landed another blow under her chin, her head rocking back. Her grip slackened and her eyes rolled back into her head, her eyelids drooping.

It took me a second to realise that her foot was jammed on the gas pedal and we were hurtling forward, accelerating as the speed marker slid around the dial on the dashboard. The shape-shifter started to slide forwards, and the wheel lurched to the left sending the car speeding across both lanes, aiming towards the ditch.

I leaned down, grabbed my bag and shimmered out of there, reappearing on the side of road, a hundred yards or so away just as the car careened into the ditch, its hood crumpling and popping open. I had half expected an explosion. For a moment, I just stood there waiting, but nothing happened except for a plume of steam rising from the engine.

Kitty was going to be so pissed.

Delving into my bag, I pulled out my phone and hit the redial button, breathing in relief as the real Kitty answered.

“Stella, oh my gosh! I went to Darla’s looking for you but they said you got into a car. Where are you? Are you okay? Where did you go?” Her questions came in a rush.

“I thought I was in a car with you,” I said, trying to hold back the tears of relief I suddenly felt. Kitty was okay. I was alive.

“My car’s been stolen.”

“I know. It’s totalled. A shape-shifter was pretending to be you and I got in. She said Étoile had been kidnapped.” I felt so stupid. I should have checked, but between the lack of sleep and the anxiety, I just didn’t think. I saw what I expected to see, and hadn’t questioned it.

“I’m with Étoile now. She, we, want to know where you are.” Kitty’s voice was full of concern.

“I’m a few minutes east of town, on the way towards Deliverance.”

“We’re coming to get you.”

“Music to my...” I must have heard something that registered before I had a chance to properly process it, because I turned around just then, just in time to duck as a fist swung for my face. The shape-shifter still wore an assimilation of Kitty’s body, but there was a long cut on her forehead where it must have hit the wheel when the car landed in the ditch. Her nose looked broken. “Kitty’s” curls were plastered to her head with blood that flowed from the gash on her forehead but she just kept on moving, swinging for me wildly while I danced out of her way.

I dropped the phone as she took her first swing and I could hear Kitty and Étoile screaming. I didn’t need to hear the words, I got the gist:
get out of there
.

Kitty number two caught a clump of my hair, pulling me forward as she swung a punch in an upper cut that would connect with my jaw. Unfortunately for her, I’d just focused on the real Kitty and Étoile, and my desire to be with them, and started to shimmer.

When I opened my eyes, I breathed out in relief. My friends were standing in front of me. Kitty looked momentarily horrified, then turned away, her hand over her mouth as she bowed her head. Étoile managed to close her mouth long enough to step around me, reach over and tug at something in my hair. “Don’t look,” she said, her face grim.

When you’re told not to look at something, the automatic response is to look at it. I turned around, saw what Étoile held and my stomach heaved. I was afraid of this. When I shimmered, the shape-shifter grabbed my hair and, as I vanished, I took her arm with me. The problem was... the rest of her remained behind.

Fortunately, Étoile and Kitty hadn’t waited in front of the diner, where they would reasonably have expected me to be. Instead, they rounded the corner into an alleyway that was partially shielded by dumpsters from any passing traffic. The three of us stood in a triangle and Étoile dropped the severed arm in the middle of us where it lay on the ground.

Étoile stooped down and examined it briefly, seemingly not finding anything too odd about it other than it not being attached to its former body. She took a reusable plastic bag from her purse and gingerly dropped the arm into it. A moment later, it was gone, bag, arm and all.

“Where’d it go?” I asked.

“You don’t want to know.”

“I do.”

“Your refrigerator,” she said, pulling an apologetic face as she continued, “to preserve it until we can get it sent away to be analysed. Evan can probably do that.”

“You are so buying me a new fridge.” I didn’t add
and everything in it
. I hoped that would be a given. I wondered if she put it in the meat store. Yuck. I was going vegetarian.

Holding out my hand, I called my bag and phone to me from where I’d dropped them on the road and, a moment later, they were in my hands. Aside from a few scuffs, my phone had fared okay from me dropping it on the tarmac. I hit the speed dial for Evan’s number. He answered after a couple of rings.

“What’s up?” He sounded frazzled and I wondered what I was disturbing.

“Long story short,” I started, taking a deep breath. “I nearly got kidnapped and now there’s a dismembered arm in my fridge.”

“Okaaaay,” he drawled, absorbing that. He was silent for a moment, then, “Where is the rest of the body?”

I gave him the rough location, continuing, “It was a shape-shifter and I shimmered when it, she, pulled my hair.”

“Is the shifter dead?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’ll send someone to retrieve it, and deal with the arm. Where are you now? Are you safe?”

“I’m with Kitty and Étoile.”

His voice dropped a notch. “Are you sure it’s them?”

“Positive.”

“Good. Stay with them. Why you aren’t at the house, where it’s safe, I don’t know, but I’ll see you there soon. Go straight home, okay.” It wasn’t a question; it was an order, one I was inclined to take. “I’ll be there in less than ten minutes, just as soon as I wrap up here,” Evan promised. “You can tell me the full story then.”

“Okay.” As I hung up, I twisted to look over my shoulder. I should have realised a dismembered arm wouldn’t be a nice clean cut. There was a nasty smear of blood down my jacket and what looked suspiciously like some kind of sinewy human material. I would probably have to burn my jacket. Seeing as I couldn’t exactly walk around with that kind of gore dripping from me, I shrugged it off and wrapped my jacket in a ball; all the while hoping my breakfast would not revisit me. I calculated how far I had shimmered. Probably a few miles... and remotely retrieved my things too.
Pretty good
. A wave of fatigue hit me. “How are we going to get home? I’m not up to another long shimmer.”

“And I can’t carry you both.” Étoile looked thoughtful as we followed her out of the alley. Her face lit into a smile and she started to wave. I turned and saw Annalise crossing the street towards us, probably wondering why we were lingering in an alley.

“What’s happening?” she asked brightly as we stepped out to meet her.

“You so don’t want an answer to that,” muttered Kitty, earning a frown from Étoile.

I shook my head. “I’ll explain later. Did you finish your shift?”

“Sure did. The Brotherhood packed up and left. The next shift are following them and they just called in to say they’re heading towards Deliverance. We’ve called around and there’s a plane scheduled to leave from that private airstrip. It’s bound for England, so we figured that’s too much of a coincidence for Jones and his cronies not to be on it.” Annalise looked to her companion, Michelle, who was nodding in agreement causing her red ponytailed hair to bob along with her. “Michelle and I are just heading back to my place. We grabbed some sandwiches before we have to report in.”

I raised my eyebrows at Étoile, who was looking thoughtful. What Annalise told us was both good and bad news. Good that the Brotherhood were going, at last; bad that, if the shifter had succeeded, I might have been on that plane too. Like many things about the Brotherhood, what I couldn’t understand was why they would use a shape-shifter to ensnare me and how they knew about them at all. The Brotherhood hated all things magic. A shape-shifter should be right at the top of their hate crimes list, or at least in the number two spot, if they hadn’t yet added werewolves and daemons. “Can we catch a ride with you?” I asked, remembering that Kitty’s car was in a ditch.

“Sure. What happened to yours?”

“We took Kitty’s car and it’s totalled.”

Annalise pulled a face. “Sounds like your explaining will take the whole trip.”

Annalise was parked a block away so we walked there. Michelle called shotgun and, seeing as she was taller than any of us, no one complained. Reaching the car, she slid in and opened a paperback novel to read. Étoile, Kitty and I shuffled into the back and I gave a brief rundown of my run-in with the shifter as Annalise pulled out into the traffic. The roads were light this time of day and she made short work of navigating the car out of town.

“Where are we going?” I asked, suddenly realising that we weren’t taking the fastest route home. I altered my vision quickly, my heart thumping. Yeah, twice in one day would be too much action for me. Annalise was definitely Annalise.

“There’s a road crew that started clipping trees about a half hour ago so we’re taking the back route. It’s scenic, meaning longer,” she added for our out-of-towner benefit. I remembered Gage’s explanation about the impending road works. “But we’ll be home in no time,” Annalise concluded.

“What’s Evan going to do with the arm?” Michelle asked, turning to look back at us. She folded the paperback away as I spilled my story, thoughtfully contemplating what I said for the last few minutes.

“I don’t know. Maybe find out who it belonged to, with DNA or something? If he can find out who it is, maybe, he can find out why they were trying to kidnap me,” I surmised.

“I would not want to be on the wrong side of your daemon, if that happens.” Michelle shivered. Annalise had the heat turned up full so I wasn’t sure if it were just for effect.

I knew daemons had a bad reputation but I still didn’t like to think of Evan as violent. He’d never showed that side of himself to me, so I was content to live in my little bubble of safety. Perhaps I was wrong?

Still, Michelle chattered on. “A few years ago, when I swore allegiance to a pack in Chicago, before I knew they were no good, he came to retrieve the pack beta who owed a big fine to a casino in Nevada. Anyway, the casino was demon-owned and they wanted their money back fast, so they hired Evan. You should have seen him. He took on a good number of the pack, left a bunch of broken bones and still got the beta. I’ve never seen anyone fight like that.” She sounded awed, impressed.

“Are you sure that was Evan?” All the times he talked to me about his business, he made it sound like it was stealth, not might, that got him through.

“Sure. Evan Hunter. I could not forget him. He did that weird flame thing from his hands and he fights like a... well, uh, a demon.” Michelle grinned, waggling fingers in the air. “I left the pack a few weeks after that. Turns out, they were a bunch of crooks. Don’t know what happened to the beta, but I heard he still has a limp. Lucky that’s all he got, if you ask me. I cannot tell you how happy I am being with Gage. I mean, with Gage’s pack,” she corrected herself, but not before Annalise turned her head slightly, raising her eyebrows. Michelle unexpectedly blushed. That’s when it hit me. Michelle was the girl Gage was dating, the potential new girlfriend. Somehow I hadn’t expected to know the woman he was interested in; but it struck me how silly that assumption was. This was a close-knit town; they were both werewolves, not to mention single and good looking. Why wouldn’t they be drawn to each other?

I swallowed back the uncertainty of both Michelle’s description of Evan and her dating life. “Right,” I muttered. Luckily, before I could say something stupid, or defensive, something that would show exactly how little I knew about my own boyfriend, or that I was surprised about her and Gage, the car started making spluttering noises and slowed down.

With a groan, Annalise swung the wheel over and brought the car to a stop on the side of the road, her fingers searching for the lever to pop the hood. “I’ll just be a minute,” she said, climbing out. Michelle got out next and I shook away the brief twinge of jealousy seeing her tall, willowy body. What did it matter to me if Gage had a girlfriend? Nothing. It shouldn’t matter a darned thing. The two of them pulled up the hood and peered inside. After a moment, Michelle stepped onto the road, looking for something, then kneeling, to look under the car. After a moment, she got up and walked back around to Annalise. I could hear them talking. Then Annalise stuck her head back inside the car, looking worried.