Master of Darkness (11 page)

When Justice hesitated, Maeve snapped, “Well, boy? What are you waiting for? Find the blade.”

He stiffened at her tone, staring at her for a beat that made it clear she had no authority to give him orders. Then he turned and moved off, scanning the racks of weapons. Miranda was relieved to see that he walked in the opposite direction from whatever it was that had so entranced him.

“You, too, child.”

Miranda turned back to Maeve, her brows climbing. “The prophecy said nothing about me.”

The Sidhe witch shook her head. “There’s no trick here, girl. My forge tells me there’s something here you’ll need if you mean to survive your father’s attentions. You’d be well advised to seek it out.”

Miranda hesitated a beat more, her instincts howling that it was insanity to trust anyone as powerful as Maeve.

As if to prove the point, the Sidhe’s magic snapped over her mind like the jaws of a bear trap. “This morning when I looked in the fires of my forge, I saw your death.”

Caught in Maeve’s pitiless, infinite gaze, Miranda felt ice creeping over her chilling skin, her stuttering heart pumping the blood from her body. The crimson puddle of her life sank into stony, thirsty dirt and soundlessly disappeared. In the distance, she heard Warlock’s howl of victory. An icy blackness drank her down as completely as the dirt . . .

Then Miranda was alive again, and gasping, back in the present. Her relief was so intense, her knees buckled. She had to steady herself against the wall.

“When I looked a second time, you stood over your father’s body with one of my blades in your hand,” Maeve continued coolly. “The path you follow is your choice, girl.”

Chilled to the bone by the vision, Miranda turned up the nearest aisle of weapons and started to search. She might be stubborn, but she wasn’t stupid.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later,
Miranda was cursing Maeve for the number of weapons in her bloody damned armory, her own father for his psychopathy, and that fucking angel for her refusal to shut the hell up.

Again and again, Miranda stopped, picking up a sword there, a dagger here, even a couple of axes. But none of them felt right.

Instead it seemed her magic slid away from theirs, like one magnet being pressed against the same pole of another. A weapon like that would actually weaken her power instead of strengthening it.

Justice wasn’t having any luck either. He prowled up and down the aisles of weapons, examining sword after sword with the kind of intense concentration he’d probably once used at murder scenes. Every breath Miranda took carried the scent of his growing frustration and anger.

Meanwhile the angel sang, her loneliness and despair growing. Until a faint note of hope sounded, threaded through a descant of pleading.

Automatically, Miranda glanced toward the sound—
and saw it
.

A dagger.

It lay on the black marble table beside her. Other weapons surrounded it, but Miranda barely noticed. She had eyes only for the slender blade engraved with ancient symbols of protection and power. Silver quillions formed an intricate swirl designed to curl around the hand, decorated with sapphires of varying sizes. Glowing blue sigils floated above the blade, rotating slowly in the air as if stirred by some magical wind. And the weapon
sang
to her, its voice impossibly pure, so inhumanly high it made the bones of her skull ring.

Miranda slipped her hand through the cupping quillions to curl her fingers around the engraved hilt. The quillions wrapped around her fist in a comforting grip—not cold as metal should be, but as warm as a mother’s hand.

And as the steel cupped her, she felt a mental click, as though the athame slid into a slot in her magic, filling an emptiness she hadn’t even known was there. Power surged through her as if the blade completed a circuit, enabling her to draw on the Mageverse with a new intensity.

“
Look
,” the blade sang.

Gazing down the length of her body. Miranda saw blue glowing chains coiled around her chest, binding her arms and legs. She caught her breath in astonished anger. Where the
hell
had that come from?

“Your father’s work.”

Miranda looked up to find Maeve standing by her side, though she hadn’t sensed the woman’s approach at all. It was as if the Sidhe had simply materialized.

Maeve leaned close, examining the chains. “Judging by the age of the spell, he probably created it when you were a child—four years old. Perhaps five.”

She remembered the fireball that had seared her hair away. “What does this thing do?” A chill stole over her at the thought of her father casting spells on her without her knowledge

Maeve shrugged. “From the looks of it, it acts as a governor on your power, preventing you from drawing on your full talent. I suspect he’s trying to make you less of a threat. But the spell’s primary purpose is to engender fear. Fear of all Alpha Male werewolves, especially Warlock. Whenever you hear his voice, you’ll feel overwhelming terror.”

Like the paralysis that had damn near gotten her eaten by Warlock’s demonic dinosaur. If Justice hadn’t knocked her clear, she’d have died. Instead, he was the one who’d damn near gotten killed. Fury pierced her fear with welcome heat. “That
bastard
.”

Charms chimed in Maeve’s hair as she tilted her head, appraising the magical chains. “The spell should have lost strength as you grew into adulthood, but he seems to have reinforced it recently.” The Sidhe frowned, tracing a thoughtful finger through the air just above the glowing links. “Has your father hit you with an energy attack in the last month or so, something you thought you’d shielded against?”

Miranda blinked. “Well, the last time I fought Warlock in person was during a big battle between the Magekind and the werewolves last month. And . . .” Her eyes widened. “I wasn’t afraid!”

She’d felt none of that paralyzing terror as she’d fired salvos of crackling electrical blasts at her father. In fact, she’d actually forced him to retreat.
“Fuck you, Daddy!” Miranda howled, shooting blast after blast at him. He’d barely shielded in time.

“Traitorous bitch,” Warlock spat as he backed away and hurled a fireball that looked less savagely bright than those he’d been tossing before. Miranda blocked it easily and fired back.

“That was it,” Maeve said, as if reading the memory right out of her head. “You blocked the fireball, but it was only a carrier for the real spell.”

“He suckered me.” Miranda stared at the chains, her eyes widening in furious realization. “That’s when I started being afraid of him, the way I’d been when I was a kid.” Her lips parted in stunned realization. Warlock wasn’t the only one she’d begun to fear then. Before that battle, she’d never been afraid of Justice. True, she hadn’t wanted to get involved with him because she thought him just a little too dominant, but fear had never been part of it.
Is there any part of my life Warlock hasn’t poisoned?
“How do I break this spell? I want it
gone
.”

“Now that you know it’s there, it will begin to lose its power.” Maeve straightened, giving her a decisive nod. “You’ll still feel the fear, but every time you refuse to give in to it, you’ll weaken it. And now that you have my athame, you’ll be able to access more of the talent it has blocked.”

Intrigued, Miranda studied the Sidhe. “How much power are we talking about?”

Maeve shrugged. “That depends on your will—and how much you want it.”

Miranda bared her teeth in a grin that felt downright savage. “Good. Because I really,
really
want Warlock dead.”

ELEVEN

Justice watched Miranda
and Maeve, heads together over her new dagger, discussing its powers. Despite himself, he felt a frustrated twist of envy.

He couldn’t find that damned sword. And it was logical to assume it
was
a sword, perhaps something like Excalibur. Not that he thought himself the werewolf Arthur . . . Though it was for damned sure Warlock wasn’t either, no matter what the wizard had suckered his fellow Direkind into believing.

But Justice had examined every freaking sword in the room, and none of them was it. No matter how much magic he smelled on them, every single one was inert metal in his werewolf immune-to-magic hands.

Meanwhile, all he smelled was that mysterious whatsit, which carried no scent of magic whatsoever. He couldn’t even acclimate to it, the way he could adjust to even the worst reek, because the smell kept changing. Baking bread one minute, then honeysuckle, peaches, roses, apple pie, pit barbecue. The nape of Miranda’s neck. Any smell he loved, the spell trotted out to tempt him.

But whenever he turned to follow it—just to make sure it wasn’t the sword—it vanished. Miranda was probably right. It was just some booby-trap fucking with him.

Dammit, can’t you give a guy a hint?
Justice thought in Maeve’s direction, before squashing his resentment under a fresh layer of determined resolve. This was his test. If he couldn’t find the blade on his own, Maeve needed to look into her scrying fire until she located the true Hunter Prince.

A sniff sounded from somewhere in the vicinity of his left boot. He looked down to find Guinness peering up at him wearing an expression of aloof disdain. “I knew you weren’t the Hunter Prince,” the dog said in that irritating, prissy,
smug
British voice.

“Shut up,” he growled.
Must
not
boot the little bastard across the room
 . . .

The Chihuahua curled his upper lip. “You don’t even have the wit to see what’s right under your muzzle.”

Justice froze as an idea hit him. A grin spread across his face. “Yoda, I could kiss you!”

“Please don’t.” The dog sank down on his belly, horror in his bulging brown eyes.

Drawing in power from the Mageverse, Justice Shifted. Maybe he couldn’t follow that scent in human form, but nothing could elude his Dire Wolf nose. The rippling pain of his shift hadn’t even begun to fade when Justice sank into a crouch, putting his head at the level of the weapons tables, the better to follow that maddening scent.

“Oh, for God’s sake, put on some pants!”

“Sniff my hairy ass crack, Muppet.” He breathed in, pulling air deep into his lungs.

And smelled his mother’s perfume: Obsession. It drifted through the heavy ozone tang of the other weapons’ magic like a flute solo through a death metal guitar riff.

Still crouching, he worked his way down the aisle after the scent, slowly at first, then more quickly as he realized it lay in the air like a neon arrow, pointing clearly to its source. The smell shifted again as he passed swords and daggers and throwing stars and maces the size of cannon balls. It smelled like Miranda, like love and sex and everything he’d ever wanted but had never found . . .

Until he found it.

Merlin’s blade wasn’t a sword. It was a huge, double-bladed axe, forged of some alien metal that radiated magic with such intensity he could almost taste it. Justice wanted to pop himself upside the head.
Of course it’s an axe, dumbass. Warlock carries an axe.

But he’d seen Warlock’s axe, and it looked nothing like this. Nor had the wizard’s blade blazed like this, burning with a ferocious, seductive energy that filled Justice with a combination of awe, anticipation . . .

And fear.
What’s it going to do to me
? Fighting to ignore that fear, Justice concentrated on the great weapon.
Its steel shimmered in a wavering pattern that reminded him of a Japanese katana, as if the metal had been folded over and beaten flat hundreds of times as it was forged. Beaten and folded until its molecules aligned in impossibly thin layers, resulted in an incredibly strong, flexible blade. It would hold an edge no matter how you beat it against steel and armor and bone. And it would never break.

As Justice straightened from his crouch, rainbow patterns slid across the axe’s twin blades, one on either side of the haft. They were etched with delicate symbols in some language he couldn’t read, alien words that glowed to his werewolf eyes, blue as the huge gem blazing azure from the tip of the haft.

“Took you long enough,” Guinness grunted, but Justice barely heard him. Distantly, he sensed Maeve and Miranda approaching, but he didn’t even glance at them. He was focused completely on the axe, fascinated by the play of light over the blade, by the glowing spells engraved on its haft, by the magic he could sense roiling in the fist-sized blue gem implanted in the handle’s butt. The smell that had drawn him had vanished, as if the axe knew seduction was no longer necessary. And it was right. He was completely entranced; it was the most beautiful weapon he’d ever seen. Curling both hands around the heavily engraved grip, Justice lifted it from the stand that held it upright. He pivoted, trying a practice swing.
The balance is perfect. Feels like a feather in my . . .

Power blasted out of the Mageverse like water from a fire hose, knocking him flat on his back. Distantly, he heard Guinness’s alarmed yip as the dog dodged his toppling body.

“Justice!” Miranda shouted, but he was too busy fighting for his life to reassure her.

The Mageverse raged and lashed in his grip as if the great axe had turned into a snake of fire, burning his hands, his eyes, his brain. He yelled, struggling to bring it under control, but it blazed like a forest fire, radiant heat beating his skin in waves. His connection to the Mageverse intensified as he clenched the burning haft, growing more powerful than he’d ever experienced it, even when he’d Shifted that very first time, balanced on the verge of flaming oblivion.

If I don’t gain control of the magic, it’s going to burn me alive.

* * *

“Bill!” Miranda fell
to her knees beside him as he convulsed, screaming between clenched wolf jaws. Despite his obvious agony, he gripped the axe like a man who’d grabbed a high tension line that was now electrocuting him.

Automatically, she conjured a belt sheath and shoved the athame into it, then reached for the axe. She had to get it away from him before . . .

Maeve grabbed her wrists with both hands hard enough to grind the bones together. “No! The magic in that thing would burn you to a cinder.”

“But it’s killing him!” She coughed, choking on the smoke from his burning fur.

“If he can regain control, he’ll survive.” Maeve scooped Justice into her arms as if he weighed no more than Guinness. The Sidhe rose to her feet, lifting four hundred pounds of Dire Wolf brawn with ease. Carrying him with her arms stretched out before her, chest drawn in to avoid contact with the axe, she strode along like a woman carrying a live grenade. Miranda hurried after her, one hand unconsciously curling around the hilt of the athame sheathed on her belt. At her touch, the knife began to sing again, its magical voice calming, like a lullaby sung by an angel. Her terror eased.

“Is the boy going to make it? That’s a hell of a lot of power flying around.” The Chihuahua sprinted past Miranda to gallop at Maeve’s side, his short little legs a blur, his claws clicking an anxious tattoo on the hardwood.

“I don’t know,” the Sidhe said grimly. “It all depends on the strength of his will.” A set of side doors swung wide at their approach. Beyond lay a garden surrounded by oaks, dogwoods, and maples blazing with the fiery shades of fall. Maeve hurried through the doors and down a curving pebbled path, carrying Justice away from the house. As if he was about to blow up and take half the landscaping with him.

“The axe is flooding him with too much power.” Trotting by Maeve’s side, Guinness whined softly as he looked up at the man writhing in the Sidhe’s cradling arms. “If he doesn’t get it under control, it’s going to incinerate him.”

“What do you care?” Miranda snapped, too frightened now to listen to the knife’s calming song. “You hate his guts.”

“Me? Oh, no.” They reached a thick pile of fallen leaves. Maeve lowered Justice into it, tender as a mother putting her child to bed as Miranda and the little dog watched. “Sometimes a nudge, the boy needs,” the Chihuahua intoned in a dead-on Yoda impression. “Provide, I do.”

Miranda snorted. “Oh, God, it’s a Star Wars geek in a fur coat.” Conscience gave her a prodding sting.
Mom raised me better than to take my temper out on a fuzzy Mini-Me.
She sighed. “Sorry I snapped, Guinness. I’m just scared out of my mind.”

Rising to her booted feet, Maeve glanced at her. “You should be.”

“Wow. Thanks for the encouragement. That was
just
what I needed to hear.”

The Sidhe studied her. “You’d make a lovely toad.”

Miranda gave her a deliberately wide-eyed look. “Oh, God, is that where all the talking animals come from?”

Maeve’s eyes gleamed, but before she could retort—or turn Miranda into an amphibian—Justice gritted a strangled scream and began to convulse. Miranda forgot all about making semi-hysterical jokes and dropped to her knees, reaching for his lashing head.

Maeve slapped her hands away. “Damn you, child, don’t touch him! Or do you
want
to burn to floating ash?”

His body arched, as he threw back his head with a long, ululating wolf howl of pain. His hands still gripped the axe against his chest, straining arms shaking with waves of tremor. He began to glow, the magic spilling from his body as the axe poured still more power into him.

Even standing well back from the big weapon, Miranda felt its power beat on her skin. The blade radiated magic like heat from a red-hot poker, growing more and more intense with every passing second. His eyes met hers, wide, wild and desperate, and she knew what he was thinking.
Justice isn’t going to make it. It’s too much power.
I
couldn’t even control all that
.

The athame sang a single, calming note, sweet and high as struck crystal. Under its calming influence, Miranda felt her desperation morph into determination.
Maybe he can’t do it alone, but I can show him how to gain control, just as I helped him Shift after that raptor bite. It’s just a matter of channeling the magic . . .

Yeah, right
, some cynical part of her snorted.
Kind of like channeling Chernobyl.

The knife sounded a cautioning note, deeper now, like the echoing
bong
of a great bell tolling. Miranda looked down into Justice’s despairing golden eyes and realized what the weapon was telling her. You needed a cool head to control violent elemental forces. Strong emotion was the enemy.

Neither of us is calm enough
.
No wonder he can’t control his magic.
She searched for the right thing to say to help him regain his grip on his fear and his power.

Until suddenly she knew exactly what to say. “I love you.” The stark sentence seemed to hang in the air, naked in its utter emotional truth. The athame chimed a triumphant note. Miranda froze. She’d never even
thought
those words before.

Which made them no less true.

Joy and hope flared in Justice’s eyes an instant before they narrowed in determination.

She’d think about the implications of loving an Alpha after they were both safely on the other side of the Shift. Miranda threw herself open to the Mageverse, seeking the magic she needed to transform.

It was the mistake that almost killed her.

Power slammed into her brain as it blasted from the battle-axe like the wind from an F5 tornado. As the vortex tried to suck her in and rip her apart, Miranda instinctively grabbed the athame’s hilt. The weapon steadied her against the raging energy as if it were the thirty-ton anchor of an aircraft carrier instead of a fourteen-ounce stiletto.

Because in magical terms, the athame
was
an aircraft carrier.

Change, dammit!
Miranda told herself, clinging to the knife hilt grimly as magic raged around her.
Shift so he can Shift. We did it before. We can do it now.

With the dagger anchoring her, she reached into the power vortex and drew out just enough magic to transform. She sensed Justice follow her example, drinking the rogue energy, using it as she did to reshape flesh, bone and muscle all the way to the cellular level.

All the way down to the DNA.

The storm died as if God had flipped off a giant fan. Miranda opened her eyes and sat back on her haunches with a sigh of relief. Feeling something cool and metallic in her hand, she saw she still held the athame, though the weapon should have disappeared with her clothing during the Shift.

Guess my pointy little friend wanted to hang around
.
The way things are going, I’ll probably need it.

Rising to her Dire Wolf feet, she looked down at Justice.
Oh, hell.
Her heart plunged right to her clawed toes. He hadn’t completed the Shift. The outline of his body still roiled with energy that rippled through every shade of werewolf magic, pale sapphire shimmering through peacock blue into deepest cobalt, then back again in an endless, deadly cycle. Miranda reached out with her magical senses, trying to determine what the problem was. And recoiled.

He hadn’t completed the Change because his magic was trying to alter the ancient enchantment at the core of Dire Wolf power.

“Oh, my God,” Miranda breathed, “he’s rewriting Merlin’s Spell!”

Fifteen centuries ago, the alien sorcerer known as Merlin had administered a magic potion to twelve Saxon warriors. Merlin’s Curse, as it became known, turned the twelve into werewolves before copying its genetic coding into their saliva and sperm. As a result, anyone the warriors bit became a werewolf, just as their offspring Changed as teenagers. Those children then passed the Curse down to their children, and so on through generation after generation. And
that
was the spell the axe’s magic was rewriting.