Master of Darkness (12 page)

It had to be the axe’s doing, because Justice wouldn’t have known how to rewrite the spell. Hell, Miranda couldn’t have done it either, and she’d been studying magic for years. Though come to think of it, the Curse had been rewritten once before. Eve, the third Dire Wolf ally of Avalon, had done something similar with the guidance of an elemental ghost. The changes she’d made had enabled her to work magic.
So why do I get the nasty feeling this is not the same thing?

The last glowing sigil of the spell changed into something equally incomprehensible. The raging energy coalesced at last, forming a huge furry body curled up on the ground.
He did it.
A giddy grin spread across Miranda’s face.
Justice did it! He’s going to be okay!

Then she got a better look at the massive shape, and her grin died.

“What the hell is
that
?” Guinness retreated behind Maeve’s boots and peered between them warily. “A woolly mammoth?”

It wasn’t a Dire Wolf, that was certain, or even a gray wolf, which was the third shape Dire Wolves Shifted into. And it definitely wasn’t human.

But the dog was right. Justice’s new form was damned near the size of a mastodon.

The huge creature stirred, then rose stiffly on four legs before planting big paws well apart.

Even Maeve gaped.

Despite his enormous size, Justice’s new body was much more elegant than an elephant’s: long-legged, muscular, built for the hunt, with pointed ears, a bushy tail, and a long canine muzzle. Golden eyes blinked down at them, obviously confused.
It
is
a wolf
, Miranda realized, as Justice shook himself from head to tail, shedding a cloud of sable hair to float in the air.
It’s just one hell of a big wolf.

Mentally comparing this new form to Super Chicken, she decided the wolf was actually a foot or two taller at the shoulder.
Well, that’ll even up the odds in the next fight.

In fact, he was so damned big, those slender wolf leg bones should have shattered under his own weight. It seemed the same magic that had created him powered and protected his huge new body. Which probably explained why the axe had disappeared when her knife hadn’t; its magic was hard at work sustaining its new creation.

Well, he had to do something with all that power
.
Better to turn it into eight tons of wolf than fry himself like a bucket of KFC.

Meeting Justice’s golden eyes, Miranda gave him a smile. “Well, it looks like you pulled it . . .” She broke off, an icy hand clamping her heart.

There was no recognition in his gaze. In fact, the wolf’s eyes held no human intelligence at all. His growl made the bones of her chest vibrate as he glared down at them, baring white teeth longer than the athame in her hand.
Oh, sweet Jesus
,
Miranda thought in horror.
The lights are on, but that’s not Justice in there. And whoever it is, he doesn’t like us one damned bit.

A burst of magic dragged Miranda’s horrified attention away from Justice.

Maeve had conjured a boar spear—a seven-foot oak shaft tipped with a steel point more than a foot long. Two crosspieces protruded from either side of the point, designed to keep an impaled, pissed-off boar from charging up the spear and killing its hunter.

Miranda stared at the weapon, appalled. “Are you planning to use that on
him
?”

Maeve didn’t take her grim gaze off the wolf as magic flashed in his pupils, lightning arcing through menacing hurricane clouds. His growl sounded like a Harley at full throttle. The Sidhe had to shout over the bone-rattling rumble. “I have no desire to kill him, but I have even less desire to be eaten.” She frowned. “Normally, I can touch the minds of animals—if not people—but that one refuses to let me take control of him.”

Justice snapped at them, and a ball of bright blue magic flew from his mouth. Maeve threw up a shield to deflect the fireball as the wolf jerked back, looking startled.

“I don’t think he intended to do that,” Miranda said quickly.

Maeve threw her a cold glare. “Intent matters not at all. The longer Justice remains lost, the more likely it is he’ll be-come a threat to make Warlock look like a Buddhist monk.”

A line from Daliya’s prophecy ran through Miranda’s head:
“Then will the Hunter Prince be free—then will he rule in bloody vengeance or bend his knee to his spirit’s feral king.”
“There’s never a feral king around when you need one,” she muttered.

“Which leaves you,” Maeve retorted. “Best make him bow, or by the Gods I’ll skewer him.”

Justice opened his jaws and huffed, inflating a ball of blue fire like a kid blowing a bubble of pink gum. He watched in pleased satisfaction as it drifted lazily toward them, only to pop as it hit Maeve’s shield. The wolf rumbled, as if disappointed it hadn’t done more damage.

“Dammit.” Miranda sighed. “All right, drop the shield and let me go talk to him.”

“
Talk
to him?” Guinness stared at her, looking even more bug-eyed than usual. “How long have you had this masochistic desire to become a chew toy?”

“Justice won’t attack me.”
I hope.

“No, he’ll just huff and puff, and blow pretty blue fireballs at you,” the dog said in his clipped Queen’s English. “Then all he’ll need is two graham crackers and a chocolate bar, and he can turn you into S’mores. I’ll wager he likes his marshmallows extra crispy. Maeve and I can sing ‘Kumbaya’ while you roast.”

Miranda winced. “Funny, Yoda. Ever thought of doing stand-up?”

“No. The pay
sucks
.” This, delivered in that plummy accent, would have made Miranda snicker—if she hadn’t been afraid he was right about the “extra crispy” thing.

“That is entirely enough.” Maeve glared at the little dog until Guinness tucked in his tail and dropped his ears. She flicked her fingers, creating an opening in her shield. “Talk fast, child. Our furry friend doesn’t strike me as patient.”

Taking a deep breath and squaring her shoulders, Miranda stepped through the opening, her mind racing as she tried to think of every point she needed to make. Some of which she didn’t want to say in front of the dog, who’d probably laugh his light saber off.

Without looking away from the wolf—she didn’t dare—Miranda asked, “Give us a little privacy, please?”

“Yes, a mute field,” Guinness drawled. “Just the thing so we don’t have to listen to those distressing screams.”

“Shut up, Guinness. I know you’re worried about the child, but you’re not helping.” Gesturing an elegant spell, Maeve sent another wave of magic across the shield, closing the opening.

The Chihuahua’s mouth moved, but despite her Dire Wolf hearing, Miranda was spared his next words of snarky wisdom.
At least I’ll have privacy while I spill my guts.
She looked up at the wolf. And up. And UP
.
I just hope the gut-spilling isn’t literal.
“Um. Hi, Justice.”

Grrrrrrrrroooooooooowwwwwwl.

“Yeah, yeah, ‘What big teeth you have, Grandma.’” She licked her dry chops and hoped she could get a shield up in time to avoid gracing a graham cracker. “Just don’t blast me with a fireball, okay? I have enough PTSD about that as it is.”

The wolf cocked his massive head. She prayed the impression he was actually listening wasn’t self-delusion.

Tightening her clawed grip on the athame, Miranda began her pitch. “Justice, you need to come back. Maeve’s got that magic spear, and if she thinks you’re going rogue, she’ll . . .”

The wolf’s roar shook the trees. He lunged at her, gaping jaws revealing teeth that would probably star in her nightmares for the rest of her life.

If I live to have any
.

Miranda leaped aside with all the speed and power of her Dire Wolf legs. Teeth snapped closed on empty air. Growling in frustration, the wolf wheeled after her, radiating so much raw magic, she damn near froze in Warlock-inflicted reflex.

The athame sang a long, sustained note in her hand, jolting her out of her paralysis. Freed, Miranda took off like a shot, dodging Justice’s snaps, leaping aside from his lunges, bouncing around like a furry rubber ball. All the while, he kept after her, a starving wolf pursuing a particularly agile—and tempting—field mouse.

The knife chimed a sound her brain translated as
Running from a predator only makes him chase you.

Yeah? And just how am I supposed to stop without getting myself chomped?

The blade didn’t answer.

I don’t even get a “Use the Force, Luke”?
She spun like a bullfighter, avoiding yet another homicidal charge.
Some ghostly Jedi Master you are.

Miranda was beginning to feel like Jerry to Justice’s Tom. Or was it the other way around? She could never keep straight who was the cat and who was the mouse in that damned cartoon. But she
was
beginning to wish she had a giant animated frying pan to clobber him with . . .

Though a sword and armor would be even better. She considered conjuring them, then reluctantly rejected the idea. Armor would only slow her down. As for the sword, if she wanted Justice dead, Maeve was more than capable of doing the job with that god-awful spear.

What she really needed was to buy herself time to get through to him. Preferably before he could take a nice, juicy bite out of her backside.

An image from one of those old cartoons flashed through her mind: Tom glaring at Jerry through the arch of a mouse hole.
Just the thing.
Miranda shot a stream of magic at the ground ahead of her, conjuring a steel tunnel deep into the earth. She promptly dove into it, Bugs Bunny vanishing down a rabbit hole one cotton tail ahead of Elmer Fudd. Hitting bottom with a sigh of relief, she looked upward to watch Justice raging in frustration thirty feet overhead.
I seem to have cartoons on the brain
.
I can’t imagine why.

“Hey, Big Bad!” she shouted up at him. “If you’ll pardon the expression,
pipe down!
I can’t even hear myself think!”

He fell silent, probably out of sheer offended astonishment.
That, or disbelief I’d make a pun that bad.

TWELVE

“Look,” Miranda called
to the huge werewolf staring down at her from the tube’s mouth. “We’re in deep shit—and sinking fast. If you don’t get a handle on this Hunter Prince thing, Maeve will kill you. I know you probably don’t think she can do it, but that woman is some kind of fairy goddess. You may be big, but that only means you’ll make a really nice wall-to-wall wolf skin carpet . . .”

Golden eyes narrowed as they peered down at her. Then he disappeared from the opening.

Miranda frowned uneasily. “Uh, Justice?”

A furious scratching, scraping sound came from somewhere around the lip of the pipe, along with a rhythmic thumping. It took her a moment to realize she was hearing giant paws digging at the earth surrounding the metal shaft, sending great clods of dirt showering around him.

Oh, fuck
, Miranda thought, picturing the wolf unearthing her pipe and spilling her out of it like an errant gumball. She supposed it could have been worse—he could have lobbed fireballs down the damned thing. This should at least give her time to get through to him before he figured out how to liberate her from her self-inflicted trap.

If push comes to shove, I can always gate the hell out of here.

Leaving Justice to Maeve’s dubious mercy.

Yeah, I’m fucked.

“When did I fall in love with you?” Miranda mused, not really talking to him; she was just trying to think of some argument strong enough to get through his thick furry skull.

Scratchscratchthumpscratchscratchscratchthumpthumpthud . . .

“It must have been before the raptor almost ate you, because by then I didn’t care if I got incinerated if it meant you’d survive,” she said, working through the puzzle for herself more than Justice. “I rationalized it, of course. Told myself I felt nothing more than gratitude that you’d saved my life, but that was bullhockey. My life literally wouldn’t have been worth living if you’d died. Not because of guilt, either.”

Miranda let her head fall back to thump against the curved wall of the pipe, staring blindly up at the blue sky an infinite distance overhead. Outside the tube, the sound of digging paws began to slow. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m good at guilt. I’m Joelle Drake’s daughter; I’d have to be. Thing is, you make my life
more
than it was before I met you.”

The wolf whined, the sound soft, questioning, even through the thick steel of the pipe.

“You’re the first Alpha werewolf I’ve ever known who gave a rat’s ass if I lived or died.” She drew up her furry legs and looped her arms around them, then rested her chin thoughtfully on her knees. “Not because it would somehow inconvenience you if I kicked off. You actually
care
about me. About Miranda Drake, offspring of a nutjob and the woman who’d suckered herself into believing she loved the nutjob. The psycho and the dishrag. Some parentage, right? Let me tell you, genetics like that have given me some sleepless nights.”

Snorting, Miranda began to nibble on the curving claw of her thumb. “Yet you’ve saved my life over and over, risking yours to do it.” She started ticking off those rescues, one claw at a time. “There was that werewolf councilman who tried to gut me during the first battle with Warlock. You broke his neck. Then came the three assassins in Paris. I got one, but the other two would have cut my head off if you hadn’t minced them into dog chow. And the raptor . . . That was close. That was really close.”

Brooding, Miranda looked down at her lupine reflection wavering on the blade of the athame. “When you killed the councilman, I figured it was just because you hated his damned guts. Not that I blamed you; he was
such
a bastard. In Paris, I told myself you were one of those guys who pride themselves on protecting the weak and helpless. And boy, did I hate the thought you’d think of me as weak
or
helpless.”

Slowly, thoughtfully, she stirred the fur over her knee with the point of the athame, then absently started writing his name. “I think I began to fall for you when I finished that damned vaccine. I’d had to burn so much magic making enough doses of the potion for every agent in Avalon, I didn’t have a damned thing left by the time I was finished.”

Miranda sketched a frowny face. “I couldn’t even lift my head. I just kind of lay there in the middle of my spell circle, barely conscious.”

The wolf panted, deep gusting breaths somewhere outside her pipe. God knew what he was up to. Maybe he was listening. Maybe he was plotting the best way to turn her into Puppy Chow.

“You just walked into my circle, picked the cauldron up, and took the potion out to Morgana and Gwen, who were inoculating people. It was the fifth one I’d brewed.” She drew a heart in the fur. “I knew you’d come back to check on me. You’re that kind of Boy Scout.”

Sighing, Miranda ran her free hand through her red mane, only to encounter a garden’s worth of leaves and sticks. Absently, she went to work plucking them out. “I started wondering how I’d get to the bathroom, because by that time, nature was calling. And she’d gotten pretty damned loud, since I’d just spent ten hours in that circle without a potty break. Which was when you walked in, picked me up, and carried me out. I thought, ‘Fuck, he wants sex. How the hell am I going to fight him off?’”

“Boy, I really didn’t understand you at all.” With a snort, Miranda started picking at a particularly stubborn tangle wound tight around a twig.

“Thing is, I know what an Alpha werewolf smells like when he’s horny, and I’d smelled that scent on you a few times since we’d moved in with Belle. I was trying to decide if I had the strength to yell for Tristan when you carried me into the hall bathroom.”

The tangle was so stubborn, she had to put aside her athame and conjure a comb. “You seated me on the toilet and tugged off my jeans and my panties, but you didn’t try to cop a feel. Didn’t even leer. Then you turned your back and waited. So I did what I had to do. You turned around, dressed me again, and carried me up to my room.”

Pulling the comb slowly over the tangle, Miranda smiled a little, remembering how flabbergasted she’d been at Justice’s gentlemanly streak. “I thought,
Okay, either he’s decent enough to help me with the bathroom, or he was afraid I’d pee all over him if he tried to rape me first.
So I waited to see what you’d do. Not that I had much choice, because I couldn’t have fought off a toy poodle humping my knee.”

The tangle refused to surrender. Growling softly in frustration, she cast a spell. The tangle vanished. Miranda hated doing things the easy way—it could become a bad habit—but it was that or cut the knot with her athame. She couldn’t exactly go to the beauty parlor and get a stylist to fix the resulting gap in her mane.

“You put me down on the bed and you took off my shoes.
Oh, shit
, I thought, and waited for you to take off the rest of my clothes. Instead you flipped the blanket over me and asked if I was thirsty. When I said yes, you got me a glass of ice water. Even held it while I drank. You very politely asked if I needed anything else, and after I said no, you just . . . left.

“I lay there looking up at the ceiling, trying to figure out whether you were suckering me, the way Dad conjured all those pretty toys when I was little. About the third day you waited on me hand and foot, I realized you weren’t running a scam. You really were that . . . kind.”

She closed her eyes as the exhaustion of the chase suddenly caught up with her. “Please don’t be gone, Justice. I need you. Come back.” A tear rolled slowly down her muzzle. She wiped it away with the back of her wrist. “Great. Now I’m crying.”

“Then you’d better get out of that pipe before you drown,” Justice said.

Miranda jerked her head back so fast, she almost gave herself whiplash. He smiled down at her, handsome and human again. She’d been so lost in her misery, she hadn’t even sensed his Shift.

“Justice!” Grinning in delight, Miranda grabbed the athame, stuck it between her teeth, and shot up the pipe, claws sinking into the steel like a squirrel’s scrambling up an oak. Propelling herself into an arching leap at the top of the tube, she Shifted in midair.

Justice caught her flying human body as if she was as weightless as a Ping-Pong ball. Plucking the knife from her mouth with one hand, he hauled her into a kiss with the other arm. Dizzy with pure joy and relief, Miranda kissed him back, drinking in the taste of his mouth: mint, a hint of fur, and the sharp ozone tang of magic.

“Fuck, that was close,” she gasped against his lips. “You have to quit doing that to me. I’m twenty-four. My heart won’t take the strain.”

“And I don’t think I can take the humor.” When Miranda rocked back and stared at him, Justice grinned. “Do you realize you make the most god-awful puns when you’re under stress? ‘Pipe down’? Jesus.”

Miranda laughed. “You understood that?”

“I think it was the sheer appalled horror that brought me back.” As he smiled down at her, her magical senses detected power rippling off him like heat from a summer sidewalk.

Good God, Justice’s magic is even more powerful than mine
.
Maybe even greater than Warlock’s.
Miranda wound her arms around his neck and grinned up into his eyes. “You
are
the Hunter Prince now, aren’t you?”

Something grim flickered in his gaze.
“Looks that way.”

“I’ve got powers of my very own, you know.” She ran a fingertip over his velvety lower lip.

He nipped lightly at her fingertip and gave her a smile. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. I can even walk and everything.”

“I gather that’s a hint.”

“Not that I don’t enjoy getting carried around like a bag of Kibbles ’n Bits—but put my ass
down
.”

“Oh, all right.” Justice started to lower her to her feet, then paused. “Are you sure?”

“Biiiilll . . .”

“Because I’m feeling kind of insecure here.”

“And I’m beginning to feel like Linus’s security blanket.”

“Has anybody ever told you you’ve got an obsession with cartoons?” He let her feet touch down. “Next you’ll be dressing up as a Klingon at
Star Trek
conventions.”

Miranda leaned into him and grinned. “Don’t worry, darling, I won’t be moving into Daddy’s basement any time soon.”

“God, I hope not. He’s probably got a collection of body parts in jars down there.”

“I wouldn’t be at all surprised.” Sensing something blazing magic at her feet, Miranda automatically glanced down. “Oh.”

Justice grinned and did a very bad Scarface. “Say hello to my leeettle friend.”

Merlin’s Blade had evidently reappeared with his Shift; the huge weapon was half-buried in the ground beside their feet.
Probably
stuck it there while listening to me emote.

A wave of power rippled across the axe’s Celtic engraving, sparks leaping between the symbols with a low electric crackle. Miranda had seen Warlock’s great blade do exactly the same thing whenever her father was nearby.

And what a comforting thought
that
is.

* * *

Maeve had given
Erielhonan leave to tend to his own needs before taking her message to the Troll King. The cougar stopped off in the forge’s kitchen to beg a quick meal from the plump, good-natured brownie who was Maeve’s cook.

After bolting the generous bowl of raw beef the little woman gave him, Erie padded out of the kitchen and through the ballroom beyond. Double doors swept open at his approach, and he ghosted out into the garden. Despite the season, Maeve’s roses were in full bloom, great bursts of vivid color the goddess had coaxed into climbing elaborate wooden trellises. The end result left the garden brilliantly populated by rose unicorns, rose dragons, and dancing rose fairies.

Erie strolled over to one particular oval-shaped trellis and announced, “The Elemental Falls.” The gems Maeve had sunk into the wood promptly generated a dimensional gate that expanded into a wavering oval in the air. The cougar leaped through the opening, which closed behind him with a soap bubble pop he sensed more than heard.

King Dovregubben was in a paranoid mood at the moment, as one might gather from his need for a sword forged by the Mother herself. Apparently he’d learned some young bull of a warrior intended to challenge his right to the throne, and the old troll felt threatened.

To keep the court gossips from learning of his intentions and alerting his challenger, Dovregubben had asked to meet at the falls. Where, no doubt, he hoped to dicker Erie down on the sword’s delivery price. Maeve, knowing the trollish love for bargaining, had authorized the cat to negotiate in her stead. Erie fully intended to get every last magical gem he could out of the old cheapskate. After all, this was a blade crafted by the Mother’s own hand. Selling it too cheaply would be an insult to both Maeve and the sword itself. Which Dovregubben knew as well as he did.

Still, one must play the game. That was half the fun.

A glance around the clearing told Erie the Troll King had yet to arrive. No surprise, that; Dovregubben was often delayed by the affairs of his kingdom. (Or, Erie suspected, by a willing female or a cold tankard of elvish meade.)

The cougar didn’t mind his tardiness this time. It was rare enough that he had the chance to return to the Elemental Falls.

He padded through the thick screen of ferns and brush that surrounded the oval pool as it bubbled and roiled with the pounding energy of the falls. Technically, the water did not have that far to fall, as the black stone cliff was barely twenty feet high.

But just above the falls hung a wavering oval in the air—the Elemental Gate, the eternal breach between this universe and the Elemental dimension beyond it. The magic there was even wilder and more powerful than in this world, and those energies infused the water. The falls glowed to Erie’s senses, burning with the warm light of home.

The cougar crouched at the edge of the pool and lowered his head to drink. With each lap of his tongue, the taste of the Elementalverse’s magic flooded his senses, more intoxicating than any meade, elvish or troll or even Maeve’s own.