Master of Darkness (2 page)

“But it’s still daylight.” Being vampires, the knights slept during the day.

“Not in Pakistan.”

“What the hell is going on in Pakistan?”

“One of the witches is dying. Belle said she’s trying to hold on long enough to tell us about a vision she’s had about us. I gather it’s pretty damned important.”

“She had a vision about
u
s
?
Crap. Why?”

“Don’t know, but we’d better haul ass. And Belle says we need full armor, so I’ve got to conjure yours.” Miranda already wore her own suit of interlocking plate. The bulletproof steel was engraved with spells that made it feel as weightless as silk, though it could protect against damn near any impact and most magical blasts. A silhouette of a dragon’s head was enameled in red across the breastplate. Arthur Pendragon had ordered Miranda and Justice to wear his personal heraldic symbol as protection against friendly fire. Magekind warriors had a tendency to think any werewolf was the enemy. All too often, they were right.

“Give me a minute,” Justice said through the door. “I’ve got to change.”

Miranda felt the explosion of magic as he Shifted. Clothing rustled, then the door swung wide.

Oh, my.

Working to keep her expression cool, she took in Justice’s broad, bare chest, faded jeans, and big bare feet. The way he held the door open made his biceps bunch until they looked the size of grapefruit. Sparks of werewolf magic still flickered in his black eyes, a remnant of his transformation.

Miranda liked to tell herself that William Justice had a thug’s face, between his broad cheekbones, square jaw, and aggressive nose. Thick black brows slashed over deep-set ebony eyes. Cop’s eyes, watchful, assessing, maybe even a little paranoid.

She could resist all that. Really. She’d be just fine if it weren’t for his mouth. Wide, curled in a wicked grin more often than not, with a full lower lip she really wanted to bite. Just hard enough to make those obsidian eyes go all hot.

Then she’d run her hands down the powerful lines of his chest, exploring every thick contour, tracing her fingers through the soft curls that covered that chest, following the tempting line of sable hair that dove behind his zipper, pointing the way to . . .

Alpha werewolf
, Miranda reminded herself sternly, jerking her eyes away.

“Uh, Miranda?” he asked in that velvet rumble of his.

Licking her dry lips, she forced herself to meet Justice’s night-dark gaze without letting her eyes drift downward. She was
not
going to follow that maddening line of hair . . . “Yeah?”

“I need that armor. You did say we’ve got to hurry.”

“Oh. Uh, right.” Reaching for the energy of the Mageverse roiling invisibly around them, Miranda concentrated and began to spin magic into steel.

Seconds later, Justice’s jeans had been replaced by armor that matched her own. Somehow all that ornate gleaming metal only emphasized his strength, drawing attention to the elegant V of his torso as it swept down to narrow hips and long runner’s legs.

There was nothing muscle-bound about him; he fought with speed and agility, as ruthless and loyal in her defense as the wolf he was.
If he were human, I’d be in love with him by now.
She instantly banished the thought, afraid it would show on her face.

Luckily, Justice didn’t notice her preoccupation. He was too intent on the sword she’d conjured for him, a length of steel designed for magical combat, its enchanted edge as sharp as a straight razor.

Eying the weapon’s broad blade, Justice swung it with a skillful rotation of his wrist, testing its weight and balance. He gave her a brisk, approving nod through the open visor of his helm. “This looks good. Let’s gate.”

“Miranda?”
Belle’s communication spell reverberated in her mind.
“Daliya won’t last much longer. If you don’t get here in the next five minutes . . .”

“We’re on the way.”
Miranda shot a laser-thin stream of magic into the air. The point flared blue and bright, expanding as she fed it more power, until it became a rippling opening in the air. The magical portal cut across the dimensions to Mortal Earth—the home of six billion humans with no idea thirty thousand werewolves lived among them.

Justice led the way through the gate, wary and protective as always. Miranda drew her own sword and stepped after him. At least with his delightful ass covered in steel, she was less likely to drool at it.

He stopped so suddenly on the other side of the gate, she had to sidestep to avoid running him through. “Dammit, Justice, what the . . .” Then she got a good look at what had stopped him in his tracks.

The blasted ruins of a city square lay before them, buildings blazing against the night sky. Tumbled bricks lay in piles between chunks of broken cement spiked with rebar, as blackened wooden beams jutted like the fingers of charred skeletons.

Magekind agents moved fearlessly among the burning wreckage. Witches cast spells to snuff the flames as vampires dug survivors free of the rubble, then handed them off to healers for treatment of their injuries.

“Jesus, Dad
has
been busy.” Miranda’s feet were planted in something sticky. Flipping her helm’s visor up, she glanced down to discover she stood in a puddle of drying blood. Grimacing, she stepped out of it and sent out a mental call.
“Belle?”

“Behind you,” the witch called.

Turning, she and Justice found they’d gated into the mouth of a filthy alley. Belle and Tristan knelt on the trash-littered ground, a woman in armor lying between them. Moving closer, Miranda realized the witch was curled protectively around a man’s decapitated head, one hand stroking its bloody cheek. Her despairing grief was so intense, it filled Miranda’s Direkind nose with the scent of sweetness gone acrid, like burning roses.

Miranda hurried toward them, armored boots sending gravel bouncing across the alley. Justice followed more slowly, checking the alley for whatever had felled the woman and her lover.

The dying witch lifted her head at their approach. Her eyes met Miranda’s, glazed with suffering and approaching death. Had she been a victim of a werewolf bite? Miranda sheathed her sword and dropped to her knees beside Belle.

Justice moved to hover protectively over them, eyes scanning from one end of the alley to the other. Nothing would sneak up on them with him on guard. Miranda could concentrate on the victim. Sending a wave of magic rolling over the woman, she searched for lethal punctures. The magic in werewolf bites sent Magekind victims into fatal anaphylactic shock; only Miranda’s Direkind healing spells could save them. But since she couldn’t be everywhere at once, she’d concocted a vaccine a couple of weeks ago and administered it to every fighter in Avalon.

Frowning, Miranda glanced at Belle. The blond witch’s pretty face looked soot-smeared and exhausted in the frame of her open visor, and she smelled of blood, smoke, and grief. “What happened? I thought I vaccinated everybody. Did it wear off?”

Without answering, Belle bent closer to the fallen woman. “They’re here, Daliya. You can tell them what you saw.”

“Good . . . Good.” The Maja lifted a shaking gauntleted hand.

Miranda took it automatically. “Are you bitten anywhere? My magic . . .”

“You cannot heal what kills me.” The woman sucked in a rattling breath, obviously struggling for strength. They’d taken off her helmet, exposing lovely Pakistani features and huge dark eyes. Her black hair pooled around her head in a lake of ebony silk that gleamed in the firelight. “And I don’t . . . want you to.” She stopped to pant.

“That’s her husband,” Tristan explained gruffly, nodding to the head. “They were Truebonded.”

Miranda grimaced, understanding at last. The Truebond psychic link was pulling the Maja into death after her mate. Actually, it was surprising she was still alive at all. Truebonded couples usually died within minutes of each other.

“Daliya fought to survive long enough to see you,” Belle explained, a rasp to her normally musical French accent, as if she’d breathed in too much smoke—or fought back tears. “She’s had a vision involving you and Justice, and she says she has to tell you about it.”

“Wolf.” The dying Maja lifted her free hand toward Justice as if it took all her strength. “Wolf, I must speak . . . to you, too.”

He hesitated, obviously surprised, then sheathed his sword and dropped to his knees to take the witch’s hand.

The moment he touched her, light exploded in the depths of Daliya’s black pupils. Feeble fingers clamped around Miranda’s so hard, she almost yelped in surprise.

The witch began to chant in a feverish cadence, her musical voice much louder than it should be, as if an alien power had taken over her dying vocal chords. “Listen! Seek the Mother of Fairies as she folds enchanted steel into blades she fills with the souls of lost gods.”

Daliya’s black eyes flicked from Miranda’s face to Justice’s, magic sparking in her pupils like fireworks. “She waits in her forge for the hero wolf to come for Merlin’s Blade. Then will the Hunter Prince be free—then will he rule in bloody vengeance or bend his knee to his spirit’s feral king.”

Her fingers tightened on Miranda’s until the steel of both their gauntlets creaked under the strain. “It will take the daughter of evil and a master of darkness to lead the night world into the light. If they do fail, humanity will drown in blood under the white wolf’s heel, and the crows will feast.”

The Maja fell silent, panting as if she’d run a marathon, her last desperate strength visibly draining like water from a broken pitcher. Her dark eyes began to cloud in death. “Find the Mother at her forge, or Avalon . . . dies. Warlock will kill the . . . world. Magekind. Humans. Direkind. All will feed the ravens. All will die.”

Her gaze slid away from Miranda’s to seek her husband’s head. She released Miranda’s hand to touch pale, bloody lips with fingers that shook. “Wait for me, Kadir. Now I come.” Daliya’s lips twitched as if to smile, despite the tear that rolled down one dark cheek. “Yes, yes . . . I’m always . . . late.”

Her hand dropped to the pavement as her magic swirled away with her life, escaping back to its source in the Mageverse.

TWO

Silence fell with
Daliya��s death, heavy as a lead weight.

“Belle. God, Belle . . .” Tristan leaned across the fallen couple and kissed his lover with sudden, desperate hunger. She kissed him back just as fiercely, a single tear trickling down her face, her armored fingers stroking his face.

The naked love in that kiss made Miranda’s chest ache. She tried to pull her gaze away and give them some privacy, but there was something about all that raw emotion that was hypnotic. She’d never seen a kiss so ferocious with pain and need, born not in desire, but in the awareness that death could strip them from each other.

Belle and Tristan were Truebonded just like Daliya and Kadir; the death of one would kill the other. Yet watching that kiss, Miranda realized neither would want it any other way.

Envy struck like a punch in the stomach. She’d never known that kind of love. Her mother had chased chimeras of it, only to find abuse and death.

Miranda glanced across Daliya’s body at Justice. He, too, watched the couple kiss, the same helpless longing she felt in his ebony eyes. She jerked her burning gaze away and dragged an armored hand across her face to wipe away the tears. She had no idea if she was crying for Daliya . . . or herself. “Dammit. Dammit, what was that about? Who’s the Mother of Fairies?”

Justice lowered the woman’s limp hand to ground, giving it an oddly tender pat before settling back on his booted heels. He slid one arm around Miranda’s shoulders, drawing her closer. Astonished, she looked up at him.

As if realizing the intimacy of the gesture, he straightened away so quickly his gauntlet scraped against her armored back. Clearing his throat, he looked over at Tristan, who’d finally broken the kiss. “And what the hell is Merlin’s Blade?”

“Damned if we know.” The vampire’s deep voice sounded gruff, and his eyes shone as if he’d shed a tear or two himself. “Neither of us has ever heard of the Mother of Fairies or Merlin’s Blade. I’d think she was talking about Excalibur, but Arthur never lets that sword out of his sight.” A smile twitched the corners of Tristan’s lips. “I think he sleeps with it.”

Miranda and Justice exchanged a frown. Tristan had been a vampire Knight of the Round Table for fifteen hundred years, while Belle had been a Maja for more than a thousand. Between the two of them, they knew damn near everything there was to know about magic. Anything or anyone they’d never heard of was going to be a bitch to find.

“What happened to them?” Justice turned his attention to the two Magekind corpses. His intense, professional gaze reminded Miranda he’d been a homicide cop before somebody bit him. “Who took that vampire’s head? And where’s the rest of his body?”

Belle sat back on her heels and sighed. “Warlock’s got himself a couple of new Beasts.”

“
Two
of them?” Miranda demanded, appalled. It had been all they could do to kill the last one.

Justice winced. “Oh, fuck.”

“Fuck is right.” Tristan picked up the vampire’s head, cradling it in a big, surprisingly gentle hand. “Kadir was one of our best agents. He worked deep cover for five years gaining the trust of those Sword of Allah assholes . . .”

Justice frowned. “Those are the terrorists who tried to buy the Russian nuke last year, right?”

“Yeah, same bunch. Kadir’s the reason they didn’t succeed. He had them thinking he was God’s gift to jihad, even as he sabotaged every plot they put together. Whenever they’d start catching on, Daliya would cast a spell to make them forget their suspicions.”

“Too bad she couldn’t make the fuckers quit trying to blow up the planet.” Belle opened her mouth, and Justice waved a hand. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Doesn’t work like that.”

Once a belief became deeply engrained in someone’s brain—particularly a religion-based obsession like jihad—you couldn’t erase it no matter how you tried. Too many associations with other memories that would eventually bring it back to the surface. You had to either change the mortal’s mind by old-fashioned persuasion. Or kill him.

Arthur and his Magekind didn’t believe in killing any mortal unless there was no choice at all. Even terrorists.

“So how did Kadir die?” Miranda asked.

The knight looked up, the curl of his upper lip revealing one fang. “Warlock’s pet fucker ate him. Literally ate him. Poor bastard was halfway down the snake’s throat when we got here. We were only able to save his head.”

Justice stared at his friend, his stomach knotting in revulsion. “Warlock must have recruited himself a pair of bugfuck crazy serial killers. Sane werewolves don’t eat people.” When you became Direkind, you kept whatever moral compass you had to begin with. You might take a bite out of someone who pissed you off, but you didn’t actually
eat
them. “And did you say ‘snake’?” He’d loathed snakes since he’d damn near stepped on a copperhead when he was nine.

“Yeah. Some kind of cobra, but sure as hell not anything you’d see in nature. Had to be sixty, maybe seventy feet long, three feet around. The other Beast was a werewolf centaur the size of a truck. Built like a Clydesdale, armored from head to tail. Carried the biggest damned battle-axe I have ever seen.”

“Damn,” Miranda muttered. “That sounds nastier than the first one.” Warlock’s original monster had looked like a cross between a wolf and a grizzly bear. The creature also sucked down magical blasts like a kid guzzling Red Bull.

“These bastards were definitely nastier,” Tristan agreed. “They ambushed Kadir—I think he was on his way to some terrorist planning session. Daliya was back at the couple’s home, but she sensed the attack through their Truebond. She alerted Gwen and gated to help, but by then the snake was already swallowing Kadir. We arrived a minute or two later, but there was nothing any of us could do.”

“Christ.” Justice winced, remembering some of the homicides he’d worked. The anguish of the victim’s wives had haunted him worse than the murders themselves. At least the dead had stopped suffering by the time he arrived. “I hope you made those bastards pay.”

“We gave it our best shot.” Tristan’s brooding green eyes dropped down to Kadir’s face, and he returned the head to the protective circle of Daliya’s body. “The entire Round Table tore into them with everything we had. Our blade attacks bounced right off their shields . . .”

“And our blasts were worse than useless,” Belle said grimly. “Just like Warlock’s first monster, they drank our magic and got stronger.”

“We trashed six blocks of Mirpur City before we finally made them gate for home.” Tristan pulled off his helm and raked his hand through his hair, pulling it from its tight warrior’s queue to fall in disordered, sweaty strands. He looked tired, his face smeared with dirt and blood. “Had to bring in a hundred extra witches for crowd control when the fight brought the Pakistanis out to investigate. That damned centaur trampled six people and cut a three-year-old girl in two.”

“Oh, my God.” Miranda recoiled, her expression sick. “Why?”

“I think he was just pissed off. He killed that kid the way you’d swat a fly.” Tristan’s green eyes narrowed in fury, a muscle jerking in his jaw as he ground his teeth. “But it backfired on him, because Arthur lost his mind. You know how he gets whenever a child is hurt. Tore into the bastard so hard, he actually beat his way through the fucker’s magical shield. Excalibur must have just overwhelmed the spell. Bloodied the centaur badly.”

Justice grinned in genuine pleasure. “Good for him.”

“We all cut lose then, whaling away until the sons of bitches lost their nerve and gated for home.” He curled his lip. “Apparently they can dish it out, but they don’t like taking it.”

“The civilians still paid the price.” Belle dragged her shoulders back and winced, putting a hand on her arm as if it ached. If anything, she looked dirtier and more exhausted than her partner. “We’ve had our hands full putting out fires and healing the wounded ever since.”

Miranda glanced up. “I gather the Beasts kept you from tracking where their dimensional gate went.” The Majae had been trying to locate Warlock’s lair for months now, with no luck at all.

“Per usual. We have
got
to figure out how to punch through that jamming spell of theirs.”

“How did you explain all this to the Pakistanis?” Justice asked.

“The usual suspects.” Belle shrugged. “Team of suicide bombers hit the neighborhood. We changed everybody’s memories to match the story. And made damned sure we wiped every camera phone for blocks around.”

“Sure as hell don’t want that little fight going viral,” Tristan agreed. “All we need is for something like that to hit CNN, and we’re all fucked.”

“Why didn’t Arthur call me in to help?” Justice asked in frustration. “Immune to magic, remember?” One of the joys of being a werewolf.

Unfortunately, that immunity meant his magic was limited to shape-shifting. Miranda and her psychotic father, Warlock, were the only Dire Wolves who could cast spells, which meant they were also vulnerable to magical attacks.

And now there were these new Beasts. Out there among the humans, eating people and blowing shit up. A snake, for God’s sake.

“You’re more useful making sure nothing happens to Miranda.” Displaying a forearm, Tristan gave Miranda a tired smile. A set of bloody fang marks punctured his gauntlet. “The centaur got its teeth into me, but your vaccine really works
.
Otherwise I’d be dead now.”

“My pleasure.” Her voice dropped to a mutter. “I just wish I knew how long that spell is going to last. I don’t want somebody dying because it took me too long to make more vaccine.”

“Miranda, we don’t know when—or even if—it’s going to wear off,” Belle told her. “You need to let your psychic batteries recharge a little longer before you start working on a new batch.”

As usual, the witch was right. Preparing enough of the magical drug to vaccinate the city had left Miranda frighteningly weak. She’d barely been able to move for days. Justice had ended up waiting on her hand and foot.

Not that he’d minded. God, he was such a sucker.

“Then I shouldn’t have wasted all that magic on building my new house last week.” Miranda chewed her ridiculously tempting lower lip. Justice dragged his gaze away. “That was stupid.”

“Well,
I
don’t consider it a waste.” Tristan’s grin suggested he was trying to distract her from her obvious guilt trip. “It did get you and Justice out of
our
house.” They’d been Belle’s guests for three weeks, until Miranda had finished conjuring the cottage. “Don’t get me wrong, I like you two, but once in a while I’d really like to have sex on the . . .”

Belle looked up at her lover. She didn’t say a word, but he carefully shut his mouth without finishing the sentence.

“I didn’t notice you held back all that much.” Justice grinned, just as willing to play
Let’s distract Miranda
. “I felt like a contestant on
Knights of the Round Table Gone Wild
.”

Tristan hit him lightly on one armored shoulder. It clanked. “You’re just jealous, furball.”

Jealous, me?
Watching Tris and Belle flirt, kiss and steal surreptitious little caresses? While he hadn’t dared lay one fuzzy finger on Miranda?
Like the Big Bad Wolf at a barbecue festival.

Justice glanced over at Miranda, to find her watching him wearing an odd expression, part longing, part fear.
Of me?
Why the hell would she be afraid of me? And why longing, for God’s sake . . . ?

Before Justice could consider that puzzle, an empty soft drink can bounced and rattled its way across the alley. He glanced around, instantly wary.

The woman who’d kicked the Coke can strolled toward them, a big video camera balanced on one shoulder. Yet none of the others seemed to notice.

Taking a deep breath, Justice recognized the ozone reek of magic.
She’s protected by some kind of spell
.
Probably an invisibility shield.

Magic didn’t affect Justice, so he saw right through the shield, but the others had no idea she was there. He looked away as if he hadn’t seen her either, his mind working furiously.
Since when do TV reporters work spells?

There was no question she
was
a reporter, given the camera. While you could shoot video with a cell phone these days, professional equipment was a lot bigger and more elaborate. Just like the camera she was carrying.

Plus, she had the kind of stunning looks typical of female cable news reporters: a heart-shaped face, striking violet eyes, and curling hair the gleaming black of a raven’s wing. Snatching another glance, he decided he recognized her
.
Brenda? Brenna? Something like that.

But he’d thought TV news reporters traveled with an entourage, especially in this part of the world. A cameraman, a sound guy, a producer, a translator, and at least a couple of bodyguards. This girl appeared to be alone. Which was dangerous as hell in fundamentalist Pakistan, especially for a woman who looked like that.

What is she, nuts
?

Justice’s protective instincts stirred.
You’ve already got your hands full with one beautiful, endangered woman, dumbass
,
he reminded himself
. You sure as hell don’t need another one.
Besides, with her power, the reporter could probably twitch her nose and make jihadis compose sonnets to her eyebrows.

Yet despite her admittedly stunning beauty, she didn’t make him feel anything like the kind of elemental lust Miranda inspired. It was like comparing a firecracker to a lightning bolt.

Anyway, this chick is a
reporter. Even as a human cop, Justice had never liked reporters. In his former-cop’s experience, they lived to stir shit up. Lacking actual shit to stir, they’d create imaginary shit and stir that. Now that he was one of the world’s tiniest minorities—Magical Americans—he
really
didn’t like reporters. And that little spell-casting bimbo intended to put them all on CNN?

I don’t think so, baby. But what am I going to do about you?

Justice watched from the corner of one eye as the reporter moved around them with her camera, shooting away. She turned to say something to her left shoulder and absently pushed a black curl behind one ear. One
pointed
ear. Justice put the ear together with the invisibility spell.
Holy hell, the reporter’s Sidhe
.