Master of Darkness (3 page)

The Sidhe were basically mankind’s cousins, an ancient race of magic-using humans who inhabited Mageverse Earth. Their kingdom lay on the other side of the planet from Avalon; their king, Llyr Galatyn, was one of Arthur’s more important allies.

What the hell is a fairy doing in Pakistan? We’re broadcasting the news to Neverland now?

And what was that moving around on her other shoulder, the one
not
occupied by the camera? He couldn’t quite make it out, since its bottom half was the same green as her silk blouse, while the rest matched the building behind her. In fact, he could see the pattern of the brick slide across the whatsit as it moved. Had to be alive.

A quick inward breath brought him the scaly aroma of reptile blended with the ozone tang of magic and the woman’s natural feminine scent. Some kind of enchanted lizard? Like a magical chameleon, maybe?

“Do you recognize these guys?” she asked it. She was talking to a
lizard
?

“The big fella is Tristan, one of the Knights of the Round Table,” the chameleon said in an Irish accent as thick as mud—and about that clear.
“The blond one is La Belle Coeur, what they call a Court Seducer. Don’t know who the redhead is, or the other fella, but . . .
He’s starin’ at us
.”

Her head jerked around so fast she should have given herself whiplash. The CNN Fairy met Justice’s gaze, her violet eyes going round with horror. The camera vanished from her shoulder in an explosion of sparks as she whirled to run.

Justice grabbed for his own magic and leaped, shifting to Dire Wolf as he dove over Tristan’s head. He was distantly aware of his companions’ astounded shouts, but he didn’t stop to explain.

He grabbed the Sidhe woman by one arm as his clawed feet hit the pavement. Jerking her to a halt, Justice glowered down at her from seven feet of muscle, fur, and fangs. “Oh, no you don’t, News Fairy. Where the hell did the camera go? Bring it back
now
, or . . .”

“Let her go!” The leprechaun lizard Shifted into a dead ringer for a Gila monster, its body short and muscular, with a stubby tail and short ’gator legs. It was obviously a hell of a lot more agile than the real reptile, because it launched itself through the air like a flying squirrel. Landing on Justice’s astonished head, it started ripping at him with claws like box cutters. “Get your hands off her or you’ll be diggin’ me out of your face!”

Justice barely grabbed the little beast in time to save his eyes. It screamed incomprehensible Irish curses as he dragged it off his head. It was surprisingly strong for something that weighed less than a house cat.

Justice had to fight to hang on as the lizard lashed back and forth in his grip, all four stubby legs clawing the air, tail beating his forearm hard enough to bruise. “Leave my Branwyn alone, gobshite!”

He jerked the little beast close enough to get a good look at his much, much longer teeth. “Stop it, or we’ll find out if you really are magically delicious.”

“Cac ar oineach!”
The lizard snarled, its eyes narrowed to vicious, glowing slits.

“Don’t hurt him!” the girl yelled, leaping up to grab Justice’s arm, trying to wrench his lizard-gripping hand away from his jaws. “You can have the camera, just don’t eat Fin!” Her eyes were wide with pleading, her lip trembling as she hung from his massive forearm, booted feet kicking a foot from the ground.

Justice’s rage faded in the face of her genuine fear. “I’m not going to eat your lizard, all right? Just tell him to quit . . .”

A fireball splashed against the side of his head. Astonished, he turned just as Fin huffed another green flame baseball into his eyes. “Get away from her, or you’ll get seconds!” the lizard howled.

“I don’t care,” Justice snarled, “because
I am immune to magic
.”

“Are your balls immune to teeth then? Because I’ll bite the bleeding bollix off you!”

“Try it, you scaly little shit, and you’ll end up a pair of boots!”

“
Please
don’t hurt him!” Tears spilled down the girl’s face as she braced both feet against his ribs and hauled on his arm for all she was worth. Being Sidhe, she was much stronger than she looked.

“Then tell him to keep his teeth to himself,” Justice snapped, though he was starting to feel like a bully, “or I swear to God, I’ll dropkick his scaly little ass right over the rainbow.”

“
Téigh trasna ort féin
,” the lizard spat.

Justice decided it was just as well he didn’t speak Gaelic.

“Fin, you’re not helping!” Branwyn cried, and started to sob. “Please, mister, please!”

“All right!” He lowered his arm until her feet touched the ground. When he handed her the lizard, Fin promptly Shifted back to his original form—he looked a bit like a miniature Chinese dragon—and shot up her arm to wrap his long, limber body around her neck.

The creature glared at him from the shelter of long black curls. “Lay one hand on my girl, you hairy skanger, and you’ll be spitting teeth.” No longer camouflaged, Fin’s scales shone green in the illumination cast by the burning square beyond the alley. They had an iridescent sheen, streaks of violet and gold rippling as he moved. A bright red frill ran the length of his back from his golden eyes to the tip of his long tail. More frills adorned the tail tip, as long and delicate as feathers.

“All right, I gave back your scaly leprechaun,” Justice told the fairy, ignoring Fin’s dire Gaelic curses. “Now, where’s the camera?”

She clutched her friend protectively close and glared at him. “Oh, all . . .”

“Justice,” Miranda interrupted, edging closer as she spoke in the careful tone people use with schizophrenics, “who are you talking to?”

“This sneaking little fairy reporter and her pet reptile . . .” He winced as realization hit. “Both of whom are still hidden behind an invisibility spell.”

Which meant Miranda, Tristan, and Belle just saw him have a screaming row with empty air. No wonder they were looking at him like a candidate for electroshock.

He glowered down at the reporter. “Drop the shield, Tinker Bell. And give me that damned camera before I forget I’m one of the good guys.”

“Oh, yeah, you’re just a fuzzy Prince Charming, you are!” The reporter’s voice dripped sarcasm—along with a sudden brogue almost as thick as the lizard’s. “Picking on poor Finvarra. You ought to be ashamed of . . .”

He stuck out a palm and snapped his clawed fingers. “Camera and spell. Now, Tink.”

The scent of magic disappeared, then flared again as the video camera popped back into view. She handed it over with visible reluctance and a growled “And
don’t
call me Tinker Bell!”

“Think you’re a hard man now?” The lizard sneered. His frilled tail snapped in contempt. “Tosser.”

“Bite me, Lucky Charms.”

“I tried, Scooby Doo, but the fleas beat me to it.”

“That’s Branwyn Donovan.” Miranda stared at the reporter before turning an outraged glare on Justice. “You threatened to
eat
Branwyn Donovan? What next, Anderson Cooper à la mode? What’s wrong with you?”

“I didn’t threaten to eat the damned reporter,” Justice gritted. “I threatened to eat her lizard. Which I gave back, despite being seriously provoked. Look, Miranda, she’s been shooting video of us from behind an invisibility spell. Do you
want
to be on CNN?”

“I don’t work for CNN,” Branwyn announced with icy dignity. “I report for DCN. We have better ratings.”

“Wipe that camera’s memory card,” Tristan told Belle in a cold voice. The Magekind were damned serious about making sure video of their activities never hit the air.

“It’s as good as wiped.” Belle gave Justice an approving nod. “Good work spotting her before she outed every one of us.”

“I’m not going to out you, dammit!” Branwyn planted her fists on her hips and glared at the witch, who paused in the act of casting her spell, magic shedding bright sparks around her hands. “I’m Sidhe. I don’t want the mortals to know magic exists any more than you do. They’d either burn me at the stake or dissect me like a frog.”

“So why shoot video of us if you weren’t going to run it?” Tristan lifted a skeptical blond brow. “How stupid do you think we are?”

Branwyn transferred her glare to him, not in the least intimidated by fifteen hundred years’ worth of legendary, pissed-off knight. “I was going to show it to my brother. I wanted him to see what those . . .
creatures
are doing to those who don’t have a prayer of defending themselves.”

Conal Donovan was the owner of DCN, as well as one of the richest men on the planet. He had fingers in so many pies, he should own his own bakery—and probably did.
Figures he’d be magic
, Justice thought.

Tristan looked her over, frowning. “What creatures are we talking about?”

She looked impatient. “You know perfectly well. That Budweiser Clydesdale thing and the giant snake that ate that poor vampire.” Her voice dropped to a mutter, and a tear rolled down her face. “And I
liked
Kadir, dammit. He didn’t deserve to die like that.”

“How do you know Kadir?” Belle eyed her. “And why do you care?”

“How could I not care? Those bastards killed half a dozen people and a three-year-old. They’ve got to be stopped. Kadir tried. God, he gave it everything he had. He blasted the hell out of that snake with his AK-47, but the bullets just bounced off it. Then it bit him and . . .” She closed her eyes and shuddered. “I’m going to hear that scream in my nightmares until the day I die.”

And if I don’t get my hands on that axe of Daliya’s
, Justice thought grimly,
Kadir won’t be the only one Warlock and his bastards kill.

THREE

“Watching Kadir die
must have been hideous.” Miranda studied the reporter with sympathetic eyes.

Branwyn shrugged. “I cover the Mideast. Hideous tragedies are pretty much my beat. This was worse.” She raked a hand through her hair, the gesture weary with defeat and frustration. “His wife gated in right after the snake started swallowing him. I’ve never seen anyone fight so hard to save someone else. She hurled blasts that should have fried that creature into Moo Shu Monster. It just soaked up her magic and kept right on eating him. And there was nothing I could do but shoot video and cry so hard I could barely see through the viewfinder.” Her voice dropped to a mutter. “I felt so damned useless.”

The lizard emerged from her hair and curled his long neck around to look into her face, the frill folded flat against his head. “Cop on to yourself, Bran. You’ve a snowball’s chance in hell against a monster like that. Even with me amplifyin’ your abilities, that thing would have sucked up your attacks the way it did the witch’s—and you along with ’em.”

“He’s right.” Reluctant sympathy softened Belle’s tone. “Those things ate every spell we threw at them. If you’d tried to intervene, you’d have ended up as dead as Daliya.”

Miranda moved a step closer, drawing the reporter’s attention. “Look, Daliya had a vision before she died. She said someone called the Mother of Fairies has a magical weapon we need to stop Warlock. If we don’t get our hands on Merlin’s Blade, Daliya predicted that everyone—human, Magekind, and Direkind—
everyone
is going to die. Do you have any idea where we’d find this Mother of Fairies?”

The reporter nodded slowly, her reluctance obvious. “I know what she said. I was shooting vid the first time she had the vision.”

“So what does it mean, Branwyn?”

The Sidhe stayed silent about two seconds too long. Justice’s cop instincts began to clamor.
Warning, warning, incoming lie . . .

“I’ve never heard of any Merlin’s Blade.”

“That wasn’t the question.” Justice gave Branwyn his best I’m-the-Law-Don’t-Lie-to-Me stare. Never mind that they’d taken his badge. “She asked if you knew the Mother of Fairies.”

Branwyn looked him right in the eye. “No.”

He folded his arms and turned up the heat on his glare. “I thought you wanted to stop Warlock’s killers from preying on the innocent. Or was that just bullshit?”

The tip of Finvarra’s tail twitched, iridescent frills flicking. “You pay an unannounced call on the Mother, and she’ll feed you a Scooby Snack you won’t forget.”

“Let us worry about that, Lucky Charms. Well, Branwyn?”

“Aren’t you tired of doing nothing while people die?” Belle’s cool tone gave the question such acidic bite, even Justice hid a wince.

“Branwyn, help us,” Miranda urged softly, playing good cop to Belle’s bad cop like a pro. “Please.”

The reporter threw up her hands in surrender. “Look, I really don’t have any idea how to find the Mother. She doesn’t exactly hand out business cards. Conal would know if anyone does.”

The lizard gave his frill a dismissive flick. “Good luck convincin’ him. He wants nothing to do with Magekind, or your war with the werewolves.” He gave Justice a twisted, toothy grin. “It’s none of our bleedin’ business.”

“You really think that once Warlock murders Arthur and his knights, he’ll leave you Sidhe alone?” Miranda snorted. “Yeah, right. Warlock hates anyone or anything with power he doesn’t control. He’ll be hunting fairies the day after Avalon burns.”

“It’s better to become our allies now than wait until it’s too late for any of us,” Tristan put in. “If you help us find Merlin’s Blade, we can stop Warlock and save a great many lives. Yours included.”

Finvarra sniffed. “Maybe you can stop Warlock. Or maybe that poor witch was out of her tree and talking shite to all the little angels.”

Miranda met the lizard’s cynical gaze. “We won’t know until we try. I’m willing to give it everything I’ve got.” Power blazed up in her eyes with a glow like leaping flame. “And I’ve got plenty.”

Finvarra studied her a moment before he grunted and retreated back under Branwyn’s hair. “Eh. Might as well,” he told the reporter as he curled around her neck. “Otherwise they’ll show up at Conal’s gaff, make bits of his bodyguards, and blow the feckin’ shite out of his security cameras.”

Tristan gave him a smile tinged with menace. “Yeah, that
is
pretty much what we’d do.”

The lizard sniffed and flicked his tail. “Stick it up your hole, Vlad.”

* * *

Across the alley,
on the roof five stories above their heads, Andrew Vance watched the Magekind, the werewolf traitors, and the fairy bitch. Straightening from his crouch, the big man padded silently toward the drainpipe on the building’s opposite side. He needed to put some distance between him and the enemy if he didn’t want them to sense the dimensional gate he was about to open.

Warlock would want to know about this.

Minutes later, Vance stepped through the gate into a dim stone passageway as a buzzing crack echoed off the granite. Warlock was giving his whip a workout. No surprise, considering the failure of Vance’s fellow Bastards.

The answering howl sounded like Jack Ferraro. The little weasel had no tolerance for pain. Tom Addison made much less noise under the lash; Hell, Vance suspected the sick fuck actually enjoyed it. Though when he chose, Warlock could make even Addison scream like a fourteen-year-old girl.

The general had a real talent for torture. It was a gift Vance appreciated, being no slouch himself.

Following the crackling pops of his master’s whip, he strode down the snaking stone tunnel that led deeper into the mountain. Warlock had dug a whole network of caves within the Blue Ridge Mountains, so deep that the ancient rock itself shielded his magic from detection. Here he could do as it suited him, and no one could stop him.

Especially not his three Bastards.

Vance found Warlock working over his fellow slaves in the huge cavern he thought of as the Womb. Vance had been reborn in the great stone cave two months back, entering a whole new existence of magic, power . . . and sweet, sweet blood. A world that suited him, especially considering how his old life had imploded.

He’d been on death row when Warlock found him, following his conviction on charges he’d murdered a family of Afghan civilians. Actually, he’d killed one too few of them: the twelve-year-old boy who’d survived to blab.

Never mind that his so-called “victims” had it coming. Vance was a reasonable man, but they’d pushed him too far. He’d returned the boy’s sister when he’d finished with her, but nooo, that wasn’t good enough for them. The bitch’s mother had gone whining to his boss at Winston Civilian Security, accusing Vance of kidnapping and raping a child.

A child, my ass.
She’d been fourteen. Afghans married them off at that age.

If the kid’s mother had kept her mouth shut, Vance wouldn’t have been forced to make an example out of them all. Otherwise, every civilian contractor would have been in danger from uppity Afghans.

He’d only been protecting his fellow Americans. And look at the treatment he’d received: his name dragged through the dirt on every cable news show. They’d dug up his dishonorable discharge from the Marines, even interviewed his former captain, who’d called him a psychopath and a disgrace to the uniform.

Once he ruled at Warlock’s side, that little bastard was going to pay for running his mouth.

The General snarled something vicious, and Vance hastily jolted back to the present. It wasn’t wise to give Warlock anything less than one hundred percent of your attention. You had to cater to that impressive ego if you wanted to keep your ass in one piece. Which was why Vance called him “General,” when he held no actual military rank.

Blatant flattery, but Warlock ate it up every time.

Vance paused, making sure his booted feet were well outside the inlaid silver circle on the stone floor. Viking runes were cut deeply into the rock, maintaining the spell that held the two Bastards hanging helplessly in midair, waiting for the next flaying stroke of the whip.

They were in human form now: Ferraro, a thin, elegant blond who’d once used his pretty face to seduce four wealthy women into marriage. Within a year or so of each honeymoon, he’d kill the bride, always contriving to make her death look like an accident. Warlock had gotten to him just hours before the cops had.

Addison was bigger, though not as tall as Vance. In human form, he was balding, with a long, bony face, a beak of a nose, and a beefy body on the verge of running to fat. He still bore the childhood scars his mother had once liked to inflict with a box cutter every time he’d stepped out of line. That ended the day he turned sixteen and realized he was bigger than she was.

He’d promptly taken the blade away and used it to slit her throat.

Over the next twenty years, Addison used that same box cutter on forty-five women, as he murdered his way across the United States. He was in the middle of a Manhattan killing spree when the NYPD finally caught him and threw his ass in jail.

Luckily for Addison, news reports of his vicious artistry captured Warlock’s attention, and the General spirited him out of his cell—and turned him into a real monster.

Too bad the General was less pleased with his recruits’ more recent performance.

“One!” the wizard roared, pacing around the circle’s perimeter, flicking his whip in vicious cracks. “All the power I gave you, all the training, and the two of you were only able to kill one of them!”

“Milord, Arthur brought the whole Round Table and their most powerful wit—” Ferraro broke off with a shriek as his stupid protest earned him another vicious slash of the energy whip.
Moron.

Though the Bastards could feed on Magekind magic—especially once it was filtered by the shielding spell—they had no resistance at all to Warlock’s power. And if you pissed him off enough, he’d flay the skin from your back, order you to heal yourself with a Shift, and flay you all over again. Which was the treatment the two would probably get once Warlock heard Vance’s report on their assorted fuckups.

Addison had taken too long to swallow that Pak vampire, deliberately spinning out the killing to make it as agonizing as possible. Though women were his preferred victims, he was sadistic enough to torture anybody, any time he got the chance. But that’s what you got when you recruited a serial killer.

And then there was Ferraro, a sociopath with no concept of loyalty whatsoever. Vance knew veteran fighters who would have made far better Bastards than either idiot, but when he’d suggested as much, the General’s claws had made clear just how little he liked having his judgment questioned.

Vance had learned his lesson: follow orders and keep your mouth shut, no matter how flawed the battle plan.

Just like Iraq all over again.

In this case, Addison’s tastes had indeed proven to be a liability. He’d been so stuffed with the vampire’s corpse, he’d been too slow when the knights arrived. What’s worse, they’d been driven into a holy frenzy as they fought to rescue the vampire’s body.

Ferraro, meanwhile, hadn’t managed to kill any of the enemy at all. Frustrated, knowing the punishment that awaited him back at the Caverns, he’d trampled every gawking Pakistani he could, then cut somebody’s kid in half.

If he’d had a little discipline, left the civilians alone and kept his mind on business, maybe he could have killed one of the Magekind. Instead he’d driven Arthur into a rage and barely escaped with his life.

Still, it had been interesting to watch the Celt in action as Excalibur’s magic cut right through Ferraro’s shields. Arthur was a skilled and cunning swordsman; given time, he would have sliced up the stupid fuck like a Virginia ham if Ferraro hadn’t fled for his life.

Despite the knowledge of swordsmanship Warlock’s magic had given them all, Ferraro was simply no match for the Celt’s fifteen centuries of skill. He’d had to take to his heels.

Vance would love to try his luck against Arthur. After all, he was a soldier, not a serial killer or con man. He knew how to fight, not just butcher whores and sucker rich widows.

“Vance, I do hope you have something interesting to tell me.”

He jerked his head up at the sound of Warlock’s lethal purr. The Dire Wolf’s fur was so white it seemed to glow almost as bright as his savage orange eyes. The General was eight feet tall, but the effect made him look even bigger, like a brawny, vicious cross between a polar bear and a prehistoric wolf. With a jerk of a clawed hand, Warlock snapped his whip, lash burning white-hot with magic.

Vance suppressed his instinct to step back. Knowing any sign of fear would only piss his master off, he lifted his chin. “Actually, General, I’ve learned something I think you’ll find very interesting indeed.”

* * *

The cat strolled
into Conal Donovan’s office, white paws soundless on the gleaming Macassar ebony hardwood. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined half the room’s curve, stuffed with leather-bound volumes on every subject from physics to magic, along with a great many books on contract law.

Here and there stood elegant mahogany racks displaying Conal’s collection of ancient weapons: swords, axes, and daggers from all over the planet. There were even a few blades from Earth’s Mageverse twin—gifts from grateful expat Sidhe whom Conal had helped in one way or another. The ancient enchanted steel breathed fairy magic into the air, giving it the tang of ozone and alien power.

“Got a psychic call from Fin,” the cat said. “Everything’s goin’ according to plan.”

“Fin can be efficient when he chooses to be.” Essus clicked his sharp beak as Danu meandered across the impressive width of the room. “Too bad he chooses to be so rarely.”

The cat reached the desk that sprawled across the western end of the office. Gathering herself, she sprang to the desktop in a single neat bound. Essus had to admit she moved well, considering her bulk. Though to be honest, a great deal of her apparent size was fur: long, silky, and white enough to blind. Everyone—human and Changeling—considered her beautiful.