Renegade (19 page)

G
riff eyed Valeria’s set face. “You know you’d go if this was your town.”

“I understand your need to help.”

“But?” No matter what she said, he was going, but he’d hear her out first.

“You know already. There are Collegium mages all over the area. They’re a danger to you, to us, and they can muster the numbers to handle a portal.”

“If they’re in the right place at the right time, and with no traitors in their midst. We can’t count on that. I have to go, but I want you to stay out of there, wait somewhere safe.”

“Be serious.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Besides, nowhere is safe for either of us right now. If you’re determined to go, I’m going with you.”

He shook his head. “Not acceptable.”

“Precisely. You don’t accept the idea that I’d take a big risk to watch your back. I feel the same way about you.”

“I won’t abandon them. Come on, let’s take this outside.”

He dropped a dollar on the table for the busboy and caught Valeria smiling at him. “What?”

“Most people wouldn’t think about the busboy.” She slid her hand into his.

He shrugged. Tipping was a habit, not a grand deed of chivalry, but he supposed she was right.

In silence, they walked outside.

“You don’t trust the Collegium,” she said as they crossed the parking lot, “but you know they won’t let anything dark attack Mundanes. Don’t you?”

“They don’t care about that town the way I do.”

“Undeniably not.” She laid her hands on his chest, her eyes grave. “I don’t want you to go, and you don’t want
me
to, and neither of us has the power to stop the other. Though I have to point out that all your friends would be on my side.”

“That’s low.” But knowing she was right turned his tone wry instead of angry.

“If the town weren’t overrun with mages right now, I wouldn’t argue. But they’re looking for intense uses of magic. We can assume a portal would take a lot of magic, but what if you’re in a fight and use a large amount of magic for that? Or to translocate several times? We don’t know how they’re defining ‘intense.’ So can’t we make a deal—I won’t go if you won’t?”

“Even lower.” He studied her for a long moment but saw no sign she’d yield. “What if I ask Will to keep me posted? As long as things in Wayfarer don’t go south, I’ll stay out. That’s the best I can do.”

“I’ll take that.” She kissed him gently. “Let’s go find the supplies the doctor ordered and finish off our evening.”

He opened the car door for her, closing it behind her. She’d played him like a drum, his smart lover. Only his refusal to put her at risk had compelled him to agree to her terms. He should resent that, but knowing how much she cared blunted his temper. He climbed into the car and reached for the key. “That tea should be avail—”

Brilliant light flashed into his eyes. Sunlight. He wasn’t in the car anymore but in a cemetery, wearing a suit and standing by a fresh grave. Hettie’s name on the tombstone.
Fucking hell.

The scene changed. Facing an eerily quiet mob, Marc retreated up the shelter steps, a silver cross held straight out in one hand and a Bible tucked against his heart in the other. The crowd flanked him, advancing with slow, determined steps. He stood in the doorway now, but they were close—so close—ghouls?

Shit, they had that dead-eyed look of the people in the diner. Reaching for Marc—grabbing him. Purple-red glowed around their fingers.

Purple-red fingers? Will hadn’t mentioned— Silver light flared, silhouetting the attackers, and the scene changed.

In a modest living room, little Molly cowered behind her screaming, scrambling mother, Cindy, as a purple-eyed mob crashed through the door. A big man flung Cindy aside and grabbed Molly. He bared pointed teeth as the child shrieked.

“Griffin! Oh, God, Griffin!” Hands on his shoulders. Valeria, trying to help.

“No. Have to see.” Struggling to hold the vision, he groped for her wrists, found them, shook her off. The steering wheel and dashboard showed through the scene.

Hettie stood in her front yard, firing her ancient shotgun as a ragged mob advanced on her. Overhead, the waning crescent moon cast an eerie light over the scene. She backed toward the porch steps ten feet away. Eight.

As the vision wavered, she passed Magnus’s broken corpse. Blood and a black, tarry substance stained the retriever’s golden coat, and his head lay at a nauseating angle. Hettie reached for the door, turned, and the mob lunged.

But where had they come from?

A barn flashed into his sight, one he’d painted. The one at the old Adams farm, a mile from Hettie’s place.

The vision died. His heart pounded and his mouth felt dry, as though he’d run a long, desperate race.

Valeria’s hand caught his in a hard grip warm with power and concern. “Hey.” She peered into his eyes. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I just— Shit, the moon.” He dug his phone from his pocket. “It’s a waning crescent, same as the vision. Hettie’s in danger. Maybe others are, too.”

“What happened?”

He explained everything.

“You’re about to tell me the deal’s gone south, that you’re going and you don’t want me to go with you.” Her steady gaze never wavered, and she sounded calm despite the circumstances.

“Right on all counts.” He started the engine. The sooner he got on the road, the better.

She laid a hand on his. “The thing is, you need backup, and I need to help. If we’re together, we can watch out for each other.”

Unfortunately, he couldn’t argue with that.

Peering down the rutted, overgrown lane, Val shivered. The sycamores and live oaks, with shadowy Spanish moss hanging from their branches, made the place look like a horror movie set. Knowing midnight would arrive in about twenty minutes didn’t make it any better.

Griffin parked in underbrush just off the lane so no demon servants or ghouls would spot the car.

She climbed out into wintry air. In August? “Do you feel that? Cold power.”

“Yeah. It’s familiar.”

As in her dream, though neither of them said so. They held their weapons ready, drawing magic into them, and crept down the long, bumpy drive. Her blade and the runes on his staff glowed faintly with the power influx.

Tires crunched on the dirt road. Val slipped back into the trees with Griffin as a green SUV drove down the lane and into the woods. They followed it.

It’s getting worse
, she noted,
the chill.

For me, too.
He caught her arm to stop her.
You had closer contact with that dark energy than I did. If you feel anything weird, anything beyond a chill, pull out.
Before she could protest, he added,
You can’t watch my back if that thing’s screwing with your head.

Too true.
Okay.

They rounded the bend behind the overgrown ruins of a house, and the chill deepened. The air felt like a late autumn evening, far too cold for August.

There’s a little hollow back here
, Griffin said as they passed a shadowy structure that was probably the barn he’d mentioned on the way here.
Feels like the chill’s coming from there.

The SUV that had passed them was parked just ahead.

A man and a woman, the pair from the diner, emerged. They dragged out a nightgown-clad young woman. Made her walk between them.

Shit.
Griffin’s eyes narrowed.
That’s Missy Jones, from the bakery.

The girl’s eyes were wide, and her mouth worked furiously, as though she fought to speak.

Val glanced at Griffin, whose face had gone taut with anger.

His fury echoed in their bond.
My team said Wayfarer was clean. How the hell did Missy drink that crap?

Val had no answer, squeezed his arm instead.

The breeze pressed the young woman’s nightgown against her body. Shivering, either from the chill or from the terror coming off her in waves, she walked mechanically between her guards. Big tears welled in her eyes and ran, unwiped, down her pale cheeks. At her sides, her fingers curled into claws, as though she desperately struggled to move them.

Her guards forced her into the trees, apparently going downhill. Following, Val and Griffin had to deepen their screens, muffling the sounds of their footsteps.

Other people moved through the trees alone or in small groups. One trio marched a light-haired teenaged boy, looking about sixteen, before them. The youth, too, lurched when he walked, fingers clawing uselessly, in an apparent struggle against the force driving him forward.

Todd Claypool. The bakery delivery boy
, Griffin supplied.
Shit. I’d bet he and Missy went on a delivery run together, stopped somewhere and were grabbed. Or drugged with something more immediate than the coffee.

With Griffin in the lead they trailed their quarry down the hill, to a shadowy clearing the sliver of moon did little to illuminate. As people reached the bottom of the hill, they formed a loose circle around a large, flat stone.

An altar, and not to anything good. To Val’s mageborn eyes, the miasma of death around it hung dark and ominous and nauseatingly clear.
I count fifteen
, she told Griffin.
Plus the prisoners.
Too many for the two of them to take out in one blast, even though they were nearly at full power.

The guards pushed the woman and the boy to the altar, sliced into their prisoners’ palms, and rubbed the wounds over the rough stone. That had to hurt, yet despite increased shuddering, neither prisoner made a sound.

Griffin, we can’t just sit here.

No
, he sent, and his anger pulsed in the thought,
but let’s see what they mean to do.

In the circle below, the guards pushed the shaking, weeping captives to their knees. A man stepped out of the circle a large sack in his hands. From it he pulled a basketball-size orb of dark crystal. Purple-red light pulsed inside it and cast a vile glow over the group in the dell.

Val swallowed against bile.
That’s what I saw in the scrying.
She glanced at Griffin and caught his grim nod.

The man dropped the sack. With the orb in one hand, he circled the kneeling prisoners, then grabbed Todd’s hair and yanked his head back.

“This one first.” His words vibrated with malevolent power. He set the orb in the bloody smear on the altar.

Work your way down and to the left, where Missy is
, Griffin directed.
You take her. I’ll take Todd. When I fire, jump in, grab her, translocate to the car with her. No checking for me, no waiting, no close fighting if you can help it. Grab and go.

Reluctantly, she nodded. Below them, the leader’s head lifted. He sniffed the air, then stared straight at them with reddish eyes set deep in a pale face. Val’s heart lurched. Power washed up the hill and over their screens.

With his staff at the ready, Griffin glanced at her. The back of her neck itched as he drew power for additional concealment from the trees and the creatures of the woods and soil.

Val drew power into her blade. At least the swamp’s nearness would feed their magic.

The boy’s guards forced him back across the altar with his head by the orb. A woman sauntered toward him.

The leader turned to watch as the woman straddled the boy. She pressed Todd’s bloody palm to the glowing orb and pulled a long, serrated knife from her skirts raising it high above the boy’s chest.

Shit, no more time.
Griffin lifted his staff, aiming at the knot of people by the altar. The power building in the weapon crackled across Val’s skin as she tightened her grip on her sword.

Go
, Griffin said, and fired.

V
al materialized behind the kneeling girl—Missy, Griffin had called her—as his dazzling silver bolt struck the leader. The man reeled into the woman straddling the boy, knocking her aside. They fell in a tangle.

The black orb on the altar pulsed with a sick, purple-red light. Waves of dark power rolling off it raised the hair on Val’s neck and arms. The chill iced her blood.

For an instant, she saw herself on that altar, as her soul screamed in agony and something dark and formless rose from the orb.

A scrawny woman grabbed Val’s arm, and adrenaline banished the chill. Striking back with power, she saw the woman’s reddish eyes, a sign of earthly demon possession, just in time to bite back the instinctive
morere
. Unfortunately, killing a host only set a demon free to roam.

Val blew out power, bowling over three of the demon-eyed crowd. The boy, Todd, crumpled to the ground, panting and wild-eyed. Over him stood Griffin, whose face looked pale in the pulsing light. Had that thing mentally attacked him, too?

No time to worry about that. She blasted back a stout man and woman. As she drew power from the surrounding woods, she used the flat of her blade to knock back a thin, red-eyed man.

A female ghoul leaped at her. Val slashed a backhanded, diagonal blow to gut her, caught the scent of ammonia. Demon hosts and ghouls together were a damnable development.

Missy’s guards wheeled toward Griffin, hands rising, and lost their hold on her. She screamed. Val grabbed the back of her nightgown.

A burly man rushed Griffin. Griffin pivoted to block a dagger strike as another man, slim and balding, rushed him from the other side.
Damn it.

But she had to go while it was clear. Lips tight, Val knocked back the balding man with a snap kick, then flashed away with Missy.

They appeared behind the car, in the trees a few feet from the road. Still shrieking, Missy struck out at Val, at the air, at herself.

Val grabbed her, slapped a hand over her eyes, and fed in power. “
Dormi
,” she ordered.

As the poor girl collapsed, Val caught her, easing her to the ground. Her face bore tear streaks and, at the corner of her mouth, a dribble of saliva. Still breathing hard, Val dug a tissue out of her pocket and wiped Missy’s face. Maybe waking up safe would calm her.

Grab and go
, Griffin had said. He should’ve returned by now. If he’d been overwhelmed, he could be lying on that vile altar now.

She opened her mind and reached, carefully so she didn’t distract him. There he was, alive but under attack.

Val couldn’t help him. A mage’s first duty was the protection of Mundanes. She’d learned that along with the alphabet and had always lived by it.

Griffin also held to that, even when the odds were against him, even when answering a call for help or taking in a bunch of homeless people could draw attention and jeopardize his hiding place. No wonder she’d fallen in love with him.

She had to do her duty, even when it ate at her heart. So many things could go wrong in that clearing, not least the numbers tide.
Watch your back
, she thought, and was filled with dread when only silence echoed in her mind

There’re far too many
, Griff thought, blasting back a ghoul trio as they charged him. He tried to grab the crystal orb, but Todd clung, shivering, to his leg with ghouls and dead-eyed Mundanes rushing them from all sides. He couldn’t even get a clear space to translocate.

At least Valeria had followed orders and should be safe now.

He blasted another two. Eerie cold hit the back of his shield, and the stink of brimstone blew around him. From the orb? Or one of those people?

He turned, shot out a wide-spread blast, and rammed the staff into someone attacking him from behind. The crystal fell off the altar, out of reach. Maybe he could come back for it. He had to move. It was now or never.

He locked his free hand on to Todd’s neck and flashed out.

They arrived beside the car. A gasp drew his attention left.

Valeria hurried toward him, her face drawn in the faint light. “I was so worried,” she said.

“Me, too.” He wanted to grab her, kiss her and feel her warm, uninjured body in his arms, but they still had to secure the orb. He eased Todd’s grip from his leg. “How’s Missy?”

No sense mentioning the weird moment of déjà vu when he’d seen Missy and Todd by the altar. That sequence of visions, just before he met Valeria, had been ominous, but he couldn’t let that stop him from protecting his town.

“Sleeping,” Valeria said, with emphasis that implied she’d put the girl out. “Pretty shaken up, but I don’t think she’s hurt. At least, not physically. She’s in the car.”

“Good. I’m going back, see if I can get that crystal.”

“Griffin, no—”

“Take them to the shelter in Wayfarer, before those things come after us. Do it, Valeria.” Without giving her a chance to argue, he flashed back into the clearing.

As soon as he arrived, he shielded. The demon hosts were scattering, but that purple-red light through the trees had to be from the orb. It silhouetted the running man who carried it. The light also gave Griff a target. Drawing power from the swamp, he fired a hard blast. The figure stumbled.

The others stopped and turned. He had to get that orb and get the hell out of there. He risked translocating to where the man he’d blasted lay. Griff checked him. He was unconscious, not an obstacle.

The orb had fallen a few feet away. Now he had to figure out how to touch the damned thing. This close, its influence ran ice down his back and bile through his throat.

Footsteps behind him. Demon hosts coming. No time.

Drawing as much energy from the swamp as he could hold, he picked up the orb. A thousand icy daggers stabbed into his flesh. Gritting his teeth, he translocated back to the end of the drive.

There sat Valeria in the car, with Missy asleep on Todd’s shoulder in the back.

Griffin scanned the driveway for enemies.

“We’re clear. Get in.”

“Not with this thing. I’ll meet you at the shelter.”

“We’re not having that fight now. Get in.”

A sudden inrush of power crackled in the air. Mages, two, four, more, too many to count, materialized into the driveway. Each held a sword or pike rippling with magical energy and pointed at him. At Valeria.

Her horrified eyes met his, and he could no longer deny the truth stabbing into his heart.

“I love you,” he said, whipping power around her, and flashed her as far away as he could.

“No!” Val appeared beside a deserted road as a fist of fire crushed her chest, stealing her breath.

The pain came from Griffin. The mages were firing on him, killing him, and everything in her screamed. She had to stop them. Had to help.

Struggling for air, desperate to stay conscious, she fell to her knees, then crumpled to the ground. Val dug her hands in the dirt to fight the pain that had her knees drawing up to her chest and tears flooding her face.

If she could help—use their bond to somehow feed him power…
I love you
, he’d said.

Her heart broke and she choked back a sob.

I love you, too, Griffin. I love you.
She put what power she could behind the words. Love was a power, too.

As though a switch had flipped off, her awareness of him vanished. Gasping, with her breath coming in sobs, Val pushed herself up. The echoes of pain still throbbed in her bones. If it was that bad for her, how horrible, how much worse, had it been for him? Was he dead? Or behind wards?

Please, not dead.
If he’d died, wouldn’t she have felt that?

He’d shifted her clear of the mage perimeter. Why hadn’t he come with her? Because he couldn’t translocate himself very far with the orb? Or because he wanted to be sure she was clear?

Please, please, let her not be the reason. She couldn’t stand being the reason if he died.

Todd and Missy, at least, were safe. The mages would see to that.

She wiped her face with the heel of her hand. Aside from the cell phone in her pocket and the dagger at her belt, she had nothing, but she’d better get under cover fast. She had to stay free to help Griffin. The Horus pendant would deflect scrying, but she screened herself to make doubly sure.

Executions traditionally occurred at midnight, and that time had passed. Hurrying into the trees, she glanced at her watch. Twelve forty-three, so she had a little less than twenty-four hours to work. Was that enough time? She couldn’t rescue him alone, but maybe she could with his team’s help.

Unless the mages had already killed him.
Oh, please, no.

Not even being tied up in the ghouls’ car trunk had made her feel so helpless, so frightened.

Better to focus on what she could do than on the very bad odds against rescue. She had none of his network’s numbers. Calling Stefan or Will via the Collegium line could expose them.

But Griffin had said Marc Wagner was part of the team, and she did know the name of the shelter in Wayfarer. Directory assistance would have the number. Val pulled her cell phone out of her pocket.

Griff surfaced, pain throbbing in his bones. A grunt escaped before he gritted his teeth against the agony. He tried to breathe through it.

Of course, surfacing at all was a surprise. He’d expected kill shots. Would’ve preferred them. Instead, the mages had used stun shots that battered his body but left mild, if widespread, energy burns that only delayed the inevitable.

The high security cell hadn’t changed since he’d last put someone into it. Black walls, bespelled iron over steel, recessed lights. Warding tingled on his skin. A shackle of ensorcelled iron anchored his left ankle to the wall and stifled his magic. If any cell was escape-proof, this one was.

His chest tightened painfully, and he drew in a slow breath. There was so much he still wanted to do.

At least Valeria was free and she knew he loved her.

I love you, too, Griffin
, she’d thought to him.
I love you.

Hearing that again was worth the agony, worth surviving to face the extremely nasty proceedings ahead. At least he could die knowing a woman like Valeria Banning could love him.

Loss raked his heart, and he drew a sharp breath against it. He’d known better than to hope, after all. But it was ironic that he should die only after finding something, someone, he wanted so very badly.

He would do what he could, take any chance, to make Valeria look like an innocent. Maybe he could convince the Council he’d manipulated her. That would piss her off, but he’d sworn she would have her life back.

Stay safe
, he thought to her, though he couldn’t sense her. The wards surrounding the Collegium likely blocked contact with anyone outside them. Good thing the Council didn’t know about his bond to her. What they couldn’t see, they couldn’t use to hurt her.

He could only hope his death wouldn’t flow through that bond and harm her. Surely the mages would ward the site of his execution. They wouldn’t want to risk a last, wild burst of magic hurting any of them.

At least Todd and Missy would be safe. Unless the car’s engine had blown when he flung magic inside it to snatch Valeria. But the mages would’ve contained the damage, protected the Mundanes. He could probably trust them for that much, and, unless they were all in league with the traitor, to contain the orb. He and Valeria had accomplished something important at the end, shutting down that portal.

Maybe knowing he loved her would be some consolation. Or maybe it would make the loss worse, but he’d had to tell her. In that last moment, knowing he would never see her again, he couldn’t hold back the words.

He’d wanted to nail that bastard traitor himself, exact justice for his dead deputies. For the friends who’d died because of him. But Will would see it through. His friends would help Valeria if she let them, Stefan especially.

“Bastard’s awake,” a gravelly voice said outside the cell. “I’ll fix that.”

“Leave him alone, Mitch,” a woman ordered. “We’re doing this by the book.”

Mitch. Corin’s brother?

“Too bad we didn’t get Banning, too,” another male voice muttered.

“That stupid slut,” a deeper male voice said. “Bitch has been holding out on us. What a waste of those round tits and long, sweet legs. That ripe mouth, made for sucking—”

“Could you be any more crude, Parker?” a different woman demanded as Griff bit down a surge of fury.

“Hey,” the man answered, “mage woman, any woman, spreads her legs for a murdering traitor, she’s no better’n a whore.”

“So she’s an idiot,” one of the women replied. “Doesn’t make her a slut.”

“No,” someone else said, “but the way Healey and the Council saw them going at it at her lake house does.”

Griff winced.
Shit.
He’d damaged Valeria’s reputation more than he’d realized.

“Can it,” Stefan’s voice said, “and get back to your duties. You can speculate on your off hours.”

He wasn’t their direct boss, but he was a councilor. Muttering, the deputy reeves dispersed, except for the two women guarding the entrance.

The door ward dropped, and Stefan stepped through, his face bland. The ward hummed as it rose again behind him.

Because of the guards outside, Griff held back his smile of greeting. At least he’d have one last talk with Stefan.

Stefan sat by him on the bunk. “Mr. Dare, I’m here to check you as part of the admission process. Let’s get those burns tended.”

Griff cocked an eyebrow at him. “Kind of a waste of effort. Considering.”

“Procedure,” Stefan said crisply. In a low voice that wouldn’t carry, he said, “Griff, I’m sorry I ever got you into this.”

“Not your fault,” Griff murmured, peeling back the gray coverall. “Believe it, Stefan.”

Shaking his head, Stefan touched Griff’s shoulder, and healing energy flowed over the raw skin, cooling and soothing. “Sit and let me do this.”

“How long was I out?”

“About five hours. It’s almost dawn.” In a soft voice, he added, “I’m also feeding you power. You need all you can muster. They plan to put you under ritual questioning without letting you answer the charges against you first. We had a battle in the Council about that, and about your right to a lawyer under the
Caudex Magi
.”