Rise of the Gryphon (12 page)

Or had there been another reason?

Storm was past the point of being able to think. He had to get some sleep.

He’d been tracking since eleven this morning.

Rubbing a paw over his face, he yawned, then loped off, heading back to his truck. If he went home now, he could grab a few hours’ sleep before dark, when Evalle would leave her apartment.

He wanted to get on top of her building to be there in case things didn’t go well with Macha.

When he reached the spot where Imogenia’s trail had curved in an arc, he remembered having been curious as to why she’d done that when the simpler, and most direct path, was through a clearing.

Had she gotten lost?

Blinking away sleepiness, Storm took in the woods that thinned ahead of him to an open area sixty feet across.

Imogenia’s route had paralleled the shape of that clearing.

Had something frightened her?

Storm didn’t sense any animal or threat in the area now. He stalked ahead, intending to enter the clearing, until he had an overpowering desire to avoid the area.

Pausing, he sniffed. No smells came from there.

Everything in the forest had a scent.

Moving forward, one slow step at a time, the closer he got the more hair roughed up along his neck and shoulders. His instincts were screaming at him to back up, but the warning came from something unnatural. He pushed ahead, determined to find the source.

Was this why Imogenia had avoided the area?

His nose bumped against an invisible force that felt thick and cold.

He considered stepping back. These woods had been full of preternaturals last night, and some might have lingered. But this didn’t feel like a warding. A yawn overtook him, stretching his jaws. He shook his head, trying to stay alert.

Just go and get some sleep
. Storm turned away and had made it two steps when he sniffed the faint scent of licorice.

Could be residual from incense if someone had burned it out here, but there were no signs of any camp having been made nearby.

He took a deeper breath and still picked up only that subtle scent.

Turning around, he walked back to where he’d butted up against the cold barrier. Calling forth his majik, he pushed a paw through dense air. It took more effort than normal. He put his head down to force his way into the clearing. The invisible shield dragged along his fur as he struggled through the resistance and into the open space.

He sucked in the staggering stench of licorice.

Not the nice smell of candy but the smoky odor that came from dealing in the dark arts. Deadly dark arts.

He gagged and coughed, also smelling something dead that should be buried far away and deep.

That was the moment he realized he was not alone.

“
Buenos días,
Storm,” whispered around him.

The witch doctor.

He spun in a circle, searching for her. That was her voice. And this was her spelled area. He’d walked right into her trap. This wasn’t the way he’d planned to face her, exhausted and in her territory, but his enemies had never played fair.

Neither would he.

He roared, challenging the witch doctor to show her face.

Laughter bubbled all around him, echoing as if he stood inside a canyon instead of a grassy patch surrounded by a circle of trees. “Not yet, my black demon. I am not quite ready to risk standing so close to you. Soon, very soon.”

Should he be glad he’d have a second chance to be better physically prepared or concerned about why she would delay this meeting?

She made a
tsk-
ing sound. “You have cost me much time. You foolishly think you can outplay me, but in the end I will win.” Her words whipped past his ears, sliding away then zinging back at him. “You wish for blood. That is not the way for us to be. We are much alike, you and me.”

I’d cut my own throat to protect the world if I was anything like you.

“You are not ready to come to me voluntarily today.”

Hold your breath and wait for that to happen.
Should he shift so he could talk to her? Or was she hoping for that? He was strong in his human state, but far more powerful in his jaguar form.

“I must leave you, Storm. I have much to do, and
we will see each other again, but I cannot allow you to interfere with my Langaus now that you have the scent. Why do you make my life so difficult?”

Langau?
He searched his mind for what she could have brought to this country . . . or created since coming here.

“I will allow you to live because you have much to do for me. You force me to make you regret coming in here
unless
you are ready to give your word and come to me on your own.”

He snarled, showing his fangs.

“So stubborn. It is a shame that you do not accept your destiny. Perhaps a lesson in humility will show you who holds the most power between us.
Adiós
, Storm.” In the next moment, he saw the witch doctor outside the clearing, walking away.

Still beautiful and hadn’t aged a day. Had gotten younger looking if anything.

Or was that a spell?

If so, did she have to renew it often? Something to keep in mind when he did face her later.

She looked back once, smiled, and continued on, disappearing in the trees.

Storm tensed for whatever threat she’d conjured up, sure he could not simply walk out of here the way the witch doctor had. And neither could he turn his back on an unknown threat.

A form wavered into view.

As it took shape, Storm moved toward the invisible perimeter around this clearing. He kept an eye on
the image of a brunette woman as she solidified into a human form. She had a college-girl face with deep golden skin and layered hair that stopped short of the black-and-pink scarf draped over a pink sweater. An unnatural breeze swirled through the clearing, lifting strands of her hair and ruffling her black pants.

Pretty hazel eyes without a flicker of life to them.

Now he understood what the witch doctor had done. Her Langau was an
alma condenada,
or a condemned soul. Very likely a soul the witch doctor had stolen, then used to create demons.

Just like she wanted to do with Storm, since she owned
his
soul.

That meant this Langau was deadly, but the witch doctor had indicated she would see him again.

That meant she wanted him left alive, but she’d said nothing about what condition he’d be in.

The brunette took a tentative step toward him.

He’d never harmed a woman, but he reminded himself this was nothing more than a creature the witch doctor created from dead parts and blood sacrifices. Fighting it was not an issue, but the witch doctor wanted to punish him.

To slow him down from hunting her Langaus. Plural.

Where had she released them?

What made the witch doctor think he couldn’t kill this thing? She had to know better, which meant she might have given the Langau a poison to inject in some way. A poison from South America she’d know would cripple him.

Avoiding this Langau was the smartest move.

The creature sauntered closer with a feminine sway.

He snarled, a low, throaty sound that stopped her and warned another step could be her last.

Her slender hands twisted and lengthened into razor-sharp nails with enough curve to cause maximum pain. Or death. Her face lost its youthful appeal, skin wavering and sliding until rotted flesh showed through in spots and the eyes sank in.

Her mouth widened and lips narrowed, much like a mouth on a large snake, but this one was filled with spiked teeth.

That’s how she’d inject the poison.

She lunged at him, but adrenaline had kicked in and Storm leaped to the side, leaving her to stumble through air. He bumped into the barrier and mentally marked the spot for when he had an opportunity to get out. He couldn’t now, with this threat at his back.

Swinging around, she came at him, claws in the air.

He dodged to the side again, but she did, too, this time. There was nothing for it but to attack. Ramming her with all his power, he knocked her backward and she went down.

But not before raking her claws across his shoulder, cutting three deep gouges. Storm ripped her throat out. Her head rolled to one side and her body jerked back and forth.

Fast and final, but his shoulder burned as if acid had been poured in the wound.

He took a couple of steps toward the center of the
clearing, then turned around and dove headfirst through the invisible barrier. Going back through was painful and a battle, but he made it. When he landed on the other side, he looked around and saw only trees, bushes and grass.

The Langau was gone.

Storm’s shoulder ached, telling him to get moving. He took off at a quick pace, in a hurry to reach his truck two miles away. By the time he got to it, his mouth was dry as cotton, and an ache had settled into all his muscles, much like a bad case of the flu.

Shifting into his human form took longer than normal. He was panting by the time he finished. He guzzled a bottle of water, then put on his jeans and shirt over his clammy body. When he climbed into the truck, the clock on the dash showed the day closing in on three in the afternoon.

That would give him time to get home and drop into a deep, healing sleep to push the poison or whatever that Langau had injected him with out of his system. He could do that and still get to Evalle by sundown at half past seven.

Black clouds joined ranks overhead, and thunder pounded.

On top of fighting off whatever was in his system, he’d have to drive through rain to get home. He groaned over the effort it took to lean forward and crank the engine, then he eased back for the half-mile ride to the highway.

His vision doubled. He squinted and realized he
might not make it home. Sleeping out here was a bad idea.

Storm chanted, tapping his majik to flood him with energy.

That should keep him awake long enough to make it home if this was only poison. He read road signs and . . .

Time disappeared between thoughts.

One minute he was driving through the forest, and the next he was on the interstate heading south into Atlanta.

Cold seeped inside his hot skin.

He’d never encountered a poison like this one. Chanting to keep himself awake and more alert, he finally pulled into his driveway just over an hour later, never so glad to see his house. His mind blanked and the next thing he knew he was at his front door, checking the warding before he entered.

Another lost blink and he was stretched over his bed, panting. Why the gaps between his thoughts?

He called up his jaguar to start the healing process now that he didn’t have to remain conscious.

His jaguar barely stirred.

What?

Storm drew on his healing powers again, and his muscles quivered with the effort. What was wrong with his jaguar? Poison had never stayed long in his body or debilitated him this badly.

Why hadn’t the witch doctor stuck around? She could have taken advantage of his weakened state.

But she’d tried that once before and it hadn’t gone well for her.

She feared him, which she should, considering they shared blood. He hated her more every time he thought about how she’d tricked his father into breeding her a Skinwalker she could turn into a future demon.

Storm’s eyes drifted closed.

All he wanted to do was sleep, but he had to wake up in time. Reaching over to his clock, his hand flopped on the nightstand, knocking the small digital unit to the floor. He had no control over his arms.

Poison had never made his limbs rubbery.

His body started shaking with tremors hard enough to rock the bed.

Not a poison . . . an infection.

He fought the sleep dragging him under. And lost.

T
hat bloody woman is going to wish she’d never crossed me.

Vladimir Quinn shoved the hotel security card into the slot to activate the elevator that would take him to the penthouse floor of his hotel in downtown Atlanta.

Alone, thankfully.

He wasn’t ready to go down to the suite he was actually staying in and deal with his teenage cousin Lanna, yet another problem he had to handle. Dark was coming on soon. Perhaps she’d be asleep if he gave it a couple of hours.

Self-loathing should be done in private.

He was a trusted Belador in a high-level position, and for him to give a Medb priestess, sworn enemy of the Beladors, access to any Belador information deserved brutal punishment.

Especially for bloody classified information.

And that’s exactly what he’d done.

The fact that he’d done so unintentionally didn’t matter. The information had been his to protect. But now Kizira would find out what it meant to double-cross a Belador as powerful as he was.