The Crossing (Immortals) (15 page)

The ruined gate swung crookedly on its hinges. A huge
hole gaped in the warding spell. She darted through the
opening, shoving past stunned fans as she ducked behind
the white van. Its new spare tire gleamed.

Wrenching the driver's door open, she slid behind the
wheel. Luck was with her. The key was in the ignition.

"Hey!" The purple-haired girl popped up near the
front left headlight. Her tiny T-shirt bore an image of
Mac's smiling face. "Get out of there!"

Artemis gunned the motor.

The girl threw herself onto the hood. "Stop! This people mover is mine!"

Artemis rolled down the window and stuck her head
out. "If you have any brain at all, you'll get out of my way.
You saw what I did to the gate. Do you really want me to
toss a spell at you?"

The girl's mouth formed a perfect O. "It's you. The one
who was with Mac. This morning." She gasped. "Did
you... ohmygod! Did you do it with him? Did you? What
was it like?"

Artemis jammed the shift into reverse. "Get off the
hood. Now."

"But-" The girl's expression shot from awed to panicked. Flattening her body, she grabbed hold of the side
rearview mirror. "No! This is my da's car. I can't let you
take it. He'll have my head."

"I'm sorry. Really. But I need it more than you do right
now. Now get off. You'll never stop me, and besides,
you're missing all the fun."

"Fun?"

"Yeah. Fun." Artemis angled her head toward the mansion. The fangirl pack streamed across the front lawn, the
photographer loping behind. "Mac's waiting. And your
friends have got a pretty good head start on you."

"What? Oh, bloody, bloody hell!" The girl scrambled off the van and hit the ground running. "Wait! Waaaait
for meeeeee..."

Artemis slammed the gas pedal and careened into the
road, tires spewing gravel. Making for the highway, she uttered a sound that was half sob, half hysterical laugh.

Poor Mac.

Mac woke to a sound like a rifle shot, coupled with a psychic wave of death. Shuddering, gasping, he clawed at consciousness, scrabbling for any lifeline. His tongue tasted like
sheep dung; his joints burned like acid. A sharp iron hammer pounded the inside of his skull.

As bad as his physical hurts were, they were a mere pinprick to the gaping wound in his psyche. There was a hole
where a piece of his soul should have been. He had never
felt so exposed. So dirty. So... used.

By Artemis.

He sat bolt upright. Damn it all to hell. The witch was
gone. The sour aftermath of her spell clung to his skin,
and hovered in the empty space above his head. She'd gotten him good, blinding him with sex, then using the distraction to dig into his soul with a thin, sharp knife blade
of death magic, taking what she wanted.

With a curse, he bounded from the bed. Beyond a few
steps, the foul aura diminished considerably. Eyeing the
mattress warily, he leaned just close enough to snatch a
corner of the quilted coverlet and yank it off the bed. The
evidence of Artemis's crime stared at him from the four
corners of the white bedsheet. Four, small rust-colored
stains-each about the size of his smallest fingernailmarked the bases of the bedposts.

The pounding in Mac's head intensified.

Blood. Her blood.

She'd spelled him. With death magic. Just as he'd... as
they'd... gods in Annwyn! He was an idiot. He should have
known a death witch wouldn't offer sex for free. On the
contrary. She'd taken her payment. She'd stolen a piece of
his soul. And he hadn't even known she was doing it.

But that wasn't the worst of it. Not by far.

Spitting curses, each fouler than the last, he stalked
naked into the sitting room. The worst of it was that he'd
lost control. Completely. Utterly. In that blinding instant
of raw magic and complete bliss, he'd given Artemis
something he'd never even considered offering to any
other woman.

A child.

Gods in Annwyn. Putting aside for the moment that only
an arrogant bastard would have made such a momentous
decision without first consulting the lady involved, he was
left staring at the stupidity of what he had done. He
should be drawn, quartered, and flayed alive. Artemis had
played him like a master musician. The melody of her
light magic had completely obliterated the ugly counterpoint of her dark intentions. How could he have been
such an idiot?

How had he thought her worthy of carrying his child?
She was the worst possible choice. But perhaps... perhaps his magic hadn't struck its mark. Perhaps Artemis's
death spell had prevented his seed from taking root. It was
a slim hope, but he snatched at it.

He had to find her. Discover if she was, indeed, carrying his divine child. And if his magic had created a new
life-well, he'd have no choice but to lock the woman
away until his child was born. Afterward... bloody hell.
He didn't want to think about afterward. His emotions
were too violent.

Raw anger-along with a considerable dose of humiliation-flooded heat into his face. Unmanageable anger had been his unwanted companion for the past year, but
this-this boiling rage was beyond anything he'd ever experienced. Damn it, he wanted to kill something.

Elfshot gathered on his fingertips. He aimed at the mantel. Green sparks shot; an innocent ceramic shepherdess exploded. The thump of her shiny head on the floor was
fiercely satisfying. Deliberately, Mac took aim at the accompanying shepherd. Couldn't have the little bloke feeling left
out, could he?

The shepherd joined his shepherdess in pieces on the
floor. Vaguely ashamed, Mac turned away from the shattered ceramics. What a fool he'd been, to think any of
Arternis's tenderness had been honest. He knew she was a
criminal, and yet he'd trusted her. Not because she deserved it. Because he'd wanted her, desperately.

With her, he'd felt alive, as he hadn't since the battle to
save Tain. The sex had been incredible. At least for him.
Had it been good for her, too? She'd sure screamed loud
enough. Had it been Mac's skill or her own death spell
that had gotten her off?

He didn't like admitting it, but he suspected that death
magic had been a large part of his own pleasure as well. A
year ago, death magic would have shriveled his cock. Now,
because of the slice of death in his soul, he had a damn
good idea of the obsession that compelled demonwhores
and vamp addicts to destroy themselves. He'd worshiped
Artemis with his body, had thought she'd been as blown
away by their lovemaking as he was. And all along, all
she'd been after was a drop of his immortal life essence, to
barter to a demon for the gods only knew what.

Still muttering under his breath, he returned to the bedroom and snatched a change of clothes from the dresser.
She couldn't have gone far; there was no way she could get
past his estate's wardings. He'd have her in hand within
minutes. Then, by all the gods in Annwyn, she'd give him
some honest answers.

He shrugged into his leather jacket. As he was passing
by the window on his way to the door, a chorus of feminine squeals arrested his forward motion.

"Ooooh, look!"

"There he is!"

"In the window!"

Bloody, bloody hell. Fangirls on his front lawn. Impossible. How the hell had they gotten through the gate?

The iron hammer resumed its tattoo beat between his
eyes.

He knew how. Artemis.

"Yoo-hooo!" A pretty redhead with enormous breasts
waved up at him. "Mac! Hi! Can I come up?"

A brunette bounced at her side. "Me, too, Mac! I love
you!"

The pair was only the advance guard. His gaze shot beyond them. The main pack, two dozen lasses, at least, galloped behind them, shrieking like banshees. The tall
photog as well.

Ballocks. When he caught up with Artemis, he was going
to strangle her.

Ducking out of his suite, Mac took the servants' stair
three at a time, wincing at the sound of breaking glass
and Fergus's subsequent shout. With any luck, he could
duck out the servants' entrance before any of the girls
found it.

No luck. The redhead and the brunette from the front
lawn were, apparently, smarter than they looked. The instant he stepped into the sheltered service court, the pair
cut him off. The dark-haired lass raised a camera; its flash
momentarily blinded him.

"Oh, Mac," her friend breathed. "Crystal and I just happened to be driving by, and we thought-"

He sidestepped her grasping hand. "How did you get
through the gate, love?"

"Oh. That- Well, some frumpy old witch made a little man out of leaves. A golem, someone said it was. He
blasted it open for her."

Mac's jaw dropped. Artemis had animated a golem?
One powerful enough to incinerate his strongest wards?

Well done, woman!

The thought snuck in before he remembered what that
same woman had done to him in bed. This proved it.
Artemis Alexandria Black was a menace to society. A menace who was most likely carrying his child. Could things
get any worse?

A purring sound snapped him back to the present. The
redhead was rubbing against his chest like a sex-starved cat.

"Mac." Her tongue touched his neck, her hands skimmed
his chest. "Crystal and I would just love to-"

"Er-"

Crystal plastered herself to his back. "-get to know you
better, Mac."

"Sorry, lasses. Not a good time. In a bit of a rush at the
moment." Deftly, he extracted himself from their enthusiasm. "Tell you what. Crystal, is it? Why don't you send a
couple copies of that photo you took round to my agent?
I'll autograph them for you."

The pair squealed like giddy piglets. Mac dashed across
the lawn, sweeping a wide arc around the fangirl pack,
tossing spells of confusion in his wake. His entrance gate
was indeed a tangled mess, iron bars twisted like spaghetti,
the ground below charred black.

He slowed. Simple golems were death animations. That
alone shouldn't have been enough to destroy his wards. Indeed, the dark spell's acrid odor hung in the air, but that
wasn't what sent Mac's pulse into overdrive. A fresh scent
lingered as well, a perfect, harmonious chord of life magic.

Again, Artemis's unique touch had created a perfectly
balanced light/dark force far more powerful than the
original death-magic spell. He couldn't help pausing in
admiration. It was magnificent, really. Wickedly stunning. Like the orgasm she'd given him. Like the fascination he
just couldn't shake. The unpredictable witch was so far beyond Mac's experience she left him wondering which way
was up. Who the hell was she, really?

Oh, he knew a few facts. Number one: Artemis was a lying, conniving bitch. Two: she was a brazen hussy. She'd
stolen his life essence-after he'd saved her from the consequences of the same crime. Unforgivable, that-but he
found himself, inexplicably, racking his brain for a plausible excuse. Because...

Facts number three and four: he genuinely liked her,
and most likely, she was to be the mother of his child.

He couldn't have impregnated a woman who was evil.
He hadn't sensed that about her. But what the hell was she
up to? He'd asked if she was in trouble. He'd offered his
help-of magic and money. No sane human turned down
an offer of assistance from an immortal demigod.

Which left only two possibilities. Either she was insaneand he didn't think that was too likely-or she was involved in something extremely malevolent, something she
knew he would never agree to help her with. The latter
seemed all too likely.

Even if by some miracle she wasn't pregnant, he had to
recapture her. There was no telling what mischief she'd
get up to next, or where she would enact her next scam. If
one of his charges suffered because of his leniency, Mac
would never forgive himself.

He picked up her trail outside the ruined gate. She'd
been in too much of a panic to hide it. She'd left in a
vehicle-no doubt stolen from one of his fans. The witch
had no shame. And no sense of self-preservation, either.

Surely she couldn't have forgotten the tracking spell he'd
put on her.

She'd forgotten the tracking spell Mac had put on her.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Pulling abruptly onto the shoulder of the road, Artemis
gripped the van's steering wheel with a shaky hand and directed her senses inward. The mark Mac had put on her was
strong. No way could she remove it in time. But weaken it?
That she could do. Fracture it? Perhaps that, too.

A half hour later, a grim smile on her lips, she merged
back into traffic. She'd split Mac's spell into thirteen separate spells, twelve of which she'd attached to random passing motorists. That should slow him down. At least, she
hoped, until sunset.

Acutely aware of each passing second, Artemis followed
the twisted road north, then picked up the A96, heading
west. Only one hour and forty-seven minutes until the sun
sank below the horizon.

I'll be there soon, Zander.