Winter Wolf (36 page)

Locked.

I lowered my head, peering at the knob for the keyhole. When I found it, I stepped back a little and solidified the air to form a key.

Instead of the normal, invisible force of power I was accustomed to, ice burst into existence around the lock, cold shards striking my nose as it cracked away from the metal. It took the shape of a skeleton key jammed into the lock. The cool air wafting from the door soothed the heat rampaging through my body and I basked in the chill before willing the key to turn.

The door clicked and the ice melted away to puddle on the floor. Grabbing the knob in my teeth, I pulled. Many of the boxes in the storage room had been knocked over, blocking my way to the den beyond. I settled back on my hind legs, gathered myself, and plowed through the obstacles. Many of the piles crashed down, showering me in an avalanche of old clothes and junk. I shook myself and kept going, using the Fenerec’s bulk to make a path.

I halted at the door leading into the den, cocking my head to the side. I heard nothing. Once again my magic manifested as ice. When the lock clicked open, I grabbed the knob in my teeth and pulled.

Beyond, the tapestry waved a little and warm air gusted into the storage area from the next room. Flattening myself to the floor, I poked my head underneath the heavy material. The den was empty, lit by a lamp near the stairwell. Someone had lit a fire, leaving it to smolder unattended. I crept across the room, listening at the bottom of the stairs for any noises above. All was quiet.

Wincing at the creaking of the steps, I climbed up to the ground level. Unlike the previous doors, it was unlocked and creaked open when I pawed at it. The hall was quiet. Making my way to the door leading outside to the guest house and Dominic’s office, I lifted my head enough to look out the window. It was dark outside and the covered walkway was unlit. I closed my eyes and concentrated, reaching out with my wizard senses for the electronics nearby. I counted at least six security cameras between the main house and the office.

With savage delight, I fried them all, drawing all of the electricity they had to myself. I followed the power to where it was concentrated, surging electricity through the protectors to wreck mayhem on his security system.

When an alarm blared somewhere behind me, I silenced it with another jolt of power. Pressing my nose to the nearest electric socket, I channeled all of the electricity I could from the breaker into me, absorbing so much of it my fur crackled and stood on end. Ice formed around my paws. Creating a key, I opened the door and headed outside. I nosed the door closed and relocked it. Breaking into a lope, I crossed the distance to Dominic’s office, pausing long enough to check for any electronics. When I didn’t sense any, I opened the door and slipped inside. Making my way to Dominic’s office, I found my bag where I had left it leaning against his desk.

I shoved my nose inside and pulled out the book.
~Free!~
the book cried out in delight. A fierce joy flared up within me. When the sensation faded, the book crumbled apart in my jaws. I spat out decaying bits of leather. I wasn’t sure whether to be alarmed by the book’s disintegration or not. Part of me was relieved. I didn’t need the book for what I wanted to do first.

All I needed was my gun.

Grabbing the weapon, which was still in its shoulder holster, I worked the straps over my head so it dangled around my neck like a collar. Anticipation filled me.

~Hunt!~
For a moment, I thought it was the book; the voice was my own, but there was something different about its presence. Instead of knowledge and cunning, she wanted nothing but violence and blood—blood for the sins committed against us. I snarled and flattened my ears back.

Dipping my muzzle back into the bag, I pulled out the moonstone. It pulsated in my mouth, spreading cooling relief through me. I heard it whisper to me, though I couldn’t most of what it said. I did, however, recognize one word.

Fenerec.

Chapter Twenty-Three

I made it outside in time to hear doors crash open as more than a few security guards burst out of Dominic’s mansion. Taking shelter among the carefully-cultivated bushes skirting the house, I waited for the excitement to settle down. While I had intended to destroy the security system to prevent anyone from seeing who—or what—prowled through Dominic’s office, I hadn’t thought it’d stir so many people.

I waited for an opportunity to hunt down Dominic and his pet sorcerer. My gun was a comforting weight around my neck. With so much electricity at my disposal, I’d have no trouble using my magic to manipulate the weapon without the use of hands.

While I lingered, the first waves of fever heat washed over me, making me pant. I shuddered. I tried to ignore the truth, but fear forced me to acknowledge it. Along with the Fenerec’s wolf body, I had inherited the plague. The scent of sickness clung to me.

At least whatever had been blocking my wizardry and stifling it no longer hampered me. If anything, my new body craved the power and channeled it far better than my true form.

~Hunt!~
the wolf within me howled. She wanted blood. She cared nothing for justice or human sin, but I
remembered
. The faces of innocent women haunted my memory, chaining me to my goal. First, I would deal with the sorcerer and force his secrets out of him. Then I would turn on Dominic, who was ultimately responsible for the murder of so many innocents.

I could feel the wolf considering my thoughts. Her presence was icy in my head. She drove away the heat of fever and frost formed over my fur. As the air cooled around me, the plague’s grip eased.

~Hunt,~
the wolf urged, though her need for violence was far more controlled than before. She was eager but didn’t demand action from me yet.

I silenced her with a low growl. The ice on my fur broke off in a shower of shimmering crystals as I shook myself. I froze as I heard footfalls draw close to my hiding place. The wolf urged me to flatten to the ground and be still. I obeyed, ears back and teeth bared.

I felt the wolf’s apprehension and desire for silence. I heeded her, and as I did, I understood her desire: a hunting wolf made no noise.

Several people passed by and I drew a deep breath the catch their scents. The wolf disregarded two as human, unfamiliar, and thus unimportant. One reeked of the cinnamon and spice of a Fenerec partnered with the sickly sweet stench of plague. I concentrated on the Fenerec and its—his, the wolf informed me—illness.

I felt the virus eating away at him like the prickling of thousands needles. With insatiable need, it fed on the Fenerec. In my excitement at having finally found the plague, I delved deeper. The Fenerec’s heart beat erratically. Pain lanced through his stomach as the plague feasted on his organs. As fast as the Fenerec healed the damage, the virus resumed its meal, relentless in its hunger.

I delved deeper while the wolf within urged me on. The plague wasn’t the only illness infecting the Fenerec. Like an angler fish, the plague lured other viruses to it, sickening its host so that fever created the ideal breeding ground. I felt the Fenerec’s body trying to fight the viruses off, only to have the plague kill what little defenses his immune system could muster. I shuddered and broke contact.

The moonstone pulsed in my mouth, and I once again felt it in my head. Instead of words, I understood its meaning in pictures and emotion. I stiffened as I realized it, like the wolf, saw what I did—and unlike me, it
knew
the plague.

The stone had existed when the plague had killed before. It was a stone of healing and life, and it named me
Fenerec
.

But the plague wasn’t just an illness. It was a predator with primitive, lethal intelligence, slaughtering without remorse. The moonstone’s anger became my own.

It couldn’t heal victims of the plague because it couldn’t hunt the hunter. I could. Because of that, it would help me.

The moonstone’s fury joined with the wolf’s and they demanded I fight with them and for them. Their desire for the power I possessed bolstered me.

If it couldn’t heal, the stone would help me destroy the plague until it could once again fulfill its purpose. Energy flooded through me, manifesting as a bone-deep chill. But with the chill came a relief from the aches and pains the wolf body suffered. The wolf’s anticipation of the hunt washed through me.

I dropped the moonstone out of my mouth and willed it to hover in front of me. A faint golden glow radiated from it.

~
Freeze it,~
the stone ordered.

Fire and lightning were my strengths, but the cold came at my call, defying the Californian heat. If the plague liked the warmth so much, I would do as the stone commanded, preying on the plague with the cold as it preyed upon the Fenerec with fever. Then I’d purge the body hosting me of illness so I could take back what was rightfully mine.

The sick Fenerec and the two humans accompanying him departed. I felt the wolf’s disgust, though I couldn’t tell what upset the wolf within. Had it been because he had strayed so close to our hiding spot without noting our presence?

Her confirmation came strong and swift.

After thinking about it, I decided the sorcerer and Dominic needed to be dealt with first. The Fenerec woman in my body would have to survive until I eliminated the threat. Then I would worry about ensuring she had a body healthy enough to return to.

With reluctance, both the wolf and the stone agreed.

When all fell quiet, I emerged from my hiding place and hunted for the men who had turned me into a beast.

~~*~~

I prowled the outside of the mansion, peering in through the windows until I found my prey. Dominic stood in his living room, waving his arms while talking to the woman possessing my body.

She did not look happy. A red mark marred her cheek and hand-shaped bruises discolored her face. Dominic hissed something to her, and when she denied him, I could smell his anger from my hiding place. One of the suited men was the same Fenerec I had smelled before. I identified him by his scent, the gray cast to his skin, and his slumped posture.

Whenever Dominic drew close to the woman, she shifted away from him, keeping her chin ducked and her throat covered. After he stalked her around the living room several times, she sat on one of the couches, arms crossed over her chest.

Three men in suits stood guard, guns holstered at their sides. They watched the windows, but they didn’t notice me lurking in the shadows, head lifted enough to peer over the sill.

~Hunt,~
the wolf demanded.

The wolf within and the moonstone urged me to take action, but I ignored them. All of my attention focused on the woman and her behavior. She sat rigid and tense, and she shook. It was hard for me to identify the body as
mine.
She looked like me, but when she spoke, there no sign of hoarseness. There was anger and grief in her voice—in the voice I had possessed before I had become a wizard.

Her tone intrigued me, as did the lack of hoarseness. Perhaps the book’s destruction had reversed the book’s influence on my body. Maybe the fact she wasn’t a wizard allowed her to use my lost voice. Either way, she sounded as I once had so many years ago.

Jealousy froze me in place. She had my body and my voice. I swallowed my urge to howl at the injustice.

She said something in a clipped tone, and Dominic whipped around to face her, his hand lashing out. As I watched in shocked silence, he struck the woman across the cheek so hard her head snapped to the side.

Had Dominic always been so aggressive? Had he always been this violent person beneath his well-dressed exterior? Had he been the one to bruise her face? The fact there were bruises made me wonder how long I had been unconscious—and when he had started beating her. The thought of Dominic hitting anyone repulsed me.

Everything he had done had been an act to fool me, to capture me in his trap… and it had worked.

But I took some satisfaction in the woman’s defiant refusal to cooperate with him. She hadn’t wanted to kill me, and she hadn’t wanted my body either. I don’t know where my confidence in my realization came from, but the moonstone and wolf agreed with me.

We were both victims.

I bared my fangs as the sorcerer emerged from the hallway. He crossed his arms over his chest, talking in low, calm tones. With a glare of disgust at the woman on the couch, he made a gesture at Dominic.

They glared at each other, arguing while making brisk gestures with their hands, but I couldn’t hear what they were fighting about. When they finished speaking, Patrick stood at Dominic’s side in silence.

I abandoned the thought of interrogating either one of them. After I rid the world of the both of them, I’d find a way to undo what they had done to us.

The suited men looked the other way, focusing their attention on something—anything—other than the man lifting his hand to once again strike the woman he had forced into my body.

Rage from the moonstone and wolf smothered me. The wolf wanted to crash through the window and tear out Dominic’s throat. The moonstone wanted to call down the power of lightning and fire and burn him as it had torched the sorcerer in Las Vegas.

All I wanted was my gun. I wouldn’t waste so much precious power on him when a bullet would suffice.

It frightened me how easily I used my magic to pull the weapon from the holster around my throat. A ghostly hand gripped the weapon, shimmering as frost formed in the air. I lifted the gun, taking aim as Amber had taught me. Part of me wanted to shoot Dominic over and over and let him suffer as he bled to death.

Wolves, however, didn’t toy with their prey. They hunted to kill. And like it or not, I was a wolf. I needed to take him out in one swift, lethal strike. He deserved a lot worse of a death than the one I was about to give them both.

My anger at his betrayal of me and the Fenerec woman steadied me. It frightened me how easy it was for me to smother my apprehension.

It was too easy to discard the years of false friendship under the strain of raped, slain women and the theft of my body.

I picked my target and waited until Dominic straightened. The woman lay sprawled on the couch. She didn’t rise, but she clutched at the cushion, her body shaking from either pain or rage—probably both. Using my magic as an extension of myself, I felt the weight and heft of the gun as though I held it in a human hand, familiar after so many times of firing it at the Inquisition’s compound. I curled an intangible finger around the trigger, confirmed my aim, and fired.

Dominic’s body jerked. I didn’t watch him fall. I shifted my aim to Patrick and fired again. My second shot didn’t hit true, striking the sorcerer in the shoulder. I shot a final time, catching him in the chin as he staggered.

The three suited figures reached for their weapons, shouting in shock. Holstering my gun with a thought, I pelted away from the broken window. I paused long enough at the corner of the building to obliterate my trail with a blast of ice and wind.

I hoped the woman had the wits to free herself, because I wasn’t going to wait for her. We would meet again soon enough, when I reclaimed my body.

First I needed to rid my new form of the plague and find a way to cure the rest of the Fenerec. The woman could remain a caretaker of my body until I came to take it back.