But there was no time. So, she just shrugged.
“I’ve got a feeling about you, sweetie,” Lily told her, her shimmering eyes narrowing thoughtfully. “And when I get enough alcohol down your throat on Saturday, you’re damn well gonna tell me what it is, my friend.”
At that, Danny smiled. Lily was probably right on that count. She was the seer, after all.
“Gotta go.” Lily’s pearl began to shed a warm, white light. She hugged the sleeping children tighter to her, smiled one last time at Dannai, and then she too was gone.
Danny stood alone in the clammy, damp warehouse that was beginning to smell of blood. It was a rusty kind of scent that joined the other stenches already prevalent in the would-be crime scene. In the stretching silence, the sound of something dripping somewhere once more reached Danny’s ears. Car horns honked at each other in the distance. The mattress at her feet reeked of urine.
Suddenly Danny felt very tired indeed.
But it was her job, as always, to get rid of the evidence. It was left to her to clean the slate so that the victims could go on with their lives without questions from the authorities.
With what strength she could marshal, Dannai walked toward the fallen body of the man who had planned unspeakable things – and she closed her eyes once more. Again, the bile threatened. Again, she tamped it down and focused.
Pure, she thought. New. Be clean….
She raised her arms at her sides and light began to gather in her palms. It was a green light, reminiscent of a freshly mowed lawn or the flash one sees on the horizon before the sun goes down. It was this glowing jade newness that spread from her out-stretched hands and into the moldy darkness of the warehouse beyond. It touched upon the mattress, and as it passed over, the bed lightened to a bright white, its dank stench lifting until it smelled of nothing but cotton and coils and preservant.
The green light continued, racing along the ground like an emerald flash flood, cleansing everything in its path. The blood disappeared, the evidence vanished. And when the bleaching light reached the body that Charlie had left behind, it leapt over the fallen form, enveloping it tightly.
Dannai grimaced with the effort it took to do away with something so large that was once alive. But she managed, if barely.
And a few seconds later, the green light receded, racing back into Danny’s body with a rush and an exhaled breath.
The kidnapper’s body was gone.
Danny fell to her knees on the ground beneath her. Her body was trembling. Sweat had gathered on her upper lip. Her breathing was quick and ragged. Dizziness waited for her, barely kept at bay.
She needed to get home. Soon. And when she did, she needed to sleep for a week.
Danny tried to stand, stumbling a little as that dizziness finally washed over her, a triumphant, insidious tide. She braced herself beside a concrete pillar, closing her eyes against the tilting darkness. “Come on, Danny. I know it’s been a long night, girl. But you just need to use a little more….” A little more magic. Enough to get her back to Thor. That was all.
Danny opened her eyes and knew what she had to do. It was a last resort and one she wouldn’t even contemplate under any but the most necessary conditions.
She let her shield fall, allowing the scent of her dormancy to re-establish itself around her. It felt strange to suddenly be without the cover she had worn for so long. It was a little like going without underwear or forgetting to buckle her seat belt.
But it freed up a bit of her power. It would be enough to make it back to her car.
Quickly, Danny used the newly acquired strength and transported herself back to that spot on the side of the road on the West coast. The sound of the surf and the salty breeze that wafted through her hair were an instant reward for her efforts. Thor was still there, as liquid black and darkly beautiful as he had always been.
Danny had never been so glad to see him. She strode to the driver’s side door, opened it, and slid behind the wheel, shutting the door behind her. The scent of leather enveloped her in a warm, welcome embrace. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply.
Then she opened the storage compartment between the seats and pulled out a bottled water and a dark chocolate candy bar. She kept the stash there for emergencies – and as far as she was concerned, this qualified.
She carefully unwrapped the bar, making certain not to drop any chocolate flakes anywhere in the car. Not that she couldn’t have simply willed them away later, but it was best to be careful to begin with.
She ate in silence, allowing the energy the sugar and caffeine provided to infiltrate her weakened body and awaken her tired mind. While she chewed the bits of coated nut, nougat and caramel, she thought of the sea and the incoming, rolling bank of fog half a mile out. She thought of the stars above her, half-hidden behind an impending gray. She thought of her dreams.
She thought of everything and anything but the scene she’d just left, because if she didn’t, she wouldn’t be able to get the chocolate down.
Finally, she was done with the bar. It had afforded her just enough energy that she might be able to throw her shield back up if she absolutely had to. But for now, she was going to leave it down and spare herself the work.
She took a long swig of her water, re-capped the bottle and placed it back in the storage compartment. Next, she crumpled the candy bar wrapper and shoved it into her purse, throwing her purse into the back seat of the car.
She started Thor, peeked in the rear view mirror, and pulled out of the viewing lot.
* * * *
It had been two months since he’d set out on his own. It didn’t take long for that first tank of gas to run out, and when it had, Lucas Caige had simply filled it back up again and kept on going. He’d had no destination in mind. He simply needed the movement, the road, and the freedom that came with two wheels, a bit of gasoline, and a lot of wind.
So, he’d gone from Vegas to Phoenix. Then up to Salt Lake City. He’d driven through Wyoming; stopped in Billings, Montana. He’d then ridden on into Seattle, where he met up with some old buddies of his.
The group of them had gone together into Oregon and camped out near Eugene. And then Lucas had continued on his own. He was still uncertain. Something was still under his skin. So, he kept going; heading South into northern California alone.
Now…. There was a strangeness settling over him. A sort of peace, maybe. It was almost lethargic. He simply didn’t want to go any further.
Maybe he was just tired.
After all, there wasn’t much for a werewolf to eat on the open road. Wolves weren’t overly fond of candy bars and bags of chips. There were only so many jack rabbits a predator could stomach and frankly, he was getting tired of washing the blood off in dank motel showers.
After sixty days, Caige was ready to pull over. He was finally ready to stay in one place, in one bed, for longer than a single night. He was tired of washing his clothes at Laundromats and more than a little weary of the untrusting glances he got from dry cleaners when he took his leather jacket and boots in to get them cleaned.
He knew what they thought of him.
Scooter trash. Scum. An animal.
If they only knew.
As it was, they were more than a little surprised when he never failed to produce a shining credit card or a large roll of cash.
He sighed. It didn’t matter.
It was time for a long, hot bath, a warm woman, and a soft bed that had never been slept in by anyone else. Wolves were sensitive to these kinds of things. The stench of a thousand bodies and all of their sweaty nightmares and sticky fantasies could become overwhelming at times.
He’d gone far enough. This was as good a place to settle down for a bit as any.
That’s what he was thinking when the black Bugatti coming in the opposite direction suddenly swerved into his lane. He knew the incredibly expensive car by its headlights; it was a luxury vehicle and he was good at identifying that sort of thing. Not that it mattere
d.
Lucas had almost no time to react. A split second, that was all.
He leaned to the right, taking the bike off of the road and onto the shoulder. But the Bugatti kept coming. It sped completely through his lane and continued toward him, crossing the thick white line that braced the shoulder. Caige had no choice but to lay the bike down.
The night was dark; the moon and stars had been hidden by the thick blanket of fog that had rolled over the coastal road less than half an hour earlier. He had no idea what lay beyond the shoulder. How steep was the fall? How far down did it go? And what waited at the bottom?
Whatever it was, he would most likely live through it. It was his bike he was worried about.
As soon as he’d leveled the motorcycle and disconnected himself from its skidding body, the Bugatti crunched into the bike’s front tire, seemingly intent on running the two-wheeler completely over. It was an impressive feat; there wasn’t much clearance beneath the sports car.
It also meant that the driver was determined. This wasn’t an accident.
Lucas managed to roll out of the way just before the car would have sped over him as well. The sound of metal being chewed to bits, the sparks flying, the stench of spilled fuel was truly horrible. He knew his bike was toast.
As the offending sports car re-directed itself and screamed toward him, Lucas let himself drop off of the side of the road and into the nothingness beyond.
* * * *
Dannai loved the fog. It made her feel as if the rest of the world had disappeared for a while. What a magic trick that would be. It was peaceful and welcome and, in the decade that she had lived in Trinidad, she had never once grown weary of it.
Tonight, the fog had come in with what seemed a sense of purpose. It was thicker than normal, obscuring Danny’s view of anything beyond twenty or thirty feet in front of her car.
She took it slowly and let the Metallica, Rush and Nickelback pouring from her stereo beat the tension out of her muscles and sweep the worry from her mind with their demanding drum beats and impossible guitar solos.
She sighed as Tom Sawyer forced her to ease back into her seat and take a deep breath.
Something flashed through the fog up ahead. Danny downshifted, easing off of the gas. She squinted through the swirling mists and slowly took in the scene as a tangled mass of metal and torn rubber came into view.
It had once been a motorcycle; that much Danny could tell from its remains. But someone had destroyed it. A cold ball of lead sank into Danny’s stomach as she put on the brakes and searched for any sign of its rider.
Her heartbeat quickened when a tall form came climbing up over the ledge of the drop-off. He was dressed in black leather. The rider.
He’s walking. Which meant that he’d survived the crash. Danny sighed a breath of relief and parked the car in front of the motorcycle’s wreckage, shifting it into first just as the fallen rider managed the last leg of his climb back up and his boots hit pavement.
Danny rolled down her window and stuck her head out.
“Are you all right?” she called back to the man, who had his back turned toward her as he viewed the ruins of his bike with what must have been a very deep sense of regret. Danny could imagine that kind of pain. She’d hate to see anything happen to Thor.
She watched the man as she waited for an answer. He was tall and the view of him from behind was not at all unpleasant. His black jeans hugged the muscles of his legs in nothing short of a sexual taunt. His ass had to be the most perfect ass Danny had ever laid eyes on. And the broad back and thick arms encased in the leather jacket he wore were nothing to laugh at either.
He had jet-black hair that fell just to his shoulders, wavy and unkempt in that manner that she’d always found so attractive. Daniel Kane had hair like that. In fact, from behind, this man reminded her a lot of Lily’s husband.
Holy shit, she thought, suddenly. That’s not Daniel, is it? What would he be doing way out here?
But when the tall, well-built man finally turned around to face her, the expression on his handsome face a mixture of grief and gratefulness, Danny at once realized that it was not in fact Daniel Kane.
It was Lucas Caige.
Chapter Three, “Smoke Screen”
Oh, you have got to be shitting me….
Danny couldn’t believe what she was seeing. If she hadn’t felt so physically awful at that moment, she would have chalked the scene before her up to a dream. Bad or good, she had no idea, but a dream all the same.
The Fates were conspiring against her. She’d done something bad; that was it. She had to have done something bad. And the gods were getting back at her.
My shield, she thought, suddenly – frantically. I have to put it back up!
Caige seemed to compose himself as he moved toward her. She noted the rip in the leg of his jeans and the road rash that had taken chunks out of his leather jacket. But of course, the werewolf himself was unharmed.
How is he planning on explaining that to me? she thought, even as she summoned her meager amount of power and hastily threw back up her shield. The effort instantly made her dizzy, but she hid it well, managing to keep her eyes trained on the notorious werewolf, even when his form blurred in her eyes.
Surely, he wouldn’t be aware that she knew who and what he was. He wouldn’t know that the woman who had stopped to help him was actually a witch and that she worked with werewolves all the time and that the name Lucas Caige was a rather infamous one in her circles.
Oh shit! she thought, again stunned by a sudden realization. He doesn’t know I’m magic! But he’ll smell it on me and he hates magic!
I don’t have the energy for this, she added, her inner voice a near hopeless whine, as she leeched some of the vigor from her muscles, from her blood, and from other places within herself, and used it to weave yet another shield.
It was very hard. It was like sewing a shawl out of a spider web. It sapped so much of her strength that she literally slumped in the driver’s seat. She’d gone too far this time – and all so that Lucas Caige wouldn’t know who she was.
Caige seemed to notice her sudden weakness because she could hear the sound of his boots on the road as his pace quickened. “You okay?” he asked as he neared the driver’s side window.
He’s Australian, she thought, weakly. She remembered that about him now. He’d moved to the states a long time ago. His accent was very, very faint.
“I’m fine….” She was going to tell him to get in and that she would drive him to the nearest station, but when she sat up to face him, a wave of black fuzziness washed over her. Oh, how perfectly ironic, her mind hissed.
She felt herself falling.
And then…. “Move over,” his voice commanded.
Her heart thudded, as if it had flipped over in her chest. Pain followed on its heels. She groaned as she felt his arms around her, lifting her. But she kept the shields in place – both of them. She was stubborn to the very end. He wouldn’t know who she was; even if it was the death of her. Another skipped, painful beat and she realized that it might just very well be that.
“I’m taking you to a hospital,” he told her. She heard him put the car in first and felt the engine roar as he pulled out onto the interstate. She opened her eyes to look at him from where she now sat in the passenger seat.
So gorgeous… she thought, witlessly. Even messed up from an accident, he was a tall, dark god. The dangerous kind. Like maybe Ares. Oh yeah, she thought. He looks like Ares.
And then she realized what he’d just said. “No…” she mumbled. His dark eyes cut to her. She forced herself to go on. “My friend will help. She’s not far.” She had to get to Imani; the other witch would instantly understand what was happening. She would know what to do.
Caige seemed to consider her for a moment. He shifted into third and fourth without taking his eyes off of her. The Shelby sped down the road, the night and fog blurring into a gray-black streak outside of the windows.
&nbs
p; And then, as if he understood all too well why an individual might have an aversion to hospitals or doctors of any kind, he gave in. “Where?” he asked simply.
“Twenty miles… up road. In Eureka.” She paused, gathering more of her waning strength. “White house on –” she cut off, swallowing hard before she finished with, “Lucas street.”
Yep. The fates definitely had it in for her.
If Caige noted the coincidence, he made no indication of the fact. Instead, his dark eyes glittered as they looked her over inbetween glances at the road to make certain they stayed on it.
“You sure about this?” he asked.
This had to be the damnedest thing in the world to him. Here she was, a stranger who had pulled over to help him out of a jam – and she was about to faint on him. He was probably pretty freaked out.
Handling it well, though, she thought. He’d taken over with ease, skill and complete confidence.
“Yes,” she answered. Then she closed her eyes. She couldn’t keep them open any longer.
* * * *
Lucas watched the young woman slip down into the seat beside him and close her eyes. He wondered if he should pull the car over. But he could hear her heart beating. It was erratic and a bit weak, but it was still beating. She was still alive.
What the hell had just happened?
One minute, he was thundering down the road on his favorite Harley – the next, he was being run off of it by someone with an affinity for luxury sports cars. And the minute after that? He was being rescued by a woman in a Shelby Mustang with some kind of health problem.
Which was strange.
Because she smelled perfectly healthy to him. He was good at sensing when someone was sick. It was simply part and parcel to being a werewolf.