Natural Dual-Mage (Magical Mayhem 3)

“Mages, plural?” I asked.

“Yes, he employs a group of them.”

“And they aren’t part of the pack?”

Reagan shook her head. “No. They have their own hierarchy and exist separately to the shifter hierarchy. But they answer to Roger as their boss. He relies on them to double-check each other’s work, since he can’t do it. Usually, that seems to work just fine. That I’ve heard, anyway. This is the first time I’ve heard him doubt.”

I brushed the hair out of my eyes, feeling uneasy. “We’re all working together, so why wouldn’t Roger just come clean in the first place?”

“The shifters and the vampires view each other as the lesser of two evils,” Reagan said. “They need each other in order to get rid of the Mages’ Guild, but they don’t trust each other. Just as soon as this is out of the way, the shifters will go back to hunting the vampires.”

“That’s kind of a misuse of power on the shifters’ part.” I loosened my seatbelt and checked in with the crazy magic rolling around my body. I’d been living with my natural magic for nearly twenty-five years. I was used to the feel of it. Now, suddenly, everything was different. I couldn’t sit idle without noticing.

“Oh no, the vampires definitely deserve it.” Reagan nodded as she pulled off the freeway. “Vlad rarely asks people if they want to be vampires anymore. He makes them, then talks them around their panic. And he delights in doing it under the shifters’ noses. He is a special kind of dick, that one.”

“Uh-huh.” I really needed to learn to stay out of it. Magical people had a collective screw loose.

“Penny.” The way Emery said my name made tingles wash over my skin. Without another word, he handed back a picture.

I sucked in a breath. “Mary Bell.” It was three-quarters of her face, as if she’d turned away as the photographer took the shot. Behind her was a line of buildings. Downtown Seattle.

“And…” Emery handed back another picture, and I already knew who it would be. Sure enough…

“John.” I let the pictures fall to my lap, my stomach churning. “They really were recruited.”

“They’re both powerful, and they’ve met you personally,” Reagan said. “They’re desirable. I’m sure they are being treated like royalty. For now.”

“They have no idea what kind of organization they’ve traded into,” Emery said with an edge to his voice, reaching back for the pictures. “They might think things are fine now, but as soon as they aren’t needed for intel, they’ll have to pay their dues like everyone else. Considering how the Guild has changed, that could mean some pretty hair-raising things.”

“Mary would be used to it,” I said as I looked out the window, my heart falling. “She’s sacrificed people in the past.”

“Well then, she’ll fit right in.” I heard Emery shuffling through the remaining photographs.

I shook my head. “I thought she’d learned her lesson. And John…I wouldn’t have believed him capable of that.”

Emery’s movements slowed down until he was very still. Reagan looked over at him with a grin.

“What?” I asked.

“She doesn’t know,” Reagan said to Emery. “Darius was trying to get your dander up by having his assistant hint that Penny had an attachment to John. He was trying to force out your true feelings. She wanted nothing to do with him. You know that, right?”

“He said what?” I leaned forward, trying to see their faces.

Emery gave Reagan a hard look before turning away. “Darius is good at manipulation.”

Reagan laughed. “Very.”

Silence stretched through the car, and I let it. I didn’t feel like asking questions about whatever maneuvering Darius had done. I was still reeling from being wrong. Mary had packed up and headed to Seattle to join the Guild. John, too. They’d chosen to side with an organization that promised wealth and power at the expense of the innocent.

“They need to be taken down,” I said, my resolve strengthening. “Hard.”

Fifteen minutes later, we turned off a small road onto an even smaller one—a one-lane road with dense trees on either side. A wave of mine! rolled over me. I held out my hand to get Reagan to slow down, but Emery spoke before I could. “Stop.”

He looked out the window.

“What are you doing, bird-watching?” Reagan asked.

Emery chuckled, but shook his head instead of commenting.

“It’s like that thing vampires have,” I told him. “The way they mark their territory.”

“I know, yeah.” He leaned forward and braced his forearms on his knees.

I clicked off my seatbelt so I could lean between the seats. “Do you sense something else?”

He leaned back and looked out the window again. “A premonition, but…” He shook his head. “I keep getting these warning premonitions. They’re not about immediate danger. And, like now, it’s not even helpful. All I saw was trees. Trees and shadows.”

“Shadows…like…that druid?” I asked, pushing my magic out and trying to sense if there was any other magic nearby.

“No. The druid had a different feel about him. Something I didn’t sense just now. I only felt…danger. A warning.” Emery shook his head, clearly at a loss.

“Should we get out and walk up?” Reagan asked. “Maybe we should scout it out from down here?”

A horn blared behind us.

We all spun around in our seats. Even Reagan, who had three mirrors she could’ve used instead.

“Oh no,” I said with a release of breath. “Why did you invite them?”

“I thought you did,” Reagan said as Emery said, “I didn’t.”

“They’ve been following us. I just assumed you guys wanted them along for some reason.” Reagan shrugged.

Moss’s Lexus was behind us, with my mother and Callie in the front seats and Dizzy leaning forward from the back, waving.

“Well, this should be interesting,” Emery said.

I didn’t share his optimism.

23

“What were we going to do, stay behind, defenseless?” Callie asked as they met us between the cars.

“Defenseless? You’re dual-mages, and the ward Emery and Penny constructed is unbreakable,” Reagan said.

“Besides,” my mother chimed in, holding out a deck of tarot cards, “I brought my tools. A change of location and influence might give me a different reading. Maybe I can get something that will help Darius.”

This was clearly one of the times when she and Callie had decided to present a united front.

Reagan sighed. “Shifters aren’t as abiding as vampires. They’re a little more rough and tumble. Don’t expect to get your way.”

Callie and my mother both sniffed. Dizzy laughed good-naturedly, his version of sniffing. It was a bad sign.

“What do you think?” I asked Emery, stepping away from the others and joining him as he looked out into the trees.

“I get a bad feeling about these woods. About these shifters in general.” He slipped his hands into his pockets. “It’s almost as if there’s a shadow lurking over us here. I don’t like it.”

I let the electricity in the air run through me, but whatever sense he was getting, I didn’t share it. I felt alive out here. Happy and fulfilled. The lush landscape, unspoiled by people, was the perfect setting for me to roam.

“It has to be a premonition,” I said, taking his hand. “Should we wander through the woods? Send the dead weight to the house ahead of us?” I barely kept from looking back at my mother and the Bankses to show who I meant.

He turned and gestured me ahead of him. “No. Let’s meet with Roger and look at the ward first. We can go from there.”

“House” was a small word for the shifters’ shelter. It was a sprawling mansion, cutting into the hillside and nestled within the trees. The long, winding road up to it only had a few places where two cars could pass, with no walkways or sidewalks for pedestrians. Shifter magic pulsed from one side, then the other, as we drew closer—our progress had been noted and then watched.