Cursed To Death

Shogun nodded. “I owe you.”

“We’re blood-no debt,” Hunter said, glancing around the tree again. “You need to get you and your men out of here. There are false walls in here, all kinds of sewer tubing underneath here for escapes… passageways for assassins. I didn’t come to fight with you-the shadow lands cleared my head and I hope your escort momentarily cleared yours.”

War howls filled the air as Shogun nodded. “I have to get my men.”

“You hear that?” Sasha said, driving faster until she was driving like a maniac.

Bear Shadow and Crow Shadow just stared at her for a second.

“Listen! It’s a combined war call-Hunter and Shogun! Where are they?”

“At the Bayou House, but you can’t-”

“I can’t what?” Sasha’s growl cut off Bear Shadow’s statement. She stepped on the gas, barreling the vehicle toward the B &B. “Go inside and get Woods and Fisher’s artillery while I keep the motor ru

The shadows wouldn’t have him. Stu

“I don’t know what’s wrong,” he said in a low, disoriented rumble, getting up slowly from the ground. “I can’t shadow jump.”

Shogun stared down at his hands. “I’m not transforming, brother. My wolf won’t come to me!”

“Then that means that your men are sitting ducks, if their wolves lie dormant,” Hunter said, studying the building as it emptied of Buchanan’s Louisiana clan in droves. “So are we.”

Bear Shadow took over the wheel as Sasha leaped from the jeep and grabbed the M-16 that he tossed her.

“I’m going through the shadow lands as the advance squad. If Hunter and Shogun, along with his men, are holed up in the Buchanan den, they are definitely go

“Oh, shit, Sis!” Crow Shadow yelled, jumping out of the vehicle.

Bear Shadow stood up in it. “Captain Trudeau! Sasha!”

He bounded toward her, helping Crow Shadow help her up. She had a busted lip and a large knot was begi

“Son of a bitch!” she said, spitting blood. “They’ve blocked us from shadow jumping now?”

Winters was on the porch in a flash with the door wide open. “Trudeau, what the fuck, sir? You okay? You look like you just ran into a brick wall.”

A window on the second floor opened and Woods leaned out, nude from what she could see. “Captain, you’re back? You all right? I heard yelling.”

“Get Fish,” Crow Shadow hollered up. “This ain’t a drill, shore leave is over, soldier.”

“Roger that!” Woods said, slamming the window.

“I’m go

Bradley opened the third-floor window with a robe on. “Captain Trudeau?”

Sasha squinted and waved him off. Her head hurt like hell. But before she’d ever even known that she was a Shadow Wolf, she had been a soldier-and that was the one thing the dark spell-casters hadn’t counted on. With support from Bear and Crow on each side, she pushed herself to her feet.

“Okay, gentlemen, we do this the old-fashioned way, then. Hand grenades, C-4, whatever else the boys packed for the joyride.”

“I just ca

“Someone who has had access to your personage, milord, could have gathered bits of your hair… a bit of cloth, a fingernail… maybe your seed… other personal artifacts of your being, to stir into a wicked brew. This is clearly chaos magick of the darkest sort-but who did it remains the mystery. Mayhap that is what the young Phoenix girl was so afraid of? She could have gleaned some evidence as to whom we seek? But there is a blind-spot spell levied against you directly, sire… and the rest of this erosion is only evidence of the significant danger we are all in.”

“Do you know what ye are saying, man? Do you know the vast import of a charge like that? If Desidera-”

“I don’t think she wittingly gave you up,” Garth said, cutting off the king’s words. “But whatever was left of you in her apartment…”

Sir Rodney closed his eyes with a groan.

“Aye,” Garth said quietly. “This is why I do not say these things lightly or ill-advisedly. But it’s the only thing that makes bloody sense. I shall not presume to lecture milord… but as the head of state, and having amassed so much additional power over the years… Well, frankly, sire, there are simply some things that you ca

Sir Rodney nodded. “I’m going to try something.” He waved his hand along a section of the huge stone wall as he pushed off of it and then stood back.

His guards jumped back and gasped. The section of the wall disappeared.

“Reverse spell polarity,” Sir Rodney said with a nod, rubbing his chin. “They have booby-trapped our intentions… So if I wanted to be unseen, I’d be seen by human eyes. If our Pixie dust was to make the day go by faster and with an energy lift for our guards so they stayed alert, it had the opposite effect of making them lazy and sluggish or inattentive. Same thing with the glamour we don.”

“That’s not something a coven could do, is it, sire?” one of the guards asked. His attention was riveted on the king, his voice a terrified murmur.

Sir Rodney shook his head. “Not alone. It would take tremendous coordination to blind me, my advisors, and our investigator, then to also erode our powers as well as diminish the protection around the fortress.”

“Blimey… But who would be so bold?” another guard asked, still marveling at the apparent hole in the wall.

Sir Rodney stared at his elderly advisor. “I should think someone who stood to profit from the spoils of war-bleedin’ daylight has already left us. I want these walls shored up, our entire village re-charmed!” He looked deeply into Garth’s ancient eyes. “And lift that bloody blinder spell.”

Garth nodded, summoning the other advisors with a spark from the end of his wand. “It will be so.”

“But, sire,” a palace guard said, jogging alongside the king as he paced away. “We also have to get word back to the others. The wolves that ran ahead don’t know what we’ve just discovered.”

Sir Rodney waved his hand and kept walking. “If we don’t have a fortress, we don’t have an army-no place to protect i

“But the Brownies and Gnomes… the defenseless Pixies and Fairies out there. Even our cherished friends and brethren, the Light Elves… others like Ethan McGregor and his family, milord.” The guard stopped walking, his young face bereft.

Sir Rodney squared his shoulders, walked back to him, and grabbed the young soldier by his upper arms, looking deeply into his eyes. “I know, man, and you did well to get word to Ethan to warn them at The Fair Lady. Understand that what I say isn’t without deep consideration. I am not heartless; I know the risk that they are under now that they can be easily seen and have booby-trapped magick.”