Cursed To Death

Good-at least something was going right. A lot of things were, actually, when she thought about it. And then reality smacked her upside the head-that couldn’t be a good sign.

Sasha watched the van pull off with a sinking feeling in her gut. What if Hunter got apprehended? What if Shogun got caught? There were no Fae in the building now to staff the establishment, leaving only oblivious human workers there, who had been told that the men in the attic were exterminators going in to look for rats and squirrels in the eaves… what a crock. And what if Bear Shadow and Crow Shadow ran into a serious problem in the shadow lands… or Clarissa’s soul got hijacked by dark forces while it was an astral projection. Sasha rubbed her palms down her face.

“Are you all right, Captain Trudeau?” Seung Kwon’s voice held a new level of respect, one that came from people who’d valiantly fought side-by-side.

“I’m good,” Sasha said. “It’s just the heat out here and the damned mosquitoes the size of quarters.”

He nodded and looked up at the building. “We can break in through the back door.”

She dug into her jeans’ pocket. “I was staying here, remember? How about we go right in the front like we’re a couple, using a key?”

Sir Rodney stared down at the cell phone. “They are done so fast? Have hit all three installations already?”

“It’s been ringing off the bleedin’ hook, milord. Almost as soon as I went to stand guard outside to wait,” a tall archer said, handing him the device. “I do not know how to work it, but she was clear that we should wait till it sounded, and then we’d start the Vampire raids.”

With no air-conditioning on and all the windows locked up tightly, the house was stifling. Drawn shades didn’t help; all they did was make the place seem like a death trap. Checking for intruders as they managed the stairs, their wolf instincts keen, Sasha and Seung Kwon climbed until they hit the top floor. Both pairs of eyes sca

“You pull,” Sasha said, removing the nine-millimeter from her waistband. “I’ll point and click.”

Seung nodded and leaped up, yanking the short cord that brought down the steps. Silence greeted them. Seung took the stairs in a crouch, brandishing iron railroad ties as he went up each step. Sasha moved forward and hiked the duffel bag up higher on her shoulder. It was amazingly quiet-too quiet.

They peered around the half-story space, disappointed that there was nothing there but dust and a few boxes.

“Maybe it is just not in this building,” Seung Kwon said, glancing around.

“Yeah, maybe not,” Sasha said, and then dropped her duffel bag on the floor. But as she did so and the dust moved in a plume, she remembered the ashes. “Get your iron ready,” she said, quickly going inside her duffel bag and yanking out rowan branches.

“What are you doing?”

“Sweeping the floor.” Sasha stooped and began walking backward toward the only natural light source, a tiny attic window that faced the street and Fi

She left the rowan where the floor reacted and jumped back as Seung Kwon dropped a railroad tie over it. Immediately, the floor began to glow red in an ever-widening circle as the rowan branches burst into flames. Sasha skirted the inferno and backed up toward the pull-down stairs, mesmerized as the symbol bubbled up like crude oil and began to heat the iron until it became iron ore.

“Go, go, go!” she shouted as the heat fa

The creatures shut the crawl space stairs, tangled in her hair, and clawed at her and Seung Kwon’s faces. It was impossible to get a shot off while they were dragging him closer to the lava-like inferno, savaging him as he yelled and fought them.

Sasha picked up the duffel bag, noting that they stayed away from it and had flung it to the far side of the room by the strap. She snatched out more rowan as she elbowed the vicious little creatures off her back. The moment she held it in her first with a gun in the other, they fled to focus their full torment on Seung Kwon.

“Catch!” she hollered. “They can’t stand it!”

He grabbed a branch of rowan laden with berries, and when it touched three of the little beasties, they exploded into green guck. Sasha went to work on the trapdoor, trying to escape the flames. But the inferno was dying down. She and Seung Kwon stared at each other. The trapdoor fell open. The floor sealed back up. The railroad ties and rowan that covered the circle were gone. All that was left were a few berries that sparked and popped on the floor, then disappeared.

“I think we need to go across the street and make sure Shogun and your pack brothers are all right.”

CHAPTER 21

“It has to be up here,” Hunter said, pointing at the window. “It’s the only source of light.”

Chin-Hwa glanced around nervously, hanging close to the roof hatch they’d been able to open. He kept one hand on the ladder steps leading out, constantly glancing toward the crawl space’s drop-down entrance. “The authorities might have heard us-we have been back and forth here dozens of times, but nothing is to be seen… The Fae were wrong.”

“Look around, man!” Hunter said through his teeth, keeping his voice low. “There must be something!”

In frustration, Chin-Hwa flung down the branches he’d been holding, releasing berries that rolled across the floor. As soon as several hit the edges of the sunlight-bathed spot on the wood, it popped and sizzled and the symbol they sought instantly became visible.

“Milord? We are to mount an offensive without confirmation?” The captain of the guards stared at Sir Rodney for a moment. “But, sir, our magick’s not returned as promised yet.”

“Were this not the time for immediate action I would have you court-martialed for questioning my command!”

Sir Rodney’s troops lowered their confused gazes.

“I will not have her left out there stranded! If she sent the signal through her own device, then that is good enough for me!” Sir Rodney held the cell phone out to his men as he walked down his garrison’s line, armed to the teeth. “If I had been outside the fortress walls, I would have received the call meself. She showed me how to hear her voice in the air with it! How to push the button to stop the chime and to let her speak to me clear as a bell. That much I know how to do, but I do not need to hear her voice to know that she needs my sword! Are we not men without our magick? Do we not know how to destroy this foul beast called Vampire?”

A lackluster aye returned to him from his troops.

“Then the way we would for the Lady of the Lake, for Sasha Trudeau we ride!”

Chin-Hwa came out onto the roof with angry flames licking up behind him; Hunter dropped three stories down into the middle of a police investigation, covered in air-elemental scratches. Before anyone could react, the top of the building blew. Guns were drawn; people on the scene shouted and scrambled against the perceived threat as Hunter ran zigzag through the police like an NFL quarterback.

A hot-wired SUV skidded to a sideways stop as police cruisers got thrown into service amid the distinctive pop of gunfire. Hunter jumped into the SUV as it careened off. The sound of helicopter blades beating the air made Chin-Hwa panic and bail off the roof, wolf style. He hit the ground on all fours, looked around for a second to find an opening, and sprinted.