“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 innocent men, women, and children. This is my first priority. The wolves are battle worthy, so are the Dragons-the Mythics will hide… and the infantrymen and archers are trained soldiers. If they’ve brought their families, they will fight to the death.”
“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.”
Sir Rodney walked away troubled and clasped his hands behind his back, closing his eyes as he spoke, his voice becoming low and impassioned as he tried to make the men around him understand.
“I care, but as a leader, there are tough decisions to be made. Lose an entire village and a garrison, or risk a few civilians being lost, tragic as that may be? The choice is hard but the choice is clear. Right now I need every able-bodied soldier here to make sure we are secured during the night. We have miles of border to camouflage with reverse glamour. First light, I’ll send out a retinue to let the others know how to at least temporarily reverse what’s been done to them. After we are snug as a bug in a rug, we’ll also be investigating-because we need to know exactly which set of dirty spells they’ve used to attack us and our allies. Godspeed to anyone outside these walls tonight.”
The king of the Seelie turned around and studied his men with determination burning in his eyes. “Our enemies have been trying to find our North American fortress to siege and sack for years. I’ll not let that ’appen on my watch!”
CHAPTER 15
“I won’t leave my men!” Shogun said, panting. He spun out of an attacker’s claw rake, ran up the side of a tree, flipped down behind the beast and shot him point-blank in the skull, using the Derringer.
“You have to live to fight another day,” Hunter shouted, unloading a shotgun blast over Shogun’s shoulder to blow back a wolf that had gone airborne.
“I led them into this death trap-I was their alpha leader and should have known better! They trusted me!” Shogun yelled, running back to what was sheer suicide.
Hunter made a wide berth around the dead bodies, changing directions to follow his brother.
“This isn’t your battle-fall back!” Shogun yelled.
“One pack, one clan!” Hunter shouted, clearing Shogun’s path with gunshot blasts, reloading on the run with a howl.
Shogun and Hunter pressed their backs to a new tree line, staying downwind from the building, studying for ways to get back inside it. Hunter’s jeep was unapproachable-the parking lot was crawling with Buchanan clan pack members beginning to track their human scents. Angry barks and howls from the enemy cut into the humid night air. It wouldn’t be long before Shogun’s men were found and torn to shreds; it wouldn’t be long before they’d be overrun. Human body stamina would not outlast the Werewolf forms, and in a hard run there was no way they could outdistance their hunters.
Hunter glanced at Shogun, whose eyes remained steadfastly on the building, trying to figure out the impossible. In war, there were always difficult decisions to be made-survival was sometimes one of them. But he knew where his brother was right now; he was a tortured man with a soul that required peace. Shogun had violated a leader’s sense of responsibility for the safety of his pack; to leave now would not be the way of the wolf… and to let his brother die alone, savaged to death by the enemy without putting up a fight, was also an unacceptable option to him.
“Go home,” Shogun snarled. “Go back to the Shadow packs. Go back to her.”
Hunter growled. “Make me.”
A huge Werewolf crashed out of the side of the building on the floor where Shogun’s men had been. Chin-Hwa and Dak-Ho bailed out behind it, nude, and two more transformed wolves followed them in an aerial lunge. Hunter got off a blast that gave the wolf on the ground pause, splattering the two in the air in a single body shot that penetrated both airborne wolves in the gut. But the shotgun blast also gave away Hunter’s and Shogun’s position.
Shogun’s men dropped to the ground in lithe crouches and then became one with the trees in a flat-out dash, furious Weres in hot pursuit. Somehow, an injured Seung Kwon had managed to exit the building by the door on the roof. Using every martial-arts skill at his disposal, he was a human body against that of a fully transformed Werewolf bouncer. Seung Kwon was losing ground fast.
Insanity propelled Shogun forward to go after his cousin; strategy sent Hunter up a tree in a one-handed pull, shotgun in the other. A blast hit the Werewolf on the roof; a blast toward the ground gave Shogun a few more minutes to live.
“Fall back!” Hunter shouted, bringing his brother to a skidding halt.
Shogun gave him a glance and turned back as Seung Kwon climbed off the roof using a drainpipe.
Out of breath, Winters burst into Finnegan’s, rushed over to Doc and Silver Hawk, and began sputtering an explanation. They didn’t even let him finish as both older men jumped up from the table and headed out the door.
Huffing to catch up with those that had wolf in their DNA, Winters pumped his arms and legs as hard as he could, and then, just as he got midway across the street, house and porch in sight, something grabbed him.
Cold claws came out of the night in a lethal grip. His scream was choked by what felt like steel around his neck. He could see Silver Hawk skid to a stop in slow motion. Bradley was on the porch in a robe, waving his arms; Clarissa was screaming something he now couldn’t hear as consciousness ebbed. Doc turned slowly, withdrawing a Glock from the back of his pants, raised the weapon in his direction, and fired.
Suddenly he was on the ground, hitting the asphalt with a thud. A horrible screech and the scent of burning flesh and sulfuric ash stung his nose and made his eyes water. Vomiting from the terror and the offense to his nose, Winters pushed himself up on shaky arms and legs.
“Get onto the porch!” Bradley shouted. “Vampire attack-get onto the porch! The house is invulnerable!”
An old man grabbed him with the strength of a twenty-year-old marine. Winters looked up, still disoriented, as Silver Hawk lifted him over his shoulder like a baby, while Doc covered them, spinning 360 degrees, constantly moving. They hit the porch and Bradley brandished two one-gallon jugs of holy water while Clarissa flung brick dust across the threshold, reciting Psalms.