Woods let out a hard sigh as Sasha ended the call. “Sounds like a plan, Cap… Only one question, though-how do we get out of the bayou?”
CHAPTER 16
Woods was right. There was still enough of the Buchanan Broussard clan that had retreated into the swamps to make an ambush a deadly possibility. If Vampires were on the offensive, then out here away from the eyes of human authority, they were sitting ducks. Her hope was that the Vamp killed back at the B &B had backed them off long enough for them to think twice about going after her human team, especially if NOPD was on the way.
The one thing she was sure of was that, after their exposure and involvement with the death of a human general, the Vamps would want to stay concealed from human military types right about now. Vampires were many things, but openly foolish wasn’t one of them.
And despite how badly the situation rankled her nerves, now was certainly not the time to get into it with Fisher and Woods about why they’d brought civilian females back to what was essentially base. Half of her was truly pissed off, the other half glad her men had been at the B &B and not AWOL at some chick’s apartment somewhere. They had been there when needed, they had responded immediately to the call to arms, so she really couldn’t dress them down about that. Nobody was on top of their game.
Shogun couldn’t even meet her gaze now. As the rush of battle ebbed, understanding gained a foothold in her brain, along with a very irrational spike of jealousy that made her cry out safe haven in her soul.
Hunter lifted his head, breaking the silence. “Blood-hounds.”
“This is the South, six cops are dead; I’d expect no less,” Sasha said.
The order to move out was given with a nod. They all took a wolf’s pace in a hard jog, heading deeper into the bayou. Every now and then Sasha circled back to be sure her men with the least wolf in them could keep pace-she refused to leave Fisher and Woods… She’d go to prison with them, if it came to that, but leave them? Never. They seemed to know that as they pushed themselves to the edge of their mostly human endurance.
“You go ahead,” Shogun said, dropping back. “I can throw off the dogs-I’ll split the scent trail.”
Hunter stopped and turned. “We stay together.”
“We stay together,” Sasha said, giving Woods and Fisher a chance to stop and gasp in deep breaths. “Shogun, I know how the human military and Homeland Security systems work over here. You’re a foreign national. You’ll be pinned as a drug dealer who triggered the violence by bringing in opiates from Asia with your men… and will disappear into a CIA interrogation black site.”
“Under the circumstances, would that be so bad an option?” he said quietly, staring into her eyes.
She looked away. “Unacceptable.”
“But honorable.”
Hunter threw a punch that felled a tree and began circling. “Don’t go there, brother.”
Confusion tore through the ranks for a moment, but a hail of silver-tipped arrows made everyone jump back. Weapons raised with hair-trigger reflexes.
“Hold your fire!” a heavily accented voice called out from above.
All eyes quickly scanned the tree limbs above.
“Friend, not foe!”
“It’s Fae archers,” Sasha called out. “Hold your fire!”
Silver Hawk moved with the speed of a wolf as Doc ran behind him, covering him with a nine-millimeter. But once the inside of the ambulance had been cleared of a potential Vampire ambush, Doc ravaged the medicine supply for anesthesia while Silver Hawk covered him with the weapon.
Everybody worked quickly, racing against the clock, racing against sirens. Clarissa was in another room in the B &B on the telephone with Tulane’s physicians explaining the predicament, while Winters and Bradley spoke to the terrified women in calm tones. Their whimpers were heartrending as the men covered their eyes with strips of sheets, blindfolding them while trying to reassure them that they wouldn’t be raped, wouldn’t be killed.
But their struggles against their bindings and screams that had to be muffled told everyone in the house that they didn’t believe a word that had been said. They were close to passing out on their own without the meds, believing they were going to die.
“We heard the explosion, first off,” a tall Fae archer said, jumping down from the trees with a half-dozen armed men. “We thought the Buchanan still had finally given up the ghost-they pushed ’er like crazy pumping out rotgut, so that didn’t surprise us. Nor did a couple of shotgun blasts. No offense, but the wolves often get rowdy and they have to bounce males who get too familiar with the ladies without paying the goin’ price.”
“But when we heard machine-gun fire,” another said, “Sir Rodney sent an advance guard to be sure there wasn’t an attack headed toward the fortress. I don’t know if your men made you aware after they left off the McGregors, but our entire camp was laid bare.”
“Exposed to the brick,” the lead archer said. “Took all evening to reverse the bleedin’ magick, and it’s still waverin’ in and out, not wholly stable. Sir Rodney said we could tell you that much, even though Fae business is usually a strictly confidential affair.”
Hunter cocked his head to the side and turned on Bear Shadow and Crow Shadow so quickly that Crow bumped into a tree. “You left an Elf family in the swamp with their fortress exposed and did not communicate that information to me or Sasha!”
Silence crackled between the trees, Sasha’s voice a low, calm murmur. “Safe haven… These men, like you and I, are under the influence.”
Hunter rolled his shoulders and walked away from his men to keep from savaging them.
“You lads and the lady kicked up quite a fuss in the glen,” the Fae captain said nervously, trying to divert the potential wolf fight. “Mayhap we might take all concerned back to Sir Rodney who can discuss the particulars we know about the dark magick.”
It had taken a bit of maneuvering, but Doc spoke medicalese and Dr. Williams well understood the issues. The two civilian women were admitted and placed under heavy observation in ICU, just as a precaution-should they wake up screaming.
Silver Hawk held the small table rapt within the cafeteria as he explained what he saw on his spirit walk with Hunter.
“Can you draw the symbols you saw for me?” Bradley asked, his gaze intense as he pushed a napkin and a pen toward the elderly shaman.
Silver Hawk nodded and accepted the paper to begin re-creating what he’d seen.
“The use of sigils-symbols-is the cornerstone of chaos magick,” Bradley said, closely studying the symbols as Silver Hawk committed them to paper.
“I would see a marking,” Silver Hawk said, “and then the person-one of us… And a shadow self of the person would walk out of their body.”
“Doppelgangers?” Bradley said, leaning forward quickly and speaking in a rushed, horrified whisper. “They’ve attached a dark sigil to the etheric or energy double of the person’s spirit, and thus can send all kinds of malintent into that essence to twist the behavior or even rob the person of their natural gifts and talents. It is an insidious spell, but a complex, brilliant, diabolical process.”
“It is theft,” Silver Hawk said, his eyes burning with wolf outrage, even though his voice remained calm. “To rob a Shadow Wolf of his ability to enter the shadows is no less than severing a limb.”
“To rob a person of his or her ability to reason,” Doc said, looking around the table, “is no less than that.”
“These symbols,” Bradley said, studying the series of napkins that Silver Hawk pushed toward him, “are combinations. They’re set up like bind Runes, with several spells linked together to harm one person.” He let out an exasperated breath and then picked up the one associated with Hunter. “This takes away natural gifts-which is the same for Sasha… Look at the symbols Silver Hawk drew on her napkin.”