Arjenie had a flashlight in her backpack, but she couldn’t resist showing off a little. “Shazzam,” she whispered—and a ball of light sprang into being a couple feet above her head.
The word was a trigger, not the spell itself—which she’d learned from Cynna, who’d gotten it from Cullen, who picked it up when the two of them were in Edge. It was an almost purely spoken spell—those were rare—but everyone who wasn’t a sorcerer like Cullen had to add one physical component: a drop of their own blood to link it to them. Once cast, though, the spell could be held in abeyance for days. Arjenie usually recast the spell once a week so she’d have it ready if she needed it.
“Nice!” Uncle Clay said, hands on hips as he studied the mage light.
“What the hell?” The sheriff was dumfounded.
“Arjenie! Is that mage light?” Seri’s question sounded more like an accusation. “You know how to make mage light and you didn’t—”
“Can’t be mage light,” her twin informed her. “No one knows how to make mage light. The secret to it has been lost since the Purge. It’s a trick—but a pretty cool one.”
Arjenie chuckled, enjoying herself. “Guess what? The secret isn’t lost anymore.”
Aunt Robin came closer, studying the ball of light appraisingly. “Excellent. Can you make it brighter or dimmer?”
She had told her aunt and uncle about the spell, intending to teach it to them over the holiday, so they weren’t as delightfully flummoxed as the twins. “Dimmer is easy, but you can’t make a single ball of mage light any brighter than this. You have to add more mage lights, and that takes a lot more focus. This one”—with a thought, she made it bob—“I can carry without paying it any attention, and the power drain is really small, but if I add more I have to focus, and I lose power faster. I carried three once, but I was very distracted. Cullen—I told you about him—has carried six and was still able to hold a conversation.”
“I’d like to meet him sometime.”
“When you come out to visit, you will.”
“That’s the damnedest thing I’ve seen in a long time,” Porter said, “but we aren’t here to enjoy this, uh, mage light thing of Arjenie’s. Robin, you said you’d need to set your circle near where the body was found. That’s down in the draw. We’ve swept the immediate area, but don’t—Turner. Where are you going?”
Benedict had started for the truck. “Hitchhiker.”
He didn’t get a step farther before Havoc launched herself up out of the truck’s bed, landed with her mouth in gear, and raced to Robin, her tail waving madly.
“How in the world—!” Robin snatched up the little terrier, who wriggled and tried to lick her face. “I could have sworn she was in the house. I guess she snuck out.”
Seri grinned. “And hitched a ride in the back of the truck. That’s a new trick, isn’t it?”
“And not one I want to encourage. Into the cab with you, young lady.” Robin carried the terrier back to the truck, where she opened one door, put the window down a few inches, and locked Havoc safely inside. “Sorry for the interruption,” she said to Porter.
“Glad you caught her. Like I was saying, stick to the path and don’t wander once you’re down there. I’ve got two deputies keeping an eye on things.”
“Might be best if I go ahead and Change,” Benedict said.
Sammy had wandered over to the crime scene tape. He had a flashlight and aimed it down that path, which seemed to drop off pretty steeply. “Looks rough,” he said. “Arjenie, did you bring your cane?”
“I won’t need it.”
Porter frowned. “I didn’t think about that. You’ve got a bit of a hitch in your gallop. Should be okay once you get down, but the path’s not easy.”
“She’ll let us know if she needs help,” Benedict said absently. His attention seemed to be on Havoc, a small frown between his eyebrows.
“Arjenie?” Sammy hooted. “Drag her up a mountain and she won’t admit she needs help, even when she’s tumbling off of it.”
That brought Benedict’s focus to her obnoxious cousin. “You’re wrong. She’s stubborn, not stupid. She wouldn’t jeopardize the rest of us or the mission through misplaced pride.” Now he looked at her. “I’m going to Change before we head down. Come with me and take charge of my clothes?”
Silly heart. It had speeded up. Arjenie beamed at him, feeling all fond and warm. He trusted her to know her limits—to push them sometimes, sure, but at the right time and place. Which this wasn’t. Her family, wonderful as they were, never seemed to think she might know more than they did about what her body could and couldn’t do.
“Sure,” she said. “Wouldn’t want that nice jacket to lie around in the dirt.”
“You need to go somewhere to change into a wolf?” Porter asked.
“I prefer privacy,” Benedict said.
Which wasn’t exactly a lie, Arjenie thought as she followed him to the far side of the pickup. But she suspected it was the knives he wanted to keep private, not the sight of him Changing. Just like it was his weapons he really wanted her to take charge of, though she’d keep his clothes for him, too. That’s why she’d brought a backpack.
That, and it was a handy way to carry three pounds of hamburger.
“Turn down your light,” Benedict told her as he shucked off his jacket. He paused. “Please. It interferes with my night vision.”
She grinned and dimmed the mage light to firefly level. Benedict was getting better, but he was used to telling instead of asking. She unzipped the backpack and took out the hamburger, which she unwrapped and set on the ground. “Sheriff Porter has the same problem you do. He defaults to orders, not requests. I thought you wanted to ask that deputy some questions? The one who knows something about bears, I mean.”
“I changed my mind.” He slipped out of his jacket and held it out.
She folded it, frowning. “Why?”
“Got a feeling. Partly it’s a smell . . . faint, nothing I can identify, not in this form. But my back-brain doesn’t like it.” He unbuckled his belt. “You can get the knives after I’ve Changed, but I want you to wear my gun.”
Arjenie made a face as she stuffed the jacket in the backpack. Until a couple months ago, she’d never shot a gun. Benedict had changed that, and she agreed that with a war on, however secret it might be, she needed to be able to shoot. The problem—and this was annoyingly girly of her—was that she flinched. Not every time, but sometimes when she squeezed the trigger, she’d flinch and the shot would be off. She’d stopped squeezing her eyes shut when she squeezed the trigger, but so far the flinch still happened about one-fourth of the time, which made her unreliable.
On the upside, when she didn’t flinch she was a decent shot. “I’m wishing I’d let you talk me into bringing my SIG ,” she said, accepting his holstered weapon. Benedict’s .357 was too large for her hand, but she did know how to shoot it. “I flinch less when I use it.”
He touched her cheek. “Is that almost the same as saying I was right?”
She grinned. “Almost. Benedict . . .” In the darkness she could feel the heat from his body. He was so warm. So powerful and alive.
“Yeah?”
“I remembered something else about grizzlies. They have a bite force of twelve hundred pounds per inch.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“A wolf’s bite force is only four hundred pounds per inch. That’s not really an ‘only,’ but compared to a grizzly—”
“I’ll be very careful.” He cupped her face in both hands. “You will be, too.”
“I can make it not see me or smell me.” Smell being especially important, since grizzlies were thought by some experts to have the best nose of all the mammals. Arjenie wasn’t entirely persuaded by the methodology used, but there was no doubt a grizzly’s sense of smell was extremely acute. “You can’t. Plus you’ll be trying to protect everyone.” Because that was what he did. He couldn’t help himself.