Five minutes of shock had reaffirmed what she’d been taught as a schoolgirclass="underline" humans weren’t going to accept Shadow. They hadn’t in ages past, and they wouldn’t today either. It was a bloodstained fact of mage life. When the Council spoke of war, this was what they meant. Witch!
“We’ll be fine.” Mason concentrated on the crowd outside the glass doors. “We just need to leave. Are you ready?”
She took a breath, as if she were going to dive into deep waters, and nodded.
He pushed open the door, and Cari could hear a siren from far away, wailing over the chants.
No more Sha-dow!
Gary and his men got them across the courtyard, pushing people back like she’d seen on TV. It was all confusing and fast and loud, too many questioning, angry faces suddenly around her. The humans seemed to rush them, slowing forward progress. Not all of them were DolanCo employees. They must have been waiting for her to show.
To hell with you mages!
“This is Dolan property!” Cari’s composure was cracking. “You will all leave now!” But her voice didn’t carry past the Sha-dow chants. And those nearest didn’t listen. Wouldn’t hear.
Mason’s arm went around her shoulders, his hard chest close, heartbeat steady in her ear. His back was a safe traveling wall of strength. His scent wrapped around her senses, intimate in a moment of extreme publicity. She was ashamed of herself for needing him, but couldn’t help holding on—two mages in a suddenly angry world.
She’d be ready next time, she promised herself.
A man with a large professional video camera closed in, the round, giant black eye recording and transmitting her face to the whole world. Mage. Shadow-born. Living among us. Exposed. A couple of policemen were attempting to hold people back; one wrestled a red-faced man to the ground, cuffing him.
Another man—older, taller, straight-backed—rang a bell and hollered about Dolan being a blight on the face of the world. The prophet’s eyes had a fervent glow. “Soulless offspring of the dark!” All of which was true.
A rock hit her cheek. Hurt.
“Chin up, princess,” Mason growled in her ear.
She raised it like the Dolan she was, gritting her teeth to stop their chattering.
Mason reached, fast, and grabbed the video camera off the guy’s shoulder. The humans around them recoiled in fear that one of the mages was becoming violent. Cari’s heart rate tripled and she tried not to cringe. The panic within was almost unbearable; it darkened her sight.
Mason murmured something to the camera under his breath—You are a hammer—but it didn’t make any sense to her. The veins in his muscle-corded forearm suddenly ran gray-black with Shadow. The bulk of the camera hissed and smoked with magic.
Cari stopped breathing. Sweet Shadow forever.
He was going to do something. In public. Against mage law.
He brought up his arm, fist still clenching the camera, and drove the thing into the pavement. Shadow rose from the point of impact like a sea of dust. A crack like black lightning parted the way before them, like Moses and the Red Sea, waves of Shadow harrying the humans back so that they fell on each other.
He’d always been a show-off. Nine years later, and he was no different.
Cari opened her mouth to say something to him, but nothing came out.
He shrugged, and gave her half of a cowboy smile. “I’m good with my hands.”
The feeling in her chest cartwheeled. She was no longer afraid. Almost laughing. Borderline hysterical.
He didn’t even seem concerned.
His arm went around her, tighter this time, and they rushed down the walkway. Before they reached his car, he said, “Kitt?” and the engine rumbled to life. She remembered he’d said that the car ran on Shadow. He shut her in the passenger’s side, then darted around to the driver’s.
People, recovering, were moving for the car.
“This is horrible,” she said, as Mason climbed in.
“I’ve seen worse.” He accelerated forward, up onto the grass, sending the humans screaming back again. It was a clear shot from there across the field to the main road. They were out.
She had no idea what to say, so between pants, she opted for, “Why Kitt?”
Was it a magical word? Some kind of incantation? Shadow didn’t work that way.
“Fletcher’s name for the car.”
They took the curb with a thump that had her bouncing in the seat. She held on for her life and attempted a lame joke. “My car has a remote start, too.”
Mason grinned over at her. “Mine will come when called.”
Cari couldn’t help but laugh, and when she got started, found she couldn’t easily stop. Too much had happened. She’d kept a lid on herself long enough. Too long. And she didn’t care anymore. Tears ran down her face—but she couldn’t have named which of the many recent horrors in her life had caused them.
“You do this for a living?” she finally managed as Mason outstripped pursuit. She understood now why Kaye Brand had wanted him on the job. Cari was officially in full agreement. He’d been impressive before, in so many ways, and nothing had changed. Not really.
“A man’s got to put food on the table somehow.”
Mason expected Dolan House would be like its name, a dark place. But the house was high and bright, full of women talking over each other, and more people looking on from the back of the house. Or at least that’s how it seemed since he and Cari couldn’t even get in the door.
“Really, I was fine,” Cari assured them.
“It’s all over the news.” It would be.
“You’ve been crying.” More tears to come.
“The phone won’t stop ringing.” Every House thinking the same thing: danger now everywhere. Keep quiet. Keep secret. Watch and wait. Retreat. No, too late.
Mason’s phone had been buzzing in his pocket for the past twenty minutes. But he’d ignored it. He wanted to get his own mind straight on what had happened before discussing it with anyone else, especially Brand.
What would Cari’s life be like now? His, of course, was less impacted; he had no roots, no business to protect, no dependents anymore.
When they finally got to the entrance foyer—the third House into which he’d ever been invited—Cari made the introductions. He’d have preferred she didn’t. He just wanted a back room with a bed until they got a call that someone else had fallen to the mage plague. Hopefully only one victim, with no danger of contagion. No families. If there was any mercy in this world, no children.
“Mason, this is my stepmother Scarlet.” Cari had left off the Stray.
The woman had silver hair wrapped up on her head and a long, thin nose to look down; she did not extend her hand, so he figured she didn’t need the “Stray” to know what he was. He got a pinched mouth and a sharp look from her black eyeballs.
“And my stepsisters Zella and Stacia.”
He didn’t remember them. They were younger than Cari, so hadn’t run with the same group of friends. Both women had a feral kind of appreciation on their pretty faces. The younger had red and black jagged hair—her keen assessment kind of scared him—and the other had gone long and platinum with her hairdo. She was smiling at him way too much. He hoped they weren’t bold enough to try anything. House women, even too-young ones, were dangerous. A stray ought to know.
“Nice to meet you all.” He tried to keep clear of the crush. “If someone could just point the way to where I’ll be staying, I’ll give you your privacy.”