Authors: Belinda Meyers
“I’m fine,” he said. “We bear
shifters heal quick. I won’t be able to bring my bear over for a bit, and some
food would help, but I’ll be fine.” He prodded the scattered pieces of the
golem with a toe. “I just hope there was only one of those.”
“There
are more,”
said the statue of the woman, and Matt and Jackie turned back to
it.
“Two more, at least. This one was
simply the closest. I think it was guarding the grounds. You must have walked
right past it outside. The other two will be on their way. You have to run.
Now! While there’s time
.”
Jackie ground her jaw. “No.”
“You sure, girl?” Matt said. “I
mean, Jackie? I don’t think I could take two more of those things on, and I
sure can’t do it till I’ve eaten something. A lot of something, hopefully.”
“We’ll find a way. Tannenbaum’s
being held prisoner here. We have to find him and rescue him.”
Matt regarded her tensely. “Just
what is it that you need him to do? It must be awfully important.”
“It is. And it’s the right thing to
do, anyway. We can’t let Walsh hurt him. He’s hurt too many people already.” To
the statue, she said, “Tannenbaum, is there any hint you can give us about
where you’re being held? Some clue that might lead us to you?”
The statue was silent for a long
moment, then:
“I hear water.”
“Yeah?”
“It’s
like … the sea. That’s all I can tell you. That’s all I know.”
Matt rubbed his square jaw. “You
know, darlin’, I have an entire crew of bear shifters that could help us out
here. We could all come back, storm this place and find your wizard. Nothing
could stand against that.”
“I don’t know about
nothing
,” Jackie said. “Still, you might
be right …” It did make sense to leave and come back with reinforcements, she
thought. “Fine. We’ll go.” To the statue, she said, “We’ll be right back,
Tannenbaum, don’t worry.”
“Be
swift,”
the statue said.
She nodded. Together she and Matt
started toward the door.
As if struck by a powerful wind, it
slammed closed, startling her with its noise. Matt leapt at the door and tried
to yank it open, but it stubbornly refused his efforts. Jackie didn’t mind the
way his muscles bunched and strained as he worked, though. Sweat gleamed on his
brow, his thick arms and meaty buttocks.
Exasperated, he turned back to her.
“Won’t budge,” he said.
She stifled a swear. “It must be
magically sealed.”
“You know any spells that might
lift whatever is holding it shut?”
She frowned, thinking about it. She
started to open her mouth to reply when something banged loudly from a side
room. Then something else banged from the opposite side room. The lobby had
four sides, each with a different avenue of ingress: the front door, the
stairs, and the two archways along the flanks, which seemed to lead into the
different wings of the mansion. Matt wrapped an arm around Jackie when she
flinched at the noise, and she liked the feel of his hot, strong embrace.
Reluctantly, she separated herself
from him and moved back toward the statue so that she could see what had made
the noises in the rooms leading off from the lobby. She was all too afraid that
she knew, though.
Sure enough, one golem had just
smashed through the door in the room to the right. The other had just smashed
through it to the left. If only the first golem had simply smashed the front door
to splinters like these creatures had!
“Shit,” Matt said, joining her.
“Run!”
said the statue.
“But—” Jackie started.
Matt grabbed her hand and tugged
her toward the stairs. “That statue’s right,” he said. “Run!”
Chapter 4
Holding Jackie’s hand as gently as he could, Matt brought
her to the stairs, then up them. He hated to run away from an enemy, but there
was nothing to be done about it. They had to get away from those damned golems
and find some way out of here, then make their way to the Pine Ridge Ski
Resort, where his crew would be. Round up a group of them, down some frozen
pizza, come back here and kick some golem ass. Hell, he couldn’t wait.
He glanced sideways at Jackie as
they reached the head of the stairs and sprinted down a hall. Pinpricks dotted
her cheeks, and gleams shone in her eyes. She was scared, but she was also kind
of loving this, he could tell. She was in her element. The way she’d hurled
that spell at the golem … Matt was blown away. This Jackie girl rocked! His
bear growled inside him, that same low, mournful growl as before, and Matt
shook his head in disbelief. Just who was this girl?
“This way,” Jackie said, and hooked
a right at the next corner.
“What’s this way?” Matt said,
turning with her.
“No clue,” she laughed, panting
just a little. “But now we’re out of their line of sight.”
Matt grinned back. She was powerful
and mysterious, but also smart. He liked that. Sure enough, over the sound of
his jackhammering heart he could hear a heavy
clomp-clomp
that could only be one or both of the golems ascending
the stairs. If those stairs hadn’t been marble he doubted they could have done
so without smashing through, but this place had regrettably solid construction.
Suddenly he realized something.
“Fuck!”
“What is it?” she said, then seemed
to realize it, too, and swore.
Though they were running at full
speed, the end of the hallway wasn’t coming any closer. It was as though they
were running on a treadmill, even though the walls were scrolling by to either
side. Matt felt like he was trapped in some Looney Tunes cartoon or something.
Bugs Bunny could pop up around the nearest door frame and he wouldn’t bat an
eye.
“What gives?” Matt panted.
“A glamour.”
They skidded to a stop, and both
doubled over, grabbing their knees and taking deep breaths. Matt was the first
one to unfold.
Clomp.
Clomp.
One of the golems was reaching the
top of the stairs.
“We’d better move,” Matt said. “Somehow.”
“Wait a sec,” Jackie said. “I think
I have something …”
She frowned as if thinking, then
reached inside her jacket and pulled out a small twig with purple leaves. She
put it to her lips, blew on it and said a word that Matt didn’t catch. The air
around them seemed to shimmer, even the walls, and Matt took an unsteady step,
rubbing at his eyes with the heels of his hands. He felt as if the floor had
lurched under him.
“The glamour is broken,” Jackie
said, and shoved the twig back inside her jacket, then started up the hallway
again.
Matt joined her, his equilibrium
returning. Sure enough, now the end point of the hallway was coming closer.
They weren’t on a treadmill anymore.
“You’re a hell of a girl,” he told
Jackie honestly. “Er, I mean a hot little wizard and no mistake.”
“Mage,”
she corrected, but he didn’t miss the pleased look on her face. “Hot, huh?”
“You heard me.”
So swiftly he barely caught it, she
glanced at him sideways, flicking her eyes up and down his tall, naked body.
The pinpricks in her cheeks deepened as she faced forward again, and he thought
he could smell, just faintly, her arousal.
They reached the end of the hall,
which terminated in a T intersection with halls going to either side, and
Jackie immediately crossed to the huge window facing the center hallway, what
she and Matt had been running toward. She flicked back the crimson drapes and
reached out to tug on the lower window pane—
Sparks leapt up from the glass.
“Damn!” she said, sucking on her
digits. “Guess that’s out. Somehow Walsh has totally sealed us in.” She gave
Matt a despairing look. “We're trapped.”
He ground his teeth together.
“Shitfire.”
Clomp
clomp
. The sounds were louder now, and different, not the sound of clay on
marble. The golem had reached the hallways on the upper floor. And Matt had
little doubt that
it
wouldn’t be
hindered by any sort of wizardly magic.
“How is Walsh even affecting this
place?” he said. “I thought this was Tannenbaum’s house.”
“Walsh is more powerful than
Tannenbaum, I guess. I’m just amazed he can do all this remotely. He’s
really
strong.” Her eyes were wide as
she said this, and Matt could see the depth of her respect for—and fear of—Walsh.
Whoever he was.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have stolen
from the guy,” Matt said, unable to help himself.
Jackie narrowed her eyes at him,
and her face went hard. “I had no choice, Matt. It’s … complicated.”
He could hear that she spoke the
truth. His brows drew together. There was something here he was missing, he
realized. Some secret Jackie was keeping. And until he had that missing piece,
he wouldn’t be able to judge her or what she’d done. He’d just have to trust
her. And trust his bear. It seemed to sense something about her … something elusive
…
“Fine,” he said. “Then come on.”
Just as a huge shadow stretched
across the carpet at the other end of the hall he and Jackie had just fled
down, Matt grabbed Jackie’s hand and dragged her down one of the cross-halls,
going in a random direction.
“Where are we going?” she said. She
freed her hand but still ran beside him.
“I don’t know. But I can’t fight
yet, and we can’t seem to escape. We need to find somewhere to lay low until my
bear can recover. That golem did a number on it. Do you have any magic that
can, you know, make us invisible or something?”
Out of the corner of his eye, he
could see her biting her lip cutely. “Maybe,” she said. “A little. If we can
find a dark enough spot, I can maybe fool the golems. Walsh is looking through
their eyes, but he won’t be able to use his All Sight through them. So there’s
a chance.”
Matt picked a doorway that looked
particularly fine and opened it. On the other side stretched a large, dark,
cluttered room. Perfect for hiding, he thought, annoyed by the notion. His bear
was a dominant apex predator. It wasn’t used to hiding. Neither was he. Still,
what choice was there?
He and Jackie entered the room and
closed the door softly behind them.
He edged forward, letting his
shifter senses adjust to the gloom. Soon he could see almost as well as he
could during daytime. He easily avoided the expensive couches and tables. This
was some sort of fancy playroom, he thought. In fact, it appeared to be a suite
of rooms; several rooms opened off from this larger main room, which was
dominated by an unlit fire place. Suits of armor and statues loomed here and
there, and pricey-looking oil portraits hung from the walls. Most were of
surreal-looking landscapes, and Matt was only a little surprised to see the
grass and clouds and trees depicted in them moving. This
was
a wizard’s manse, after all. It almost looked as if he could
step right into those paintings.
“Nice place, huh?” Jackie said,
coming up beside him.
“You can see?” Neither of them had
turned on the lights.
She tapped her temple, indicating
her eyes. “Wizard, remember?”
“I thought it was ‘mage’.”
She grinned up at him impishly.
“Potato, potahto.”
He stared down at her, suddenly
aware of how close she was, and how good she smelled. She was still turned on,
too. He could smell it. Maybe …
He bent his face toward hers, his
lips questing—
“Is
if
,” she said, and danced back, but she did it with a laugh. She
really was loving this. Maybe a little too much. Just the same, he was enjoying
himself, too. It might be life or death, but this wasn’t his first rodeo, and
he didn’t usually get the chance to hang out with a hottie on his
misadventures.
Clomp,
clomp.
“We need to hide,” Jackie said.
“Somewhere dark …”
Clomp
.
Closer now.
Matt dragged her under an ornate
desk along the wall. It was a big, polished antique, currently being used as a
surface to hold expensive-looking knickknacks on, and there was just enough
room for them to squeeze together under it. Still, it was a tight fit. He
wrapped an arm around her and brought her in close, making it a little easier.
And a little more fun. One of her breasts pushed up against his ribs, and he
didn’t miss the fact that her nipple was hard.
Clomp,
clomp
. Very close now.
Jackie said a magic word and Matt
thought the darkness deepened around them.
The door handle rattled, then
turned. The door swung in, throwing a shaft of light into the dim chamber. The
giant shape of a golem stood framed in the doorway. It was just a black
silhouette shaped like a man save for its eyes, which blazed with fire. It
seemed to sense something, as it stepped inside the den. It took another step,
then another, swinging its head this way and that. Jackie stiffened and gripped
Matt tight, and he held her even closer. He could feel her hot breaths against
his chest.
The golem knocked over a table with
a crash, and Jackie flinched. Matt almost let loose a growl, which would have
given the whole game away. The golem swung its thick head in the direction of
the desk, and Matt would almost swear he felt its searing, fiery gaze. But then
the golem’s head continued turning, evidently not seeing them, and he knew
Jackie’s spell had worked.
At last, evidently satisfied, the
golem turned about and left the room, and Matt breathed easier when its
clomp-clomps
sounded further away.
Jackie relaxed against him. When he turned to her, her face was very close to
his, her lips slightly parted and her eyes sparking like fire.
Feeling suddenly overcome, he bent
down and crushed his lips to hers.
She kissed back.