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He heard Isabelle sobbing and felt her weight against him as she collapsed, and then was silent.
Jean-Marc de Devereaux, Guardian of the House of the Shadows, was back.
Not all of me, he thought, flooding with awareness as his eyelids flickered. Deep in the center of his soul, a huge chunk was missing, seized by Le Devourer. He felt it as keenly as if someone had cut out his heart. But the space was not empty. Darkness—evil—had flooded in to take its place. He had been changed, tainted, and he knew what Isabelle had tried to do, for him.
“Ah, non,” he moaned in a ragged voice, as he gathered up the unconscious woman. She had fainted, her head hanging back over his arm, revealing her long, white neck. She looked exactly like her sister, Lilliane, except that her face was mottled and bruised, and her lips were swollen and bloody. Her riots of black curls were tipped in blood—his blood—black beneath the bone-white bayou moon.
“Why?” he whispered hoarsely against her temple as he cradled her. For he knew that she had magically halted his soul’s total destruction over a thousand miles away, in Haiti. But at a terrible price.
His hands balled into fists and for a sweeping moment, he could hardly contain his anger. It was so overwhelming that he barely stopped himself from throwing Isabelle on the ground and choking her with his bare hands. She was not the one he hated with every fiber of his damaged soul, but the darkness was on him. He could barely control it.
Isabelle’s eyelashes fluttered like hummingbirds against the gray circles above her cheekbones. She exhaled and turned her head. Her limpid brown eyes flecked with gold stared into his, and it calmed his fury just enough. He grabbed her hand and held it against his heart.
“How could you do that?” he growled, and, once more, his anger nearly got the best of him. He fought not to grab her shoulders and shake her until her teeth broke. “What were you thinking?”
Her lips moved soundlessly. Her eyes flashed opened and she blinked hard, staring at him in the gauzy moonlight. He tried to read her thoughts and couldn’t.
With a shaking hand, she reached for something on the ground—it was a white satin robe embroidered with the entwined symbols of their Houses: three flames for hers and a dove for his. As she pulled the robe around her shoulders, she gingerly slid off his body. His penis slipped from inside her moist core of heat and droplets of his own seed dribbled onto his thigh.
Then she looked from his face to the black bayou around them, to the carnage and the blood. Not far from her, a man dressed in a black catsuit and body armor lay facedown in the mud, the back of his head covered by the fallen limb of a cypress tree. He was Malchance, the enemy. His submachine gun lay inches away from his limp hand. Another Malchance lay sprawled on his back, the deep gouge in his abdomen serving as evidence of a werewolf attack.
More Malchance casualties lay splayed around them, coated with mud and gore. A few floated facedown in the murky swamp water, not yet eaten by the gators. He wondered why they didn’t sink beneath the weight of their armor, and his warrior’s mind took note: maybe the Malchances had developed some kind of super-lightweight armor. He’d have to look into that later.
Hidden by cypress trees strangled with vines and moss, werewolves howled with grief and fury over their severe losses. Jean-Marc spoke their language, and he knew they were preparing for the second wave of the attack.
Cringing, Isabelle stared down at her own nakedness and back up to his face. Fear rolled off her in waves, and he reflexively wove a calming spell. The scents of oranges and roses billowed in the space between them. He created a sphere of light as well, and it floated above his palm as he approached her.
“It’s all right,” he whispered, although that was a terrible lie. He had never lied to her before, ever. “Bon, écoutes, listen, we have to get out of here as fast as we can. They’re coming after you. We need to move now.”
She swallowed hard and took a ragged, deep breath.
“What are you talking about? Who are you?” she asked him.
“Comment?” he asked incredulously.
She looked even more frightened. Her hands shook as she clutched the robe around herself, glancing downward toward her thighs, then pushing to her feet and stumbling backward in the mud, away from him.
“Did you just…you raped me…who the hell are you?”
Then she screamed as she nearly fell on top of Pat Kittrell, her NYPD detective lover. Pat had tracked her down in a misguided attempt to help; for his trouble he had been severely beaten, and he lay near death.
“Calme-toi. I’ll explain. You’ve had a terrible shock,” Jean-Marc said as she stepped around Pat, backing away. He was surprised at her seeming indifference to his grievous condition; she loved Pat.
Almost as much as she loved him.
He walked toward her, aware that his nudity was upsetting her. The darkness in his soul reveled in lust and his body began to respond. Pulling himself back down, he snapped his fingers and dark blue Devereaux body armor appeared over a catsuit. She gaped at him as if she’d never seen magic in her life. He started to pick up Kittrell’s Uzi, then realized how that would look to her, so he left it in the mud, and sent more calming energy in her direction, although he felt anything but calm himself.
“You’ve had a shock, Isabelle,” he repeated. “You need to collect yourself. We need to plan.”
“Jean-Marc!”
It was his dusky-hued cousin, Alain, who broke from the tangles of trees and ferns. Alain’s white teeth seemed to float in the ebony shadows. “You did it, Isabelle! Ma belle! You are magnificent!” Overjoyed, he flung his arms around Isabelle and kissed her cheek, his dreadlocks flying. She went rigid, her eyes enormous, her mouth an O of utter shock.
“Get away from me!” She angled a karate-style knife-hand strike at Alain’s windpipe. Alain’s magical aura of deep indigo flared, protecting him as he darted out of her range. She pursued, lunging at him, slipping and sliding in the mud, glancing around as if she were searching for a weapon.
“Touch me again and I’ll kill you.” It was an empty threat, but Alain was clearly no less stunned. He looked from her to Jean-Marc and back again with palms held up in front of him.
“You’re confused. It must be the toll of the spell,” he said slowly. “It’s me, Alain, remember me? You’ve done a wonderful thing. You brought him back. Merci, merci bien, Gardienne.”
Waves of tranquilizing magic flowed from Alain’s palms in Isabelle’s direction, and the scent of oranges and roses intensified. Jean-Marc watched her fight it. First she remained stiff, giving her head a shake, then she swayed, enchanted, as her lids grew heavy and her lips parted. Allowing himself to be affected by Alain’s spell—he needed soothing; he was a mess—Jean-Marc’s aura became visible as well—deep, vibrant blue…until streaks in the color shifted and darkened—a blacker shadow, a pall of pure evil.
Alain stared at him in horror, lowering his hands, forgetting what he was doing. “My cousin…” he whispered.
“You see it.” Jean-Marc held out his hands. The blackness played over his aura, smearing the vibrant Devereaux blue.
“Ah, non. What went wrong?” Alain asked in an agonized voice. “We moved fast to recapture your soul.”
Idiot! the darkness inside him growled at Alain. Have you no imagination, no idea what your bungling has done to me?
“Lilliane moved faster, to sacrifice it to her patron,” Jean-Marc replied, ignoring the damning voice inside his head. “He’s called Le Devourer, and he is an eater of souls. He tore out part of it, and the void filled with his essence. Demonic evil.”
“That cannot be,” Alain protested, his voice hollow with disbelief. “Such things…they don’t happen.”
“It has happened,” Jean-Marc replied, as the horrible presence throbbed and pulsed inside his being. He had been mutilated, violated…by Isabelle’s own sister.
“Isabelle is half Malchance,” Alain said slowly. Perhaps he heard the echo of her name in Jean-Marc’s thoughts. “Could it be possible she gave you part of her soul?”
“The Malchances walk with darkness, it is true,” Jean-Marc answered. “But this is beyond even them.”
Jean-Marc studied Isabelle, whose head bobbed toward her chest, starting at the crown of her head, to her cheeks slashed with blood like war paint, to the cleavage of her breasts and her delicate hands. He moved his hands in a spell of his own, willing her aura to reveal itself. But there was nothing. He tried again. He couldn’t believe it. She had no aura. There was no such thing as a Gifted person who didn’t have an aura.
“Alors,” Alain choked out, his hand covering his mouth. He looked as if he might be sick.
Fresh rage surged through Jean-Marc at his cousin’s stupidity and weakness. He raked his hands through the matted curls of his shoulder-length black hair, pulling it away from his left cheek, where it was plastered with blood. He took deep breaths, forcing himself to remain composed.
“Sex magic is the strongest magic we have,” he said at last. “She took me when I was mindless and soulless. It’s done something to her, too.” He bared his teeth at Alain. “How could you tell her to do that?”
“I…” Alain swallowed hard and licked his lips, his body language alone betraying the fact that he knew he was at fault. But Jean-Marc could read his emotions, too, and he stank of guilt. “I didn’t know…”
“Don’t lie to me!” Jean-Marc thundered. And a voice inside him whispered insidiously, Kill him.
He ignored it, balling his fists, weaving a spell around the ravages of his soul to keep the voice at bay. Oui, he wanted to kill Alain. He wanted to maim him, torture him, make him beg for death—
“Alain,” he said evenly, “don’t lie to me.”
Alain lowered his head in shame and nodded.
“You are not only my cousin, Jean-Marc, you are the leader of my family. How could I stand by and watch you suffer? You are my blood. I would have done anything to bring you back.”
“Including risking her,” Jean-Marc said.
“Oui,” Alain confessed, raising his head. “Including that.”
“Bâtard!” Jean-Marc bellowed. Hatred coursed through him like a live wire. He lost what little control he had achieved; he knew he was going to kill Alain here, now. And he was going to enjoy it.
His aura flared around his body like a nuclear detonation, and he hurled a fireball at Alain, who instantly held up his palms and created a protective barrier of shimmering blue. The fireball exploded against it, then disintegrated into sparks that winked out before they touched the ground.
“Jean-Marc, listen to me,” Alain said, moving with his hands and body, strengthening the curtain of indigo that hung in the air between him and his cousin. “We’ll get rid of the evil in your soul. We’ll make you well and whole. But for now, you must fight it.”
“I am trying,” Jean-Marc said through clenched teeth. Sweat beaded his brow. “Oh, gods, I can hardly bear this.”
“Bear it,” Alain begged him. “Écoutes, I’ve been on recon. It’s as the werewolves say. We’ve defeated the Malchances that were here in the bayou, but the Malchance troops inside the Flames’ headquarters are escaping. They’re on their way here, and the House of the Flames are pursuing them. The Flames may be loyal to Isabelle, but then again, since she is half Malchance, they may not be. And if not, there’s no telling what they’ll do to Isabelle if they capture her.”
And to us, Alain could have added, but he and Jean-Marc were soldiers. It went without saying that they stood in harm’s way.
Jean-Marc nodded. “Alors, Isabelle,” he began, then looked around. She was gone. “Putain de merde, where is she? Isabelle!”
Both men broke into a run. The noise in the bayou ratcheted up, as if sensing that something more had happened, something worse. Nutria screamed from the cypress trees; a gator rushed a floating body and dragged it underwater. Crashing through the undergrowth, werewolves howled.
We have dead, and we will kill our enemies! Stay out of the bayou unless you’re one of us!
Jean-Marc howled back, telling them to find Isabelle. Find her, subdue her and get her out of there by any means necessary.
Dizzy and nauseated, she fled as wolf howls chased after her. He had hypnotized her but she’d broken out of it; there was no telling what he’d planned to do to her next. He and that guy with the dreadlocks—Alain—it was like a horror movie, with men in armor slaughtered all around her, and that man raping her….
Tree branches whipped her face. She fell into the mud on her hands and knees, twisting her ankle, and the pain shot up into her hip socket. Grunting, she got back up, losing the robe she’d covered herself with. Now she was completely naked, lost in a swamp that shook and screamed like a living creature. She didn’t know who she was, or where she was, but she knew she had been violated, and she was still in terrible danger.
They called me Isabelle, she thought, but that’s wrong. That’s not my name. My name is…
She couldn’t remember. Why couldn’t she remember her own name? Trauma. From the rape. And whatever else had happened to her. Those two men…what had they been talking about? What had they done to her?
Run for your life. Get out of here, she told herself. You’re all alone, and you don’t know who you are. You’re all alone, and—
No.
She wasn’t alone. Someone had come here to save her.
Suddenly the face of the man she had almost fallen on top of blossomed in her mind. The man with the white-blond hair, so terribly wounded she hadn’t been certain he was alive. He had come here from somewhere else to help her. He wasn’t part of this. He was like her.
And when he smiled the world was brighter, and he made love to her as if she were a goddess.
And he calls me Izzy. That’s my name. Izzy. I’m in love with him. I have to go back for him.
She had to get him away from those rapists and murderers. And the others who were coming. For there were others, searching for her at this very moment. She knew that, too. And they wanted to destroy her.
“Isabelle!” It was the man who had raped her, the one called Jean-Marc. His voice sent a frozen flash fire down her spine, and she whimpered, panicking. He was coming after her.
“This is just a dream,” she whispered aloud. “Just a terrible dream. I’m going to wake up.”
But it was no dream. She was hurt, and cold. She felt the sharp prick of a twig beneath her insole as she staggered forward, searching the wild landscape for an escape route. The trees were dripping with cold water. It had rained. Why couldn’t she remember the rain?
“Isabelle!” Jean-Marc’s voice chased her. Wolf howls rattled her bones. They were raging, shrieking…and they were coming closer.
“Oh God, oh God,” she blurted, grabbing up wild riots of hair away from her face. Her teeth were chattering.
Get it together, she ordered herself. There are dead soldiers everywhere. Get a gun. Blow their heads off and save the blond man.
Izzy thrashed through a wall of vines and tree limbs, arms flailing, legs kicking, until she broke through. Then she skidded to a halt at the horrifying spectacle before her: spread-eagled on a large fallen tree trunk, his arms and legs dangling, a gagged man lay whining like a wounded dog with his eyes wide-open—eyes that were a milky-white, with no color in them, no sight. The tatters of a shredded windbreaker with NOPD—New Orleans Police Department—stitched over the breast fluttered in the night breeze. There was a thick gash across his chest and dried blood on the tree trunk.
She turned and retched. On the ground in front of the tree trunk, another man, this one unnaturally handsome, with short, tawny hair, lay limp in black leather battle armor with a patch on his biceps of a black Chalice decorated with black and red skulls. His eyes were closed. There were some singed books scattered beside him, and some knives, bells, pieces of crystal and what smelled like very foul incense.
And a gun.
It was a wicked black revolver. The grip was ivory, etched with the image of a short-haired young girl in medieval armor, her helmet under her arm. Izzy felt a tug in her mind. The eyes of the girl caught her gaze, held her, and her chest tightened with inexplicable emotion—despair, and loss. Tears welled, but she shook them away. She had to stay focused if she wanted to live…and to save the blond man.
This is my gun, she knew suddenly. It’s called a Medusa.
“Isabelle!” Jean-Marc called, closer still. The other man—Alain—joined him. She heard them crashing through the forest, hunting her. Jean-Marc thundered at Alain in French, and she realized that she could understand him. He was threatening to kill him, kill Alain, and send his soul to hell.
He’s insane, she thought, crouching down behind the tree trunk. She cracked open the gun, and saw that the cylinder was empty.
Ammo. I need ammo.
Laying the gun in her lap, she rooted around, lifting up the books, then gingerly raising the right arm of the dead man. Yes. It was almost as if he had been trying to hide the olive-green box of 9 mm cartridges, but it was hers now. She didn’t know how she knew the caliber of the ammo, or that it would work in the Medusa. Right now, she didn’t care. Moving rapidly, as if she had done it all her life, she loaded six cartridges into the empty chambers with surprisingly steady hands. Then she slipped the cylinder back into the frame with a click and rose to a high crouch, staring into the darkness for the first sign of the madman.
A hand clamped on her shoulder. Without even thinking about it, she windmilled around, breaking contact and fired. The report echoed like a whip crack through the swamp.
Her attacker was a dark-skinned woman with platinum hair; she threw back her head and howled like a wolf as the force of the bullet flung her backward, then slammed her against what appeared to be an enormous conga drum painted with black and red symbols. She landed in a pile of ashes, eyes wide-open, mouth working as blood streamed down her chest. Then she began to whimper and pant like a wounded animal as her eyes rolled back in her head.
“Oh God,” Izzy whispered, nearly dropping the gun.
For a moment she stood transfixed, unable to process what she had just done. Clutching the revolver, she ran to the woman’s side and stared down at her. The woman’s breathing was fluttery and labored. Her face was shiny with perspiration and her dark skin was turning a deep shade of gray. As Izzy looked down on her in the moonlight, she began to jerk as if she were having a seizure.
Whether friend or foe, she needed help. But Izzy debated, worried that her victim might still be able to hypnotize her the way Jean-Marc had done, or hurl a ball of fire.
Cloaked by the forest, howling and shouting made her ears throb and she bolted, grappling with another tangled web of slick vines and twisting tree branches.
The wounded woman’s whimpering grew louder, like a plea for help, panic at being abandoned. Izzy’s heart caught and sank to her feet. She couldn’t let this woman die. No matter the cost to her, the danger…
They’re coming. They’ll take care of her.
But they weren’t here yet, and the woman might not have that much time. She was bleeding badly.
“Damn it,” Izzy whispered, turning around.
She looked at her. The woman was gurgling and gasping. Blood pooled beneath her in the ashes, and her eyelids flickered. Her lips pressed together; dark bubbles foamed at the corners of her mouth.
I can’t stay. I have to get back to the man, Izzy thought. I have to save him from those evil men.
