Part 18 (1/2)
”Better stand back a moment,” Garth warned Shogun. ”Sometimes the combination sputters a bit. .. the demon gook is such a nasty element to work with. We don't want you splattered by the silver in the mirrored globe. We will call you over when it is your time to speak.”
Busily working on the s.h.i.+mmering miasma, the Gnome opened the vial and shook a few globs into the sigil on the floor. Immediately green tendrils snaked out from the small glob, bullwhipping the area inside the circle and releasing a putrid sulfur stench. Searching for something to grasp on to, it quickly encircled the miasma, turning the s.h.i.+mmering metallic surface a cloudy green and causing it to wildly spark before absorbing into it.
”d.a.m.n, that's wicked,” Crow Shadow murmured.
Garth cut him a scowl. ”Once we begin communication and Shogun begins to speak, you will have to control yourselves. No matter what she says, you must allow her to think that he's in the room only with a witch from her coven or she will sense an ambush. Understood?”
”Understood,” Hunter said, giving Crow Shadow a look.
Crow Shadow held his hands up in front of his chest. ”No problem.”
”Are you ready?” Garth asked, looking at Shogun.
Shogun nodded.
”And you've rehea.r.s.ed what you'll say?” Sir Rodney landed a hand on his shoulder.
”I'm ready.”
Shogun stepped forward and the Gnomes began a low, unintelligible chant while pointing and moving their wands as though conducting an invisible orchestra. Slowly but surely, Lady Jung Suk's face filled the center of the s.h.i.+mmering globe. She'd been sleeping peacefully and then suddenly her eyes snapped open, glowing green. Her cat-eye pupils elongated and a large leopard face quickly filled her once lovely mouth.
”You have not learned your lesson, little squirrels. One blinding was not enough?” She hissed and stood, sweeping off her exquisitely embroidered chaise lounge and heading down a long corridor.
Sasha studied the house as Lady Jung Suk's silk robes billowed out behind her. Just pa.s.s something recognizable, Sasha's mind begged. Anything, so that if the night plan didn't work, she could hunt that arrogant b.i.t.c.h down and kill her.
They all watched silently as Lady Jung Suk flung a heavy oak door open and entered what had to be her conjuring room. She angrily yanked a knife off a small, black lacquered table and hurried to a place on the floor where a black cat was feeding from a dead fish. She shooed the feline away with a hiss, causing it to scamper into hiding with a protesting growl. The fish was in the center of a blood-created pentagram, its eyes already caved out.
Flinging the fish to the cat, she reached out her hand, and a frightened squirrel immediately filled it. Poised in the center of the pentagram, she held the struggling animal in one hand and the point of the knife in the other, lifting them above her head as her lips moved in a silent, deadly chant.
Garth motioned to Shogun. He nodded and began the game.
”You'll only blind yourself this time,” Shogun said. ”I am behind a mirrora”warm blood won't help you, nor will squirrel eyes!”
His aunt flung the clawing animal away. It immediately escaped her and the cat out an open window.
”So . . . you have learned. You have a stronger witch helping you this time. How interesting. But that still will not help youa”you've ruined your chances to rule the United Council of Ent.i.ties.”
”But you will never rule any Were Federation or council.” Shogun shouted. ”You are a slave ... a weak slave to the Vampires and the Unseelie queen who gave you your new body. Even that doesn't belong to you.” He laughed. ”You picked a weak little girl. You should have at least picked a true warrior. Your vanity, Aunt, has always been your downfall.”
”I'll show you how weak this young woman's body is one night, trust me, nephew!”
”Then why not tonight, when we can both be our true selves. One on one, you call your leopard and I will call my wolf. . . and we will see if you made the wise choice.”
”I would be honored to be your master,” she said in a low, cat growl.
”Teach me, old, old one . . . show me what you could not show my father or his people.” Shogun laughed again. ”No matter how many bodies you steal, you are an old hag. Why would I even waste my time fighting you?”
”Afraid, nephewa”a coward like your father?”
Silver Hawk put his hand on Hunter's shoulder when he tensed.
”I've never been afraid of you, Aunt. The worst that I've ever done to you was pity you. But now I see why you were banished. It had less to do with the family scandal than with what you chose to be.”
”And what I chose to be,” she shrieked, now turning in circles clutching the small dagger, ”was victorious! I chose to be more than seconda”unlike you, who sit whimpering in your den over a shadow b.i.t.c.h you cannot have! Second to your brother in all things, and you have the nerve to challenge me?”
Shogun lunged at the miasma, but Bear Shadow and Crow Shadow silently caught him before the silver could touch him. He angrily shrugged out of their hold and pointed at the s.h.i.+mmering globe.
”Tonight we finish this, Aunt! In the bayoua”where it all begana”on the grounds of the UCE courthouse in the swamp under the full moon!”
Lady Jung Suk pressed her hands together with the dagger between them and bowed with an evil smile. ”Tonight, nephew. Zai jian”
CHAPTER 21.
Leaving Shogun exposed in the moonlight left her unsettled. Even with Sir Rodney and his expert archers downwind in a treetop position, and she and Hunter and the other clan members just inside the shadows, there was still so much that could go so wrong.
”Aunt! Are you afraid of battle?” Shogun shouted. ”Have you changed your twisted mind?”
A hurdling silver crossbow arrow whizzed past Shogun's arm, tearing the fabric of his s.h.i.+rt as he did a quick sideways move and allowed it to pa.s.s his chest.
”Of course you couldn't come to fight me alone,” he shouted while Vampire human helpers quickly ran to take up a new position as the wind s.h.i.+fted.
”I saw no reason to harm this beautiful new body,” Lady Jung Suk cooed as she stepped into a pool of moonlight beside Duval Hempstead. ”You have been a very bad dog, and I have some friends who would like to train you.”
A Vampire army exited from behind trees, their sneering laughter creating a Doppler of echoes in the night.
Duval held out his arm with a toothy smile, and Lady Jung Suk did a slow pirouette. ”You like? She's beautiful, isn't she?”
”Yes ... she is,” Shogun said angrily. ”And she should be returned to her mother and father.”
”Forgive my nephew. He is so sentimental.” She glared at Shogun with hatred br.i.m.m.i.n.g in her cat-green eyes. ”Put him out of his misery. Kill him.”
As soon as Duval left her side, Fae archers dropped the silver net on Lady Jung Suk. Hunter came out of a fold of shadow and began dragging it out of the heat of the battle toward where Silver Hawk had appeared. Sasha leaped out of a shadow, covering Shogun with a machinegun burst of hallowed-earth hollowpoints, exploding Vampires in the air, while Sir Rodney kept the crackling white Fae electrical charge focused on the net.
Shedding their human forms, Shogun, Bear Shadow, and Crow Shadow fought off vicious Vampire attackers. They had to keep them from the screeching, twisting ent.i.ty in the mesh. Shadow-jumping from tree to tree, Sasha held back her wolf. Now more effective in human form, she exited a shadow, released a short burst of gunfire, and then disappeared before an attacker could lay a hand on her.
Archers kept up the pressure from above, forcing the Vampires to remain earthbound. Each time they went into a funnel-cloud spiral to get above the fight, archers sent silver arrows into the whirling tornado, causing it to sputter to a stop with Vampire ashes and red embers.
But the battle was far from over as the Vampires began to retreat. Amy Chen's face had distorted into that angry, fanged transition of Lady Jung Suk.
Muscles bulging, Hunter strained to hold the mesh with Silver Hawk while the Were Leopard pulled itself out of the young woman's face, hissing and roaring.
”Drop the mail!” Sir Rodney shouted. ”Let her out!”
Immediately Hunter and Silver Hawk complied, but rather than run for safety, Lady Jung Suk went right for Hunter's chest.
Hunter fell backward as Silver Hawk hit the ground and then scrambled to gather the ends of the mesh to quickly begin dragging the girl away. Shogun turned just in time to see Duval send a thick branch in his direction, and he ducked, heading toward Hunter, who was locked in a ground roll with a two-hundred-pound Were Leopard on his chest.