Blade Song

chapter Six

There was a time when the town had been called Winter Haven. Full of snowbirds and pretty little houses and condos.

Now it was a hell-hole for some of the wolves and cats and witches who didn’t want to fall in line with the local packs, and who wouldn’t pay the tithe to join the witch houses. The witch houses weren’t a bad thing, per se. They offered protection and the strength of numbers, but you had to live by their rules. Some of us didn’t do rules very well.

Those people often ended up in places like this.

I wouldn’t call it the slums, exactly, because plenty of people here had money.

They just usually came about it in less than ideal ways.

The little sign that used to read Winter Haven now read Wolf Haven, thanks to some ingenious soul and his clever hand with a can of spray paint. It looked like they’d tried to cover it over with Cat and witch several times. But the wolves were the first ones who had come here, more than fifty years ago when the human world had first found out about us.

This place had been called Wolf Haven for a very long time.

It wasn’t going to get changed to Cat Haven just because somebody tried to spray it on a sign.

I parked the car but didn’t climb out. This was the very last place I wanted to be. I had good memories of this place…and bad. I’d still been broken when I finally stopped running. This was where I’d stopped. Sometimes, I wished I’d never left.

I could understand why some people thought Doyle might have come to Wolf Haven. A place where almost anybody could lose themselves. Lose themselves…hide. I’d hidden here for a few years myself.

Had hidden here very well, but I’d done it by being inconspicuous, something I couldn’t do with the demonic Damon next to me. Tapping my nails on the steering wheel, I stared at the square, squalid building in front of me. TJ still worked there. I liked TJ. She was…well, TJ was TJ. And if anybody had seen Doyle in the area, TJ would know.

It might cost me some money, but that was fine.

“I don’t suppose I can convince you to let me go inside there by myself, can I?” I asked.

He shot me a disbelieving look.

“I didn’t think so.”

I reached over the back seat and closed my hand around my blade. She warmed under my palm. In the back of my head, I could feel her pleasure and it made me smile. “I’m taking my sword. I don’t care how many damned shifters we run into, I don’t care how many problems you think it will solve for me to be unarmed. I’m not walking through Wolf Haven unarmed.”

He stared at me.

I stared back at him.

Minutes ticked away until I finally broke visual contact and climbed out of the car.

Since he wasn’t snarling at me or demanding to pat me down for weapons, I had to assume he saw the sense in letting me keep the sword.

He was really going to be happy with me in a minute.

TJ didn’t let anybody in her place with a weapon.

I locked the car and hoped it would be in the same condition when I got back. I wasn’t terribly attached to the damn thing, but it was the only car I had and I didn’t have the money to get it fixed if they did a lot of damage. My insurance also wouldn’t pay for anything that was done to it if I was in Wolf Haven—I hadn’t picked up the vandalism rider for it because I just didn’t have the damn money.

As we crossed the street, somebody ducked out from TJ’s and a grin split my face.

Hey, maybe luck was smiling on me.

“I’ll be a son-of-a-bitch.”

“You always were,” I said cheerfully to the mountain standing there.

His name was Goliath, and like his namesake, he was big. I’m talking big-as-a-mountain big. He had hands the size of dinner plates, a massive, deep chest and when he spoke, his voice rumbled out of him like it was coming from deep within the earth. When he shifted to the half-beast some of them used, he was so damned big, the ground shuddered under his feet when he walked.

Goliath had come to Wolf Haven after the alpha of his pack had tried to kill him. He’d failed—Goliath had beaten the shit out of him. With his own hands. Before he’d spiked. You’d think people would respect that kind of strength, but instead, they’d turned on him and chased him out, threatening to kill him and his kid sister.

Goliath and his sister had settled here under TJ’s protective wing. Sort of.

A lot of people came and went around here. Even his sister had eventually drifted off. But not Goliath. He’d never leave TJ.

“What the f*ck you doing here, Colbana?” Goliath grumbled, his watery blue eyes peering down at me as I crossed the road.

“Slumming. Wanna run away with me?”

The sidewalk was a crumbled ruin under my feet and I sidestepped a pitted hole as I came to a stop a few feet away from Goliath. At my back, I was all too aware of Damon’s presence, hot, edgy and breathing down my neck.

In contrast, Goliath’s wolf hovered around him all nice and snug. Curled up like he was taking a nap or something. Big as he was, Goliath was one of the most peaceful, restful people I’d ever met in my life.

“If I did that, TJ would have both our hides.” But he smiled at me and reached out, patting my head with one of those plate-sized hands.

I felt Damon tense behind me.

“Knock it off, he’s a friend,” I said, glancing over my shoulder.

Goliath snorted. “Colbana, kid, you need to watch the company you keep. That’s one of the Alpha cat’s little toy soldiers. Why you running with him?”

“‘Cuz he’s pretty?”

Goliath stroked a hand down his goatee and made a strangled sound deep in his throat. Most people wouldn’t recognize it as a laugh. “Hell. Nobody is that pretty. Find somebody else if you just want a pretty shadow.”

“I can’t.” I grimaced. “I’m doing a job. Speaking of which…I need to talk to TJ.”

“Figured. Weapons.”

I grinned a little as I heard Damon’s snort. Then, as I slid my sword out of her sheath, he swore. “What the f*ck—?”

I smiled at him. “I need information and I don’t get it if I go in armed.”

Goliath tapped his chest. “I’m all the weapon Kit needs.” Then he gave Damon a dismissive look. “You are on your own.”

I finished stripping away my weapons and turned them over to Goliath who stored them in a chest for just such a reason. He lingered over the sword, stroking a hand down it. “Try to behave this time, Kit.”

I blinked at him, giving him my most innocent smile.

He wasn’t fooled. Sighing, he locked it up and gestured us through. I was prepared for the magic.

Damon wasn’t. I tried to act like I didn’t take a little bit of pleasure from his startled grunt, but I didn’t pretend for long. Inherent honesty is a flaw of mine. “Keep moving,” I said over my shoulder. “Easier that way.”

The pins and needles sensation would only get worse if we lingered, although it was enough to drive anybody but the determined right back outside.

Once TJ trusted you, she could have it keyed so that the ward didn’t hit so hard, but I’d been gone a long time. Spells didn’t have long memories.

As I finally crossed through, the familiar smell of beer, fried food and magic flooded my head.

TJ was looking right at me and she had a cross-bow aimed at my chest. Pretty much exactly like the first time she’d met me. “Well, well, well. Look what the cats dragged in.”

“Hiya, TJ.”

She sneered at me and laid the crossbow down over the stumps of her legs.

Damon hissed in a breath.

TJ’s eyes, glowing in the dim light, shot to him. “What, you ain’t ever seen a werewolf before?”

Oh, I was pretty sure he had.

But a werewolf who was missing her legs from below the knees…that was a different story.

The local cat Alpha was a nasty piece of work.

Goliath’s Alpha had been a jackass.

But TJ’s Alpha had been a sadist of the highest order.

She had been one of his…toys, she’d told me. And she’d tried to run. So he’d made it to where she could never run again, severing her legs just below the knee. A shapeshifter can heal from almost anything. But she hadn’t been given the chance because a healer had been forced to heal her, cauterizing the flesh and leaving her damaged legs as they were.

Sometimes I wondered where the bastard was.

I’d liked to find him.

I’d like to kill him.

But I knew he was out of my league…if he was still alive. TJ had a way of catching up with her enemies. A fact I’d learned here in Wolf Haven.

As her eyes continued glow and swirl in the dim light, I glanced at Damon over my shoulder and then back at her. “Hey, TJ, it’s okay.”

She harrumphed. “You got lousy taste in men, bitch.”

“Not like that.” I hunched my shoulders.

“Then get rid of him. If you can’t f*ck him, he ain’t no use.” She grabbed the wheels of her chair and made her way over to the table. “Josie—I need a beer. Get one for my friend.”

She gave Damon a dark look. “You ain’t my friend.”

Damon lifted his hands.

Josie—at least I assumed that was her—was a girl I hadn’t met, working back behind the bar. I’d worked there for a long while. Before I was old enough to be legal, truth be told, but TJ had taken care of me. She’d been the first person to do so. As I sat down, I positioned myself so I could see both doors and the bar. TJ didn’t bother watching either one. Nobody would get through that door without Goliath approving them.

“Been a while since you came this way,” TJ said softly, her eyes resting on my face. “Still running?”

“No.”

Josie came over and plunked two beers down in front of us before stomping back over the bar. There were a couple of men hunched over their drinks there but they weren’t looking at us. People in TJ’s joint made a study of not noticing anybody.

Unless, of course, they were TJ. TJ made of a study of noticing everybody.

“So if you’re not running, what you up to?” TJ asked, taking a drink from the mug in front of her.

“Working.” I shrugged. I glanced around, remembering the day when I realized I had to do something other than pull drinks behind the bar. TJ had pushed that on me. She knew a witch, she told me. They needed grunt work. Wasn’t much, but they needed somebody decent, trustworthy…that was how I had met Colleen.

“Hear you’ve worked your way up…doing shit for the Assembly.” Her eyes narrowed. “That can be dangerous. You okay with that?”

“Sometimes.” I shot a dark look at Damon. “Lately? Not so much.”

“I could help with that.” She smiled at me.

Damon’s eyes flashed.

Sighing, I said, “Not necessary, TJ.” Reaching into my vest, I pulled out the picture. The only reason why it wasn’t necessary. It was nice, though, realizing she’d be willing to help me out. Of course, if she knew who he was…

Even before I had the picture out, though, she grimaced. “Just keep the option open, Kit. Don’t know why you’d wanna work for that crazy bitch in Orlando.” She looked at Damon. “Only reason why he would be with you.”

“Damon, your rep precedes you.”

He skimmed a hand back over his head. “Can we hurry this along?”

Flashing a grin at TJ, I said, “He’s cranky.” Then, as I laid the picture flat, my smile faded. “We’re looking for a kid. He’s young. Close to spiking. He ran.”

TJ reached out and caught the bottom edge of the picture, drawing it close as she hunched over it. “Lots of bad shit happening with kids lately, Colbana. You heard any of it?”

“Seen all sorts of runaway reports, but that’s it.” Impatience gnawed at me, but I didn’t rush her. I knew better. Instead, I studied the mug in front of me. I hadn’t taken so much as a sip yet and I was kind of nervous. This was a shifter bar. And although shifters couldn’t get drunk the way humans could, if they worked it right, they could get a little bit of a buzz. TJ made her own beer. Think 200 proof. Maybe 400 proof.

Curling my hand around the mug, I lifted it up. One sip had my eyes popping open. “Wow.”

TJ snickered. “Couple drinks of my brew and I’ll have you dancing naked, Kit.”

“Then I’ll stop at two.” I took one more and eased it away. A comfortable buzz settled in my head and I studied the mug consideringly. If I didn’t have to work…

A big, bronzed hand closed around it.

Scowling, I watched as Damon pulled it out of my reach.

“She already said you ain’t her friend,” I muttered.

“I ain’t,” he retorted. “But I am your bodyguard.”

Then, with a smile, he downed half of it.

“Jerk.” I looked at TJ and asked, “Why do I always end up surrounded by jerks?”

She shrugged. “Beats me. There was that one kid from the Banner unit. He was nice.”

“Oh.” A smile curved my lips. “Yeah. Justin. I liked Justin.”

TJ snickered. “A girl would have to be dead not to like Justin.”

Sighing, I muttered, “I ain’t dead.”

Justin had moved on to more profitable, more pleasurable pastures. The kind where he could kill many, many things without getting in trouble for it, and get paid lots and lots of money.

“Josie. My friend needs water. I forget what a lightweight she is.”

Balefully, I glared at TJ. “You’re the one who ordered the damn beer for me,” I pointed out.

“You’re the one who drank it.”

We grinned at each other for a minute. Then my water appeared and she went back to studying the picture. “He’s a nice looking kid,” she murmured as I guzzled my water. “If he’d been around, I would have heard.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“I haven’t heard.”

“Shit.” I finished off the water and then pinched my nose. “What were you talking about, trouble with the kids?”

She shrugged. “Just odd shit. I can’t pin it. But they disappear. Not the drift-on sort of shit. When they drift on, I hear where they go. This…it’s like they just…aren’t there.”

“Okay.” I reached for the picture and put it back in my pocket. As I stood up, I pulled a bill from my pocket.

TJ glared at me. “I ain’t needing that.”

“I didn’t say you did.” I left it on the table as I circled around the table. I’d like to hug her, but I knew she’d hurt me if I did. Instead, I rested a hand on her shoulder.

She covered my hand with hers. “Don’t stay gone so long next time, Kit.”

“I won’t.”

As I headed to the door, she said my name. I paused.

The two men at the bar pushed around me and I glared at them as they crashed into me.

TJ curled her lip in their direction and muttered something and then ignored them, focusing on me. “Maybe next time you can plan to crash for the night,” she said. “I’ll get you wasted and you can really can dance on the bar.”

“Oh, no.” I shook my head. “I did that one time.”

“And it was a fun time…”

Snorting, I headed on out the door. The pins and needles of her containment spell tore into my flesh, no less severe in its intensity on the exit. It was designed to drive people away. Odd, really. She ran a f*cking bar. She should be drawing people in.

But she never lacked for business.

And nobody f*cked with her.

Ever.

The spell spat us out in a rush and I stumbled out, groaning as the final slash of it dug into my skin.

A big hand caught me. “Easy, girl.”

I glanced up at Goliath. “How do you ever get used to that?”

“Hey…it’s keyed into me. Besides, a person can get used to most anything.” He grinned at me. “You know that better than anybody, don’t you?”

I might have answered that, but I heard a grunt from behind and Goliath’s massive hand jerked me out of the way just before Damon could crash into me. “Sheeet,” he muttered. “That cat ain’t got no grace to him.”

I snickered.

Damon just glared at us. But the look on his face was a little…off.

Nice. Magic unsettled him.

A quick look at my car told me it was still in one piece. “You going to be on the clock a while still?”

Goliath shrugged. “Done in thirty. But if you’re going to be around, I can hang.”

I smiled at him.

A dull flush rose on his cheeks. “Just don’t be such a stranger.”

“I won’t.” With a sigh, I turned around and studied the streets. They hadn’t changed, yet oddly enough, nothing was the same. People came and went like eddies in the sand around here. I hadn’t ever made an impact and that had been the entire point. I didn’t want to make an impact, didn’t want anybody to remember me, to think about me. Just another one of TJ’s strays.

“If you’re looking for news on a kid, try looking for Keeli,” Goliath rumbled.

I slanted a look up at him.

He shrugged. “Keeli…” He paused, glancing at the building at his back and then at me. “She doesn’t like TJ. TJ doesn’t like her. But the little witch hears things.”

“And where can I find Keeli?”

He curled his lip. “Getting high.” He waved his hand, gesturing down the street. “She likes Torque cut with coke—you can find her hiding in whatever hole-in-the-wall she can find. But you better be careful. She’s just as likely to talk to you as she is to stab you.”

“Wow. I can’t imagine why TJ doesn’t like her. She sounds charming.”

Goliath chuckled. He glanced at my car and then at me. “I’ll watch your ride. Can’t watch you if you’re off crawling the streets, but maybe that toy soldier has some use.”

I scowled and glanced behind me, realizing I’d mostly forgotten about Damon. At least for a few minutes.

He stood there, glowering, with his arms crossed over his chest.

Goliath opened the chest and I reached for my weapons. “I guess we’ll find out.”

I wasn’t really looking forward to it, though. I’d managed to make it here because I’d made a study of not being seen. Not by using that cloak of invisibility, but just by not drawing attention to myself. I was pretty damn certain this guy wouldn’t know how to blend if he had to.


Two hours.

No luck.

And it was getting dark.

As we cut back up the street, I had to admit that Keeli, whoever she was, just didn’t want to be found.

Okay.

Maybe we’d try to come back—

“Hey.”

I heard the low, wasted rasp of a voice and looked down the alley.

Damon caught my arm.

I stopped and glanced at him. I wasn’t an idiot.

Popping my wrist, I turned to the sound of the voice and waited.

A shadow moved. “Hear you’re looking for Keeli.”

“You’ve got good ears.” Or you’ve just been in the area for the past few hours, I thought sourly.

The shadow crept closer. Light reflected off a man’s face before he eased back into the shadow.

“I can tell you where to find her…but it will cost you.”

Wow. What a surprise, that.

Fishing a bill out of my pocket, I knelt down on the ground and found a rock. I wrapped the bill around it and tossed it into the alley. “There.”

Silence stretched out. “That’ll do, kid. But…trust me. You don’t want me shouting this news. You’re looking for news on the Alpha’s boy, right?”

Damon tensed at my back.

“What do you know?” I asked, staring into the alley.

I could see him.

Dirty face. Young. Grimy.

He smiled at me.

“I know all sorts of things, girl,” he murmured.

My skin crawled, but if he knew something…

I slid Damon another look. His eyes were glowing. His hand gripped my arm. But when I stepped forward, he was right there by me.

They went for him first.


Through the roar of blood in my ears, I heard Damon swearing. That was kind of funny. There were four of them and he was cussing them out?

But then one of them howled… A death scream. One that made the skin on my nape crawl as I slashed through the air with my blade.

She was made like a rapier, but heavier. I could hack away for hours if I had to, and the fool in front of me was bleeding from more cuts than even I could count; he was either too weak or too underfed to heal them well. He made another lunge at me and I drove the blade through his heart, twisting it and jerking upward. Skin smoked as it met the silver and I watched as the life in his eyes faded.

Jerking my blade free, I turned, braced for another attack.

All I saw was Damon. Walking toward me with blood dripping off him, falling in fat drops from his fingers.

“Show off,” I muttered.

A flash of white appeared in his face. I almost thought he was smiling.

But that faint smile was gone in another second as shadows came rushing at us from all around.

I found myself shoved to the ground.

There was a rumbling sound—something I couldn’t identify.

And another sound—one I could.

The ground was shaking, I thought. As I pushed up onto my elbows, I saw a giant shape rushing into the alley.

Goliath.

Hell was about to break loose.

Then a cat roared and I heard somebody scream. Maybe it already had.

As the fighting raged over my head, I rolled to the side and flexed my wrist. My blade was gone. I managed to get my back to the wall of the busted, broken building behind me, using it for support and shadow as I surveyed the mess in front of me.

Five, six, seven—yeah. Seven scraggly wolves fighting Goliath and Damon. The wolves had shifted. Damon and Goliath hadn’t. Two wolves were trying to take Goliath down and he casually caught one, ripped its head off. My gut went a little queasy at the sight.

The second one didn’t fare much better.

Damon wasn’t quite so casual.

Quick, brutal.

But for every one they took down, several more came crawling out of the shadows.

What the hell—?

Panting for breath, I flexed my wrist and called my blade.

Off to the side, I heard a snarl.

The wolf came for me just as I turned to face it.

I never even got my blade up.


I came to at the bright flare of light.

It wasn’t the light that woke me.

It was the pain.

Ripping through my side and eating its way through my veins. I choked back the scream as TJ leaned over me. “Damn, girl. You did it again, didn’t you?”

I glared at her. Or tried to. The tears in my eyes were pretty much blinding me.

“Get the f*ck back.”

Well. One thing was clear. I wasn’t dying, because if I was, no way would I be hearing that voice. Even if I was going straight to hell, I’d be deluding myself with angel song to the very end. So if I was hearing the demonic Damon that must mean the wolf bite on my side wasn’t fatal.

His face appeared in my line of sight and I closed my eyes.

“Stupid little fool!” His voice cut through the pained shrieking in my head. But the hands on my side were gentle. “Shit…shit, shit, this is bad—”

“Chill out, cat. She ain’t going to change her skin. She can’t—”

TJ, there. I knew that voice, too. Focus. Stay focused on the voices. Focus. Concentrate…the chills hit me in the next moment. Oh, great. First the chills—

“Come on, Kit. Breathe…”

Goliath.

I tried to open my eyes and focus on his face. “You were supposed to be the weapon,” I panted out.

I thought I saw a pained look on his face. But it was hard to say as I groaned. The spasms starting ripping me through me.

This was going to be fun…


Three hours later, I finally stopped puking up my guts.

That was when I knew I was done.

It was another two before TJ decided to let me leave.

Damon was furious.

As Goliath eased me into the passenger seat, Damon was already behind the steering wheel, staring straight ahead with a flinty look in his eyes.

“Sorry things didn’t work out with Keeli,” Goliath said quietly, crouching down by the door and staring at me.

I grimaced. “It’s okay. If you can just…well. Ask around.”

He nodded, but there was a troubled look on his face. “She…I don’t know, but I don’t think she’s here. She would have shown up. Keeli likes trouble, and this…this was trouble. Don’t think it was about you, though. Those wolves, they been gunning for the cats and TJ and me a long time. They saw the Alpha’s boy there, figured they’d take a shot, I bet. One of them had been in the bar earlier. Left before you all did. Guess they decided to have some fun with him. Then I show up…” He shrugged and sighed. “You just got caught in the crossfire.”

“All that for nothing, then.”

“Sorry, Kit.”

I shook my head. “‘S’okay.” In the end, it was. Not like a wolf bite was going to do me in. A bad one might make me dog sick while my body dealt with the poison, but that was it.

“We’re going,” Damon snapped, revving the engine.

Goliath stood, one massive hand lingering on the top edge of the door. “I’ll be in contact if I hear any more, Kit. But I don’t think your kid has been around here. Don’t think he will be, either. Nobody comes here unless they have no place else to go. He had other options.”

Did he, though?

I kept the question behind my teeth.

Once we were speeding down the road, Damon said, his voice thick with sarcasm, “That was just a brilliant plan. You got any other ideas? Fun ways to get yourself killed?”

“Oh, please.” Closing my eyes, I sank back into the seat. “I didn’t even come close to getting myself killed.”

“If there’d been a few more wolves, I wouldn’t have gotten to you,” he growled.

I laughed. “Honey…you weren’t the equalizing force there. Goliath was. And TJ. They were the reasons I felt safe loitering in the area,” I said, sighing. The pain in my side had settled to a low ache. TJ kept a witch in house. She wasn’t trained by the formal houses, but she was skilled.

There would be scars. Scars didn’t bother me, though. I could live with them. I had more than my fair share already. And since it was the were virus fighting its way out of my system, any injury I had would heal even faster.

It tore through me at an accelerated rate and I hated every second, but it was done fast. Throw in a decent healing and I’d be good as new in a few days.

Just in time to be battered, bit or otherwise abused in another day or two.