Arcane Kiss (Talents Book 1) Read online

  All the gear was used; Fred tended to go as cheap as possible when it came to anything not directly related to the cats. Yet video production was crucial to generating public interest and the donations that kept the sanctuary going.

  Kurt logged in and pulled up the file of the arena camera footage as Sawyer and Genevieve settled into a couple of rolling office chairs. Dave settled onto his haunches at Kurt’s elbow in a silent gesture of comfort.

  “You don’t have to sit here and watch this with us, Kurt,” Sawyer told him softly.

  Stoli growled in the depths of his mind, and he turned to snarl before he recognized the compassion in the detective’s gaze. Kurt swallowed his anger. “You don’t know the equipment.”

  “I can handle it,” Dave said. “You’re a little bit too raw to do this right now.”

  Kurt knew Dave was right, but leaving felt like cowardice. His father had been murdered. He should have the balls to try to help Sawyer catch the killers, especially since he had magical combat experience the cop didn’t. “I can manage.”

  “Of course you can.” Dave’s tone was surprisingly gentle, given his usual sarcasm. “Nobody is more aware of what you can do -- what you’re willing to do -- than I am. That isn’t the point. Your control is justifiably shaky right now, and you don’t need to push it.”

  It was true, and yet… One hand curled into a fist around the computer mouse. “If I leave this room, I’m going to drive myself crazy imagining what happened to him. I’d be better off staying put. If I have to, I’ll look away.”

  Dave shook his great head in a very human gesture. “Do you really think you can not watch?”

  “Besides, you’re assuming I’m going to let you stay,” Sawyer said coolly. “You do realize that under normal circumstances, you ‘d be a suspect?”

  In the depths of Kurt’s mind, Stoli snarled. He felt like snarling himself. Shit, maybe Dave was right. “I’m not a damn bear,” he managed anyway. “And when my dad was attacked, I was at Potions -- with Jake.”

  Sawyer sighed. “I am aware of that. I don’t really consider you a suspect. But I can guarantee you that if we catch this asshole, his lawyer is going to be looking for every possible excuse to throw doubt on our conclusions and our investigation. He’ll suggest you hired a hit man to give yourself an alibi, then he’ll use that doubt to try to get the real killer off. And since the first suspects in anybody’s death are always the immediate family, you’d make the perfect distraction.”

  “So I shot my own Familiar, is that it?”

  “Kurt.” Dave’s voice sounded very soft, very calm.

  His legs stung as something sharp dug into his skin. Kurt looked down to see he was gripping both thighs with claws glowing on the tips of his fingers. He hadn’t fully manifested his cat, but he was entirely too damned close to it.

  He dropped his head, closed his eyes and began combat breathing. The slow, even rhythm would force his heartbeat to slow and control his terror and rage.

  The detective started to say something, but Dave snapped, “Wait. Give him a minute.” Manifesting an arm, Dave grabbed the mouse and started cueing up the arena camera footage.

  To buy himself time to cool off, Kurt stood and stalked into the hall. “I’ll get you an external drive to burn that video to.”

  He ducked into the supply room a couple of doors away. Metal shelving lined the walls, covered with everything from packs of paper, notebooks, and pens to assorted electronics. Kurt crouched to examine the section that held the external drives. It would take a lot of storage space to record the hours of video from all hundred-plus cameras.

  “Are you going to be all right?” Genevieve asked from behind him.

  Surprisingly, Stoli didn’t want to snarl at her. “I’ll be fine.” Spotting a two terabyte drive, he picked it up and rose to his feet.

  Gen folded her arms and considered him, her red hair shifting around her shoulders as her head tilted. “You really don’t lie very well.”

  Kurt gave her a faint smile. “Dad never encouraged it.”

  “Yeah, I can see how intimidating it would be to lie to Fred Briggs.”

  A pang knifed through him. “He did set very high standards. And lived up to every last one of them.”

  Genevieve moved to join him, glistening eyes blinking rapidly. “I know how inadequate this is, but I am so sorry for what happened to him. If there’s anything I can do…”

  “You’re doing it.” Despite his own pain, he felt a twinge of worry. She looked far too pale. Probably still feeling the aftereffects of breaking that spell. “Would you like a soft drink? Maybe a candy bar or something?”

  She flashed a weary smile. “That’d help. And if you happen to have a couple of Excedrin lying around…”

  “I’m sure I can find something.” Carrying the drive, he led the way back down the hall.

  Genevieve followed him into the kitchen, where he got soft drinks out of the refrigerator and grabbed a couple of granola bars before filling a bowl with ice water. She carried the bowl while he juggled the rest.

  The first thing they heard when they stepped back inside the suite was a shattering roar. The arena cameras had audio, as did the web cams, though some of the security cameras didn’t.

  “I was right,” Dave told him grimly. “The Spook Suit hid the fucker, at least until he triggered his polar bear manifestation. No sign of the Arc so far.”

  The creature glowed, an enormous, muscular shape with a relatively small, bullet-like head and enormous paws. It stood on its massive hind legs, roaring, the sound loud enough to make the security cameras vibrate.

  Less than a minute later, Fred ran into the arena in full lion manifestation. He blazed so brightly it was impossible to see the man inside the magical shell, as if he was more Hollywood special effect than human.

  The bear charged him with a deep-throated roar. The two crashed together in an explosion of magical sparks and the grating boom of conflicting fields.

  The Ferals ripped at one another with claws and fangs, sometimes on their hind legs, sometimes a snarling knot of rage, leaping apart only to ram each other again. The two slashed and roared, exchanging blows with vicious, blinding speed.

  It was hard to see exactly what happened, because video cameras didn’t perceive the frequencies of magic as well as the human eye and mind did.

  Kurt dropped down into a chair in front of the screen, dumping his armload without another thought.

  “We brought you some water,” Genevieve told Dave.

  “Thank you,” the tiger said absently. “Put it down in the corner where it won’t get knocked over. I’ll get to it in a minute.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Sawyer breathed. He shook his head, sounding dazed. “I’ve never seen Ferals go at each other full out. I had no idea it was anything like this…” He leaned closer to the screen, frowning in puzzlement as if trying to make out the details. “But the manifestations are magic, right? I mean, they’re clawing at each other, but is that doing anything to the human bodies underneath the manifestations?”

  “That’s complicated,” Dave told him. “Animal manifestations -- or for that matter, when I manifest a human body part -- create kinetic fields…”

  “Kinetic fields.” He frowned. “Like telekinesis?”

  “Exactly. The manifestations shield the Feral’s physical body from direct contact, but it takes an enormous amount of concentration and energy to create one.”

  “It’s every bit as taxing as physical combat,” Kurt put in. “You can exhaust yourself pretty quickly. The longer you fight, the thinner the shields get.”

  “I’ve never understood why you have to have a spirit link with an animal to do this to begin with. I mean, why can’t Genevieve create manifestations? She’s pretty damned powerful.”

  Gen looked up from the energy bar she was unwrapping. “Not by Feral standards. I don’t have the kind of raw power these guys have, which is why I’ve got to layer my magic to achieve the effects I do.
As it is, it takes both the Feral and his Familiar to create a manifestation.”

  Sawyer blinked. “Oh. Yeah, that makes sense.”

  Dave took up the explanation. “Familiars like Stoli have access to greater native magic than normal animals do, just as Feral humans have greater talent than Norms. When you spirit link with your Familiar, you blend that magic, more than doubling it. Otherwise, we’d never be able to do it.”

  “There’s another thing I don’t understand.” Sawyer tilted his chin at the screen. “Fred created a lion manifestation, but you make human body parts. What’s the difference?”

  “When one member of a Feral bond dies, the spirit is drawn into the surviving body. My human body died, and my spirit was forced into my cat, Smilodon. Since I don’t have hands, I have to create a human manifestation. When Fred’s lion died, its spirit entered Fred. Fred drew on its energy to create lion manifestations that were considerably stronger than his human body.”

  “Could you create a tiger manifestation?”

  He hesitated a long moment. “Some melds have done it, when they were really desperate. Doesn’t last long, though. Running a human mind inside a tiger’s brain uses so much magic, there’s not much left for the shell. The most you can ordinarily manage is a human manifestation considerably smaller and weaker than your tiger.”

  “Huh. Well, I guess that does make sense.”

  Kurt jolted as his own recorded voice bellowed, “Dad!”

  One of the cameras pointed at the arena stands picked up a rush of motion as Stoli leaped onto the bleachers and charged toward the invisible Arc. A shot rang out, sounding oddly flat. The tiger slammed into the bleachers and tumbled back down several benches, making the stands shake.

  Fred’s leonine head turned. “Kurt!”

  In that moment of lethal distraction, the bear pounced, slamming Fred to the sand and ripping into his belly. He screamed as the manifestation winked out like a bulb going dark, leaving only a vulnerable human body behind.

  The bear dived on him. Fred howled in agony.

  Kurt stared at the screen in numb horror. He’d feared his fall had distracted his father at the wrong moment, but to know it without question…

  Oh, God, Dad…

  Chapter Six

  Genevieve stared at the screen in sick horror as Fred went down in a spray of blood and the crackle of dying magic. She’d known the man had been murdered, but actually watching him die was so much worse than she’d imagined. And the fact that his son being shot was what had distracted him …

  She barely knew Fred, and she felt like throwing up. How much worse must it be for Kurt? Gen looked over at him to find his handsome face set like stone, even as sickened guilt filled his eyes.

  “Fuck,” Dave growled. “Goddamnit, Kurt, I told you…” He was on his feet, his tail lashing in agitation, his round ears pinned back. His golden eyes were wide and round as he stared at the other Feral, his ruff bristling.

  Kurt’s eyes began to blaze golden. His hands gripped his knees, knuckles going white. Glowing claws protruded from his fingertips, digging into his thighs so hard, blood spotted his jeans.

  Her gaze flicked back up, colliding with Grant Sawyer’s on the other side. The detective’s hand rested on the butt of his gun, and a muscle in his jaw worked, eyes grim and narrow as he stared at the magical claws. He looked up into Kurt’s face, tensing.

  Ready to draw his weapon.

  No. Oh, hell no.

  She rolled out of the desk chair without even stopping to think about what she was doing and dropped into Kurt’s lap, trapping those clawed hands under her ass. Sending her magic flooding across his aura, she swooped in for a desperate kiss. He stiffened against her in shock as she sent her magic flooding over his aura.

  “Don’t,” she murmured against his mouth. “Hold it together.” And deepened the kiss, powering it with her own grief and fear and sympathy.

  If I’ve miscalculated, he’s going to rip me apart. She kissed him anyway, counting on surprise and magic to knock him out of his feedback loop long enough for him to regain control. It had worked in the arena. It could work now. Would work now. Because if it didn’t…”One good man died tonight. That’s one too many,” she whispered.

  “What the fuck?” Sawyer sounded utterly confused. “This is a hell of a time to make out.”

  “Shut the hell up!” Dave growled. “She’s trying to shock him out of it, and she’s doing a good job. Don’t distract them.”

  Though his hands were trapped, Kurt managed to lift her enough to cup her ass, the gesture part possession, part blind need, part pleading, like a drowning man grabbing for a lifeboat.

  Gen tasted tears in her mouth and knew they were his.

  At last Kurt drew in a ragged breath and sat back. “Thank you.”

  “Hell yeah, thank you. That wasn’t a fucking fight I was going to win,” Dave said.

  Sawyer eyed him. “Dude, you’re a tiger.”

  “Yeah, a flesh and blood tiger. I bleed if he rips into me. It’d take me a good five minutes to claw my way through his manifestation. He could easily kill me before I got to him.”

  Genevieve barely heard them, all her attention on Kurt, acutely aware of his body between her thighs, strong and hard and very male even in his pain. Grief vibrated through his magic, a deep and grinding ache.

  Then he visibly shook off the emotion and straightened his shoulders. “I’ve got to burn that video for Sawyer.” He lifted her off his lap as if she was a toddler.

  Picking up the external drive, he ripped into the theft-resistant plastic as if it were tissue paper. He plugged the drive into one of the tower’s USB ports and started dragging the files over. Something wet gleamed on his cheek, and he wiped it away with an impatient grunt.

  Genevieve sat there, staring blankly at the video screens that showed multiple views of the arena. She felt battered, and her eyes stung.

  Fred charged into the arena in his doomed bid to drive the Feral bear out of BFS. In an empty section of the arena, sand flew up in a fine spray.

  What the hell’s that? Gen leaned forward and stared at the screen. It looked as if something was moving over the arena sand, though there didn’t seem to be anything there. She hadn’t noticed that the first time through because her attention had been locked on the fighting Ferals. “Kurt, rewind Arena 1, would you? It looks like something’s…”

  He shot her a glance and touched the video screen, rewinding the recording a few seconds.

  And there it was again, a spray of sand flying up beside the fence as Fred entered. In the same area where she’d detected the death spell. “There he is,” she told Sawyer. “That’s got to be the Arc.”

  Without having to be told, Kurt backed it up even further. All four of them stared intently as Fred charged into the arena again. Sand flew.

  “Dad must have startled the Arc. See how he kicked up the sand when he jumped?” Kurt rewound the video as Gen watched, keeping her eyes on the spot where the Arc must have stood.

  “Are those footprints?” She pointed at a trail of disturbed sand just inside the arena fence.

  “Maybe.”

  Sawyer swore. “Jesus, the resolution on that camera sucks.”

  “That’s a security cam.” Kurt slowed the video to half-speed and backed it up even more. “We don’t use it for production purposes. Not like the main cam.”

  “Arena cameras need an upgrade,” Dave said.

  “Yeah.”

  It took them another twenty minutes of running the video back and forth to pinpoint the moment when the footprints first appeared.

  “Two hours,” Kurt growled. “It took the Arc two fucking hours to lay that spell before the bear lured Dad into the arena.”

  Genevieve sat back in her chair, frowning. “That’s really not good.”

  “Why?” Sawyer asked.

  “There were three layers to that spell. The Arc must have a lot of juice to work something that complex, that fast.” Genevieve c
hewed on her upper lip. “I’m not sure I could have done it. He’s got to be a hell of a lot more powerful than me.”

  “These guys are definitely professional hitters,” Kurt growled. “Probably military.”

  Dave grunted in agreement. “Where else would he have gotten a polar bear Familiar?”

  “But why the hell would the military want to kill your dad?” Sawyer demanded.

  “Didn’t say it was our military,” Kurt said.

  “Caliphate?” Dave suggested.

  “Given the bear…”

  “Somebody could have sold them a bear,” Dave retorted.

  “Or it could be the Russians or the Chinese.”

  “But why would any of those guys want to kill a man whose main reason for living is saving exotic cats?” Sawyer growled in frustration.

  “The key is that spell.” Genevieve leaned back in her chair to stretch out her legs and cross her ankles. “Once we know what it was supposed to do, we’ll know why they sacrificed him.”

  “And that will give us a better chance of figuring out who did it.” Sawyer frowned in thought.

  “Are you sure you want to get involved in this?” Kurt studied her. “If these assholes realize you’re the key to solving this thing, they’re going to kill you.”

  Gen sat forward and rubbed her hands over her face. “That ship has sailed. The minute I broke the spell, they were going to come gunning for me. Especially if they’d done this before anywhere else.”

  “I don’t buy that. If somebody had been committing magical murders, we’d know about it,” Sawyer argued. “It’d be all over the news. Hell, it’d be all over Facebook.”

  Dave chuffed. “And then it’d be all over the news.”

  Kurt reached out and covered Gen’s hand with his. It felt warm, strong. “I think you’d better stay here tonight. If you go home and they track you there, you’re not going to be able to fight off that bear by yourself.”

  She swallowed sickly, remembering blood flying from Fred’s ripped belly. “I can probably create wards around my house to keep them out.”

  “Tonight? After everything else you did today?”