Master of Valor (Merlin's Legacy 2) Read online

  Oh, right. One of his vampire instructors, Logan MacRoy, had warned the class that returning to Mortal Earth would suck the first time. “You’re creatures of magic now, and there is no magic back home. It’s like trying to breathe on top of Mount Everest -- the oxygen is just too damn thin.”

  The only way you could work magic on Earth was by drawing on the energies of the Mageverse.

  Get your head out of your ass, Carpenter. Protect Masara. His muscles tensed as he scanned the hallway, acutely conscious of the soft click of boot heels as she stepped through after him. Masara made another of those fluid gestures, and the gate popped like a soap bubble, revealing the muscular man that stood just beyond it.

  “Nice trick.”

  Chapter Two

  Duncan tensed, his hand tightening on his belt buckle. This time he managed not to drop the sword as it filled his palm. Fortunately, he spotted the man’s badge a heartbeat before he could swing the weapon.

  The cop wore the black uniform of a sheriff’s deputy on a lean, tough body a couple of inches shorter than Duncan’s. He was probably in his late 30s, with a long, angular face, a beak of a nose, and an unsmiling mouth. A neatly trimmed blond mustache framed his thin upper lip, and he wore his blond hair cut short. Duncan would have known he was a cop even without the uniform, just from the cool, measuring look in his gray eyes. Something about the way he held his body suggested he didn’t lose many fights.

  There was also a faint scent of fur and pine about him, a tang of magic that confirmed he wasn’t entirely human. He raised a blond brow at Duncan’s sword. “You planning on doing something with that?”

  “Sorry.” Touching his buckle again, Duncan banished the sword.

  “Sergeant Walker?” Masara stepped forward, one hand extended, and Walker took it in a quick, professional handshake. “I’m Masara Okeye. This is my partner, Duncan Carpenter.”

  Walker’s hand was strong, callused, and so warm it felt almost feverish as he gave Duncan’s a single firm shake. The cop was either too confident or too adult to try to break another man’s knuckles.

  “Never worked with Magekind.” The deputy studied Duncan, his gaze intense, measuring. “Never even met a vampire.”

  Duncan swallowed a smartass “Don’t worry -- I don’t bite.” Probably not the kind of joke you made to a werewolf.

  Masara gave the cop a reassuring smile. “We’ll try to make it painless.”

  Walker’s return smile lit up his face until it was almost handsome. Something about that look in his eyes sent a quick, hot snap of aggression through Duncan’s blood. Oh great. I’m jealous of Fido. Which was just humiliating, considering his mentor’s pointed professionalism.

  The cop jerked a thumb at the massive set of double doors a few feet away. A small vinyl sign on the wall read Morgue. “How are you with locks? I don’t have a key card.”

  Masara’s dark eyes crinkled. “That is what I’m here for.”

  As she stepped forward and laid a hand on the card reader beside the door, Duncan drawled, “Do you really want to tell a cop you’re skilled at B and E?”

  “She’s Magekind,” Walker told him dryly. “I’d be shocked if she wasn’t.”

  Duncan was wondering whether that was a slap when the double doors swung open with an electric hum. A wave of cold air rolled out, smelling of bleach, formaldehyde, and the faintest hint of decomposition. Yeah, this is going to be awesome, he thought, and followed them into the morgue.

  As Masara strolled through, the overhead lights flashed on, presumably at her magical command. Duncan frowned. “Do they have security cameras here?”

  She slanted him a smile over one shoulder. “Why, yes.”

  “And they won’t show anything you don’t want them to.”

  “I wouldn’t be much of a witch if they did.” To Walker she said, “Do you know where the body is?”

  “The cooler.” The deputy moved past her down the corridor and through another door wide enough for a gurney. A vinyl plaque on the wall read Autopsy 1.

  Duncan’s stomach lurched in unhappy anticipation as he followed them. I won’t see anything in here I haven’t seen already, he reminded it. And I’ve probably seen worse. Lights flashed on, revealing two long, stainless steel counters inset with sinks on either side of the room. Long metal tubes dangled over each of the sinks, with what appeared to be hand-held showerheads. There was no sign of the morgue drawers he’d seen on television cop shows.

  “She’ll be in here.” Walker headed for a big metal door at the back of the room and pulled it open. Masara and Duncan exchanged a glance and followed him into the giant walk-in cooler. A wave of icy air smelling of decomposition and dried blood blew into Duncan’s face, making him regret his vampiric sense of smell. He swallowed.

  The Dire Wolf flicked on the lights, revealing a cavernous metal room lined with stainless steel shelving units. Several of them were occupied by white plastic body bags. Wheeled metal tables stood parked alongside the shelves, each holding a bagged corpse. There was no padding on the tables whatsoever, but then, he supposed it wasn’t needed.

  “There she is.” Walker strode to one of the tables, took hold of one end, and wheeled it toward the door. He must have identified the victim by her scent. Masara stepped aside, giving him room, and Duncan pushed the door open for him. The table’s wheels squeaked as they rolled over the tiled floor.

  “Where you want her?” Walker asked.

  “There, I think.” Masara gestured to the center of the room. “I’ll need plenty of space to work.”

  Walker positioned the table where she’d indicated and started to reach for the bag’s zipper. The plastic vanished before he could even touch it.

  Duncan recoiled despite himself. He’d seen some nauseating stuff during his tours, including a suicide bomber attack on a girls’ school. This was worse.

  The killer had taken bites out of Crystal Martin as if she were a chicken leg.

  Dried blood soaked her pink running shorts and shredded T-shirt, and ragged wounds -- bites, claw marks -- marked her skin, white with blood loss where it wasn’t livid from pooling blood. Duncan swallowed -- and tasted a hint of Masara’s blood from lunch. That almost finished him off right there, but he clamped his teeth together and gulped his stomach back down -- only to forget his nausea as magic exploded around Walker like a bomb blast.

  An eyeblink later, the cop was gone, replaced by seven towering, muscular feet of golden fur.

  Duncan froze for a shocked, disbelieving moment. Damn, Masara wasn’t kidding. He’s fucking huge.

  The Dire Wolf’s head was distinctly canine, with a long, narrow muzzle and triangular ears tipped in tufts like a lynx’s. A bushy blond mane surrounded his head and extended down his chest, reminding Duncan of a lion. Like vampires, Direkind clothing evidently disappeared during the change, but fortunately, his groin was covered by a thick furry ruff. Thank God. Some things I just don’t need to see, and werewolf dong is high on the list.

  The claws on the monster’s knobby hands were three inches long, matching the ones on his big feet. Getting raked by those suckers would ruin your whole day. Masara’s hand wrapped around Duncan’s wrist even as he reached for his sword. His dick, being his dick, wanted to sit up and beg at the feel of those long fingers. Not the time, he told it.

  “It’s okay.” Her voice dropped to a mutter. “I think.”

  The werewolf looked at them and blinked gray eyes the same color as they were in his human form. “Oh, sorry.” His voice had become a basso rumble. “I just want to smell the body. Which I couldn’t exactly do at the crime scene.”

  Duncan recoiled. “What the hell for?”

  The werewolf shrugged broad, powerful shoulders. “There are only ten werewolves in Tygerton, and we all socialize. Unless he’s from out of town, I’ll recognize the asshole’s scent.”

  Masara nodded. “That would certainly simplify this job.”

  Feeling like an idiot, Duncan folded his arms, mostly to
keep his hands away from his buckle. As they watched, Walker bent over one of the more revolting bites and drew in a deep breath. His head rocked back, and he straightened as if in surprise, staring down at the body. Then he bent again and began to sniff one bite after another.

  Finally, he straightened again and stepped back. It was hard to read the expression on that inhuman face, but Duncan thought he looked unhappy. “That doesn’t make any sense at all.”

  Duncan eyed him. “Want to share with the rest of the class?”

  Walker gestured with a clawed hand. “This kind of rogue attack is normally committed by one person, almost always male. But there are two distinct scents here, and one of them’s female.”

  Masara moved closer to study the body. “Do you recognize the scents?”

  He bent and took another deep, drawing breath, then shook his big head. “I’m not sure. There’s something there I almost recognize, but it’s not quite right. It’s got a weird metallic tang to it, plus this nasty, oily pong under that. I’ve never smelled anything like it on any Dire Wolf.”

  “Are you saying they’re not werewolves?” Duncan bent and breathed in, forcing himself to control his revulsion. And frowned. “I see what you mean. Neither one of these bites smell anything like you.”

  Walker looked down at him from his greater height. “Glad to hear it.” His tone was so dry it was almost arid.

  Duncan moved to another bite wound and bent close, trying to parse the mélange of revolting odors. Vomit, old blood, and rot. Which he would have thought were the victim’s, if Crystal’s underlying scent hadn’t been completely different. “Do the attackers smell sick to you?”

  Walker hesitated so long he started to wonder if the man was going to answer. “Yes. And that doesn’t make any sense either. We don’t catch diseases. Our magic kills any bug that bites us.”

  Duncan nodded, unsurprised. He’d been told the same thing about vampires.

  “Another thing,” Walker continued. “While Dire Wolf males sometimes go rogue and start killing people, I’ve never heard of a Direkind couple committing this kind of crime.”

  “You don’t even see couple murderers among humans very often,” Duncan agreed.

  “You’d be surprised what humans do,” Masara muttered in a dark voice. “Was there a sexual assault?”

  Walker shook his head. “No, thank God.” He combed his blond mane with his claws, his expression thoughtful. “I’m going to have to talk to the Council of Clans about this. Something is badly wrong here.”

  “That’s putting it mildly.” Duncan, head lowered to inhale the body’s scent, realized the arm he was examining was attached the body by nothing more than a flap of skin. The killer had ripped it out of the socket. Suddenly it felt as if both his legs were attached to a car battery.

  Searing pain rolled from his toes all the way to the tops of his thighs. He had to bite back a scream. It’s not real, damn it. It’s another fucking flashback.

  “Given all that,” Masara asked, unaware of his reaction, “would you object to my trying a locator spell?”

  Walker shrugged. “I doubt it’ll work given our resistance to magic, but this case is so weird, who the hell knows? If you can figure out where they are, go for it.”

  “Then let’s see.” Masara spread her hands, her expression set with concentration. Duncan felt the familiar goose-bump-inducing sensation of magic, and the scent of ozone rose. Gold sparks gathered over the victim’s body in a cloud, dancing and leaping over her skin. Masara frowned, and her lush mouth tightened as her elegant fingers curled into fists.

  The sparks brightened until they blazed like an arc welder’s torch. Duncan jolted back a step, half expecting the body to catch fire. The scent of ozone became a reek. The sense of her magic intensified until it was almost a physical pressure on his skin. Masara’s face tightened with effort as a film of sweat broke out over her forehead.

  Maybe it was the force of her magic. Maybe it was her intense focus and concentration, or the way her long body curved as she strained. But abruptly he was deeply aware of her -- the sensuality in the set of her mouth, the sweat dewing her cleavage in the opening of her unzipped jacket. His body stirred, and an ache grew in the roots of his fangs. The sparks brightened, becoming blinding as seconds became minutes and arousal became outright lust.

  The sparks winked out. “Well, that answers that question.” Sighing, she wiped her sweating forehead with the back of her hand.

  Duncan started as the sensual spell broke. For God’s sake, get your head out of your pants, Carpenter. We’re on the clock.

  “I won’t be able to transform that fur either,” Masara continued. “I’ll have to wash the body to remove the physical traces, then conjure some fur more consistent with a bear attack.”

  He cleared his throat and tried to get his mind back on business. “What about the wounds? I don’t know a hell of a lot about zoology, but I doubt a werewolf bite looks the same as a bear’s.”

  “That I can fix. Her killers’ genetic material may be resistant to magic, but her body isn’t. I can change the physical imprint of the teeth and claws.”

  “They won’t match the photos the coroner’s investigator took at the scene,” Walker told her slowly. “But if all the test results come back saying it was a bear, the investigator will probably rule it an accidental death and close the case.”

  “Then let’s get this done.” Masara gestured the men to step back. A sweep of her hands created a huge basin around the table even as the woman’s bloody clothes disappeared. A heartbeat later, an honest-to-God rain cloud appeared about a foot over the corpse, releasing a torrent that spilled over the body and swirled into the catch basin.

  Duncan watched the water sluice over the victim as the last of his arousal vanished into sick pity. Crystal must have looked so vital and healthy when she’d gone running that afternoon in her pink shorts and tee, her long blonde hair tied back from her young face. Until her life had turned into a horror movie and everything ended.

  When he looked away, his gaze collided with Walker’s. “You haven’t been doing this long, have you?” A note of sympathy softened his gravelly rumble.

  Stung for no reason he could name, Duncan growled, “I served three combat tours in Afghanistan and Iraq.” I’m not a pussy, damn it.

  “Yeah, I was there during the Surge. But there’s a big difference between war and somebody doing something like this for the sheer hell of it.”

  “Not sure it matters to the victims.”

  “No, probably not.”

  Duncan looked down at the toes of his boots and tried not to remember any fucking thing.

  “How does this look?”

  He glanced up -- and blinked, startled. If he hadn’t known better, he would’ve sworn the body had never been touched. Crystal wore what appeared to be the same bloody shorts and top, with dried gore encrusting her body and hair. The basin had vanished, back to wherever such things went after Masara was done with them.

  It was hard to tell given Walker’s muzzle, but Duncan thought the werewolf looked impressed. “I can’t tell you did anything at all, and I watched you do it.”

  Masara glanced at him. “What did the Direkind do in situations like this before we started working with you?”

  The werewolf grimaced. “Obstructed justice like crazy. That’s why so many of us joined our local police departments and first responders. We lost evidence, we destroyed it, and we hunted down the responsible parties. Sometimes we got caught tampering and went to jail.” He gave Masara a Jaws kind of smile. “Which is why I’m so grateful for your help.”

  She smiled back, evidently unfazed by all those teeth. “Duncan and I have been assigned to work with you on this, so all you have to do is call.” She conjured a new body bag to replace the original.

  Walker wheeled the autopsy table back into the cooler, then reemerged a minute later. “I think we should…” The werewolf broke off, his eyes widening.

  Duncan h
eard it even through the closed door of Autopsy 1 -- the sound of the morgue’s hallway door swinging open and rubber wheels sighing over tile. “Masara!”

  She was already conjuring a dimensional gate. Walker dove through before it was even open all the way, the two Magekind at his heels. The minute their feet hit the other side, Masara banished the gate, cutting off the creak of Autopsy 1’s opening door.

  “Oh, good God, that was close,” the werewolf said, gray eyes huge.

  Duncan glowered at him. “I thought you said the pathology department was closed.”

  “It is, but that’s a hospital, and people die 24/7. Transporters bring the bodies up and put them in the cooler.”

  “You do realize it wasn’t that big a problem anyway?” Masara asked, looking amused. “Even if we’d been caught, I would have simply cast a spell on the transporter, and he wouldn’t remember we were ever there.”

  Walker eyed her. “Then why bother?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t like manipulating people’s minds if I don’t have to. It’s delicate work, and things can go wrong.”

  “Yeah, I can understand that.” This time Duncan saw the magic flare in the Dire Wolf’s eyes a heartbeat before he transformed. Just like that, the cop was a foot shorter and back in uniform, complete with badge and gun. “Where the hell does it all go?”

  “All what?”

  Duncan gestured. “The hundred extra pounds of werewolf. I weigh the same in both forms.”

  “No idea. It’s just mag…” He broke off, looking around at the house’s curving walls as his jaw dropped. “Where the hell are we?”

  “Masara’s house,” Duncan told him.

  “No, why is it all so… vivid?”

  The witch smiled slightly. “This is the Mageverse.”

  Walker turned in a slow circle, gaping. “It’s like being inside one of those 3D superhero movies -- everything feels ten feet tall and glowing.”

  Which was when Duncan remembered having the exact opposite reaction when they’d gated to the hospital. Everything had felt so flattened and dull.