Arcane Kiss (Talents Book 1) Read online

  Dave’s head jerked up as his ears flattened and his ruff rose. He knew the roar of every cat at BFS, and that hadn’t been any of them.

  Another deep, vibrating challenge rolled over the park.

  “Fuck, that sounded like a bear.” He padded over to the tiger-sized cat door and stuck his head out. He had to be mistaken…

  But when Dave reached out with his magical senses, he found a sense of evil hanging over the sanctuary like a malevolent stench. He recoiled. “What the fuck?”

  Another roar. That one was all too familiar. “Shit, that’s Fred!”

  If some Feral had slipped into the park who didn’t belong there, Kurt’s dad wouldn’t take it well. He was too much a lion to tolerate invasions of his territory.

  The two voices roared again, vicious with aggression and fury.

  “Yeah, that’s a fight.” Dave turned toward Stoli, who’d followed him to the door. The Familiar’s gold eyes blazed, tail lashing with agitation. “Fred needs backup before the situation goes south.” He lifted a big paw, though he kept his claws sheathed. “Sorry, Stoli, but we’ve got to have Kurt for this one. And there’s only one way to get his attention.”

  * * *

  The psychic cuff caught Kurt across the head so hard he nearly fell out of the booth. Get here, Kurt! The spirit link carried an image of Dave snarling in Stoli’s face. I think your dad’s in trouble.

  “What the hell?” Kurt reached into his link with Stoli until he could see through his Familiar’s eyes.

  Kurt, get over here! Dave hit him again in another lightning swipe. His claws were retracted, thank God, or he’d have laid Stoli’s nose open.

  The tiger backed away and roared at Dave, confused, not sure whether he was trying to fight or play.

  Kurt, however, wasn’t confused in the least. Dave wouldn’t have jumped Stoli unless the situation was seriously fucked. He flung himself through the link, sending his spirit rushing into Stoli’s body just as the cat had entered his own moments before. His consciousness merged with the tiger’s, man and cat becoming one creature, twice as strong and fast as either alone. “Don’t hit me again,” Kurt growled, retreating out of range of another swipe. “What the hell’s happening?”

  “Finally! I was about to go without you. Come on.” Dave leaped through the tiger door and bound down the ramp to the ground.

  Kurt/Stoli raced after his friend. Before he could again demand what was going on, Fred roared. Not a human shout, but a rolling, ear-shattering leonine roar felt in the bones as much as the ears.

  A chill ran down Kurt’s back, raising Stoli’s hackles. He’d heard his father roar frequently over the years, but never with the fury and desperation of a lion fighting for his life.

  Kurt leaped past Dave, paws thudding as he flung himself toward the locked door of the enclosure.

  * * *

  Fuck. Now what? Jake stared at Kurt, who’d slumped sideways in the booth mid-word. His friend’s golden eyes stared at the wall, his face twisted in an involuntary grimace of fear and fury. “What the hell?” He surged out of the booth and moved around the table to check Kurt’s pulse. It was fast, but steady.

  Usually you pulled your cat into your body to draw on its power. It was rare to enter the cat’s. Not unless, like Dave, you’d died and had nowhere else to go. Yet Kurt obviously had entered Stoli. One minute he’d been giving Jake hell, the next his head thumped against the wall as if something had knocked him cold.

  It had to have something to do with BFS. Something bad.

  Jake let his eyes slide out of focus as he reached for Clarence along their spirit link. He slid into the cat’s head -- and heard Fred roar, Stoli and Dave echoing him in a deep, vibrating chorus of fury.

  Oh, fuck. He jerked out of the link, snatched his phone off his belt clip, and called the Sheriff Department sergeant for Baker shift.

  In a few crisp sentences, Jake told Sergeant Roger Johnson about what he’d heard, keeping one worried eye on Kurt. His friend’s body twitched, eyes scanning back and forth, lips moving soundlessly. “Something ugly’s going on, Sarge. Somebody needs to check it out. Now.”

  Johnson cursed. “I’ll send Green to take a look.”

  Green? Jake had to bite back an insubordinate curse. Jake got along with most of his fellow deputies, but Green was a Humanist. Just what they didn’t need if things were going south. Unfortunately, he couldn’t afford to accuse his fellow deputy of being a bigot. “We may need more manpower than that, sir. It sounds like the situation is serious.”

  “Shit, Nolan, Briggs’s a Feral. His daddy’s a Feral. I think they can handle anybody dumb enough to try to give them a hard time.”

  Jake gritted his teeth. Johnson hadn’t heard his friend’s roar. “I’m going to back the deputy up just in case. I’m only five minutes away.” Maybe I can keep the asshole from doing anything stupid.

  “Probably overkill, but fine. I’ll let him know.” He could practically hear the sergeant’s shrug. Johnson hung up.

  “Idiot,” Jake growled. He dropped a twenty on the table and hooked an arm around Kurt’s shoulders. Manifesting Clarence’s strength, he hoisted his friend into a fireman’s carry and headed for the door.

  The Briggs might be tigers, but sometimes even big cats needed backup with opposable thumbs. He just hoped Green wouldn’t shoot the cats instead of the bad guys. If there are bad guys. Too late to second-guess myself now.

  * * *

  Kurt and Dave sprinted to the enclosure’s gate. The guillotine-style door was secured with a padlock. The fifteen-foot high fence itself had a five-foot overhang that was angled inward 45-degrees, designed to stymie even a tiger’s efforts to escape. There’d be no climbing it.

  And they had to get the hell out. Now.

  Dad’s roars filled the compound, echoed by Jake’s lion, Clarence. A savage alien bellow cut across theirs, deep and growling like a chainsaw.

  Dave’s ears flattened against his round feline skull. “How the hell did a bear get into the sanctuary?”

  “It’s got to be a Feral.” Fear clawed at Kurt. “Can you get the door? I don’t think I can concentrate.”

  “Yeah.” Dave sat back on his haunches. Glowing, ghostly, a human arm extended from his shoulder and passed through the metal grate to thrust a thin tendril of magic into the padlock that mimicked the key. He inserted it, and the lock popped open a heartbeat later. He pushed the gate open just as Fred roared again, the sound edging a human cry of pain.

  “Shit!” Kurt surged through the door and leaped into a run, Dave so close behind him, his tail brushed his friend’s muzzle. They raced up the path that wound between the enclosures, following the sounds of battle.

  Reaching the intersection between the enclosures, they paused, trying to work out which direction the sounds were coming from. It wasn’t easy: the sanctuary’s cats were in a frenzy, the bigger cats roaring, the smaller ones screaming and hissing. Kurt reached out with his psychic senses, trying to narrow it down.

  And gasped.

  Magic. Waves of it, a sudden throbbing pressure in his head.

  “What the fuck?” Dave’s striped tail whipped back and forth.

  Kurt knew what he meant. It wasn’t just the expected Feral magic, with its familiar psychic sense of fur and forest. That was present, but there was also something heavier. Darker.

  Arcanist magic.

  “It’s coming from the arena.” Kurt bounded off again, Dave right behind him. Fear raked him as they ran toward the stands.

  The park’s arena was used to educate BFS visitors on big cat conservation and abuse issues. An octagonal wire enclosure topped with a metal grate, it was surrounded by bleachers on seven sides. A gate took up the eighth.

  Rounding the bleachers, Kurt skidded to a halt. “What the hell?”

  “Oh, fuck me,” Dave whispered.

  Fred Briggs was in full combat manifestation, surrounded by a glowing cocoon of magic in the shape of his spirit lion, Lahr. The great beast reare
d on its hind legs, striking out with claws of solidified magical force. Kurt had seen his father rip gouges in solid steel, something no purely physical cat could do. Enclosed in a magical lion two feet taller than his human body, Fred was a terrifying sight -- and a deadly warrior.

  The creature he faced now was even bigger, a towering muscled monster almost twelve feet tall.

  “Jesus H. Christ!” Dave gasped. “That’s a fucking polar bear!”

  “It’ll kill him!” Kurt bound toward the open gate, knowing Fred was a dead man if they didn’t help him.

  “Wait!” Dave snapped. “It could be an ambush.”

  Too late. Magic flared directly in front of Kurt’s eyes as something rebound in his face. It picked up all six hundred pounds of him and flung him backward to hit the ground in a rolling tumble. He skidded to a halt, tasting copper from a bitten tongue.

  Dave cursed. “Damn it, Kurt, I told you to wait!”

  Fred bellowed in pain. The sound sent Kurt clawing to his feet, Stoli’s fury and fear adding to his own. I’m not going to let that bastard hurt Dad.

  There was no sign of whatever he’d hit, but he could sense power roiling the air. “It’s got to be some kind of Arcanist barrier.”

  “Frosty’s got a partner.” Ferals couldn’t cast that kind of magic.

  Kurt swore. During the war, their Arcane Forces team had encountered some seriously nasty barriers, traps, and lethal magic mines created by Arc terrorists. Nobody but an idiot charged an Arcanist working. That was a good way to get your head blown off.

  “So where the fuck is the Arc?” They needed to take the bastard out before…

  Something flickered up at the top of the bleachers, but when Kurt looked straight toward it, he saw nothing.

  Closing his eyes, he searched with his magical senses. A dimly glowing shape draped over one of the seats. He caught a whiff of Arcanist ozone. And over it all, the stench of magical rot. His tiger hackles rose.

  He focused on the glow. Definitely an Arc, probably wearing a Spook Suit that bent light around him, making him effectively invisible.

  Kurt’s lips peeled off his fangs. You’re dead, asshole.

  Fred and the bear rammed together, tearing into each other’s glowing shells with magical claws and teeth. The sound of the battle was deafening -- roars, snarls, energy crackling and snapping around them whenever one landed a strike.

  We’ve got to get in there and help him -- which means we’ve got to take out that fucking Arc. Kurt shot Dave a look, catching his eye, then nodded toward the top of the bleachers.

  Dave bared his teeth in something that definitely wasn’t a grin.

  Together they moved back from the gate and around behind the bleachers, moving in a low slink. Closing his eyes again, Kurt looked upward until he spotted that dim glow again. Focusing his gaze there, he opened his lids. Looks like the top row, not far from the gate. Gathering himself, he sprang six feet straight up.

  Kurt landed as lightly as he could, but the bleachers still shook under the impact of his tiger’s body. He charged toward the spot he’d pinpointed as the Arc’s location in a clattering rush. Threw himself into a leap…

  He was in mid-air when the muzzle flash went off with a BOOM right in his face.

  It was like being hit with a baseball bat. Kurt flew backward, slamming into a bleacher seat in an explosion of pain and stars. He tumbled down several seats to come to a stop draped across two of them on his back, dazed, panting in pain.

  Dave roared. The bleachers shook furiously under Kurt as his friend went after the shooter.

  “Kurt!” His father, voice echoing with the power of his cat.

  The bear roared.

  Fred screamed in agony.

  Kurt jerked his head around, though pain radiated through his chest in frozen, agonizing waves. “Dad, no…”

  The bear had his father down on the ground, muzzle buried in the lion’s belly, ripping at the man inside the manifestation. Fred screamed again, the sound raw, all too human.

  His voice choked off.

  “Dad…” Kurt tried to flip over and roll to his feet, but he could barely lift his head.

  Cold. He felt so fucking cold…

  When he looked down the length of his body, he saw his white-furred chest was black with blood in the moonlight. The icy pain intensified, so searing he couldn’t even breathe.

  I’ve been shot. Sparks of darkness spangled his vision, and he knew his blood pressure was dropping. I’ve been shot… and the bear got Dad…

  Stoli moaned, the sound rough with fear and pain.

  We’re dying. And they’ll kill Dave and Dad. I can’t let them… Won’t.

  But if he and Stoli didn’t leave the cat’s body before it died, they’d both be lost. His human heart would go into cardiac arrest -- and they were finished. If we die, we can’t help Dad. Stoli, we have to go. He sank his mystical fingers into his Familiar and threw himself into the Between, following the spirit link back to his own body.

  With a psychic yowl, Stoli followed.

  * * *

  If I get my hands on that asshole, I’m going to eat him like a rib-eye! Dave bounded over the bleachers, headed for the spot he’d seen the Arc when he’d closed his eyes. A muzzle flash and flat crack announced the bastard was firing at him again, but he dodged right and the shot missed. The bleachers shook with the scrape and rattle of a body rolling across an aluminum bench.

  Dave landed on the top seat plank, ducking barely in time to avoid a wild shot that whined past his head. He struck out, raking the air with lightning swipes of his claws.

  Something thumped, and gravel rattled on the ground below the bleachers. The bastard must have leaped clear.

  BOOM!

  He ducked, taking cover as best a six-hundred-pound cat could, then threw a glance over the edge. Closed his eyes.

  No glow. Dave scanned the blackness with his magical senses, but saw nothing whatsoever. Where did the son of a bitch go?

  “Goddamnit! Kurt, the Arc’s gone…” He turned, looking back down the bleachers. And froze. “Oh, fuck!”

  A furry shape draped across one of the bleacher seat planks on its back, surrounded by a spray of something that gleamed like ink in the moonlight.

  Blood.

  “Kurt!” The shot he thought had missed hadn’t been aimed at him. Kurt’s been hit!

  Down in the arena sand, another figure lay sprawled, surrounded by a spreading shadow, dark against the sand.

  “Fred…” Dave moaned. “Shit, oh, shit!”

  There was no sign of the bear. He’d fled while Dave had been busy with the sniper.

  Dave bound down the bleachers to Kurt/Stoli. His brother tiger lay far too still, the fur of his chest so wet with blood, the bullet wound wasn’t even visible. The Arc must’ve shot him in mid-leap. Dave closed his eyes and looked for his friend’s aura. He saw nothing but darkness. No magic, no flicker of life force.

  “Fuck me.” He wanted to throw up. Kurt’s not dead. He and Stoli fled to his human body. He’s not dead. He can’t be dead.

  But Fred had no other body to go to; his Familiar, Lahr, had died decades ago. The lion’s spirit had shared his body ever since, just as Dave’s spirit now inhabited his tiger.

  If his human body died, Fred and his lion were lost.

  Dave turned and ran to the end of the bleachers in a series of bounds that made the stands shake. Leaping down, he raced around the arena enclosure’s fence. Just before he bulled through the arena gate, he remembered the booby trap that had knocked Kurt flying when they’d first arrived.

  Closing his eyes, he scanned the darkness, but the spell across the gate was gone. Evidently the bastards were in the wind, having accomplished whatever they’d intended.

  Dave slunk inside, fast and low. Closed his eyes. Fuck. Sigils floated in the air of the arena in a slow rotation, glowing bright red and stinking of dark magic.

  Opening his eyes again, he hurried over to the Feral’s side. “Fred!�
��

  The big man moaned, the sound rough with pain. Relief rose, until Dave saw Fred’s belly was as black as Stoli’s. The sand around him reeked with blood. Bear bit into him like a baby seal.

  Dave crouched over Kurt’s father, manifesting a human form so he could sink an insubstantial hand into the wound. Curling his fingers into a fist, he formed a magical barrier to the bleeding, a first aid technique he’d learned in the Arcane Corps.

  Golden Feral eyes opened. “Dave…” Fred gasped. “Kurt… is Kurt… Okay?”

  “He was shot. Stoli’s dead.” Hastily, Dave added, “But I’m sure Kurt’s gone back to his body.” If he could just keep Fred talking, maybe the man could hang on until an ambulance arrived. “Do you have your cell? Can you call 911?” No way in hell could Dave dial the phone with his manifestation’s fingers. Physical buttons, yes. A touch screen, no.

  “I… think so.” His voice sounded faint, breathy. Fred fumbled in a pocket, but the phone fell from his hand.

  * * *

  With a sense of relief, Jake spotted the BFS sign with its carved lion head logo. The tires of his battered Ford 150 pickup truck slung gravel as he took the turn a little too fast. He floored it down the tree-lined drive deeper into the property.

  Kurt leaned against the passenger door, still out cold, only the seat belt holding him upright.

  Distant roars sounded. When Jake reached out, he could feel his Familiar’s agitation. Unfortunately, Clarence couldn’t see what was going on, though Arc magic hung in the air like smoke. Jake could feel it all the way out in the sanctuary’s drive.

  Somebody had just worked one hell of a spell.

  The first thing he saw when he pulled into the parking lot was a police car, its driver’s door open, blue lights casting revolving beams. Shit, he’d hoped to beat the deputy there. If the poor bastard ran into an Arc booby trap…

  But no sooner had he skidded the truck to a stop than Kurt began to convulse, his body arching, legs and arms thumping randomly against the car interior. His fist hit Jake’s shoulder so hard it stung.

  “Fuck!” Jake slapped the Ford into park and grabbed for his friend’s wrist to keep him from hurting himself. Kurt wrenched free with a strangled scream and strength far greater than human.