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  “Does your car have natural protections to it?”

  Jean-Pierre smiled. “He was never in any danger.”

  “I didn’t need to waste a spell on him?”

  “I’m sure he will appreciate knowing you were concerned about him.”

  “I just thought you weren’t concerned about him.”

  “You know how I feel about my people, Dr. Stone.”

  “I really don’t.” As I looked at the car, I wondered if there were any runes within it I might be able to use. If we got to the car, and if I were able to trigger it, we could use that power and keep ourselves protected. And if I held onto enough of that power, I could potentially trigger a transport, and in doing so, carry us and the car beyond here. It would be difficult, but if the car was protected, there was no point in wasting it.

  “What sort of protections does it have?”

  “I’m not familiar with all of them. I wasn’t the one to place them.”

  “Who was?”

  Jean-Pierre nodded toward the car.

  “The chauffeur?”

  He nodded. “He has a degree of talent with runes. He learned it from a powerful rune master many years ago.”

  “When this is over, you’re going to have to help me with that.”

  “I didn’t think the runes mattered to you.”

  I glanced down at the coins in my hand. “They don’t really, but I wonder if better understanding the nature of the runes and understanding how they’re formed might help me ensure we’re able to use that power more effectively.” When I created a spell coin, I wasn’t placing the rune itself. I was holding onto the power, and forcing it into the coin. The coin formed the rune, not me.

  Jean-Pierre turned his attention toward the car. “They seem to be ignoring it.”

  “If there are protections, then they’re focusing on us first.”

  “I am surprised it’s only the five of them.”

  “Why?”

  “Knowing Ariel, she would have brought more if she had expected anything.”

  “If she thought it was just you, then perhaps she only brought enough to keep herself safe.”

  Jean-Pierre nodded, and yet, I could see he was uncomfortable with this. I was glad he was uncomfortable. I was uncomfortable by the whole situation, and I didn’t like that he had led us to a situation where we were trapped by the shifters.

  Another of the barriers collapsed. This time, as it did, I forced more power into it, and it solidified for a moment. Somewhere, one of the shifters howled. Had I injured it by doing so? I had to continue pouring power into the barrier, holding onto it. I didn’t know if I was going to be able to maintain it any longer.

  I turned my attention back to the car. All we had to do was make a run for it. If we could reach it, then we could go, but reaching it wasn’t going to be easy. The barrier didn’t stretch all the way to the car. There would have to be another way.

  I stared, focusing on the car, thinking about what we could do, what way we could reach it. I didn’t find anything helpful. But maybe there was another possibility. I had proven my spell coin could penetrate the barrier without disrupting it. What if I triggered them, and used everything I had remaining, sending them outward? If I did so, the attack might be enough to push back the shifters for long enough we would be able to escape. All we needed was a distraction. I didn’t expect to be able to hurt them, but I did think I might be able to delay them.

  “I’m going to trigger all of the remaining coins I have,” I said.

  “Why would you do that?” Jean-Pierre asked.

  “I intend to try to distract them. We need to reach the car quickly.”

  He watched me and then reached my arm. “Leave it to me.”

  I took a deep breath, letting out slowly, and then flung the coins away from me. As they penetrated the barrier, I waited a moment, then another, then pushed power outward, triggering them. As they triggered, it came as a surge, flowing from me into the coins. It was a pop and another pop of power, like a firecracker of energy.

  Somewhere, one of the wolves howled. I continued to push power out, letting them explode, and when the last of the spell coins was triggered, I nodded to Jean-Pierre.

  He grabbed my arm, jerking me, and we went running toward the car. We passed through the barrier, and everything around me was a haze. It came from the spell coins, from the use of magic, and from the fact that the shifters were somewhere out there. I could feel their energy and their magic and it surged into me, slamming into me in a way that it hadn’t when we were trapped within the barrier, protected by it. The moment we stepped outside of that barrier was the moment I was fully aware of them.

  Jean-Pierre moved quickly, and we reached the car door. And somehow we passed inside the car door far faster than I would have expected. Once inside, he nodded to the driver. The car ignition started, and we began driving.

  I focused on the car itself. There had to be something in here I could use. Surprisingly, with all the power I’d used, I still wasn’t as tired as I would have expected. I looked over at Jean-Pierre, and weariness made the corner of his eyes more wrinkled. I was drawing upon his power.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I will be fine,” he said.

  “I use your energy, don’t I?”

  “There are risks to both parties with bonding a familiar,” he said.

  “Why would you do it if there was a risk to you?”

  “There are benefits to both parties as well.”

  He turned away from me, and we were racing through the forest. Shifters slammed into the car, almost sending us crashing into a tree. The chauffeur kept control, but we were sliding.

  I focused, closing my eyes and thinking about the power on the car, and whether there was any magic around it, looking for any sign of a trigger I might be able to use. As I found it, I pushed power into it. Energy exploded outward. We burst forward with a surge of speed. Jean-Pierre took a deep breath, and we raced through the trees.

  As we did, I pulled out the remaining coin I had left. It was the transport coin. I held onto it, squeezing it. Looking out the windows, I searched to make sure there was no sign of any the shifters, and then I focused on the coin. I tried to fix the image of the warehouse row in my mind, thinking about Barden and his people and the street.

  We’d be moving at speed, and I didn’t want us to end up coming out of the transport and crash into one of his buildings, but I did want to be close enough I could get us to the building and to safety if the shifters managed to follow us. I didn’t think they had the ability to transport. If they did, I wanted to be careful.

  “Dr. Stone?”

  “I’m working on it,” I said.

  “You had better move quickly. There are more shifters coming.”

  I looked behind, and saw that where there had been five shifters, now were a dozen. They were moving quickly. I couldn’t believe they were able to run at such a fast pace, but they were keeping up with the car as it raced through the forest off the road.

  I focused on the coin, sending my connection to it, and triggered it. The sense of it came slowly. It rolled through the coin, rolled through me, and the spell was triggered. I focused, maintaining my connection to the street outside Barden’s warehouse. If nothing else, we needed to end up there.

  The squeezing sensation rolled through us, working along my body, and I realized it was a mistake. I hadn’t shifted the focus enough. I was drawing the spell around myself, but not around the others. I pressed the spell out, around the entire car, focusing on it, and sending more and more power through it. Jean-Pierre gasped, and I ignored that sense, focusing instead on the sense of power around me.

  As it exploded, it squeezed me. I’d felt that sensation often enough to know it came from the transport spell, and I forced myself to hold onto the image of the other end, to be ready for the end of the transport, and was prepared for what would come next.

  And then the transport spell finished. We emerge
d on the street, sun shining down, rows of buildings on either side of us. I leaned back, breathing out. This was Barden’s place. This was a place of safety. We had done it.

  I had done it.

  The car raced along the street, and I leaned forward, pointing to Barden’s building. As we slowed, something slammed into us from behind.

  I span, looking behind me. With a chill of fear, I realized Ariel had somehow followed us.

  5

  I sat there, thankful the car had its own protections on it, but how long would it work against the shifter? Especially a shifter as powerful as Ariel. She slammed into the car again, and we went rolling forward.

  “Jean-Pierre?”

  He was unconscious. I had drawn too much power from him, and now he was out. I hadn’t realized I was calling upon such power from him. Maybe he didn’t know I was able to do that, and yet, if I hadn’t borrowed from him, we wouldn’t have escaped. I had needed to use his power. Without that, we wouldn’t have been able to get free of the shifters.

  The chauffeur glanced back, looking behind him, threw the car in reverse, and backed up. We slammed into Ariel, but went no further. “She’s too powerful,” he said. “The car can keep us safe for a while.”

  “I understand.”

  “Odian taught me these runes, but there’s only so much power we can push into them.”

  “Who is Odian?”

  “A rune master. A teacher.”

  I stared out the window, looking at Ariel, and she watched me. Her wolf eyes were glowing. Power built from her as she sent spell after spell, rolling into the car, slamming into it, attacking with a fury. She was beating on it, but nothing about the car was changing. Whatever spell and rune had been placed on the town car was keeping us safe.

  But as I focused on it, I could feel the spell fading. I was surprised I could feel it, but it was there, the energy of it changing, shifting, the way Ariel was attacking intended to destroy it. And if she did, I had little doubt we would be destroyed with it.

  Now we were here, I didn’t know what she was going to be able to do, but I couldn’t help but think she would eventually shift her way past whatever was keeping us safe. That appeared to be the nature of how she was using her magic, and the more she sent it toward us, the more power she was using, the more certain I was it was going to be able to overwhelm everything we held in place.

  Where was Barden? He should have been aware of us by now. He should have recognized there was power outside of his warehouse. I hadn’t spent a lot of time with him ever since returning from the other side of the Veil, but I had been working with him, making spell coins. He had been doing so more often of late, trying to distract me from my relationship troubles.

  Pulling on my phone, I punched in his number, sending a message to him. If he was here, then he should be alerted to our presence, and when he was, then he could come for us, and perhaps he could reason with Ariel. And even if he couldn’t reason with her, I had little doubt Barden would have enough power to overwhelm her at least a little.

  There was no response. It wasn’t surprising. Barden often didn’t respond right away. It was times like these when I wished he did. He always got the message, but I couldn’t help but wonder if there was something which prevented him from being able to know what was taking place.

  And maybe he wasn’t even here. That didn’t seem likely. Barden spent most of his time at the warehouse, unless he was off on a task of his own. When there was no answer, I realized we were going to have to get out of this on our own.

  “You’ve got to wake up, Jean-Pierre,” I said. I should have taken Jean-Pierre’s advice, and taken us to the Vangalor home. At least there we would have had other vampires to keep us safe. I had thought I would be smart and bring us here, and by coming here, I would have had my people keep us safe.

  It was strange thinking the dark mages were my people, but that was how I felt about them.

  He rolled over, blinking open his eyes. “Dr. Stone,” he said, his voice coming out a whisper. “I’m sorry, but I am…” Faster than I could react, he leaned forward, and bit down on my wrist.

  Pain surged through me and everything went numb. I couldn’t move. It felt as if a paralytic had struck, holding me in place, but there was no sense of the surge of pleasure that there had been the first time he’d fed on me.

  Jean-Pierre sat up, breathing out, and wiped his mouth. “I’m sorry about that, Dr. Stone. You were using me, and I needed to borrow from you.”

  The effect of his bite was fading, and I was able to move. I sucked in a sharp breath, staring down at my arm. The two puncture wounds over my wrist had already clotted, and the dried blood around them was almost imagined, rather than real. “What… What was that?”

  “As I said, you were borrowing for me, and I had to borrow from you.” He seemed far more vibrant than he had been before, as if feeding on me had replaced his energy. Jean-Pierre sucked in a sharp breath, looking around. “Now, I would like you to use whatever power you need in order to free us.”

  “You want me to do what?”

  “I believe you will find yourself strengthened again.”

  I wanted to ignore him, and I wanted to snap at him, and do anything, but at the same time, I focused on the nature of my power, thinking about how it rolled through me. As I did, I could feel that energy as he had said. It was restored. Not only that, there was more energy available to me from him. It was a strange thing to be aware of, but I was certain it was there. As it was, I could feel the power flowing from him, to me. It was almost as if the bite had reconnected us, or even deepened the connection between us. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. I didn’t like the idea of becoming even more connected to the vampire, but I couldn’t deny there was a benefit to it. So far, having a connection to Jean-Pierre had given me access to his strength, and because of that, I had been able to trigger more spells than I would otherwise. I focused, turning away from him, trying to let go of the anger which surged within me, knowing there was no point in it. He had done what he had done, and I couldn’t deny the fact it had changed something for him, making him stronger.

  With what we might need to face, we might need him to be stronger, and so, rather than getting mad, I let myself use my ability, my magic, and I sent it washing over the car.

  There were dozens upon dozens of different spells worked on the car, and all of them were runes. I could use them. It was no different to using the wand I had used. It was different to the spell coins, though I could trigger them the same way. I had no idea what the various runes on the car were for. Without having that knowledge, I wasn’t going to be able to trigger them effectively. I would be dependent upon simply triggering one, waiting to see what effect happened. If I didn’t do that, I didn’t know what would happen to us.

  I focused on one particular spell, thinking it had some protection to it. Light exploded.

  When it cleared, when my vision returned to normal, I looked outward. Ariel continued to batter at the car, though she missed from time to time. I focused on the spell again, wondering if I could trigger it again, but as I powered into it, there was nothing.

  “That answers that,” I mumbled.

  “That answers what?” Jean-Pierre asked.

  “Once I use a spell, it’s gone.”

  “You will have used all the energy,” he said.

  “You know an awful lot about this for someone who can’t use that power.”

  “I can use the power, but I can’t use it the same way you can.”

  I focused on the car, searching for another spell. I came across one which seemed somewhat familiar. Sending power through it, triggering it, we were shot into the air.

  When we came slamming back down to the ground, I looked behind us, but Ariel was still there. She looked shaken, and she approached more cautiously. Power was building from her, sending a surge of cold through me. As it did, I focused on the cold, on the power she was building, thinking I needed to find a way to ignore i
t.

  There were more spells on the car. It might be that I had to confine her, though I didn’t know if there was anything on the car which would allow us to do so. What I needed was to get into the warehouse, get to Barden, and get to more of his spell coins. He had enough I could use. In order to do so, I was going to need to distract Ariel long enough I would be able to overpower her.

  As I looked out the window, focusing on the runes on the car, I couldn’t find anything I could trigger. I hated that. I needed to have something, and yet, I wasn’t strong enough on my own.

  I continued to focus on the various runes, on the connections out there. There was nothing I could find to help me know what they could do. Then I realized: the driver might know.

  “You worked with Odian?”

  He nodded.

  “Do you know what the runes are for?”

  “Some of them,” he said.

  “You would have to have known in order to place them on the car.”

  “Some of them I knew, and some I placed because I was told they were protective spells.”

  “What about this one?” I closed my eyes, focusing on one of the nearest spells. When I did, I could feel the shape of it, and I drew it in the air.

  “That one should create a layer of armor,” the driver said.

  “What about this one?” I drew another rune, and as I did, I realized the shape was forming in the air, almost as if by forming it and tracing it, I was revealing the shape of it.

  “That would also as a layer of armor over the car.”

  It was a good thing I hadn’t triggered either of those. I wasn’t sure what they would do, and yet, having those layers of armor seemed to be beneficial. By having them, we were able to use that armor, and it was able to prevent Ariel from battering through the car more effectively. If I would trigger them, we wouldn’t have that any longer.

  We had to find another way, then.

  I went on, moving to the next rune, thinking about it. “What about this one?”