Natural Dual-Mage (Page 20)

“Not magically.” She put her hand on my shoulder and turned, scanning. “Something is here, though, watching us. I feel…danger. You can’t tell what kind of magic it is?”

“No. I’ve never felt it before. It’s…” I tilted my head, then flinched at a sharp pain, like a pinch, on my hip. My magic welled up in response. Emery’s Plain Jane power stone, which I carried around because I was the designated power stone jockey, throbbed in its compartment in my belt. “Ow.”

“What?” Emery asked. He tensed and stopped before turning slowly.

“Something pinched me.” I rubbed the offending spot, feeling a light breath of intent.

Observe.

“It’s watching us,” I said in a hush, my eyes widening as I looked around for something hiding in the shadows.

“I literally just said it was watching us,” Reagan whispered.

A few people ambled along the sidewalk on the other side of the street, by themselves or chatting in groups of two. One person wandered toward us, thankfully stopping at a car up the way. Everyone seemed loose and normal—no one else seemed to have a clue something dangerous, or several dangerous things if you counted us, lurked in their presence.

I shook my head, frowning. My intuition, which usually picked up odd lurkers, didn’t even stir. Without that magical touch, I would’ve had no clue someone was in the area, spying on us.

“Sun is out, so it can’t be a vampire.” Reagan, her hand still on my shoulder, turned so as to better see behind us. “We should be invisible, so it is something that can see through magic, or at least feel it.”

“Druid,” Emery said, sounding as close to afraid as I’d ever heard him. He rolled his shoulders. “It’s a druid.”

Reagan swore quietly and a burst of her magic shook my bones. I barely patched up the spell before it dissipated entirely.

“What’s a druid?” I asked quietly, sweat beading on my brow from Emery and Reagan’s reactions. They wouldn’t react this way to a mage or vampire, so whatever this was, it had to be ten times worse.

“Any druid in the Brink would be of the warrior class. They’re usually used as assassins.” Reagan pushed me to get me moving. “I’ve heard they can hide in plain daylight. Right next to you, and you wouldn’t know it until the druid’s knife was in your neck. I’ve never seen one. I don’t even know what they look like.”

“Like large men or lithe women,” Emery said quietly.

“Are you positive that’s what it is?” Reagan asked. “Do you see it?”

We moved slowly down the sidewalk, my magic rolling and boiling above me, ready to be used in a hastily created spell.

“I didn’t see it, no.” Emery’s hands were in front of him, prepared for battle. “I was hunted by one of them. After I escaped the Guild the first time, they sent one. I know exactly the effect a warrior druid has on my senses. Exactly.”

“You aren’t dead, so you clearly escaped. That’s a good sign,” Reagan said, her magic coming in thick waves, pounding into me. Twisting through my energy and seeping into my body, ready to be used should I need it.

“I am very dangerous right now,” I whispered, just so everyone was on the same page.

“That’s a good thing,” Reagan replied, just as quietly.

“When that druid was after me, I’d never had so many forewarnings come in the space of two days,” Emery said. His gaze stayed pointed in one direction, not locking on anything. He clearly knew the general area the creature was hiding, but the fact that he couldn’t pick it out, when he could spot vampires, was…disconcerting.

“I don’t like this. Let’s get out of here,” I said, ready to sprint. Fighting against a shadow didn’t appeal to me. I hated the unknown.

“Did you get him in the end?” Reagan’s fingers tightened their grip on my shoulder.

“I did get her in the end,” Emery said. “When you can see them, it’s like battling any other extremely fast, extremely capable magical fighter. Their power is in their ability to hide in plain sight, as you said.”

“Yeah, there is some serious danger nearby.” Reagan’s fingers jerked on my shoulder as she turned and looked the other way. “I used to feel like this before I could see through the vampires’ invisible sheets.”

“You can see through those?” Emery asked, his voice calm and breathing even. He was readying for battle. “That must make things easier.”

“Much.”

“Cool, yeah,” I said, picking up the pace. “Invisible sheets, yeah. Is it following us, do you think?” That foreign magic swirled in front of me before moving on to Emery, still exploratory. “It’s sussing us out. Trying to get a read on us, I think. I don’t get vicious intent from it.”

“That doesn’t mean it doesn’t plan to kill us,” Reagan murmured. “Most of them are healers and nature lovers. Peaceful folk. Only a select few get the warrior strand of magic. They don’t go into battle with rage or aggression; they do it with a sense of business economy. And even when they’re on the attack, they keep their finger on the pulse of peace. Or so I have always heard.”

“That doesn’t even make sense.” I licked my lips and realized Reagan had been right in that the slow buildup to trouble was the absolute worst. It was better when it came at you quickly, like ripping off a Band-Aid. “We need a plan.”

“The bar is just up ahead. Let’s go in,” Reagan said. “Let’s see if it follows.”

“Christopher Walken’s yoga pants,” I muttered with a tight jaw. I could feel shifter magic pulsing from the bar, claiming it and warning off those looking for trouble. It was probably something that had always been there and I just hadn’t noticed it before, but right now it was not helping keep me calm.

“Christopher Walken’s…yoga pants,” Emery said, pulling the terms apart slowly, like he was examining them.

“Just have Penny swear at our watcher,” Reagan said drolly. “He’ll get annoyed and take off.”

At the door to the bar, I took a deep breath, feeling that pulse of power. Knowing I was bringing in all sorts of trouble, and not wanting an attack from both sides.

“Why did we stop?” Reagan asked, watching the street.

I sucked in a breath and walked in. The layout was the same as it had been on my last visit—tables along the right and a large square bar to the left with an open area in the middle—but everything looked way fresher. New paint, redone bar, and the far side, the gathering area beyond the bar, looked totally new.

“Did he renovate?” I asked, choosing the right side of the bar instead of the more popular and busier area beside the bar.

“Is there a hole in the far side?” Reagan asked as we crossed the threshold as a group.

“No…”

“Then yeah, he renovated.” Her body braced as we eased farther into the bar, probably a preparation in case the watcher would surge in after us.

“Penny, can you feel any magic?” Emery took his forearm out of my grasp and grabbed me instead. He clearly expected some sort of attack, too.

“No,” I said. “Nothing out of the ordinary. Though maybe the potent shifter magic is overpowering it.”

“How about mages?” Reagan asked, glancing at Emery before looking to the far side of the bar.

“I only feel shifter magic.” I sorted through all of the various waves of magic meandering around the room. “A bunch of it.”

“As Roger calls in more people, they’ll head toward the shifter bars.” Reagan relaxed slightly, her hand loosening on my shoulder. “This will be a dead giveaway to the Mages’ Guild. Darius better hurry up with that plan, or we’ll have to go in without one.”

I shook my head, but there was no point in arguing with her. She wasn’t the one in charge. Not until she forcefully took over, anyway.

She ran her hand through the air and dissipated the concealment spell around us. Emery tugged on my arm, his eyes on the door, but he headed for the bar counter. “Watch those shadows,” he said, resting his forearm on the wood.

I backed into his body, letting my attention wander and muting most of my senses so I could focus on the magic around me. The strands and playful twists drifting and lingering in the air. It was the way I could help the best.

“Oh hey, I didn’t know you were back in town.”

I recognized that deep, gruff voice. Joe, the shifter bar owner who had given Emery and me shelter when we’d needed it the most. We’d been a danger to him, and he’d done it anyway. He wasn’t the sort to cast aside friends in need.

“No way. Get her out of here,” he yelled.

Unless Reagan was involved…

Peeling an eye open, I found yet more proof of my theory: Reagan and shifters typically did not get along. And now we were going to be thrown out of relative safety, directly into the path of whatever waited for us outside.

14

“Get her out.” Joe flung his finger toward the door as he stalked toward us, thunder clouds on his face as he stared at Reagan. He was a wolf, I remembered, and I felt the call of the forest and the thrill of the hunt as he neared. Similar to Roger, but slightly different from the feel of Red the dog. Huh. I could decipher the differences in shifter animal. I wondered if that mattered.