Bear Meets Girl (13 page)

            Jamie
gave her an apologetic look. “Sorry, cuz, but it’s for your own good. We’ve got
to keep you out of the way until Garrison finishes what he started.”

            The
blood rushed straight out of Angela’s head and down somewhere into her feet.
“No,” she gasped, taking a step back. “No, no, no.” Her knees went out from
under her, and she collapsed to the ground, too shocked to be embarrassed about
the show of weakness. Cole immediately ran to her side, shielding her from
attack, and she stared blankly up at Jamie. “Not you too. Garrison was bad
enough, but not both of you too.”

            “Sorry
Angie.” Ben stepped forward, a grim look on his face. “But we’re the ones who
recruited Garrison in the first place. And if you don’t step out of the way,
we’re going to have to take you out.”

Chapter Eleven

            “Like
hell you are,” Cole growled, stepping forward. He raised his hand and fire lit
in his palm. “We’re not going to go down for scum like you.
You’re
the
ones who should get out of
our
way, before you get hurt.”

            “Those
are some pretty big words coming from someone who’s out numbered two to one,”
one of the newcomers sneered – he thought it was Jack.

“And pretty hypocritical, in
my opinion,” Brian added, baring his fangs. “I mean look at you. You’re a
hybrid. You’ve been abused by the current regime more than most, probably, and
yet you still fight for it.” He laughed. “Sounds pretty pathetic if you ask
me.”

“I don’t think anyone was.”
Cole took another step forward, holding the flame aloft. “And considering that
we’re putting my ability against yours, I’m pretty sure that you’re the ones
who are really outnumbered.”

“Pah! Parlor trick!” Jack
scoffed, but fear shone in his eyes as he glanced at the flame – a fear
that was mirrored in the eyes of the others, Cole noticed.
So they weren’t
entirely stupid after all.
“You’re not going to scare us, hybrid. You’re an
abomination that should have been put down a long time ago. We may as well take
care of the favor and just do it now.”

They all launched themselves
at Cole at once, who prepared to lob the first fireball at them. But Angela
sprang in front of him, in full bear form, and let out an enormous roar that
echoed throughout the clearing and caused birds to scatter from the treetops as
they burst into flight.

“Get out of the way, Angela,”
Ben growled, his face tight. “I don’t want to hurt you if I don’t have to.”

Angela’s answer was to land
heavily on all fours and charge at him. Cursing, Ben jumped out of the way, and
then changed into his own larger, stronger bear form. Cole’s heart leapt into
his throat as Ben rushed Angela, but before he could intervene, one of the
other shifters changed forms and attacked him.

Cursing, he dodged out of the
way, but not fast enough, and the bear’s claws ripped through the shoulder of
his jacket and left deep gouges in his skin. Gritting his teeth against the
pain, he considered lobbing a ball of fire at the bear, but he knew if he
missed he could risk starting a forest fire, and he didn’t have time to deal
with that. Instead, he stood his ground and waited for them to attack. As soon
as one got close, he ducked in and slammed the ball of fire straight into the
shifter’s furry belly.

The bear roared in agony and
fell onto its back, rolling around to try and put out the flames. The other two
howled in fury and rushed in for the kill, and Cole jumped back just in time to
let them smash into each other. He took advantage of the moment and sank more
fireballs into their fur, and watched with a mix of fury and satisfaction as
they writhed on the ground, trying to put out the flames. It was no good,
though – mage’s fire could not be stamped out so easily. It would eat
them from the inside out.

He turned to go assist Angela,
but saw that she’d already defeated her opponent – Ben was lying on the
ground face-down, blood soaking the ground from an injury that, while fatal to
humans, would heal within the hour. He took a step towards Angela, then stopped
at the stricken look on her face.

            “What
have you done?” she shouted, rushing over to the flaming bears rolling on the
ground. “You’re killing them!”

            “Angela,
no!” Cole grabbed her and pulled her back just as she was about to touch the
flames. If they got on her there would be no way to put them out, and she would
burn to death as well. “You can’t touch them. If you do, they’ll die too.”

            “But
Jamie is in there,” she sobbed, railing against his iron-clad grip. “Why, why
did you have to kill Jamie?”

            Guilt
engulfed him like a cloud of noxious gas, which only made him angry since he’d
just been trying to defend himself – and her. “He was trying to kill me!”

            “But
they’re my family. They’re my family!” She turned around and slapped him, hard.
“Why did you have to kill them! You could have shown some restraint and just
incapacitated them instead! Now we won’t have anything left!”

            She
stormed off, back over to Ben, her back stiff and her hands clenched at her
sides. Cole watched, dumbfounded, as she sank down into the dirt and retrieved
a pair of spelled handcuffs from her belt to shackle around her cousin’s
wrists. Her shoulders shook as she restrained him, and Cole could scent her
tears even from this distance. What exactly was he supposed to have done? As he
raised a hand to touch his stinging cheek, anger engulfed him. This was exactly
what he got for trying to help someone. A slap in the face and a mountain’s
worth of blame on his shoulders. Clenching his teeth, he stalked over to
Angela, who was still crouched over her cousin, trying to revive him.

            “We’re
not taking him in the back of my car.”

            Angela
whipped her head around to scowl up at him. “Excuse me?”

            “We.
Are. Not. Taking. Him. In. My. Car.” Cole matched her glare with his own. “I
refuse to have someone in the back seat of my car who has tried to kill me.”

            Angela
jutted out her chin. “He’s restrained. There’s no way he could possibly try to
kill you right now.”

            “Nevertheless,
he’s a huge liability, especially if he manages to get free and warn someone
that we’re coming.”

            Angela
lifted an eyebrow. “Considering that these guys here already knew about our
plans, it’s likely someone from there has been tipped off.”

            Cole
swore foully, then turned and viciously kicked at one of the tree trunks. “God
dammit!” He took his anger out on the trunk, unleashing a barrage of furious
blows, until the trunk actually cracked and the tree fell over onto the path
with a loud groan and heavy
thunk.

            “Feel
better now?” Angela asked sarcastically.

            “Marginally.
But your cousin still isn’t allowed to sit in the back of my Camaro.”

            Angela
rose to her feet slowly. “Fine. Then I’ll just haul him into the Jeep and drive
with him.”

            Cole
rolled his eyes. “How is that any better than just leaving him here until we
can come back for him?”

            Angela’s
eyes flared orange as she bared her fangs at him. “He’s my
family!
” she
roared. “It doesn’t matter if it’s convenient, I have to take care of him!”

           
“Fuck
family!” Cole roared back, shoving his face into hers and allowing his own
fangs to elongate. “Just because someone is related to you by blood doesn’t
mean they automatically deserve your protection, even though they’ve betrayed
you! If I’m not proof of that, I don’t know what is!”

            Angela’s
eyes widened as Cole’s shouts echoed through the forest. She opened her mouth
to say something, but nothing came out, so they stood there in silence, their
chests heaving as they fought for control. They were both teetering on the brink
of losing themselves to the beast inside, which if allowed to happen would
severely set them back on their rescue mission.

            Their
staring contest was interrupted as Cole’s phone chimed, and he turned away to
pull it out of his pocket. What he saw on the screen made him grin. “A friend
of mine just sent me the blueprints for your brother’s little hideout,” he told
Angela.

            Surprise
smoothed away the anger on her face. “What? How?”

            Cole
shrugged. “I sent him the coordinates to the location your father gave us, and
asked him if he could dig anything up.” He tapped the file and opened it up so
he could get a better look. “These should definitely make our breaking and
entering job a little easier.”

            “Let
me see those,” Angela demanded.

            “Nuh-uh-uh.”
Cole held the phone high over his head when she tried to snatch it. “I’m not
really inclined to share right now – not with a woman who’d rather take
the side of the shifter who tried to kill me, over mine.” The words stung more
than he expected, and he nearly choked on them. But he plowed forward,
especially when he saw Angela flinch. “You leave him behind to think about what
he’s done and get back into the Camaro with me, and I just might allow you to
look at them.”

            “You
bastard,” Angela seethed, fisting her hands at her sides.

            “That
I am,” Cole agreed, feeling strangely hollow inside as he turned away. “I’ll
wait for you in the car, but if you don’t make up your mind in two minutes, I’m
going without you.”

Chapter Twelve

            Angela
brooded silently the rest of the drive to the Cascades. She’d gotten into the
car after all –
what choice did she have, really?
– after
tucking Ben’s still unconscious form behind a copse of trees where, hopefully
he would be safe until they’d come to retrieve him.

            Cole
hadn’t bothered to glance at her once since she’d gotten into the car –
he’d simply handed her his cell phone so she could look at the blueprints, and
then punched in the coordinates into his car’s GPS and drove off. She looked
down at them now, biting her lip as she studied the plans. It would seem that
Garrison had chosen to build his stronghold
inside
the mountain, digging
into the earth and stone to carve out a place for himself and his ilk, where he
could plot and execute his plan to rid the world of mages.

            The
realization that she might be a little bit of a hypocrite began to creep in as
she began thinking of her brother.
Who was she to criticize Cole for
attacking her cousin when they were going after her brother at this very
moment?
She could see why he might be confused by her behavior, and angry
at her reaction. After all, he’d only been trying to defend himself.

           
Still,
he didn’t have to kill them,
she argued with herself.
Incapacitating
them would have been more than enough. Besides, he could have started a forest
fire!
That would have killed them all, for sure. The fact that her cousins
had also been trying to get her to stay out of it as opposed to outright
attacking her was also making it hard for her to accept Jamie’s death. Her eyes
smarted as she remembered the days when he would bounce her on his knee as a
cub, tickling her or telling her stories. Why, oh why couldn’t she just go back
to those days again?

           
Grow
up. Time only goes forward. You’ve got a job to do, and reminiscing about the
past isn’t going to save Raina.

           
Sucking in a harsh breath, she
returned to studying the plans. “I’m not honestly sure how we’re supposed to
get in,” she admitted after a few minutes. “The entrance is sure to be
well-guarded.”

            “There’s
an escape route that leads out through the other side of the mountain,” Cole
said tersely, as he maneuvered the Camaro around a particularly sharp bend. On
the other side of him, the road dropped straight off, revealing a majestic and
terrifying view of the snowy Cascades around them. “It’s for the elderly and
the children in the event of an attack, so they can get out safely. We’ll go in
through there and navigate our way into the heart of the fortress.”

            “Oh.”
Frowning, Angela retraced the blueprints with her finger until she’d found it.
“How did you know this was here? You barely glanced at the blueprints.”

            “I
have a photographic memory. I only had to look at them once to get a full
snapshot that I can refer to in my mind whenever I want to. Why do you think I
handed the phone over to you?”

            Huffing,
Angela didn’t bother to respond. “It looks like it’ll take us a ways to get
in,” she said. “And these blueprints don’t tell us how many guards there will
be, or where they’ll be stationed.”

            “Not
to worry,” Cole said, tapping the side of his head. “My eyes will take care of
that.”

            “Oh,
right.” Angela slumped into her seat as she remembered Cole’s magical ability
to see life-force signatures. She was starting to feel a little bit on the
useless side.

           
This
is a rescue mission, not a pissing contest,
she reminded herself. The
better Cole was than her, the greater their chances were on retrieving Raina.

            Cole
parked the Camaro on the opposite side of the mountain from where the entrance
to the Black Moon Clan’s stronghold was, and they retrieved their gear from the
trunk.

           
“Your gun is fully charged,
right?” Cole asked as they pulled on sweaters, and fit crampons on over their
boots.

“Of course.” Angela adjusted
the woolen cap more firmly over her ears and tied it beneath her chin, then
checked the gun at her hip again, just to be sure. Then she grabbed a pair of
ice axes and began to inspect them. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been
mountain climbing.”

“Just follow my lead,” Cole
advised. “I was up in the Himalayas just last week retrieving a politician’s
daughter. You’ll be in good hands.” He adjusted his parka, and then turned
toward her. “Come here a sec.”

Angela hesitated a moment, and
then drew forward, unsure what Cole was going to do. Something flickered in his
eyes, and for a moment she thought he was going to draw her into an embrace,
but he simply placed his hands on her and began to chant softly. Tingles spread
throughout her entire body, and a warm, soft glow began to emanate around her
that was a few shades lighter than his glowing violet eyes. The chanting began
to die down, and as it did, the glow disappeared as well.

Angela watched as he placed
his arms crosswise over his chest to touch his own shoulders and repeated the
same chant. When he’d finished, she asked, “Is that some kind of protection
spell?”

The left corner of his mouth
curled a little. “In a way. It’ll mask our scents and mute the sound of our
footsteps.”

“Hmm. Clever.”

After one last weapons and
gear check they began their ascent of the mountain. The sun was just starting
to go down, a dangerous time to begin a climb for most humans, but their
supernatural eyesight afforded them better visibility, and besides, they would
have more of an element of surprise if they approached at night.

Four hours of climbing later,
Cole finally held up two fingers to motion her to stop. “I can sense a life
force signature up ahead,” he murmured, his lips brushing her ear so he could
be heard over the whistle of the wind. Angela tried to pretend that the shiver
that rushed through her body was from the cold rather than the contact. “I
think the entrance to the escape tunnel is just up ahead.”

“Great.” Angela took a deep
breath to gather in more energy. She was loath to admit it, but the hike was
beginning to take a toll on her – an ache had been building steadily in
her legs for the last half hour. “I’ll take him out.”

“I can – ”

“I’m part of this mission
too,” Angela said through gritted teeth as she pushed forward through the snow.
“I’ll take him out.”

Wanting more than ever to burn
some of the pent up aggression and frustration out of her, she forged ahead,
crouching low so that the snow drifts piling up would help disguise her
approach. Even without the spell, the wind was in her favor, carrying her scent
away from the entrance to the tunnel rather than towards it, so the sentry
standing guard didn’t even notice her until she was upon him.

“What the – ” he began,
reaching for the radio, but she beat him to it, kicking it out of his hand,
where it smashed against the rock face of the tunnel entrance. She caught him
up in a sleeper hold and held on tight until he eventually slumped in her arms.
Cole watched as she buried him beneath a snow drift where he would hopefully
stay incapacitated until they were done with their mission, his arms crossed as
he frowned. For a moment she thought he was going to chastise her for not
killing or maiming the sentry, and she braced herself for the argument. But he
only shrugged, and continued on into the tunnel.

“I don’t sense anyone up
ahead,” he told her. “Let’s hurry.”

They moved through the tunnels
as quickly as they could while making the least amount of noise possible.
Though it was much faster than climbing around the outside of the mountain, and
certainly faster than going back down the mountain and up the other side, it
still took them the better part of an hour before Cole began to sense life
force signatures again.

“We’re approaching the end of
the tunnel,” he warned. “There are three shifters on the other side.”

You don’t need to tell me
that,
she
thought. She could smell them easily from this distance. But in the interest of
keeping the peace, she decided to keep that thought to herself. They turned the
bend and soft light began to glow from the end of the tunnel, followed by the
murmur of voices and the hum of machines.

Cole immediately flattened
himself against the wall and crept toward the entrance. Angela followed his
lead, and stopped behind him right outside the entrance. She could see another
sentry standing right there, and her pulse picked up as she realized that,
without Cole’s cloaking spell, he would have already scented them by now.

She watched with baited breath
as Cole reached into one of his pockets and withdrew a little baggie filled
with what looked like dried herbs. He poured a small amount of them into the
palm of his hand and then closed his fingers around it and chanted again. A
soft blue glow began emanating from between the cracks of his fingers.

“Hey. Is someone there?”

It took every ounce of
Angela’s willpower not to remain flattened against the wall and not crouch down
into a defensive stance. Cole opened his palm then, and softly blew on the
leaves, which gently ghosted through the entrance on a spiral current.

“What the…” someone else
began, but his voice trailed off sleepily. She heard his body slump against the
ground, and then several others followed him. Burning with curiosity, she
barely waited for Cole to poke his nose around the wall and give her the okay
before she rushed in through the doorway.

“Holy shit.” She crouched down
beside one of the men and checked his pulse, only to hear him snoring softly
into the ground. “Out like a light!”

“Yeah, and they should be like
that for another few hours.” Cole wasn’t even paying attention to the men; his
keen violet eyes were scanning the room. “This looks like the cellar.”

Angela looked around at the
metal shelves full of barrels and containers of food and drink and supplies.
“Yeah, I’d have to agree. I guess they keep some guards around here for the
escape tunnel, and maybe someone down here to manage the supplies.” She toed at
one of the bodies. “Where do we go now?”

Cole considered it, evidently
consulting the map in his head. “We should be able to go through that door and
take the tunnel from there over to their dungeon chambers.”

Angela shuddered at the word
dungeon. “I hate to think of Raina trapped in a place like this.”

“Well lets go rescue her
then.”

They encountered surprisingly
little opposition along their way, largely because of Cole’s ability to see
enemies coming, which allowed them to hide while shifters were passing through,
or prep another sleeping spell. They tried to avoid using the spell as much as
possible, though, as they had to hide the bodies afterwards and too many people
missing would definitely raise a flag.

Eventually they came to a
foot-thick steel door that looked like something straight out of
The Man
With the Iron Mask
. Angela squared her shoulders and prepared herself to
expect the worst.

The door creaked open slowly,
revealing a corridor lined with iron-barred cells. Angela scented Raina right
away, and rushed in without even thinking.

“Hang on!” Cole hissed,
grabbing her by the collar and yanking her back. “There could be traps!”

“Who’s there?” Raina called
out, her voice brittle, as if she were hanging on by a thread, and Angela
sucked in a breath.

“Please, Cole,” she nearly
sobbed.

“I’ll go first,” he said
gently, giving her shoulder a soft squeeze. He moved forward slowly, his eyes
sweeping the area, glowing that brilliant violet again as they searched for
clues that she couldn’t see. Angela followed behind him until they arrived at
Raina’s cell, and she sucked in another breath as she caught sight of her
friend slumped forward, her wrists hanging limply in their shackles that were
bound to the wall.

“Raina!” She grabbed the bars,
then cried out as an electrical jolt zapped her. Cole caught her as she fell
back, supporting her weight as she jolted back and forth between forms –
bear, woman, bear, woman, bear, woman. The world around her melted into a haze,
and she could hear Cole shouting her name, but she couldn’t actually make out
what he was saying.

“Save Raina,” she choked out,
or at least she tried – she couldn’t quite manage to get the words out
when her mouth kept changing into a muzzle and back again. But Cole seemed to
get the message – he laid her down on the concrete floor and rushed over
to the cell. His voice washed over her as he chanted the unlocking spell, and
she focused on the sound to try and anchor herself.

Focus. You at least have to
focus long enough to see what’s going on.

She managed to hone her hazy
vision in time to see the cell door swing open. Raina was straining against the
chains, her eyes wild as she shouted Angela’s name. Her long, black hair,
normally silky and oh-so-perfect, hung in unkempt hanks around her face, making
her look like a crazy person, and Angela half-giggled, half-sobbed as she
watched Cole get to work on the manacles.