The Catalyst (19 page)

He swept up the pieces, along with the crumpled piece
of paper with the werewolf’s cell phone number and threw it all in
the trash. Speaking of cell phones… he wondered if Fiona still had
his phone. Maybe he could call her tomorrow, just to make sure she
was okay.

He shook his head. No. She’d been very clear. He’d
already made a big enough mess. He could at least respect this one
request.

***

The mood in the hive was somber, like a funeral. And
in a way it was. They all knew the odds of finding the pup alive
were small. Thinking otherwise was kidding themselves. Therians
born in their fur were stronger than those born the normal way.
That was a lot of magic, and there were a lot of people who would
want their hands on that magic.

Cole had locked himself away in the private den. Jane
needed him if they were going to find their pup, because no matter
the odds, there was still a chance—if he could pull it together.
She had to believe that or she’d fall apart.

“He just needs some time,” she said as Mara
approached. It was her new reasonable-reassuring-Jane face.

“We almost lost him last time to the bottle. You have
to talk to him, reason with him,” Mara said.

“He wanted that pup, and now we can’t have another
one. We haven’t talked about it in detail, but I know Cain won’t
let us have a kid—not with me being what I am now. It would make
another pure blood vampire. He won’t have that. Cole won’t take
that kind of micromanaging in our affairs well. Either way, even if
we could have a baby, it wouldn’t be a pup. It wouldn’t shift and
be like Cole. He’s lost that forever.”

The wolf put a hand on Jane’s arm. “Hey. Look at me.
You talk like the pup’s dead. We don’t know that. He could still be
out there.”

Jane shook her head. “I can’t get in touch with
Charlee, and I know Cole would be furious if I approached Dayne
alone. Cain may have a connection, but I doubt it. Demons avoid
magic users. They’re our only true weakness in this world.”

Blake walked up and handed her a slip of paper.

“What’s this?”

“It’s the new code to Cole’s private den.”

The beta kept a copy in case of emergency.

“I can’t use this. He wants to be alone.”

Blake growled. “He’s being a dumb ass, and you’re
losing time. He needs to pull himself together and go after his
pup. And he needs you. Go to him.”

“Thanks. You’re a good beta.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t want to have to play substitute
alpha again.”

But they both knew that wasn’t what motivated
him.

Jane moved quickly through the tunnel that connected
the main den to her and Cole’s den and punched in the security
code. She hadn’t been inside since she’d been human and pregnant
with the pup.

“Cole?” she said, when the metal door whooshed open.
She was thankful he’d gotten rid of all the paintings of her
bleeding to death.

A quiet whimper came from their bedroom. She wasn’t
surprised to find him in wolf form curled up on their bed, his nose
between his paws. He just wanted to recede into the animal part of
himself and not hurt so much.

Jane took her clothes off and shifted into the wolf
form she’d assumed earlier in the demon dimension, back when Cole
had been so excited and happy. It had only been a few hours ago.
And now they were back to this. She curled up with him, unsure how
long she could hold this form, but she’d hold it as long as she
could to comfort him.

They stayed like that for what felt like forever
until Cole growled and abruptly shifted.

Jane shifted back as well, tired and hungry from all
the energy she’d used to show solidarity. “What is it?”

“I’ve got an idea.”

***

Fiona sat in the living room with a half gallon of
Chunky Monkey ice cream. She was going to
be
a chunky monkey
if she couldn’t put down the carton. The sun had just set, and she
was watching a tearjerker on her computer and bawling her eyes
out.

There was a knock on the front door. She looked down
at her fuzzy pink bathrobe with spaghetti sauce stains. Her hair
was a mess, and no doubt her face was all splotchy from crying.

“Just a minute!” she called out, sure it was Z. A
part of her wanted to yell for him to leave, but the movie had made
her all mushy inside. She’d kick herself if she let him get away
again. Not that he was coming to swoop her off to some happily ever
after. At best he just wanted to have sex again. How lame was she
if she said yes?

Fiona scrambled to the kitchen to put the ice cream
back in the freezer and raced to her room. She tore through three
drawers of clothing before she found a pair of jeans that made her
ass look great, a push-up bra, and just the right top. She ran a
comb through her hair, thankful it was just messy and not dirty.
She swiped a lip gloss wand across her lips, put powder on her
forehead and nose, and some concealer under her eyes to cover the
signs of crying, then she headed for the door.

She would have spritzed perfume on, but that would
have been too much. She didn’t want to look like she was trying too
hard. Or at all. She just wanted to look natural, like she didn’t
need him. She opened the door, afraid he might have given up or
changed his mind and gone home.

On the other side of the door stood three men. Two
she recognized as the sorcerers who had taken the pup. They wore
black suits and looked like government agents. The other man was
dressed like a priest. She shoved the door with everything she had,
but they were too strong.

The sorcerers dragged her outside, kicking and
screaming. She bit one of them in the arm and got smacked in the
face for her trouble. How far away was Z? Was he out with a woman,
or would he be in the woods or in his cave?

“Z!” she shouted. Would he come for her if she were
in trouble? Once he’d washed his hands of the pup, he hadn’t been
concerned with the wolf’s welfare. Why would it be any different
with her?

The other sorcerer put a hand over her mouth to
stifle her screams. “Don’t think about biting me,” he snarled.

The priest guy stepped forward then; his eyes glowed
red and fangs peeked from between his lips. Fiona closed her eyes
and resumed struggling.

“My name is Father Hadrian. We don’t want to hurt
you, we just need some leverage to broker a trade.” His voice was
hypnotic, and she wondered if he could control her mind with her
eyes shut. Why, oh why hadn’t she learned to use her magic?

A beat of silence and then he spoke again. “You think
we can’t make you open your eyes? You have no chance here. If you
fight us, you’ll end up getting hurt. If you scream, you’ll end up
getting hurt. I won’t use thrall if you’ll behave. Will you
behave?”

Tears slipped down her cheeks, but she nodded and
stopped fighting. The sorcerer took his hand from her mouth.

What else was she going to do? Three against one were
terrible odds, especially when it was three males to one female:
two strong sorcerers and a vampire against a novice witch. It was
like taking a nuclear warhead to a minor playground spat between
schoolchildren.

Fiona looked up, determined to avoid the vampire’s
gaze. It didn’t matter because he’d turned and disappeared through
a thick patch of trees. The sorcerers dragged her through the
woods.

“Where are you taking me?”

“Don’t speak,” one of them said. “You know, we should
kill you right now. Your stupid panther killed two of ours, but the
boss says we have to keep you breathing.”

Their grips were unnecessarily tight, but she didn’t
say anything else. She tried not to hyperventilate as they moved
farther from the cottage. The fear over being outside and far from
safety warred with the real fear—the legitimate fear. This was what
the birds had warned about, and the catalyst had been helping the
wolf that first day. She should have ignored the pup.

To hold onto the last threads of her sanity a bit
longer, Fiona mentally rewound everything until she was back to
that day. She counted the steps to the mailbox, pulled out her
electric bill, and then counted the steps back. She heard the pup
cry, and she ignored him and went back inside. Everything would be
better if she’d taken that path instead.

The panther had been on his way. He could smell and
track the pup. Her involvement hadn’t been needed or helpful. It
had only made things worse. She tried not to think about how
intense Z had been about protecting the pup from her, how intense
he’d been about protecting her in the clearing. If he didn’t care,
he wouldn’t have done those things. He would have left the pup and
left her. She’d been the one who’d started the fight and insisted
on going home.

She’d been afraid that since Z didn’t need her for
anything anymore, he’d toss her out. So she’d beaten him to the
punch.

“Speed up,” one of them said. She’d been dragging her
feet. Well, of course she was dragging her feet. She was being
kidnapped. This wasn’t a field trip to Disneyworld.

Birds flew from tree to tree overhead.
I told you
so. I told you so. I told you so
. Their tones were
self-righteous and shrill.

She couldn’t take their taunting anymore. “Shut UP!”
she screamed up at the sky.

The sorcerers stopped. They’d been carrying on their
own conversation which she’d been trying to ignore, because it
wasn’t about her or where they were going or anything she could use
to help her escape. They were too smart for that.

“What did you just say to us?”

Fiona froze. “I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking
to the birds. They were mocking me.” It sounded insane, like she’d
lost touch with reality. The forest
did
feel unreal.

The men exchanged a look like they were trying to
determine if she was telling the truth or just crazy. “Your gift
better not be an act,” one of them said.

“It’s not an act.” It was the only thing Fiona had
that counted as a magical talent.

The forest emptied into a gravel parking lot, empty
except for a black sedan. Three guesses who that vehicle belonged
to.

One of them let go of her arm to unlock the car. “Get
in.” The door stood open, like the jaws of a monster waiting to
consume her.

If they were normal men, she might have tried to
break free and run or scream, hoping for a passerby. But though
they had no guns on them, they were armed. Every magic user past a
certain point in their training was perpetually armed with
fireballs, energy balls, or whatever else they could conjure on the
fly. Stomping on somebody’s foot and running wasn’t an option.

She tried to stall, instead. “What about Father
Hadrian?”

“He went to talk to your bodyguard. You should have
stayed with the panther. We were surprised to find your magic trail
led back to the cottage. Did you two have a lovers’ quarrel?”

Fiona blushed but didn’t answer. The more important
part of that equation was
magic trail
. She had a magic
trail? She’d thought it was only if she did magic. It was one of
the reasons she’d been scared to try to learn anything, afraid
someone would catch her magical signature and bring harm to
her.

What a joke. Most of her spells blew up in her face,
but she’d left a trail just by going about her day.

Wherever they were going, they didn’t care about her
knowing the location, because they didn’t bother to blindfold her.
Maybe they didn’t plan on her surviving. Fiona tried not to think
about that and stared out the dark-tinted windows to distract
herself. She had vague memories of the town from before her gift
had started to show, before the birds had warned her.

The town hadn’t changed at all. It was as if the
place were frozen in time, but she was sure places changed. Each
year new television shows displayed the changing fads and fashions.
But not Golatha Falls.

Fiona did a double take when they went through the
historic district. One of the old antebellum houses had burned to
the ground. Charred remains of the foundation was all that was left
of the place. She tried to remember what the house had looked like.
It had been large with columns in the front. When she’d been in
school, she remembered going past the place, trying not to look at
the windows for fear someone might be looking back out at her. That
was one of the times the place had been for sale. It was always for
sale. Everybody knew it was haunted.

They were getting closer to the interstate. Fiona’s
knuckles turned white as she gripped the edge of the seat. Her
breath came too fast and she couldn’t slow it down. She wasn’t
getting air. Her chest was tight, and then she was crying, which
didn’t help the breathing situation at all.

“Hey!”

One of the sorcerers had a glowing red ball in his
hand. “I will set you on fire if you don’t shut the fuck up.” He
tossed an empty fast food bag into the back seat at her. “Breathe
into that.”

She closed her eyes and breathed into the bag until
everything returned to normal, except for her pounding heartbeat.
Maybe she should have let the vampire thrall her, then she wouldn’t
be so scared.

A couple of streets before the on-ramp, the sedan
turned left. The road started out nice with the occasional peach
tree, though the fruit was long gone since it was November. The air
was starting to get that brisk bite to it. It didn’t get very cold
in Golatha Falls, even out in the woods where there wasn’t much sun
peeking through the trees.

The road went from paved to gravel, and then from
gravel to dirt.
They’re taking you to the middle of nowhere to
kill you.
But that didn’t make sense.

The trees gave way to open, flat land where the dark,
clear sky rolled on forever like it might swallow her up into a sea
of twinkling and never ending stars. Fiona gasped at the sight. It
had been years since she’d seen this much sky in one place before.
She’d only seen the tiny bits through the trees. There was the day
in the clearing with the pup, but the space hadn’t been this
big.