Charlaine Harris - Wolfsbane and Mistletoe

I glanced at Jezebel and she nodded. I wrote down the address, making him spell it twice so there couldn’t be a mistake, and turned to go. I was halfway to the door when I heard the sound of tearing fabric and a thump behind me. Yuki caught me by the arm, his long, perfectly polished nails almost but not quite breaking the skin. “Wait! You haven’t done the memory wipe yet!”

“That would be because there’s no such thing. Not for Weres.”

“But you said—”

“I lied.”

“But they’ll kill me!”

I thought about the two girls he’d callously sent to a horrible end. “That would be my guess.”

“But you’re a war mage! You can’t—”

“I’m not a very good war mage,” I told him sadly. “You should see my performance evals.”

“I wouldn’t worry about the clans,” Jezebel added. “When I tell everyone what happened to those girls, and that you set it up . . .” She gave him a slow smile. Yuki looked at me, but I guess he didn’t see anything helpful because the next minute he took the hint, hiked up his skirts, and ran. Jezebel sauntered out after him.

I called Gil with the address on the way there. It was a little hard to concentrate considering the traffic—it looked like most people preferred one more roll of the dice to visions of sugarplums—but it was a short conversation. “I’ll meet you,” Gil said when I finished, and hung up. I smiled. It had to be pretty major when a department head got out of a warm bed to sling a spell or two in the cold—and to hog the credit.

The address Yuki had provided led me to a large McMansion in one of the new, absurdly overpriced subdivisions that have been springing up like mushrooms all around Vegas. I don’t know what I’d been expecting, but it hadn’t been pale yellow stucco and a red tile roof, surrounded by a neatly swept lawn and a lot of cars. An SUV pulled up while I sat there, and a couple of people in sequins and Santa hats got out, carrying a bottle of booze in a shiny gold package.

I drove past and let my bike idle around the corner while I checked the scribbled instructions again. As strange as it seemed, the number was right, so I parked the bike and waited for my backup. And waited.

After twenty minutes, I called Gil again, but his cell went straight to voice mail. Where the hell was everyone? Traffic wasn’t that bad. And unless the war had suddenly come to town, I found it hard to believe that another case had taken precedence.

I decided to move a little closer and at least find out what kind of wards we were dealing with. Only there weren’t any. There also weren’t any of the standard traps, snares, or other nasty surprises I’d been expecting. The door wasn’t even locked, so either someone was superconfident or unbelievably careless. Or this was a trap. But it didn’t feel like one. There was no sign of anything illicit going on, just a brightly lit vestibule with terra-cotta- tiled floors and a pine wreath with a big red bow. Music and laughter spilled out of a side room, which I couldn’t see without going all the way in.

Damn it! It was no surprise that Yuki had lied, but I hadn’t thought Jezebel would help him. And now he had an hour’s head start. Even worse, Gil was on his way to raid some norm’s Christmas party.

I pulled the door shut and started to turn, only to hear someone’s voice from behind me. “About time you showed up,” it said, and the world exploded in pain.

I woke up an indeterminate time later, feeling as if I’d run into a wall. I tried looking around but my eyes didn’t seem to be working. My memory is usually pretty good, so it probably wasn’t a positive sign that I had no recall of whatever had happened. Just fragments of conversation that didn’t make sense.

. . . mother was a Were . I always suspected . . .

If she’s human . . .

She’s not . And we’re running out of time .

I’ll prepare . . .

I felt a needle prick my arm, and then nothing but cold creeping painfully over my body. I strained, desperate to move an arm, to open my eyes, to think, but for a long time all I felt was the dragging weight of a body that wasn’t obeying my commands. And then feeling returned and there was nothing but agony.

When I finally forced my lids open, a terrible white light was pouring in, stabbing at my brain. I tried to block it, but I couldn’t lift my hand. I also couldn’t see straight, and all I could hear was an awful, inhuman noise coming out of my own chest. For one horrible second, I needed air and couldn’t remember how to get it, my lungs refusing to work. There were suddenly voices all around me, blurry faces peering down, and a smug voice saying, “I told you so . ” Then darkness again.

I came around the second time mainly because of the absence of pain. It didn’t feel like it was gone for good, more like it had taken a break and would be back to torture me again soon. But for the moment, I could breathe, although my ribs ached with each shallow attempt.

My wrist had fallen near my face, and my watch informed me that it was 12:05 A.M. Christmas morning. I’d have traded all the presents in the world for the ability to sit up, to know what had happened. I flexed a finger and it was stiff, like a dried twig that would snap if I pushed too hard. My brain was screaming at me to do something, to move, to get into a defensive position, but I couldn’t manage it. I did finally lift my head, though, and saw that I wasn’t in the foyer anymore. Not unless the owners had decided to renovate it in early industrial ugly while I was out.

I also wasn’t alone.

“I’ve been looking for you,” I croaked, and a blond head snapped up. The girl had been seated on the other side of the small cage we seemed to be sharing, staring at its iron bars. She stared at me now instead, blue eyes wide.

“You’re alive.” Daniela seemed surprised.

I licked my lips, but couldn’t feel it. “The jury’s still out.”

She grabbed a water bottle that was hanging on the side of the cage. She couldn’t stand up, the cage top was too low, but she scuttled over on hands and knees. “None of the others lasted this long,” she said, as I tried to drink through numb lips.

I spit water all over my shirt. “What others?” I croaked.

“The other Weres who were here. They’re all dead.”

“How, why?”

“Failed experiments,” she said angrily. “Some mages are planning to blow up the clan leaders at the Ulfhring tomorrow.”

“What does that have to do with you?”

“I’m the bomb.”

I tried to drag myself into a sitting position, but failed. “Come again?”

“They need me to get past security. That’s why they took the daughters of highly placed members. If I say it’s an emergency, security will let me in. They know me.”

“And they think you’re just going to carry in a bomb for them?”

“They plan to put me under a compulsion.”

“That doesn’t work on Weres,” I pointed out.

“I know that! But they’ve come up with a potion that’s supposed to help the suggestion to take.”

“I’ve never heard of anything like that.”

“Because it didn’t work! All it did was kill everyone after a couple of hours. They’ve been trying to get the formula right, so I have time to blow myself up before I die.”

“Let me guess. It killed the other high clan girls, so they started using low clan women to experiment on.” The kind they thought no one would miss.

Daniela nodded. “They think they finally have the formula right. I get to find out in a few hours. But I’ve been thinking. I’m the only high clan girl left, and they don’t have time to find a replacement.”