Karen Chance - Claimed by Shadow

"You reactivated her ward; that should be sufficient,” Pritkin replied, dragging his sack out of the back room and starting to unload it on the counter. "She is more than strong enough already.”

Mac didn't say anything, but he quietly reached up to his left shoulder and grabbed something that had been concealed by the gently waving leaves. He put a finger to his lips and glanced at Pritkin, who was lining up a collection of weapons on the counter. If he thought we were going to carry all of those, I hoped he'd brought a cart.

Mac reached for my arm and I looked down to see a gleaming gold charm in the shape of a cat being held to my elbow. As soon as it touched bare skin, it morphed into a sleek black panther with narrowed orange eyes. I recognized them as the ones that had been peering at me malignantly earlier, and they didn't look much happier now. The kitty didn't seem pleased to have lost Mac's generous camouflage, and after a brief glance around, it ran up my arm and disappeared beneath my shirt.

I could feel it almost like it was a real cat, with warm fur and little claws that pricked my skin. It was weird and it tickled and I didn't like it one bit. "What the-”

"Come on, Cassie, you need to finish lunch," Mac said, pushing me ahead of him through the curtain.

"What the hell is going on?" I hissed once we were in the back. Mac shushed me and made a weird gesture in the air.

"Silence shield," he explained. "John has better hearing without enhancements than most do with them.”

"Mac, if you don't explain what-”

"I just gave you that other ward you wanted. Sheba will take good care of you. Top of the line, she is.”

Ms. Top of the Line was crawling around on my stomach, occasionally stopping to lick me, and it was creeping me out. "Mac! Get this thing off me!”

He chuckled. "Can't. That kind can only be transferred once a day. Sorry.”

He didn't look sorry, and I had no way of knowing whether he was telling the truth. I frankly doubted it. "Mac!”

"You may need her, Cassie," he said more soberly. "You let me reactivate your ward, but it's like John said: your power may not work in Faerie, and if it does it could be sporadic. If the energy isn't flowing to fuel it, your ward won't function. Sheba 's going to tag along to make sure you have some protection even if your main ward fails-think of her as a slightly temperamental backup. There aren't many wards that'll work in Faerie, but that one will. I bought it off the Fey who enchanted it. And I wouldn't be much of a gentleman to let you go off defenseless, now, would I?”

"But I'm not going alone." Sheba had now climbed around to my back and was doing something with her claws that was less than pleasant. I reached around to get her to stop and got swatted at by a small paw for my trouble. Fortunately, the next minute she curled up in a warm ball at the base of my spine and went to sleep. If I concentrated, I could hear her purr contentedly.

"You're assuming we'll all get past the guards. But it won't be as simple as just walking in tonight.”

"You said you know them.”

"I do, but they know me, too. I used to be John's partner before I retired. He's a wanted man now, after that exhibition you two put on this morning, so my walking in there out of the blue and making small talk is going to look strange. The idea is that I create a diversion and you two run into the portal while the guards are busy with me. But there's no saying it'll work. Even if it does, you and John are going to be on your own after the guards apprehend me.”

I squirmed uncomfortably, both because Sheba 's lazily twitching tail was ticklish, and because of Mac's easy nonchalance about defying the Circle. "What'll happen when they catch you?”

He shrugged. "Likely nothing. It won't be a slap on the wrist and Bob's your uncle, I'm back on the streets. But I know a trick or two. With a little luck, I should be able to convince them that John put me under a compulsion spell and forced me to help.”

"And if you're not lucky?”

Mac grinned and patted me on the shoulder. "That's why we're going tonight. My old mates may not be happy to see me, but neither is likely to kill me. I pulled their nuts out of the fire a time or two-they owe me.”

"But the Circle-”

"You let me worry about them," he said as Pritkin stuck a suspicious face through the curtain.

"What's going on?" I saw him mouth before Mac dissolved the shield around us with an unobtrusive flick of his wrist.

"Finishing clogging our arteries," Mac said cheerfully. "I'd ask you to join us, but I know you've stretched your rules once today." He winked at me. "Never let John be in charge of the food, Cassie. He'll poison you with wheatgrass and prune juice.”

"It's better than the kind of thing you call food," Pritkin said, but he disappeared back out front as if satisfied.

I ate a little more of my burger, but the grease had started to congeal, and anyway, I'd lost my appetite. I was tired of other people getting hurt because of me, and falling into the Circle's hands definitely came under that category. Maybe people did owe Mac a few favors, but would it be enough? What if they tortured him to find out what he knew about me? I wouldn't put it past them, old soldier or no. I felt sick again, a combination of the type of food I'd consumed, nerves and worry. Mac didn't seem to have that problem, and ultimately finished off my burger himself.

I wandered back out front to find that Pritkin was loaded for bear. The mass of weapons was gone, but he didn't appear any more weighed down than usual. I realized why when I saw him clipping some very unusual charms to a link bracelet. "Iron," he explained as he fastened it around his wrist. "It saps Fey energy, tears through their defenses like silver does to a were.”

"I didn't peg you for the jewelry type," I said, although I'd pretty much figured out what he'd done. Not even a homicidal mage wears a charm bracelet with tiny machine guns, rifles and what looked suspiciously like a grenade launcher dangling from it. The latter was especially telling, since he'd pulled a life-size model out of his sack earlier.

"I shrank them," he said impatiently. "It's the only way to carry that much weight for any distance.”

"I thought you said our stuff doesn't work there?”

"I said our magic may not work properly, if at all. This"-Pritkin tapped the Colt on his belt-"isn't magic. And it's loaded with iron bullets. Speaking of which, here." He gave me a long coat that almost matched his own. "Put that on.”

I took it from his outstretched hand and almost collapsed to the floor. It felt like it was lead lined. After a minute, I realized that was pretty much the truth. The added weight came from boxes and boxes of bullets of every conceivable caliber that had been stuffed into the coat's many pockets.

"You have got to be kidding," I said, dropping the thing on the floor. It landed with an audible thud. "I won't be able to run in that! I doubt I could walk in it!”

"You won't be running." Pritkin picked it up and stuffed it back in my arms. "We would never outrun the Fey on their own turf, so we won't try. If we come across any and they're hostile-”

"And they will be," Mac put in, emerging from behind the curtain. He had a small backpack into which he put the contents of my duffle and, with a wink, a couple of beers.

"Then we stand our ground and fight," Pritkin finished. "Running is a waste of time and would play into their hands if it separated us. No matter how grim a battle seems, don't panic.”

"Of course not. I'll stand my ground while they mow me down." I was struggling into the hot leather and feeling cranky.

Pritkin checked his shotgun and, for the first time since our incident, he met my eyes. "If you're with me, you won't die," he said. He sounded so certain that, for half a second, I believed him.