Page 6 of Last Hope
Esmeralda let out a scared squeal and wheeled to a sudden stop, clutching her son for dear life to her chest. Antonio pushed her behind him and assumed a protective stance while Anya gripped Isis’s hand tighter.
And then the wolf stood on his hind legs, face transforming into a human’s. She could hardly make out what he looked like because he yelled, “Long live Caesareon!” Before jumping in the air in Isis’s direction.
God damn it,Isis thought,not again.
4
The wolf’s front paws rammed into Isis’s chest and sent her falling to the ground. Her grip on Anya’s hand loosened. She had nothing to hold on to, nothing to reach for. All she had was the concrete beneath her, and the massive werewolf on her chest.
His breath was hot and musky and it smelt of flesh and blood. Isis didn’t even want to thinkwhoit could be. He began to snap at her face, attempting to get a bite in, or to rip her throat out. Whatever the case, Isis held up her arms to protect herself but he was too heavy, and she didn’t seem to have the energy to fight him off.
And then she heard the chanting, louder than Esmeralda’s screams and Viktor’s cries. A voice as soft and as cold, as falling snow, rising to a crescendo of foreign words, ending in a high note that, just as it ended, sent a jolt of electricity running through the wolf’s body and he lay limp atop of Isis.
She blinked away her confusion and then tossed the wolf to the side and stood up. Anya was standing before her, eyes squinted closed in heavy concentration. Her hands were thrown up to the sky, finger splayed wide apart as if she were calling to the forces of heaven for assistance. Her hair was in wild disarray around her shoulders, blowing with the wind, and the intensity that she radiated around her like a strong glow made Isis immediately think of an avenging goddess.
Isis had never seen Anya do magic before, and it wasn’t something they usually talked about when they spent time together. She knew Anya was a witch, and she hailed from Transylvania and that was basically all she knew about her Soul Mate.
So, seeing her do this particular bit of deadly magic, a simple incantation that could kill a werewolf so easily, frightened Isis as much as it intrigued her and tempted her.
Slowly, Anya’s hands lowered, she blinked and stared Isis straight in the eyes. Her face was impassive, and Isis didn’t feel the need to breach her thoughts to want to know what she was thinking. There was hardly any fun in being able to search someone’s mind all of the damn time, she thought, it only took out the fun of discovering things for yourself.
“Are you all right?” Anya asked, her breathing surprisingly light after what had just happened, making Isis wonder if it took any effort at all to kill things with spells.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” She looked down at the werewolf who was, surprisingly, still in his giant grey wolf form. Usually when wolves died they went back to their human form. Isis nudged the animal aside with her shoes and turned to Ezzy and Antonio. “Are you guys all right?” she asked them.
Tears were running down Ezzy’s face, smearing the mascara around her eyes, but she nodded and tightened her hold on Viktor, whose face was a mirror image of his mother’s, only without the makeup.
“I’m fine,” Ezzy whispered. “But…” she stuttered, “that thing tried toattackyou!”
Isis shrugged her shoulders as if this were nothing new to her. In a way, it wasn’t. After weeks of being almost killed by Caesareon’s minions, this was minor, almost a daily norm in her life. “Welcome to my world,” she muttered dryly and turned to Anya. “What did you do to him?”
“I merely froze him. I thought the police might want a word with him when he wakes up.” There was something in Anya’s voice, something that sounded a little like regret, though Isis didn’t worry too much about it, considering there were more important things to be done.
“Oh,” Isis sighed and pulled out her cellphone, dreading the fact she was about to see that Phillipe bitch, yet again. She dialed her number quickly and pressed the phone to her ear. “How long will he stay paralyzed?” Isis asked as the phone rang.
Anya shrugged. “Not sure, I’ve never really used that spell before.”
Isis choked back a laugh as Victoria Phillipe answered. “You told me to call you if we found out any information.” Isis looked at the immobile werewolf, dread beginning to eat its way at her insides all over again.So much for sleep…“Well, brace your pretty little panties as I tell you whatjusthappened…”
* * *
Antonio didn’t stay aroundand wait for Victoria Phillipe to show up and take the wolf. Not that Isis could blame him. He had a family now that he needed to protect, and how could he do that if he hung around Isis all of the time, knowing she was a danger magnet? No, she didn’t blame him for bolting the hell out of there with Esmeralda and Viktor. She was just glad Anya had decided to stay and wait with her, though the silence between them felt as though it was stretched for miles.
By the time Victoria had arrived, andthank godfor that, Isis thought, the wolf had just begun to stir back into consciousness and she didn’t feel like holding him down. After recounting the story to the FBSI agent, Isis said her goodbye’s, without waiting for a reply and left, gripping Anya by the hand and leaving as fast as she could back to her place.
As soon as Isis closed the door behind her, she rounded on Anya. “Okay, tell me what’s wrong.”
Sure, Anya was normally quiet, but this was a different kind of quiet. The kind that made Isis feel uncomfortable and awkward; the kind that made her want to fill the silence with something…anything.
“What do you mean?” Anya asked, cleverly avoiding her gaze as she pulled off her shoes and walked into the living room of the condo.
Isis tried to muster her patience. “You know damn well what I mean. You cast that spell and now something’s wrong with you. What happened?” She followed her to the kitchen, where she stood in the doorway while Anya retrieved food from the fridge.
“It was just…” Anya began, the side of her mouth twitching as she tossed a bag of blood to Isis, who caught it in midair and began taking slow sips from it. “It was a powerful spell, and it tired me.”
She was lying.
She had barely broken out into a sweat when she had cast the spell, and it helped that the Soul Mate connection between them let Isis know Anya was lying. She narrowed her eyes. She had always respected people’s privacy. If there were things they didn’t want to talk about, then fine, she could handle that, but she didn’t appreciate being lied to.
