Chapter 27
Julian
I scanned the post on my screen again, making sure I hadn’t missed anything.
According to this particular dark web message board I’d been lurking on, there was a way to trick the ankle monitor.
The cursed thing didn’t care which demon it was attached to.
It just needed to be attached to one. Anyone.
It was possible to transfer it to someone else and walk away free.
All they had to do was make their leg or limb immaterial, overlap it with yours, and then the original prisoner could phase out while the substitute phased in.
Everything had to be timed correctly but according to the author, they’d tested it on several of these devices, and it had worked on every last one.
The problem was obvious. Who the hell would volunteer for that? And even if someone did, I couldn’t imagine asking. I wouldn’t wish this existence on anyone, especially not someone I cared about.
I was still staring at the screen when Gina appeared in the middle of the dining room without warning. Her usually perfectly bouncy hair was a mess. Her blouse had been formed on her body sideways. The normally perfect siren of a succubus looked thoroughly rattled.
“They messed up,” she said, breathless, even though we didn’t actually need to breathe. “Their plan went sideways. They found the other women and they arrested most of them, but two of them got away. And they—"
“Slow down, Gina. What are you talking about? What plan?”
She ran a hand through her hair and blew out a breath. I’d never seen her like this before.
“The plan,” she repeated. “The one I couldn’t hear before.”
“You said she met with the researcher and Nathan.” I’d tried asking Nathan about it yesterday but he brushed me off.
“Yeah, that. I knew they were up to something, so I followed them. I didn’t even realize their plan until it was already unfolding”
“What plan?” All this back and forth tested my patience.
“The plan to use Lily as bait to find the other women and prove that you’re innocent,” Gina huffed, clearly still upset herself.
“What? No!” I stood. “That’s too dangerous.” The thought of my snarky Vixen in danger because she was trying to help me, had me reeling. What if it went wrong? What if I lost her? What if that one reckless act had cost me the only person who ever made me feel whole? “We have to stop them.”
“Yeah, and that was probably why they wouldn’t let me in on it.
Because I’d tell you and you’d say just that.
But it’s too late to stop anything. I didn’t realize it was happening until they set the trap.
And it worked. Mostly anyway. They found the missing women and arrested most of the bastards, but two of them got away, and they have Lily. ”
It took a few seconds for the last few words to register. They have Lily.
Here I was, stuck twiddling my thumbs, completely useless, while Lily was out there. She’d solved the case and cleared my name, but she was now in danger.
“What the hell do you mean they have Lily?” I paced the room. “Can’t they find her? Lily’s friends have magic. And the researcher has access to spells too. Prax is involved, and Nathan is a bear shifter. Surely together they could find her.”
Gina wrung her hands. “They have Officers Cooley and Hayes on it. But the people behind this are strong too. Their leader was a professor at Darlington University; he went MIA the day the portal appeared. Everyone thought he got sucked in,” Gina said.
“They’ve tried everything and can’t locate her. ”
A sharp meow had us looking down at Shadow, who’d slipped into my home through the crack in the balcony door I’d left open for her. When she jumped onto the counter, something sparkling caught my eye.
“What have you got there, Shadow?” I held out my hand, and the cat dropped something gold and metallic into my palm. It was the bracelet Lily had found the other day.
Gina gasped. “They said the guy who took the bracelet took Lily.”
My chest tightened. Shadow had found her.
“Good girl!”
Shadow preened at my compliment.
“Can you bring us to her?”
The cat started out the door, but the second I tried to follow after her, I remembered the ankle monitor.
“Fuck!”
I eyed the laptop screen, which was still open to the message board. The idea that had been simmering suddenly snapped into place.
Gina followed my gaze to the screen, then started reading the conversation there. Meanwhile, Shadow looked back at us from the top of the light post with an impatient glare.
“Lily is your woman.” Her hand turned into a piece of duct tape, and she slapped it over my mouth before I could protest. “Don’t even deny it. She might even be your mate. And if anyone should go rescue her, it should be you. But you'd better switch back with me once Lily is safe. Or else.”
Then she turned herself smoky and lined her leg up with mine, putting it into the device.
There was a moment when she started to phase solid and I was phasing out that I was sure it wouldn’t work.
But soon she was completely solid, which meant I must be diffused, because we couldn’t be solid in the same place at the same time.
I stepped away, leaving the dreaded contraption behind.
“Where’s your phone?” she asked.
I pointed to the device on the counter.
“Good. I’ll pretend to be you and let everyone know what’s happening. Just pretend to be me when law enforcement is around. We don’t want them patching up our little loophole. Go find your girl.”
Then I was following Shadow, phasing through any barriers that got in my way. A good thing too, because I wouldn’t have been able to follow any other way. She squeezed through some tight spaces, and I got to see a cat’s-eye view of the city.
But we didn’t stay in the city limits for long. She ducked into a forested area and continued traveling until we were in the middle of the woods. There, she stopped, putting her nose to the ground like a hound. Instead of following her scent, I was sure Lily’s familiar was following her magic.
Suddenly something came out of the trees.
I prepared to fight, but I saw an animal that looked like an oversized ferret mixed with a skunk.
I’d only ever seen honey badgers in videos before; this one was much larger.
It moved low to the ground, stocky and muscular.
And by the intelligence in its eyes and the fearless way it came right up to me, I knew it was a shifter.
“Looking for Lily?” I asked.
It nodded.
Shadow hissed at the appearance of a larger animal and leaped up onto my shoulder.
“It’s okay, he’s a friend.” I turned to the creature. “I think this is where Shadow found the bracelet. Let’s look around and see what we can find.”
I noticed a disturbed area under a tree.
People had stopped here recently, and it looked like there had been a struggle.
A scrap of fabric was snagged onto a low-hanging branch.
After a quick sniff, the shifter barreled farther into the woods.
I followed, keeping just my hand solid so I could hold onto Shadow.
As we followed, Prax in hawk form joined us.
“I was expecting Gina,” he squawked.
I changed my form to resemble my friend. “Better?” I asked, still using my own voice. I’d be able to fool law enforcement, but not my friends.
He rolled his eyes, a challenging feat considering he was a hawk.
We were soon stopped in front of a cave mouth.
Magic shimmered at the entrance, and I knew better than to touch it. Prax? Not so much. He reached for it and was immediately thrown back.
“Thanks for announcing our presence,” I whispered before I made myself invisible as a face appeared behind the magical screen.
“It’s just a fucking bird.” The guy moved back into the cave.
Prax joined us behind some trees before resuming his natural form. Then he reached for a foil packet that I hadn’t realized the honey badger had been holding in his claws.
“Thanks, Declan.”
Prax threw it at a tree trunk that had a perfect line of sight to the cave opening. A portal opened, showing the inside of an eclectically decorated living room that bordered on messy. Moments later, Griselda and Penny waved from the other side.
“Work your magic, ladies.” Prax bowed with a flourish.
I realized they planned on attacking the barrier with their own magic, right through the portal.
It was smart. Based on what I knew about portals, it took a lot of energy to bring something physical through, but significantly less to use it to cast from afar.
It would also keep the casters out of the line of fire.
The last thing we needed was more witches in danger.
Penny and Griselda stepped closer to the portal, their hands and lips moving in unison as they crafted their spell.
They made gestures as if throwing something at the barrier protecting the front of the cave.
Sparks crackled, and the air in front of the cave shimmered.
But after a long moment, the magic fizzled out, leaving the cave untouched.
“Damn it,” Penny muttered, shaking out her fingers.
Movement inside the cave drew our attention. A half-starved-looking middle-aged man wearing a long robe stood on the other side of the barrier, scowling at the portal and the two witches inside it.
“Fucking witches!” He motioned to someone, and the younger man from before came into view, holding Lily hostage. He clutched a jagged blade in his hand and held it to Lily’s throat.
“That must be the cult leader’s last remaining disciple,” Prax said. “They have everyone else locked up.”
“Try it again, and I’ll tear her apart before your spell even lands,” cackled the figure in the robe.
Lily's eyes were on her coven sisters. Held in front of both men, they didn’t see when she mouthed, “Do it.”
Lily moved suddenly, smashing her fist back against the man’s crotch and ducking through his arms.
“You bitch!”
All hell broke loose inside the cave.
Penny and Griselda were casting again, but this time they were chanting loudly. And they weren’t alone. Lily’s voice joined them, sounding like she was among them, even though she was physically inside the cave.
This time, the barrier rippled, then cracked. A sound like glass breaking echoed through the trees.
The moment the shield dropped, I lunged through the cave opening, my eyes intent on the asshole who’d threatened my mate. He barely had time to react before I ripped Lily out of his grasp and drove my fist into his face.
By the time he brought his magic shield to protect himself, I’d already gotten several hits in, and blood was spurting out of his nose.
He punched back, but I made myself immaterial in his fist passed right through me.
“Demon!” he hissed.
Declan the honey badger shifter had gone for the other wizard, tackling him to the ground. With a burst of energy the badger was flung back, landing against the cave wall. But the rugged creature just shook itself off and lunged for the older wizard again.
Now Prax was there. He threw something at the older wizard, and silky threads poured out of the object, wrapping around the wizard like a cocoon. The threads consolidated into a series of thick ropes. The man cursed up a storm but could do nothing.
Seeing this, the one I’d been fighting tried to slip through us to escape. I caught him and tossed him back onto the floor. Soon, he too was all trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey.
I reached for Lily, but she stared at me, confused.
“Gina?”
Right. I was still wearing Gina’s form. The asshole probably thought he was being beaten by a woman. Which shouldn’t be seen as a bad thing; I’d known some pretty fucking strong women in my lifetime.
“It’s me, Vixen,” I said. I shifted just my face back, keeping the rest of my body cloaked in Gina’s illusion.
Her eyes went wide. “Julian!”
She wrapped her arms around me, and I held on tight. For a moment, the portal, the spells, the chaos around us faded to background noise. I felt her heartbeat against my chest, steady and real, as I moved my hands over her body, trying to make sure that she truly was in my arms again.
She one-upped me and plastered kisses all over my face.
“You came for me.”
“Of course I did. You’re mine, Vixen.”
The look on her face was unreadable. Worried that she’d remind me that we were just friends, I kissed her. We had so much to talk about, but we’d do that later when we didn’t have an audience, because the distant sound of sirens was coming from the edge of the woods.
I pulled back, shifting fully into Gina again. “I’m supposed to be at home,” I explained.
She grinned. “I know.”
Shadow, who’d been hanging out on a branch until now, sidled over to rub up against Lily’s leg as if to say she found her first.
“Shadow!” Lily scooped her up. “You’re alright! Did you know she attacked that asshole? Scratched up his arm real good.”
“She helped me find you. Brought me the bracelet.”
The next few minutes passed by like hours.
All I wanted to do was get my mate home and tell her how I felt.
Then I’d spend the rest of the day and all of tonight, and possibly tomorrow too, convincing myself that she was alright.
There’d be a lot of moaning and screaming, and a whole lot of magic-making.
After way too long, Officer Cooley finally said, “We’ll come by your place tomorrow morning to take all the information. You get home and get some rest.”
“Make that my place,” I said. “I’m above the club; just ring the bell.”
She frowned.
Oh shit. I’d given myself away.
“Uh… I mean Julian’s place…”
Officer Cooley raised her brow, and Hayes guffawed.
“Recorder’s off,” Hayes said. “You’re fine. Just keep her safe.”
I turned to the most precious thing I’d ever had in my arms. “Come on, let’s get you home.”