Loe raamatut: «Sentinels: Leopard Enchanted»

Chapter 1

“‘Take a vacation,’ he said,” Ian Scott grumbled, lifting free weights as he sat out in the gorgeous landscaping of the gorgeous Santa Fe property under the gorgeous blue skies in the gorgeous fall weather. “‘You’ll like it,’ he said.”

“You could like it.” The woman’s voice from the patio sounded anything but repentant for her eavesdropping.

Ian found her standing on the porch with her arms folded over her motherly shape, her expression a mix of affection and exasperation.

His own face held nothing but exasperation, he was certain of it. “He took away my team. My computer. My tablet. My lab!”

“Pfft.” She made the noise with no sympathy at all. Her name was Fernie, and she ruled this retreat with nothing so overt as an iron fist. An iron spoon, perhaps. With cookie batter on it. “That’s what happens when you work yourself sick.”

Ian’s grumble grew closer to a growl. “Field Sentinels,” he said distinctly, “don’t get sick. And I wasn’t.” He hefted the dumbbell for a quick set of curls, proving the point.

“You,” she said, just as pointedly, “were injured. And Nick Carter knows better than to let his people wear themselves down.”

“Right,” Ian said, switching the weights to his other arm. “Can’t have that. Can’t have people getting tired when there are lives to be saved.”

His angry sarcasm was meant to drive her away. Instead she came down the three porch steps, past the towering, bloom-heavy hollyhocks and into the yard, her body language neither aggressive nor submissive—a woman with an extra touch of empathy who well knew the full-blooded Sentinels with whom she often worked.

Especially the cranky ones.

“Ian,” she said, and the soft lines of her face held understanding, “you can’t do it all. Maybe you can do most of it, but not all.”

Something in his temper snapped; he felt the hard coil of it in his chest. “I don’t have to do it all. I just have to do this one thing! One thing, to keep my friends safe!”

The best amulet tech in Brevis Southwest, and he still hadn’t devised a defense against the Atrum Core’s rarely detectable silent amulets—a failure that had cost them all dearly. Repeatedly. And which had given the Core time to devise other new deadly workings—while also leaving them vulnerable to new third-party interlopers, as of yet undefined in spite of their recent activity in the Southwest.

Fernie stood her ground. “That working is a fearful thing, no doubt. But the man who made it is dead now. You have time. And you’ve only been here a week.”

He glared. “They have stockpiles of silent blanks. Sooner or later, they’ll reproduce his work. And then the rest of us will die.”

“Let it go for this moment,” she said, quite steadily. “Don’t you think that’s why you’re here?”

That hard spring coiled tighter. Ian left the weights on the ground and gave way to his leopard, letting the prowl of it come out in his movement—pacing away to the tall latilla coyote fence and back again, feeling the strength of four legs and solid big cat muscle lurking beneath his skin. Out and back again, thinking that although he could detect any normal amulet within a mile, identify its nature, even trigger it if he wanted, he still didn’t have a thing on the silents.

Until Fernie said, in understanding admonishment, “Ian.”

He snapped a look at her. Her eyes widened; she took a sharp breath. But she held her ground, because that’s what she was here for. “Ian.”

His snarl was as much acquiescence as temper. He paced onward...but tucked the leopard away.

Mostly.

“All right, Fernanda,” he said, pausing by the fence. He found his fingers tapping against the rough, pinto bean bark of the hand-peeled latillas; he stilled them.

Maybe a run. Better than a hike up in the Sangre de Cristo trails, at least until he was certain the previous week’s activity hadn’t roused any interest. Strange that an aggressive mountain lion hadn’t been reported.

The narrow Santa Fe River Park ran east-west before them, a riverbed greenway full of cottonwoods and trails. He drifted to the front of the compact yard, through the groomed pines to the thick old adobe wall—four feet near the open gate, stepped up to five feet and then six to meet the tall latilla poles at the corner; another group of stout blooming hollyhocks festooned the transition from adobe to the old fashioned poles. The rest of the fencing was just as idiosyncratic, done in stages to include a high adobe corner in the back and token rail fencing along the property line. Typical of these old Santa Fe properties, where bits and pieces had been added over time.

A dirt road stretched out before them, defining this barely developed privacy in the middle of Santa Fe. The Sangre de Cristo mountains loomed to the east, marching northward to Taos and Colorado—over fourteen thousand feet high, full of bear and cougar and pristine air, tall pines and craggy outcrops. Perfect for a snow leopard.

That had pretty much been the whole point. Nick Carter, Southwest Brevis Consul and definitely the boss of Ian, could have sent him to any one of the Sentinel retreats, from oceanside to low desert scrub. Instead he’d sent Ian from their Tucson base of operations into the high cool mountains for his snow leopard to love.

Ian had simply been too preoccupied with what he’d left behind to truly walk away from it.

Atrum Core bastards.

Two thousand years earlier, the strictures of their cold war with the Core hadn’t been so important—not when druids held sway and Romans were trying to beat them down. Then, the Sentinels hadn’t tried too terribly hard to hide their developing nature, their mandate to protect the Earth—and the Core hadn’t even considered hiding their intent to gather power, ostensibly to make sure the Sentinels didn’t get out of hand.

Mostly it had been seen as a power struggle between two half brothers—and maybe, mostly at the start it was.

But the Core turned to dark ways and corrupted energies to achieve its goal, and the Sentinels honed their skills—and the world changed around them until both factions were in agreement over the need to remain undetected. Their conflict went underground, a worldwide détente with certain understandings: no direct offensives, no breaking cover. Theirs would be a cold war.

Until the Core’s most recent Southwest drozhar had gone rogue. Thanks to his silent amulets, too many Sentinels had been killed or wounded—especially the full-blooded field Sentinels. Those who took the shape of the other within.

Like Ian.

Atrum Core bastards.

“Go take a run,” Fernie said, startling him. “You think I can’t tell that you’ve gone off inside your head again?”

He growled at her.

She waved it away. “Go,” she said. “Run. Think about something else.” And she left him in the yard, returning to tend the cause of the yeasty sweetness wafting out into the yard.

What good was it to have a great growl when people ignored it? Ian propped his foot against the wall and retied his laces. All right, Fernie. A run.

But if he was distracted, he wasn’t oblivious. He saw well enough that he was no longer quite alone. Never mind the male cyclist at the end of the road...the woman coming his way deserved plenty of attention.

She walked along the edge of the dirt and gravel with a green cloth shopping bag tucked over one shoulder and a small leather shoulder bag over the other, wearing a lightweight blazer over a creamy shirt that shimmered with her movement and set off the olive tones of her skin. Her tidy jeans were more smart than casual, and they highlighted her every move. Even from here, he found his gaze drawn to the delicate set of Eurasian features, from the distinct tilt of her eyes to the defined elegance of her nose.

She hesitated several properties away, eyeing the typical adobe wall, gravel driveway and gate—and then, rejecting it, looked ahead to the next property. And finally to this one, where Ian leaned against the wall, watching her. She picked up her pace, walking with more purpose—no longer looking at house numbers, but at him.

All right, Fernie. First her, then a run.

* * *

Ana knew better than to assume anything about this man. She’d seen what he could do. She’d heard what he’d done.

The Core soldier playing the part of a hapless hiker on the mountain hadn’t deserved to die. She’d known him. He’d been only moderately skilled and not as hard-edged as most, taking his punishments without complaint. He hadn’t been nice to her, but he hadn’t been cruel, either.

She approached Ian Scott with one hand hooked into the grocery bag strap and the other in her purse and on her pepper spray—and even so, she hesitated.

She thought she’d known what to expect. Not just from the week before, but because she’d seen head shots—the faintly lengthened nature of his canines in that often rueful smile, the pale and unruly nature of his hair, silver by nature and smudged with faint streaks of black. She should have been prepared for the impact of those pale gray eyes rimmed with black, and for the striking contrast of dark brows and dark lashes. The snow leopard, coming through. Not all of the Sentinels showed their other so strongly, but this man...

Even standing there, he had a physical grace. Even not as tall as some of the Core posse members, even not as brawny.

She thought she’d known.

But she hadn’t been this close to him on the trail. So she hadn’t really known at all.

It took everything she had to offer him a steady smile. “Hi,” she said, taking advantage of an opportunity she hadn’t expected when she’d set out to survey this Sentinel retreat in person. “I’m so embarrassed, but when I left my rental this morning I didn’t realize how similar these yards are—”

“And they aren’t well numbered,” he finished for her, as polite as any man should be, but his eyes...never to be mistaken for anything but a predator’s eyes. His muscles ran strong and well-defined beneath a bright red sport shirt, his shoulders wide and body lean. Just as it had the week before, her body flushed with the awareness of what he was.

She swallowed her reaction, nodding to the drive beyond this one. “It might be that one. I’d recognize it if I went back for a look. But I don’t want to intrude.”

“I’ll come with you, if you’d like,” he said. “As long as you don’t taze me.” Those eyes flicked to her purse.

She lifted her hand from it. “Pepper spray,” she said without apology.

“Of course, pepper spray.” He said it amiably enough. “I wouldn’t worry too much about intruding. That driveway goes to a cluster of rentals. You won’t be the first person to look around.”

It was, she realized with surprise, his way of politely giving her space to move along on her own. For that instant, it flummoxed her; she was unused to such courtesy. Something fluttered in her chest, and she thought it might have been regret.

But in the next moment she jerked back, stumbling as his expression changed entirely—turning feral and predatory and triggering the fear that not only came of knowing what he was, but of seeing it in him. Oh, God he’s going to—

And he did, planting his hands on the wall to leap over it in one smooth—

The blow came from behind, so suddenly she had no warning—just the impact, the wrenching twist of her shoulder, and her instinctive grab at her purse. She scraped against the adobe, losing the purse after all—and only then seeing the cyclist behind her.

Ian came over the wall feet first. The cyclist went flying, the bike went flying, the purse went flying...

Ian landed on his feet.

The cyclist scrambled up and away and somehow thought he would make it. Even Ana knew better, dazed and clinging to the wall—and stunned all over again by Ian’s speed as he pounced. She winced in anticipation as he landed on the man, poised for a fierce blow—and then slowly relaxed as he drew himself up short, one knee on the man’s chest, his knuckles resting at the man’s throat in an aborted strike that would have been fatal.

“Bad move,” he told the man. If he was breathing hard, Ana couldn’t see it.

But she could see the man’s face. And she knew him.

The shock of it piled on to the shock of the attack and kept her pinned to the wall, struggling to understand.

He was Core, she was sure of it. She couldn’t fathom it. Why would Lerche seek to sabotage the assignment he’d given her?

She came back to her wits as Ian Scott scooped her purse from the ground. Her attacker pedaled wildly away, not quite steady on the bike.

“What—?” she said, far too nonsensically.

“You okay?” Ian said, and held out the purse.

“Yes, I—” She rubbed her arm, taking the purse to fumble for her phone. “I should call the police—” Not because she truly thought it best, but because she thought it was the thing to say.

He sidestepped the matter—no surprise. Sentinels eschewed official notice as much as the Core. “I’d rather offer to see you home again. You have any idea why that guy would be targeting you?”

For the moment, she forgot her script. “What do you mean, targeting me?”

“He’s been lurking at the end of the street, watching you.”

Ah. She understood now. Someone hadn’t trusted her to get this job done on her own...and then hadn’t trusted her enough to let her in on the plan. She groped for words that would ring true. “I can’t imagine it was personal.”

“Didn’t smell like coincidence,” he said, his fingers tapping lightly against the wall. Surely the man sat still every once in a while. “It smelled like—” He stopped himself.

She had the sudden understanding that he spoke literally, and she remembered again who this man was—no matter his charismatic presence or his beautiful eyes. He was Sentinel, and he was the Southwest’s best amulet specialist. If the Core had sent out a posse member who carried amulets...

Even Ana could sometimes perceive the regular amulets, like a stain in the air. Many Core members couldn’t, and it wasn’t considered a necessary skill. But of course he’d know, and far better than she would. And of course he’d want to avoid the cops. The Sentinels and the Core kept their encounters off the books.

“You’re probably right,” he said, making an obvious choice to relinquish control of the conversation. “Coincidence.” He bent to pick up her groceries, scattered as they were from the encounter, and appropriated the bag so he could reload them. “You’re all scraped up. Come on inside, we’ll get you fixed up.”

She hesitated a moment too long. He added, “Fernie is inside, too. She’ll slap my hands if I do anything you don’t want me to.”

For that moment, she froze. She heard the unspoken message there—the potential that there were things she might want him to do. His eyes told her as much, seeing her absorb the meaning, confirming it—smiling just there at the corner of his mouth.

Run away. Run fast.

Run to safety, where the flush of her awareness wouldn’t expand into a flush of wanting—of wondering what it would be like to be touched by such strength and consideration. As if this man might just give back as much as he received.

She took a sharp breath, using it to slap herself back to reality. There would be no running, no matter how smart it would be. Because getting inside the house had been part of her assignment all along.

Get inside the house. Plant the silent amulet.

And maybe, finally, she would gain not only the respect and belonging she longed for, but also the safety that came with it.