dark magick.
He didn’t like it. Something reeked about this op. And the commanding officer back at base had specifically requested their presence.
No paranorms out here, not even a desert jinn. The desert was empty of magick. Yet the niggling suspicion wouldn’t quit. Matt rubbed the back of his sweating neck. He didn’t like how vulnerable and exposed the gun turret made Adam.
“Let me take the gun. You’ve been on top long enough,” he urged.
A distant look came into Adam’s eyes. For a moment, he saw an odd flash of grief. Then the jaguar gave the ghost of a smile. “Not a chance, Dakota. You always wanna be on top.”
“Gets me no complaints from the ladies,” he cracked.
The wind blew over the rocky sand, stirring the dust. His unease grew. Anything could be hiding in those hills. Insurgents, suicide bombers.
Or worse.
Gooseflesh erupted on his bare forearms. Matt glanced at Adam, newly mated to a beautiful black-haired jaguar shifter. They were trying to have a baby, he remembered.
“Spooky out here. Wildcat, you drive,” Matt urged.
Adam shot him an amused look. “You need the big gun to hide behind, Dakota? Why? You scared? Wuss.”
He laughed, glad to see the melancholy gone from his friend’s face. They climbed back into the Hummer. Adam stood in the gun turret, his upper body outside as he manned the .50-caliber machine gun, continuing his sweep of the sands. Matt disliked the armored-up Hummer. It added too much weight and the damn thing had a rep for the doors jamming during an attack, trapping whoever was inside.
They drove onward.
“Hold on. Traffic ahead.” Matt’s instincts sharpened as he spotted a man standing by a hill beside the road, waving to them. “Check him out.”
“Huh. Not a hell-raiser,” Adam said, using the squad’s code word for enemy paranorms. “And doesn’t carry the stench of Taliban. Just a human friendly.”
The gray-bearded, elderly man pointed to his leg. Blood stained his tattered trousers. He was wounded. Needed medical assistance. His expression looked strained. Terrified.
“Help me,” he mouthed.
Matt stopped the Hummer. “I’m getting out. Can’t catch his scent.”
“Stay there.” Adam’s voice was sharp with concern. “I got this.”
The elderly man opened his jacket, showing rows and rows of dynamite. With a look of stark terror, he thumbed a switch.
“Get down!” Matt yelled to Wildcat.
The bomb exploded laterally, but the heavy armored vehicle held. Matt swore as he jimmied the door.
Jammed.
“Yo, Dakota. I’m a little stuck here.”
From the force of the blast, metal compressed against Adam as he stood in the turret. His legs were pinned.
“Hold on.”
Matt tried pulling him down, but Wildcat was too tightly wedged. Using his werewolf strength, he managed to pry back a piece of damaged frame from Adam’s legs but, as he did, suspicion raced through him. No ordinary blast could cause such precise damage. It had to be …
He looked out the window, saw a pulse of black spectral magick. “Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot,” he yelled.
Ten insurgents carrying AK-47s appeared on the sand. Only these had pointed ears and pale skin, instead of leathery, tanned skin. Darksider Fae. They began spraying the vehicle with small-arms fire.
They’d been set up.
Adam fired back, the machine gun rattling like thunder. The enemy dropped dead, then their bodies began to smoke. The Fae vanished in an explosion of dust.
Darksider Fae were hard to detect because they could impersonate anything, such as a certain arrogant C.O. back at base. They were rogue Fae, their leash held by a bigger master. But who? Matt whipped his head back and forth, searching the sands. The human grandfather was bait, forced to kill himself.
Adam’s voice crackled over his headpiece. “Damn it, Dakota, I’ve been hit.”
“How bad?” His heart raced as he forced himself to calm.
“A little bit. Bleeding like an SOB.”
Jaguars didn’t heal as quickly as Draicon werewolves. Matt cranked around, saw blood dampening Adam’s pants leg.
“Have to shift, only way out.”
Magick shimmered in the air as Adam shifted, and the energy from the change peeled back the metal, freeing him. The large, black jaguar leaped off the Hummer and landed on the sand.
“I’m coming, buddy,” Matt signaled, and grabbed his Medipack.
His skin crawled as he saw the blood matting the jaguar’s midsection. Matt couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. Gutshot. Fatal wound.
His training kicked in. The camp was only an hour’s drive away, but he had to save him by keeping the bleeding under control until Wildcat received medical attention.
The jaguar turned its head and, for a moment, sorrow filled its gaze.
Something hot and evil stirred the air.
Matt jimmied the door again. He tried shotgun side, but it was also stuck. The wind stirred the pebbled sand, spiraling it into miniature sandstorms. His heart leaped into his throat as the sandstorm blew closer. The big cat charged the sandstorm.
Damn it! The storm dissipated into four distinct, gray shapes.
Pyrokinetic demons.
Panic squeezed his throat. With a sickening twist of his stomach, Matt saw the pyros assume form. Two went for the jaguar. Two more spun toward the Hummer, flames pouring from their gray talons, from their opened mouths.
Wildcat was wounded and fur gave little protection against fire.
He grabbed the fire extinguisher from the back, kicked the passenger door with every ounce of werewolf strength. It swung open. He had just scrambled out the other side when he heard Adam’s scream.
Matt hit the sand, rounding the Hummer. With a deafening yell, he hit the extinguisher’s switch. The device emptied, spraying a demon, who squealed and died.
He lifted his H&K MP-5, firing away to shoot the other bastards when the flames hit his legs. The flame-retardant material began to slowly peel away beneath the five-hundred-degree heat. Matt ducked back, gasping. Felt like someone flicked a lighter inside his bones. The pain was acid-hot, but he had to get to Adam. His buddy was hurt.
Snarling, he pushed on, firing his weapon. The demons were retreating, falling back over the slope, their powers sapped. One turned and aimed a blast of dying flame
