Wolf Tracks - Bianca D'Arc Page 0,66

practicing the bloody arts for as long as we’ve been together,” Buford went on while his wife frowned. “She set things up here while I checked out Carol’s operation, but in the end, it wasn’t really worth my time, and it got you on my trail.” Buford’s expression spoke of his disgust for that little gem.

“We did learn one thing from Carol, though,” Otalla put in as she stepped into the room and raised her hands. “She really was very good at draining the magic out of her victims.”

Otalla tried something on Jim at that point. He felt it, but it didn’t quite connect. Was she trying to drain his magic from a distance? If so, it wasn’t very effective. Jim reached for one of his new throwing knives and sent it her way. It didn’t hit her—she had some kind of shield around herself—but it thunked into the wall next to her head and made her stop whatever it was she’d been attempting.

“That tickles,” Jim told her, deadpan. Her expression showed deep rage. She was good and pissed and liable to make a mistake. He hoped. “So, what made you pick this place to set up shop?” Jim turned to ask Buford, as if Otalla were no threat. He knew that would only feed her ire.

“A town full of werewolves?” Buford asked rhetorically. “You’ve got to be kidding. This place is ripe and ready for the picking.”

“Maybe. Maybe not,” Jim repeated himself. “How did you find out about this place?” Jim’s question was open enough not to be construed as agreement with Buford’s claim that the town was full of shifters. Jim could mean the old feed mill, or he could mean the town.

“Found it in my travels,” Buford said offhandedly. “I flew through the airport and realized the place was overflowing with shifter magic. Then, I started looking for a way to get closer. This old wreck fit the bill, and it was easy enough to convince the owner to sell.”

Jim wondered what kind of pressure Buford had applied to make the former owner sell. Jim knew for a fact that Joe had made offers on the land over the years, but they’d all been rejected. Why should the owners suddenly turn around and sell to Buford, unless he’d done something to make it happen. Something that had probably been entirely unpleasant for the people who had owned the land before.

Jim made a mental note to have someone check on those poor souls, whoever they were. Joe probably knew. He had that nifty color-coded map and probably a hefty file of information to go along with it. Jim would tell the Alpha, and Joe could check what had happened there—as soon as Jim got himself out of this neat little trap.

*

Helen approached the mill cautiously. She didn’t go through the maze of rusty metal that the kids were using as an obstacle course. If she dallied there, she’d likely get tetanus or something. Instead, she honed in on the area she’d sensed. The building where the boy was being tortured. At least, she assumed it was torture that had caused him to become so very weak.

She’d called Joe, and she knew the cavalry was on the way. He’d said he had some people close—within about ten minutes of her location—but she couldn’t wait. Calum might not have ten minutes to spare.

The first thing she noticed as she got closer to the building was a queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. There was something evil here, and she could only assume this was where the black ward passed. Closing her eyes for a moment, she concentrated. This wasn’t her best skill, but she could sense magic, like most of her siblings. She just had to look a little harder than the others, but she could find it.

Then, she did. A near-invisible line of considerable strength lay across the threshold. A black ward. Hidden. Powerful. Disgusting enough to make her want to puke.

She held her breath and divided the bunch of lavender she had brought with her in half. The purity of the cleansing herb might just be enough to disrupt the line of the ward, bringing down the entire circle. She bent to place half the lavender on the hidden line on the ground, keeping the other half in reserve, in case she ran into something else that needed its cleansing power.

She watched, her magical senses open, as were her eyes. She saw only a faint shimmer