Chapter 28

Twenty-Eight

With the last chair turned over on the last table, Chase tells the kid—who hasn't looked at me without blushing since the first time he came out after everyone else was gone—to head home and watches me as the door closes.

"Well now, Miss Mathis. What do you say to going back to my place and settling the tab?"

"It's not quite as sexy when you put it like that."

Chase's gaze slides to the now-dark bar. "I'd suggest hopping you up on the bar, but… health codes."

Laughing, I take his hand and he pulls me out through a side door. It has just as many deadbolts as the front door, and he only lets go of my hand long enough to secure them.

The staircase looks rickety, but that might be by design. And the small, weed covered path he leads me down opens directly into the tiny parking lot.

A pair of tail lights glow red before the last car that isn't ours pulls out of the lot and onto the still-busy highway.

Old lamp posts cast a jaundiced light on the cracked and crumbling pavement, but it feels a little magical.

I know it's Chase.

I know that the guys are the reason things feel this way, not where we are, but…

Tugging me to a stop, Chase wraps his arm around my waist and pulls me to him, kissing me in the dimness of the night as cold wind washes to us from the bay.

"My dance, I believe?" He chuckles against my lips.

Held tightly to him, he twirls us around, dancing us toward my car.

A big rig thunders past, using the late hour as an excuse to ignore the speed limit. And a crow takes flight, shrieking as it flees.

But otherwise… it's like we're completely alone.

"I know I should wait until we're with the others, so you know that we all feel this way, but," He smiles, a quirk of his lips so sweet, I want to kiss him. "Last weekend was amazing. Not being around you after that, not so much. We know you've got your own life and heaven knows ours are all over the place, but we thought, maybe—"

A shadow in my periphery, like the whole hillside has shifted, is my only warning.

I yank Chase to the side and we both fall to the pavement a moment before heavy rock hits beyond where we'd just stood.

"What the—?"

But there's not time to explain yet. Even if I had a concrete answer to his half-question. "Up. It's not going to stop with just one."

And it doesn't. Another rock hits the pavement, half of it breaking off to splinter.

But we're on our feet and I get a good look at the thing that's emerged from the trees on the hill.

The creature isn't natural—for all that it's made of nature. Dark and sickly magic is required to create a terratoma. Spells stolen from the Jewish people, like so many other things, mangled and mutilated to create a monster similar to their golem… but it's not a protector.

There is nothing good about this vile creature composed of rotting intentions and stolen earth.

These are made with one intention: to kill.

It stumbles out of the trees, a thick and stubby leg smacking against the pavement, splattering like mud.

The magic that made it wasn't strong if it's already having problems staying together. But even a weak terratoma is dangerous.

And I need time to think.

Whispering a spell to pull the power of the breeze that floats around us, to coil it between my hands and concentrate its power…

I throw as much energy as I can muster into the force of my push and the thing moves backward… but not far.

The thing that gives us a moment to breathe is that it's still weak—still forming—and that burst tore off one of its arms and punched a hole in its muddy torso.

"What the hell is that?"

"It's a terratoma… but I haven't seen one this big before."

Chase looks at me, brows twisted in confusion. "Wait… a tumor?"

"Kind of. Terra, as in ‘Earth'." I watch it writhe and reform. "It's mud and rocks and twigs."

Its arm snaps into place. "Or Trees when it's this big…"

It leans to the side, as if its body is too heavy on top to be supported, but it's not a sway that causes it.

A pivot and a twist of its body and the terratoma flings a small boulder straight at us…

We each bolt to the side, and it sails between us… landing on Chase's car, crushing it.

Now that we're apart, it turns for me. Not Chase.

I'd think it was because I'm the bigger threat, but that's not it. They're targeted creatures. And they're made to do the most damage.

Killing Chase would be easier. Getting that over with quickly and then dealing with me… All things have a pattern.

And it doesn't care about Chase.

"Get out of here." I yell at him over the crunching and slopping. "It'll let you go. And you can't fight it."

"No way." He skirts to the side. "Where are the wolves? Aren't they supposed to protect you from something like this?"

"I sent them to watch after the other guys. They're coming," I can feel it. "But they have to move within the physical plane, they can't just appear."

"There's no way to get them here faster?"

I could lie to him. But I promised myself I wouldn't. Not when it comes to their wolves. "I could get yours here in a few seconds. But I'd have to change you to make that happen. So it's not an option."

There are women in the coven who could have eviscerated this thing in a few minutes. It would be chunks of dirt on the parking lot, its spells destroyed. But I've never liked combative magic. And I might be able to wield a spell strong enough to destroy it, but I don't know the words from memory.

"We have to break it into smaller pieces, and we have to keep it on the pavement." If it gets back to the dirt or onto the grass closer to the highway, it will tear more power from the ground. "If we get it small enough, I can bind it to one of the stones inside of it."

This time, I pull the wind from the air and concentrate the bursts like scalpel cuts, tearing off an arm, the jagged bits.

A mangled tree flies away from it.

"How can I help?"

I open my mouth to tell him, but… I don't know. All I can do is shrug.

His jaw hardens. "Change me."

"Chase…"

"Do it, Scarlette. I'm useless like this. And we don't know how long it'll be before the others get here… You have to change me."

Because when they're wolves they're nearly impervious. And there's nothing inside the terratoma that has silver.

"I'm sorry." The words have barely left my mouth when I snap, and Chase contorts, changing in a handful of seconds instead of minutes because of the spell's hold.

If the sudden change hurt him, he doesn't show it.

His paws have barely hit the ground before he coils and lunges.

Teeth meet branches and he tears at the creature any way he can. Tearing out the branches that give it structure, the terratoma starts to sag, pulling itself tighter as it loses the mass it can no longer support.

It swings at Chase, protecting itself, even if he wasn't a part of the creature's original purpose.

The thing is still too big for me to spell into a rock-bound cage.

But the other wolves…

Like a narrow tongue of thick fog, the ethereal forms of three more wolves flow over the hill and fling themselves at the terratoma.

In fully physical form, Chase's wolf was only able to drag away pieces of the creature he can sink his teeth into. The spirits, able to shift between solid and ephemeral states take the terratoma apart, chunk by chunk.

It gives me time to weave the spell, a bright point of light in my hand and I watch the center of the monstrous thing, trying to find it.

Shielded by the muck and mire, I can't just reach out, feel for the magic coil at the center of the creature and take its heart. I have to see it.

Two of the wolves tear at it from either side, and a crack in the hard shell of mud at its core reveals a sliver of dark light.

Exactly what I need.

Reaching out, I spell the stone and yank it free of the creature. But I don't catch it.

It hits the ground in front of me as the body it had once propped up collapsed to the pavement.

The wolves growled at it, waiting, not letting their guard down. I wrapped the stone in the spell I'd already begun weaving, sewing up the ends, caging the rock inside it. I pull the threads of that magic tighter and tighter… until the thing bursts to dust. The last remnants of its power gone.

And with it, the adrenaline-fueled energy that had kept me fully upright.

A soft whimper from beside me reminded me I wasn't the only one who'd been engaged in that battle.

All it takes is another snap of my fingers and the snap of his bones.

I'm exhausted, but it's nothing compared to the way Chase looks.

And I did that to him.

The ugly coil in my stomach makes me want to throw up.

I pull my coat off, slinging the fabric over his shoulders even though it's far too small to do any real good. "Come on. I need to get you home."

The remains of the terratoma look like the aftermath of a landslide… And Chase is going to have to call his insurance tomorrow. His car is definitely gone.

He wobbles on his feet as I help him up, but his wolf keeps on the other side of him, helping us both.

Chase's covered in mud, but I don't care about the upholstery. I pop the trunk and dig through the bag in the back before I hurry to the driver's seat and hand him a towel to cover up with, and then, the bottle.

Only then do I start the car.

"What is it?" He asks, exhaustion slurring his words.

"Just water. I don't have anything that will shake that feeling. You'll need to sleep it off."

He nods, "And ibuprofen."

Cracking the seal, he finishes the whole bottle as I drive through the dark streets.

Eyes closed, he leans against the seat of the car, shivering.

They're muscle spasms. He's not actually cold. His body's readjusting to his human form and the loss of the wolf again.

"I am so sorry, Chase."

He grunts and I have a feeling it's just to let me know he's heard me.

Each light we have to stop at keeps me on edge. There aren't many, but all of them feel like an ambush waiting to happen.

But nothing accosts us on the drive across town. Not even a stray cat darting out in front of us makes me pump the breaks.

Chase's muscles still flicker as we make our way up the steps.

"I think," He says, breathing hard when he leans against the door jamb. "That maybe I should just call you in the morning."

"Oh." Cold needles cover my skin. "Okay."

I don't fight him.

As much as I want to steer him into the house, into his bed and take care of him until I'm certain there's no lingering effects… I'm the one who did this to him.

I let him close the door between us without even a goodbye and then make my way slowly down those steps… Feeling like part of me is trapped in that shut door and I'm pulling away from it, stretched thing like taffy.

I watch the front of the house for a minute before I turn the key in the ignition.

Enough is enough. Wherever Aphrodite is, she's no where near the Liberty.

Because it felt like Aphrodite… and I know how small it would have to be for her to have made it on her own. To get big enough to drop a boulder on Chase's car… Wherever she's hiding, I need to find her.

Fast.