9. The Killer Comes to the Rescue

Coughing, Jameson struggled to open his eyes, and Rael ripped the shirt off his back and wiped at his mate's face. The aconite bombs—wolfsbane bombs—spread by the Council enforcers affected Jameson severely, the big alpha inhaling the scalding concoction and burning his face and eyes. The wolfsbane was preventing Jameson from healing, and he was unable to Change, trapped in his human form.

"I'm so sorry," Rael whispered, wiping at the streaming tears running from his mate's reddened eyes.

"Not your fault," Jameson managed to hack out before coughing stole his voice. A long moment later Jameson tried again. "Escape before they realize the wolfsbane doesn't bother you."

They were secluded in the pantry of a very expensive building, dragged through the back door and kitchen of what was likely a pricey as fuck hotel in town, but one Rael was not familiar with, maybe somewhere in Back Bay unless they were still in Cambridge. It wasn't long since the accident, but Rael got kicked in the head and had no idea how long he was out in the van that brought them here, so he wasn't sure.

"I am not leaving you," Rael snarled. He got up from his crouch beside Jameson where he slouched against the wall on the cold stone floor, and went searching on the shelves for anything he could use as a weapon.

"Your magic?" Jameson asked quietly, worried.

"Locked down tight," Rael replied, jaw clenched. "Not sure if that's good or bad."

"Don't blow us up unless that door opens." Jameson groaned.

Rael winced, and looked back at his mate over his shoulder while rifling through shelves full of things like baking lard, sugar, and bags of potatoes. The new bond to his mentor had his magic locked down tight and Angel said it was at its narrowest for them to maintain their mutual privacy. That meant he wasn't sure if Angel knew he was missing yet, but his mother was alive and Scylla would have no problem calling in the National Guard to rescue him, nevermind the Necromancer of Boston.

"I'm not blowing anyone up unless they try to hurt you. I hate blowing people up. Gross." He tried to joke, to ease the tension.

As hoped, Jameson managed a crooked smile. "I love you, Rael."

He gave up trying to find something to save them and darted back to his mate, and he curled into Jameson, hoping for rescue and fearing it at the same time. Jameson was covered in wolfsbane residue from the aconite bombs—Rael read in high school about how they were used as tools of oppression in the Civil Rights movements of the mid-1900s. Rael shuddered, never happier that his hybrid nature allowed him to keep a clear head, unaffected by the poison.

His new mentor was the infamous Necromancer of Boston. And Rael had no idea what to expect. One thing he did know—Angel was not going to let the High Council keep them.

Angel found Scylla Morrow the second they stepped out of the wormhole onto Third Street in Cambridge. She was easily seven feet tall, long gray fur fluttering in the breeze, the moon above lighting up her huge fangs and claws. The most powerful werewolves had the triad of forms—human, lycan, and full wolf—and Scylla, for all she was a beta and small in her human form, had all three forms, and power to sustain the terrifying lycanthrope form for hours. While intimidating in her lycan form, Angel also found her petite human form equally scary.

Mothers terrified him. Milly mothered him and he had no defenses, and Scylla was the dangerous side of motherhood—the momma bear, or in this case, the momma werewolf.

Several cars were mired in a crash in the intersection, and a quick check into one proved Angel's suspicions—the cars boxing in the car he recognized as Jameson's were stolen, the ignitions ripped apart. However the enforcers got their prisoners away, it had to be new vehicles, and the stench of aconite flooded the area. How Scylla was standing was a miracle. The car had been hit on three sides and the windows shattered, the doors were open, and the floorboards were littered with spent aconite bombs.

Angel moved out of the way so the rest of the rescue party could come through the wormhole, Milly following right on his heels.

Simeon bracketed Constans with Remi. Constans' cousin lifted his wrist to the city master's face and to Angel's shock, which he tried to hide, Constans immediately bit into Remi's wrist, dragging in mouthfuls of blood. Remi saw Angel watching, and smiled as reassuringly as the vampire could with a city master feeding off of him in public. "It doesn't hurt, and we're of an age, me and Master Batiste. I can handle feeding him to help him recover."

Constans let go after a few moments, and Simeon handed him a silk handkerchief to wipe his lips. The bite on Remi's wrist was already healing. The wormhole snapped shut—and a slight tap from an invisible person on Angel's shoulder told him Cian was through and hiding in plain sight.

A low, long growl came from Scylla, who crouched enough to be eye to eye with Angel. "Enough. Time to find Rael."

Remi and Simeon released Constans, Isaac moving to his side once there was room, and Constans put an arm around his mate and with his free hand, pulled out his phone and began texting. "I won't be able to do a return wormhole. I'm sending for multiple cars to take us home once we've found the wolves."

Scylla growled, a deep, echoing rumble that shook the pavement under Angel's feet. "Follow," she snarled, and took off at a low, smooth lope, dropping to run on all four murderous paws. Cars and pedestrians swerved to avoid her; Third was a busy street, even this late in the evening, and Boston never really slept in the denser parts of Town.

"Shit, that's gonna hit the news for sure," Isaac exclaimed, eyes wide.

"Oh, dear, that's going to be viral," Milly agreed.

"Simeon—" Angel was caught up in arms made of stone before he finished the thought, Simeon blurring them after the speedy werewolf.

She wasn't as fast as a vampire at full-speed, but she was far faster than any mortal. Angel spared a single worry for the invisible Cian, somewhere behind them, hoping the sidhe didn't get into trouble without Angel nearby.

"How lovely," Cian muttered, abandoned almost immediately by his companions, except for Isaac and Connie. The vampire was subtly leaning on his mate, exhausted even after drinking from the powerful Remigius, the Roman vampire as strong as his "cousin."

Connie heard him and chuckled. "No pouting, sidhe. You've the speed to keep up. You just hate running after people."

That was true. Such exertions were boring. He much preferred battle or dance. The world was whispering to him, the stones of the buildings around him, the wind carrying the truth of things to him as he stood in the middle of the street, listening to the sounds of concerned onlookers and the wail of sirens of approaching authorities. And the secrets they were telling him were exactly what he needed to hear.

Remi had taken off, carrying the delightful Milly, scooping her off her feet in true movie star style, much to her enjoyment. Angel and Simeon were chasing the tail of the mother wolf, who was taking the long way around the huge block of businesses on Third Street, presumably following the scent originally laid by her son's abductors as they escaped.

"I suppose I should follow them," Cian said, mostly to himself. He was visible enough to appear as a faint ghost—purely to be polite, so Connie and Isaac knew the general direction to address their comments. "Only polite. Or I could go right to the missing wolves and await them."

Isaac squinted at him, and Cian smiled wide, trying for once to appear congenial. Daniel loved Isaac very much, so for Daniel, Cian would try.

"Cian, my old friend, go to the wolves, after you tell me where they are," Connie ordered gently, leaning on the wrecked car. Isaac had his phone out, presumably calling his brother.

"The stones whisper to me of a mated pair of wolves, one poisoned and sick, the other young and his magic stifled by a new bond," Cian pointed past the vampire and his mate, at a cut-through alley between two businesses. "On the other side of this block, in a hotel made from Italian marble, and one I've been to before. Lovely bar, and extended stay suites. The wolves are in the pantry of one of the suites."

Connie twisted enough to look where Cian was pointing. He frowned, thinking. "That's the King's Chalice Hotel. One of the hotels booked out by the High Council members who arrived a few days ago."

"Oh, even better! I get to fillet some Councilors!"

Isaac cackled even as he dialed his brother. He pointed down the alley. "Get going. Please." The please was a bit terse.

Cian didn't take the thinly veiled order badly. Isaac was young. And impatient.

"As you wish," Cian replied, setting off at a jog. "Tell Angelus I'll see him there!"

His senses were as strong as any full-blooded werewolf, since being a hybrid usually meant a child was born with the werewolf traits dominant. Rael was a genetic outlier, a half-werewolf, half-practitioner hybrid that had magic from his human father instead of werewolf magic from his mother. He still had fangs and claws, strength, speed, and enhanced senses to match any werewolf in their human form—all that let him hear the approaching pad of soft feet, each footfall deliberate outside the door of the pantry.

"Someone is coming," Rael whispered to Jameson, who struggled to sit up straighter, one arm trying to push Rael behind him. Jameson was weak—there was no way to wash off the wolfsbane, and Jameson was slowly dying from the poison coating his skin, eyes, and lungs.

"Get ready," Jameson gritted out, pain lacing each word. "Attack the second you get a chance."

Rael nodded, and in the next breath he had his fangs and claws, ready to rend anyone who walked through the door.

A subtle weight of atmospheric shifting, tension moving in the air around them, and the knob turned, the lock breaking with a snap. The spell on the frame keeping Rael from doing the same ignored the person on the other side of the door—who opened it as if it weren't bespelled and locked—and a blur of gray and green slipped into the room, the door shutting with a muted thump.

A glamour dropped, and the sidhe leaning on the door smirked at the confounded expression Rael knew he was wearing. "You're not Rory Brennan," Rael declared after a heartbeat.

"I am not," Cian Brennan agreed, obviously not dead.

"You were murdered in prison weeks ago," Rael stammered out over the rising growl coming from Jameson, his alpha unhappy in the extreme that they were in a small space with a convicted and not-dead serial killer.

"Sure, let's go with that explanation," Cian quipped. "I lived, but Angel Salvatore made the decision to let me die to save future humans from being killed for their stupidity."

"What?"

"Yes, I had the same reaction when I learned of his plan," Cian replied with a put-upon sigh. "But enough about me, there's several powerful people right now in the main lobby of the hotel deciding how to rescue you from some guests staying here, and a mother werewolf who is fighting her way back here with a pissed-off necromancer right behind her. I say we hang out right here, to maximize the carnage."

"What the fuck?" Jameson groaned.

"Excellent, I'm glad we all agree," Cian declared happily, ignoring Jameson's words, grinning like a crazy person. "You need vinegar."

"I'm so confused," Rael said to the room at large. Jameson nodded beside him.

"Easy enough, my pretty little pup," Cian said, as if Rael had asked a question. "Vinegar will break down the aconite and help clean off your mate so he lives long enough to be rescued."

Cian started going through the shelves, and crowed quietly in success when he found a gallon jug of distilled white vinegar and a stack of white dish towels. He passed both to Rael, who took them with some hesitation, but Cian was insistent.

"Vinegar won't hurt, though you'll smell like a salad for a bit," Cian whispered as he knelt in front of them both, ignoring the murderous glare from Jameson despite his weakened state. "And you'll be nose-dead until you can take a shower, but you're that bad off right now anyway." Jameson dared to lift a lip and bare a fang at the High Court Sidhe, and all Cian did was reach out a single finger and boop Jameson on the nose. Both Rael and Jameson stared at Cian in shock and affronted dignity, and he grinned back at them, utterly unconcerned.

"Get cleaned up so you'll survive long enough to calm down your mother-in-law. I'm gonna hide in the kitchen and kill enforcers as they try to escape out the back door of this place when Angel gets going."

Cian was invisible the next moment, and the door opened and shut with a faint glimmer of something as Cian presumably left the pantry.

"Did he say he was going to murder people?" Jameson asked, and Rael was at his breaking point.

"I don't care at the moment. Mom and Angel are here. We're getting rescued. And you need a vinegar sponge bath." Rael told his mate, and Jameson grimaced.