He screamed, and I flew across the room, smashing into the wall with enough force to knock him unconscious.
When my gaze moved back to where they sat, the room was empty. Franklin and Eldora had disappeared, along with the other two.
Two down, four to go.
There was nothing else. There was no other purpose. No more distractions of jokes or the lesser needs of my kind for talk or reassurance.
These four remaining alchemists were the biggest threat to my pack, a threat I would no longer tolerate. They'd killed Isengram and left his body for me to find. There was no cure for their arrogance other than their deaths.
Stalking out of the big front room, I entered the kitchen, my claws clicking on the glossy tiles. I froze to listen. Wherever they'd hidden, I'd find them.
A thump upstairs. Time to die, enemies.
Climbing the stairs in tiger form would be awkward, so I shifted back to human and stalked up the stairs, my breathing even and muscles loose.
The second story contained an open-floor entertainment area, quick and easy to search. No one was there, and I climbed the second flight.
Time enough to shift to a more dangerous shape when I found them. I was going to make sure they never hurt anyone under my protection ever again. Crouching against the wall, my breathing steady, I reached out my senses to find them. I could feel their presence, like a cold wind on the back of my neck. I crept around the corner, ready for anything.
Unfortunately, all I found was a door at the end of a long hallway, a hallway narrow enough that a tiger or wolf would have a hard time maneuvering. Two doors lined each side of the hallway, but all four were open.
I took the time to inspect each room. Two bedrooms, a closet, and a bathroom. Nothing. They did have the bedrooms furnished with valuable antiques, one a cluttered Victorian room with a sapphire-blown glass oil lamp and the other’s furniture gilded and full of the delicate curves and decorations of the French Rococo period.
If they were still in this house, then they were in the last room. I shouldn't have taken the time to search these rooms, but I had to be sure nobody was going to jump out of them to attack me while I focused on this last room.
The simplest solution was usually the one that worked, so I tried the doorknob.
Locked. Okay. Going back to the closet down the hall, I grabbed a hammer.
Handy of them keeping a small cache of tools in this closet. I smashed at the doorknob, expecting it to give way easily. I was stronger than most men, strong even for a shifter. Putting all my strength behind the blows, I hit the door and doorknob.
The door remained untouched by the force of the hit. Magic. They'd done something to the door to make it impervious.
I went back to the closet to see if there were any other tools I could try to use. As soon as I got far enough away from the door, it opened. A ball of fire shot out of the room, aimed at me.
Diving for the floor, I hit with a grunt, but the fire missed me and splashed against the back wall, above the stairs. It hissed out, luckily not catching the whole house on fire.
How kind of them to give me a solution to my current problem. If I couldn't get them out of that room, I'd just light the cabin on fire. Problem solved. They'd die by fire or jump out the window and die by me.
Though why they hadn’t jumped out yet rather puzzled me.
I rummaged through the closet, keeping a careful eye on the door to make sure they weren't going to send another spell my way. I found a box of matches.
Perfect. I stuck them in my back pocket. I wasn't ready to go that far, not yet. I'd like to have one of them alive to question, though that wasn't vital. Ideally, I'd question them and then kill them.
We'd see how matters progressed.
With a screwdriver in one hand and the matches in my pocket, I turned back toward the door. It cracked again; I'd gone too long without watching them. A blue ball of light hit me in the chest, sending me stumbling back several feet, nearly down the stairs. I clutched at the wall, drywall crumbling around my fingers as I tried to shake it off.
One of the men I didn't recognize tried to dart past me, but he was out of luck. I wasn'tthatstunned. Reaching out, I grabbed his left arm and yanked it toward me with enough force his shoulder popped audibly. I'd dislocated it.
Good. I’d found my volunteer for questioning.
He screamed and dropped to his knees by me, right next to the stairs. I kicked him down the stairs. He shrieked and thumped on the risers until he hit the landing with a thud.
Perfect. He lay there, unmoving, stored for future use.
Turning back just in time to see the door slam shut, I sighed. Three to go.
