Storm Born. Richelle Mead

      

      FACE OFF

      “You’re not a veterinarian. Veterinarians give dogs rabies vaccines. They don’t throw elementals around.”

      Kiyo regarded me levelly. “And Web designers don’t banish elementals to the Otherworld.”

      “Yeah, well, sometimes I moonlight.”

      The faintest ghost of a smile flickered across his face. “We need to talk about this—”

      “No. Don’t get any closer.” If I could have cocked the wand like a gun, I would have.

      “What are you going to do? You can’t cast me out. It won’t work.”

      I hesitated, wondering about that. He seemed so human. He had felt human. I hadn’t sensed anything from him like I would one of the gentry, yet his speed and strength had been superhuman.

      “What do you want from me? Why did you bring me back here?”

      “Look, Eugenie, just put the wand down. We’ll talk. We’ll figure this out.”

      “I thought you couldn’t be cast out,” I reminded him. “Why are you afraid of the wand? Maybe the Otherworld couldn’t hurt you…but what about the Underworld?”

      He didn’t answer. I sent my will into the wand and felt the air crackle with power. Fear crossed Kiyo’s face. So. He was afraid. That was all I needed to know. The words were on my lips to send him to the crossroads, but suddenly he moved with that rapid speed I’d seen earlier. He backed up toward the sliding glass door, opened it up, and then ran out and over the edge of the balcony…

      Books by Richelle Mead

      SUCCUBUS BLUES

      SUCCUBUS ON TOP

      SUCCUBUS DREAMS

      STORM BORN

      Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

      STORM BORN

      Richelle Mead

      ZEBRA BOOKS

       Kensington Publishing Corp.

       www.kensingtonbooks.com

      For Michael, who always liked this one best.

      Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Chapter Thirteen

      Chapter Fourteen

      Chapter Fifteen

      Chapter Sixteen

      Chapter Seventeen

      Chapter Eighteen

      Chapter Nineteen

      Chapter Twenty

      Chapter Twenty-One

      Chapter Twenty-Two

      Chapter Twenty-Three

      Chapter Twenty-Four

      Chapter Twenty-Five

      Chapter Twenty-Six

      Chapter Twenty-Seven

      Chapter Twenty-Eight

      Chapter One

      I’d seen weirder things than a haunted shoe, but not many.

      The Nike Pegasus sat on the office’s desk, inoffensive, colored in shades of gray, white, and orange. Some of the laces were loosened, and a bit of dirt clung around the soles. It was the left shoe.

      As for me, well…underneath my knee-length coat, I had a Glock .22 loaded with bullets carrying a higher-than-legal steel content. A cartridge of silver ones rested in the coat’s pocket. Two athames lay sheathed on my other hip, one silver-bladed and one iron. Stuck into my belt near them was a wand, hand-carved oak and loaded with enough charmed gems to probably blow up the desk in the corner if I wanted to.

      To say I felt overdressed was something of an understatement.

      “So,” I said, keeping my voice as neutral as possible, “what makes you think your shoe is…uh, possessed?”

      Brian Montgomery, late thirties with a receding hairline in serious denial, eyed the shoe nervously and moistened his lips. “It always trips me up when I’m out running. Every time. And it’s always moving around. I mean, I never actually see it, but…like, I’ll take them off near the door, then I come back and find this one under the bed or something. And sometimes…sometimes I touch it, and it feels cold…really cold…like…” He groped for similes and finally picked the tritest one. “Like ice.”

      I nodded and glanced back at the shoe, not saying anything.

      “Look, Miss…Odile…or whatever. I’m not crazy. That shoe is haunted. It’s evil. You’ve gotta do something, okay? I’ve got a marathon coming up, and until this started happening, these were my lucky shoes. And they’re not cheap, you know. They’re an investment.”

      It sounded crazy to me—which was saying something—but there was no harm in checking, seeing as I was already out here. I reached into my coat pocket, the one without ammunition, and pulled out my pendulum. It was a simple one, a thin silver chain with a small quartz crystal hanging from it.

      I laced the chain’s end through my fingers and held my flattened hand over the shoe, clearing my mind and letting the crystal hang freely. A moment later, it began to slowly rotate of its own accord.

      “Well, I’ll be damned,” I muttered, stuffing the pendulum back in my pocket. There was something there. I turned to Montgomery, attempting some sort of badass face, because that was what customers always expected. “It might be best if you stepped out of the room, sir. For your own safety.”

      That was only half-true. Mostly I just found lingering clients annoying. They asked stupid questions and could do stupider things, which actually put me at more risk than them.

      He had no qualms about getting out of there. As soon as the door closed, I found a jar of salt in my satchel and poured a large ring on the office’s floor. I tossed the shoe into the middle of it and invoked the four cardinal directions with the silver athame. Ostensibly the circle didn’t change, but I felt a slight flaring of power, indicating it had sealed us in.

      Trying not to yawn, I pulled out my wand and kept holding the silver athame. It had taken four hours to drive to Las Cruces, and doing that on so little sleep had made the distance seem twice as long. Sending some of my will into the wand, I tapped it against the shoe and spoke in a sing-song voice.

      “Come out, come out, whoever you are.”

      There was a moment’s silence, then a high-pitched male voice snapped, “Go away, bitch.”

      Great. A shoe with attitude. “Why? You got something better to do?”

      “Better things to do than waste my time with a mortal.”

      I smiled. “Better things to do in a shoe? Come on. I mean, I’ve heard of slumming it, but don’t you think you’re kind of pushing the envelope here? This shoe isn’t even new. You could have done so much better.”

      The voice kept its annoyed tone,