Master of Smoke

Smoke.”
    He blew out a breath. For a moment she wondered if he was going to insist on being called David. Instead he said, “And I love you, Eva.”
    The joy she felt surprised even her with its leaping incandescence.

    Eva changed back to her human form, and took his hand again as they started up a winding sand path. The surrounding hillside was covered in long stalks of rustling beach grass and the tiny violet-blue flowers. She swung their joined hands like a child. “You know, I can’t think of the last time I felt this good.”
    Smoke laughed. “You made me feel pretty damned good, too.”
    “I’m not talking about that.” When he threw her a look of mock hurt, she grinned. “Well, not just about that.”
    “Ah.” He sent her a small, warm smile. “So what’s the other reason?”
    “Coming clean with my parents after five years of lies. Knowing they’re safe from Warlock.”
    His smile faded, and worry darkened his eyes as he looked off into the distance. “Unfortunately, they can’t stay in the Mageverse indefinitely. We’re going to have to find out where he is.”
    “You don’t know?” She studied his face, frowning at the unease there. “But Smoke—you—were in his head for days.”
    “Yes, but he had me walled up so I wouldn’t overwhelm him. As I tried very hard to do. I got flashes of things, but nothing useable.”
    “What was it like?” She asked the question softly, sensing whatever memories he had troubled him. “What’s he like?”
    “He’s insane,” Smoke said bluntly. “He sees himself as some kind of infallible messiah for his people solely because Merlin chose him.”
    “Which begs the question—what the hell was Merlin thinking?”
    “He wasn’t like that in the beginning. The problem is that Merlin ordered him to keep an eye on the Magekind in case they ever began abusing humanity. He’s been at that job for a very, very long time, and he eventually grew paranoid. He has a pathological jealousy of Arthur, who has been saving humanity for a millennium and a half, while Merlin ordered Warlock to hide and do nothing. But he wanted to be a hero, too.”
    “So instead he decided to become a villain?”
    Smoke shook his head. “He doesn’t see himself as a villain. He wants to destroy the Magekind so his people can become humanity’s guardians—and the heroes he thinks they should be.”
    “Why do I have the distinct feeling that wouldn’t be a good thing?”
    “Because you’re perceptive. Given the chance, Warlock would become exactly the kind of tyrant Merlin feared.”
    “Irony sucks.”
    Smoke laughed. “With enthusiasm.”
    They crested the hill to see the moon rising in pale splendor above a landscape of enormous stone blocks that stretched for miles in the dark. Eva stopped in her tracks and stared.
    Some were square, some tall rectangles, a few looked like squashed donuts, and still others had been piled together as if by a giant child. The blocks looked too big and new to be ruins, yet their arrangement seemed utterly random. “What the hell is that?”
    “One of the Magekind’s practice sites,” Smoke explained. “The new recruits can run around those blocks shooting magic at one another to their heart’s content. If they tried that in Avalon, they might blow up something important. Also, sorcery makes one hell of a lot of noise, which pisses off tired witches who’ve just spent weeks in the field. I gather fighting terrorists makes them all a little twitchy.”
    Eva snorted. “Yeah, I can see how all those magical booms would trigger a nasty case of PTSD. I ...”
    Malevolence seemed to explode in her senses, a sense of sheer evil that made the hair rise on the back of her neck. She sucked in a breath to yell a warning, but Smoke had already thrown up a hand in a sweeping gesture.
    Blinding light shot out of the darkness to rage around them as boiling blue energy. Eva instinctively threw her arms up to shield her face. Smoke grunted as if catching something massively heavy.
    It took her a moment of stark terror to realize nothing hurt. Eva peered around her arms to find the attack had been blocked by a shimmering hemisphere of golden force.
    Smoke’s face contorted with effort, his teeth clenched, his blue eyes glowing. A second flaming ball slammed into the shield he’d cast, then another, then a whole pounding salvo of them, coming fast and hard.
    Eva instinctively huddled into the shelter of his strength. He swept out an arm to