Master of Smoke

flame and vanished.
    Mechanically, Miranda turned toward her walk-in closet and threw the door open, searching for her suitcase. She finally located it behind a box of clothing.
    “Randy, you can’t.” Joelle stepped into her path and tried to take the case from her hand. “This will only make things worse.”
    Miranda pulled away, ignoring her mother’s pleading eyes. Now that the flare of murderous rage was spent, she felt numb. Empty of everything, even the bitter anger of so many years. “At this point, I don’t have a choice.”
    “They won’t kill you, Miranda. You’re too essential to Warlock’s plans. Yes, you’ll have to be punished, but ...”
    “I’ve already been punished.” She flung the suitcase on the bed, then walked over to her dresser and dug out an armload of clothing. “They’ve been making me pay since the day I was born. All I did today was balance the scales.”
    FIVE
    There were twelve Dire Wolves, with fur that ranged from coal black to cinnamon red to honey blond, in textures from horsehair to silk. Most were tall and massively built, though a few were as deceptively lean as fencers. Their intelligence varied from brutish to gifted. There was, in fact, only one thing they all had in common.
    Every last one of them was a sociopath.
    For centuries, Warlock had maintained a corps of killers, men who had none of the idealism Merlin had ingrained in the rest of the Direkind, even the most cynical of the Chosen aristocracy. These twelve were Warlock’s shock troops, the ones who did his bidding without question.
    The group’s small numbers limited what he could do with them, but it couldn’t be helped. More than one emperor of Rome had been assassinated by his own Praetorian Guard, and Warlock had no intention of suffering the same fate.
    No, twelve was the perfect number.
    Besides, Arthur had his twelve Knights of the Round Table.
    Warlock had his twelve Bastards.
    He’d opened magical gates to transport them—easy enough to do, since he’d dictated that members of the three teams live together. Now they stood in the central cavern of the network of caves he used as a headquarters.
    The thick stone helped shield him from magical detection by Arthur’s witches, and the glowing ward runes carved into the rock looked impressive as hell. So did the massive throne that supported Warlock’s eight-foot-frame. Carved of ebony wood and studded with gemstones, it was damned uncomfortable under his ass. But it did create the right effect, so he put up with it.
    Though all the Bastards looked expressionless, even bored as they faced his throne, every one of them smelled of fear. They had reason. The last time he’d brought them together, he’d killed the one whose job performance had dissatisfied him.
    Then he’d produced the man’s replacement, whom he’d Bitten the day before.
    The others got the point.
    “I have a mission for you,” he said slowly, looking from muzzle to wolfish muzzle. “There is a man I would be rid of.”
    “Just a man?” Tommy Danvers was one of the more intelligent of his team leaders, a cunning wolf who led his three subordinates with ruthless skill and brutal discipline. “Or a Dire Wolf?”
    “At the moment, he’s nothing more than human, but that may change. And he has a female Dire Wolf with him, which complicates matters a bit.”
    Danvers curled his lip. “A female? Shouldn’t be much trouble.”
    Warlock made a dismissive gesture. “She won’t be, not for you. But at the moment, she’s an inconvenience, because I can’t use my magic to pinpoint the male’s location as long as he’s near her. And so far, judging from my lack of contact, she’s stayed pretty damn close.”
    “I’ll bet,” said Steve Miller, Danvers’s second-in-command. The chorus of laughter that followed held a nasty note, with more than a little anticipation.
    Warlock shot him an impatient look, and the laughter cut off as though he’d flashed a knife. “Sooner or later, they’ll separate, and at that time I should be able to get a location on him. I’ll need you all to maintain readiness, because you’ll have to move within minutes.”
    The men exchanged looks. “Move how?” asked Kevin Wheeler, the Fenir team leader, who had a surprising intelligence for all his brawny size.
    Warlock made an impatient gesture. “I will transport you.”
    “We’ll be ready whenever you give the signal.” Scott Brown headed the Geri team with a cool, murderous