Master of Smoke

efficiency. Warlock considered him the best of the team leaders.
    “As usual, you’ll work in your established teams.” Warlock nodded at Brown. “If Skoll fails, I want Geri ready to go in, then Fenir.” He’d named the teams for wolves from Norse mythology. “You will stop him at all costs.”
    “We won’t fail you, sir,” Danvers said with easy confidence.
    “See that you don’t.” Warlock pinned him with a cold glare. He gestured, conjuring a set of photographs in the hands of each man. “This is your target. I want him dead as quickly as possible.”
    “What about collateral damage?” Danvers asked.
    “Eliminating him is the priority. If bystanders get in the way, you have my permission to eliminate them as necessary, so long as you can do so without witnesses. However, avoid police involvement. Police mean media, and media mean Arthur may get wind of this. That is not acceptable.”
    Warlock watched in satisfaction as all twelve nodded their understanding. They wouldn’t fail him.
    They didn’t dare.

    Miranda clattered down the sweeping stairs with her suitcase, ignoring her mother, who fluttered in her wake. “Randy, please! You can’t just leave!”
    “Watch me, Mom.” Got to get to the car before Dad comes back, she thought, her mind flashing through the possibilities. The blue Volvo belonged to her mother, and Miranda knew Gerald would call the police and report it stolen. Fortunately, Miranda had been making contingency plans for years, and she’d already prepared spells to take care of that problem. She could take the car and go anywhere.
    As long as it was away from here.
    New York. Even she could vanish among eight million people. She’d set up wards to hide her magical signature, making it tougher for Warlock to pinpoint her location. If she was careful not to use magic, she could stay hidden indefinitely.
    As for their usual threat—beating Joelle—they’d have no reason to harm her mother if she wasn’t around to watch.
    Maybe. Miranda frowned, worrying. They were petty bastards, Warlock and the Dire Wolf who called himself her father. What if they took out their anger on Joelle?
    Did Miranda have the right to save herself if her mother paid the price?
    But if she didn’t leave, she was setting herself up for rape and brutalization. She wasn’t that big a martyr. “Get the hell out of here, Mom,” Miranda said over her shoulder. “It’s the only chance you’ve got after I’m gone. Or come with me. Either way, I’m not staying.”
    But before she could reach the front door, it banged open. Gerald Drake strode in and slammed it behind him. He was Changing before the door was even closed. “What the fuck have you done?” His voice deepened as he transformed, growing into a shattering roar.
    She whirled on her mother. “You called him?”
    “I had to! I ...”
    Miranda didn’t hear the rest. Gerald’s fist hit the side of her head like a ball-peen hammer. Hurtling through the air, she curled into a protective ball the instant before crashing through the stair handrail. Pain detonated in her back as she hit the hardwood floor in a rolling tumble. Her right arm took the brunt of the impact, and it snapped with a wet crack that blinded her with agony. She started changing before her body had even rolled to a stop, the pain triggering an instinctive transformation that healed her injuries.
    Miranda could survive damn near anything her father did to her. Sometimes that wasn’t a blessing.
    Enough. The word blasted through her mind in a roar of Burning Moon rage. A sword materialized in her hand as if forged from her fury. Miranda bounded to her feet, healed and whole and seven feet tall, a rippling growl vibrating her red-furred chest. She lifted the blade ...
    Only to lower it as the strength drained from her arm.
    Gerald Drake held her mother in a tight, vicious hold. Joelle hung there, limp, one shaking hand resting on his thick forearm. She was obviously afraid to move. And she had reason. Gerald’s huge hand was wrapped around her head, the claw of his index finger a fraction of an inch from one terrified eye. “Get rid of the sword or I’ll break her neck.”
    Miranda hesitated.
    “Now!” His roar seemed to shake the house.
    Defeat tasted acrid, and she could smell her own fear stink. But she could smell her mother’s, too.
    The sword fell from her hand.

    Eva watched David stalk around her shop, examining its contents intently. Her father had acquired