Scorched Fury: A SkinWalker Novel #5 (DarkWorld: SkinWalker) Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  The SkinWalker Series

  T.G. Ayer’s Full List of Books

  Blood Magic Excerpt

  About the Author

  Connect with Tee

  Copyright 2016 by T.G. Ayer All rights reserved. Find out more about T.G. Ayer at http://www.tgayer.com/ http://www.tgayer.wordpress.com/ *** Cover art by T.G. Ayer Cover art © T.G. Ayer. All rights reserved. Edited by J.C. Hart *** Kindle Edition, License Notes This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. *** This is a work of fiction. Names, places, businesses, characters and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, actual events or locales is purely coincidental.

  CHAPTER 1

  I REMEMBER MY PARENTS TAKING ME to see the Great Tree for the first time when I was four years old.

  I remember thinking at the time that the tree was an incredibly wondrous thing. How was it even possible that any living thing could grow to be that big? For a kid, most things seemed enormous by comparison, but I recall marveling even then at the very size of it, even then understanding that I was witness to something incredibly special.

  The Great Ash Tree; mystical, magical, symbol of hope to all supernaturals in the EarthWorld.

  Decades ago, after a black night in which lightning storms and bitter rain fought like embattled gods, the tree had taken silent root. At the edge of the inner city, where the skyscrapers of the concrete jungle gave way to older, more staid architecture, a whip-thin seedling appeared as if by some inexplicable magic.

  Even to a paranormal like me, such a beginning encompassed that which a normal mind cannot unravel. And the people watched in wonder as within mere months the seedling rose to the skies, and little branches reached further and further out.

  Not long after the tree had gained its majestic height, it had dwarfed even the tallest skyscrapers in Chicago. With its pale, almost ivory bark, and gigantic branches that spread out hundreds of yards from the base of the tree, and leaves whose colors ranged from deep emerald to dusky brown, the gigantic white ash tree towered over the city, reigning supreme, albeit in such a serene silence that it became an accepted, welcome sight. And one that we soon became so used to that it drifted into the background of our thoughts.

  Not taken for granted, but rather accepted as part of our lives.

  No season affected the tree, no leaves fell when winter came, no branches stripped bare as the snow fell. The Great Ash bloomed all year round, decade after decade.

  Until now.

  Sixteen years after that first visit, I found myself standing, again, in front of the Great Ash Tree, without a parent holding each hand, and with awe and wonder the furthest emotions from my mind.

  The Ash had been turned into a monument of sorts, and people came regularly to visit. The city had ensured an entire block was dedicated as grounds around the tree were manicured, and planted with seasonal flowers which tended to confuse the gardeners by blooming all year round.

  I stood still, squinting up at the tree, the sun high in the sky and casting little shadow. To the other visitors who milled around the grass at the base of the tree I'd appear to be just like them. I'd dressed in black jeans, a gray long-sleeved tee, rugged biker boots and a leather jacket that was warmer than it looked, though not warm enough. I didn't exactly blend in with the humans around me, but neither did I call unwanted attention to myself.

  I shivered, pulling the lapels of my jacket closer and giving the ruddy-cheeked woman to my right an answering nod and smile. The weather had turned colder, with four weeks to Christmas, and the volume of tourists visiting the tree had thinned, with only one group of gawkers here today besides me. A gust of icy wind encouraged the woman and her party of three to return to the warmth of her car.

  Leaving me alone to inspect the tree.

  I was here as an agent of the Supreme Elite; Kailin Odel, agent for the Elders' newly instated investigative arm. The Elders were the most venerable, most respected of all supernatural races. Some say they preceded all races and were even older than the gods. Some even made whispered suggestions that they were the last of God's first children – the Angels.

  Whoever they were, to us they were the lawgivers and the lawkeepers. They oversaw the laws across all the planes, acting as a respected senate of sorts. All the High Councils answered to them, no paranormal would dare to defy them.

  Not that there were never factions who disagreed with the old ways. Such dissatisfaction spawned Omega, an agency which rivalled that of the Supreme High Council's Sentinel.

  Until recently both Omega and Sentinel had worked under a banner of inter-agency cooperation. But with Omega under investigation, charged with crimes against supernaturals – some of which I'd seen with my own eyes - Sentinel's agents had trouble coping.

  The Elders put together a cadre of high-level agents known as the Elite, using only the best, most powerful supernaturals from around the world to handle the most sensitive cases. Logan, Saleem – our djinn friend who also happened to be a prince - and I had been recruited a while back. Only now, Logan was in a coma, and Saleem was on a personal mission.

  That left me to perform my role, alone.

  In the human world, I'd be the equivalent of the CIA or sometimes even the FBI. I even had a license to kill. Just like good old Bond himself.

  A suspicious call had come through on the Elite's hotline an hour ago from a concerned citizen: the Tree is dying. That was it. Had the call been traceable, and had the voice not been digitally masked, the call centre might have ignored it. They didn't.

  My boss Horner's demeanor on the phone was the first sign that something was wrong. The tight edge to his voice as he'd left his message had me on alert because Supreme High Councilman David Horner was never flustered, never stressed.

&nbsp
; I could picture him, all geeky, thin and bespectacled, his face seriously bland, his voice controlled and neutral. Flustered and stressed were two words so not in his repertoire.

  Despite his obvious concern, I'd spent my entire ride here unconvinced that it was a legitimate problem. How could anything bad happen to the Great Ash, anyway? It didn't make sense to consider the tree as vulnerable. I'd never known the Chicago skyline without the silhouette of the Tree.

  So, any suspicions regarding the health of the Ash were easily brushed away as some madman's ramblings, or a crazy Shaman's mixed-up prophecy.

  But now, I stood a scant foot from the pale bark of the tree, my boots carefully placed between desiccating roots that rose from the ground like curling waves turned instantly solid. The smoothness of the pale bark was marred by dozens of ragged gashes, as if someone had taken a broken hatchet to it, long thin jagged slashes penetrating deep into the wood. Where the surface lay split open, a dark ominous substance pooled.

  The trunk of the Great Ash cried ebony tears.

  I had to force myself to move, to loosen the stiffened muscles in my arms. No matter how shocking the tree's condition, I had work to do. From my satchel, I withdrew two small tubes and a narrow wooden spatula - one of those tools that resembled an ice-cream stick but had a much loftier purpose than aiding in refreshment.

  Scraping off an equal amount of black ooze from each gaping wound, I deposited them into the tubes and sealed them with red rubber stoppers.

  In the last few weeks, evidence had become an increasingly important part of my daily work. A few months ago I would have barreled in, eliminated my target and left, happy the job was done. These days, with Elite cases taking me across, and beyond, the continent, there were rules to abide by.

  And one of those rules was the preservation of evidence. The agency currently had a whole forensics department devoted to crime scene investigation and research. Which meant that evidence had to be preserved so Forensics could do their jobs.

  And though, in the past, I'd had very little respect for CSI work, I was now well aware of the volume of information that the biology of an item could contain. And how much each bit of data could help solve a case.

  All Elite agents were supplied with the necessary tools to retrieve evidence. Tubes, spatulas, boxes, plastic bags, gloves. The whole thing was straight out of a crime scene TV show.

  I was about to stow the vials into a small cardboard box when something moved at the corner of my vision. I turned to my right, searching for the cause but found nothing. Pausing, I studied the area around me, looking harder, beyond any glamor that may be hiding an interloper.

  But I saw nothing untoward.

  Still, I remained wary as I craned my neck, peering into the dense shadows above. Within the tangle of branches once-green leaves hung lifeless, dark and sickly, as if painted with a macabre shadow. Every single leaf on the tree now an ailing replica of its once vibrant and beautiful past.

  I felt sick.

  It wasn't a surprise now that someone would assume that the tree was dying. I wanted to think that it was merely ill, afflicted with some kind of magical or ethereal disease. But two things told me that whatever was killing the tree was not natural.

  One was the hard, heavy feeling in my gut.

  The other the putrid stench that rose at every wound where the black substance met fresh air. I refused to imagine what the inside of the tree looked like considering the awful odor.

  Was I kidding myself by retaining some tiny hope that the tree could be saved? But it wasn't just my hope that was important. The tree stood for so much more than met the eye. It represented the existence of the nonhuman species.

  Normal humans had little idea what the Great Ash truly meant. But the tree had risen when the supernatural community had finally decided that they would no longer hide, when they at last decided to choose a new form of invisibility. What better way to stay under the radar then to live right next door to the humans?

  And it seemed that the Great Ash had agreed.

  Around the world, in cities where the concrete jungle had long overtaken the spirit of the citizens, ash trees took root, growing fast, and strong. In some cities, citizens were concerned by the sudden appearance of the pale tree. A tree that defied attempts to remove, kill, poison or damage it in any way.

  But here in Chicago, the tree was revered immediately, accepted as something special so much so that a fringe cult had emerged, dedicated entirely to the tree and its apparent representation of life on earth. It surprised few that the group believed firmly that should the tree die, then so would the world. Wonder what they'd do if they saw the tree in its current condition?

  Nausea burned within my gut as I sensed the ebb and flow of the dark energy that seem to run through the root system of the tree, and rise within its gigantic trunk all the way to the sky.

  As I stepped away from the tree something shifted in the branches. Just as I lifted my eyes to scan the canopy, three tiny leaves floated down towards me, drifting back and forth on an invisible breeze. I lifted my palm and the leaves found their way onto the centre of my hand.

  My stomach twisted into a rock hard knot. Here was more proof that this was indeed bad. That maybe there was no reversing the rot that had taken up residence in every cell of the ash tree. I cupped my hand carefully, praying that I wouldn't destroy any of the leaves, so fragile that a mere gust of wind would render them to dust.

  With my left hand I dug into my satchel, and withdrew three plastic bags. Sealing each leaf in its own separate bag, I gave them a firm nod, bidding them to reveal all their secrets, give us some information to go on.

  I placed the bags and the vials carefully into the cardboard box, then filled in the details on the white label on the top of the box. Case name and number, names of the items, the name of the agent who procured said evidence, the tests required, and any suspicions the recovering agent may have.

  I smiled as I scribbled my signature at the bottom of the label, wondering what Logan would think should he awaken today and discover how much I'd begun to follow the rules.

  With one last look at the Great Ash, I turned on my heel and headed for my motorbike.

  Technically the Ducati belonged to Tara. It had been just one more thing that I'd appropriated from my Fae friend in her absence. My only justification was that it served her right for not being around to prevent me from taking them.

  I frowned, thinking about Tara and the Fae creatures. All Fae were closely connected to the Elemental Planes. Tara and her mother Gracie, being Fae royalty, were far more powerful.

  I'd gone to Tara's store a few weeks back, intending to use it as a base because I was tired of having everyone coming in and out of my apartment. Pretty sure Grams didn't enjoy our home doubling as Grand Central when stuff hit the fan, which they tended to do where we were concerned.

  I needed a place to hide, to relax away from the mayhem of my life.

  To my surprise, the abandoned shop had gifted me with the bike which I'd found inside the back room, covered with an old red tarp. The shiny black helmet had been safely stored on the top shelf of a metal cabinet, right above Tara's collection of obsidian, mercury and platinum. I'd had little use for the metals, but the bike and its peripherals were another story altogether.

  I turned the key and listened as the machine growled beneath me. How had I never understood the satisfaction of riding such a beast before? I now understood Grams' obsession with her own Ducati. For an older woman she rode like a born biker.

  As I gave the great tree one last sad glance, I gunned the engine and took off down the brightly lit street. I knew that the only person that would be able to help us right now was the very person who may not appreciate the intrusion on her privacy. The rot taking hold of the great ash tree, while probably not biological in intent, was likely biological in origin. And poison, biological or not, was the forte of the Fae.

  Tara and Gracie had helped me with species-related poisons bef
ore so I was certain they'd be able to help me now.

  I just had to find them.

  CHAPTER 2

  "HOLY SHIT, WHERE THE HELL DID you come from?" Lily's voice broke on a high-pitched squeak as she stared at me, frozen in place. She stood on the threshold of the inner doorway that led into the apartment behind Tara's shop-without-a-name. It was a Fae thing, from my understanding, and I wasn't about to start complaining.

  I rolled my eyes and pulled my satchel over my neck, placing it onto the glass countertop as I slipped behind it.

  In recent weeks Lily had taken to coloring her golden hair every shade of purple possible, from pale to mauve to indigo. And oddly they worked for her, the hair going well with her shitkickers, black tights, and fingerless net gloves. With her clothes and dark eye makeup, she looked almost goth, but just a little too cute to go all the way.

  "You can't be seriously telling me that you didn't hear that great big bell on the door." I glared pointedly at it. The bright metal bell now sat silent, but a moment ago it had clanged annoyingly, loud enough to wake the dead.

  When Tara had been here, she'd needed loud, especially when she'd beenbusy in the back room working on her weapons. Today her absence prodded me like a hot poker. Had she been here we may have already solved the problem of the dying Ash Tree.

  Tara's weapons and ammunitions shop was the other thing that I'd appropriated in her absence. I sighed and sank onto the stool behind the main counter, then stared at the empty, dust-covered display shelves around the shopfront.

  She'd been here one moment - Greer's funeral - then left the next. Sent her clients to other manufacturers, and left her friends behind. Without an explanation, or even a goodbye.

  She had her own responsibilities, likely related to her royal bloodline, or something to do with the Fae Council or the Court of the Fae. Stuff I didn't ask about because the business of Fae royalty really wasn't any of my concern. So how could I blame her for not being there for me, not being there to see how badly Storm had betrayed us, to sit with us and mourn the loss of Anjelo at Storm's hand, to help us try to find a way to save Logan?