Page 46 of Hellhounds Never Lie

"Stay at your stations but get ready," Van shouted at the others as he rushed through the door with Dillon following at his heels.

Startled squeaks and chattering filled the air, but I didn’t spare the rest of Team Van any other thought. Dillon was going to confront whoever was in the basement, and that was more important than anything else. Dillon might think he was my protector, but I refused to let anything happen to him either. I wouldn’t let him face this without me.

The flickering light of flames licked at the darkened stairwell as the hellhounds transformed into their beasts and leapt into the shadows. The light of my magic jumped across my fingertips as I raced down after Dillon and Van. My magic was alive in me now and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so strong. I could do so much more than mere sparks now.

At first, I feared my magic had lied to me about there being intruders, because the dark basement was eerily silent. But as I cleared the last few steps and flew into the windowless subterranean room, I caught glimpses of several wolves brawling with the hellhounds. The scene had a ghoulish macabre atmosphere as dark wolves undulated through the uneven and ever-changing shadows created by the preternatural fire from the hellhounds’ bodies.

And everything was absolutely silent.

This wasn't natural. Not at all.

The wolves who’d broken into my apartment had used an amulet with that kind of magic. These wolves had to be using the same thing.

I’d worked with magic my entire life up until Chris came along and tried to steal it from me. I had regularly merged my magic with members of both my family and my mother's coven, so even though it had been a long time, I could still tell how strange this was. Last night, during the attack at my apartment, I’d been torn awake, and in my disorientation and confusion I hadn’t noticed the magic, not in any meaningful way.

But now that I was awake and alert, my magic was pulling in all kinds of details, like the fact that there were two sources of magic suppressing sound and smell. And that seemed even more bizarre. How were there two of these things?

Was my magic lying to me? Or was I so out of practice that I was misinterpreting what I felt?

I reached out with my magic again. I had to know what we were dealing with.

Two distinct and separate pulses of magic vibrated over me. The strongest one reminded me of a machine. It was devoid of the warmth and emotion that usually filtered through human-worked magic. In fact, the way my magic hummed through my bones in response to the mechanically driven energy made me suspect it was electrical. As a fire mage, that was one of my affinities.

Now that I’d figured that much out, I could sense the shape and pulse of it more clearly.

I’d bet anything that this magic was responsible for the unnatural suffocation of our senses. I didn’t like it. At all. I couldn’t imagine how disorienting it would be for a shifter to be in this situation. Their senses were usually heightened in their shifted form; to be without would be crippling.

At least the wolves were in the same predicament.

No howls rose in warning or in anger. No grunts exploded through the quiet as bodies collided. The bulky metal gate that appeared to protect the entrance of a roughly hewn tunnel on the far side of the room didn't clang when it was flung against the stone wall.

There was one thing I could do, though. I could give them a better look at their opponents. I didn’t know where the light switch was—perhaps it was all the way back at the top of the steps—but I didn’t need it. With a shaking hand, I swept my arm in a wide arc. The bare bulbs overhead flickered to life and filled the room with light.

I instantly regretted my actions.

It had been better not to see.

Bloodied and charred pieces of wolf shaped bodies littered the floor. Van and Dillon were ripping their teeth into even more wolves as the intruders struggled to crawl toward the tunnel opening in the far wall. I wanted to help but had no idea what to do. I’d never had to practice any offensive or even defensive magic. There were warrior covens out there, but mine hadn't been one of them.

But there had to be some other way I could help.

I scanned the basement, assessing the area for any other threats Van or Dillon might have missed in their mission to stop the wolves.

The room was filled with shelves. When this place was a pack house, the space had probably been used to store food, because large shifters like wolves had notoriously huge appetites. Most of the shelves were bare, so the neat stack of new looking cardboard boxes stood out. A few had been either tipped over or dropped during the skirmish, revealing a strange collection of… well, I didn't know what I was looking at. I didn't recognize any of it.

But even with a shaky hold on my newly reacquired magic, the magical aura of the items vibrated ominously through the air. The back of my neck tingled uncomfortably as I neared the artifacts. I was a few steps away when my foot caught on a bright blue extension cord snaking across the floor, leading to somewhere behind the boxes. It was obviously out of place, so I followed it.

At first glance, the object at the end of the cord appeared to be an old-fashioned gramophone. Although the platform on the base was spinning around, no sound emerged from the mouth of the brass-colored horn. That had to be what was creating the unnatural suppression of our senses.

Would it be better or worse to stop it?

What if I did the wrong thing?

My pulse thundered in my ears. I probably had enough adrenaline pumping through me right now to fuel an army. I needed to do something. I needed to help Dillon.

I had a history of doing the wrong thing, like trusting Chris. And I hated that my ex was influencing me, even now. But, at the moment, no one else knew for sure what was happening here. That worked both ways. If the wolves further in the tunnel heard the screams of their pack, would they run away or come back to fight? Dillon and Van were holding their own right now, but if they had to face a whole pack…

Three wolves circled Dillon, nipping at the backs of his hind legs and swiping at his face.