The eight navy SEALs were all trained professionals, ready to demonstrate their skills. In military fatigues, black vest, compact submachine gun in his hands, Sam looked lethal. Kelly now saw another side of him, the quiet professional who got the job done.
“What’s the plan, Shay?”
Though he was the lead officer, Dakota deferred to Sam. They were a team.
“Wait inside and get the drop on them from in here. On my word.”
With smooth efficiency, the men set out on their assignments, moving the vehicles to conceal them, arming with extra clips. Kelly’s throat tightened as J.T. and Dallas lifted Colton’s body with extreme care and placed him in the back room.
They were much less careful with the other body.
Then, as the SEALs went into the farmhouse to wait, Kelly looked at Sam.
“I’m not leaving. I’m here with you, all the way.”
Tension turned his jaw to granite. “Wait inside, Kel. I’m not risking your life. You’re the one they want dead.”
She reached up and kissed his cheek. “I love you,” she whispered. “I don’t care if your team knows, or if anyone else knows. You stay alive for me, Sam Shaymore.”
Leaving him standing alone on the porch, like a brave sentinel, Kelly went inside into a corner bedroom facing the porch and cracked the window so she could hear.
Time crawled to a stop. Kelly shifted restlessly but heard nothing from the other SEALs. They were so quiet. Patient.
Finally a car pulled into the driveway. Senator Robert Rogers got out and saw Sam on the porch in full battle gear.
“I see you’re dressed to kill Arcanes.”
“Not Arcanes. You, you son of a bitch, are under arrest.”
Rogers laughed. “And exactly who are you arresting? Me or...”
The handsome features blurred, shifted, changed.
“Or my wife.”
In an elegant black suit and black heels, Moira Rogers faced Sam. “Excuse the boring dress. I’m in mourning for my husband.”
Sam’s stony expression never changed. “Who are you? Are you the real Moira Rogers, or did you kill her, as well?”
“There’s only one of me. I’m an original. Poor Robert, he didn’t stand a chance. I killed him the day before you and your men rescued Billy from the island. And then I assumed his powers and took his place.”
“Then who took yours?”
Moira’s smile was sly. “A Phantom friend imitated me. He made an excellent duplicate and did not mind playing the role of a woman. He respected women, unlike Robert. My husband was a vain man. He never believed a woman could hold power. Not like your commanding officer, a true gentleman. So courageous. I knew he’d bring a tidy profit.”
Moira laughed. “One does need financing to start a war. I couldn’t risk withdrawing that much cash.”
“You sold Curt to those...things?”
“Centurion demons will pay for the right victim. They needed a courageous man for their wolf bitch to torture. They gave me one million for his delivery. All it took was a lure of children in trouble and Curtis came running.”
“The Elemental children we rescued were never endangered, were they? It was all a ruse to cast suspicion on Arcanes and trap Curt.” Sam narrowed his eyes. “And you’re the one who sent the email to Sight Finders, to stir up fear about a genocide.”
“There is a genocide planned, only of Arcanes, not Elementals. I prefer to call it an extermination of cockroaches.”
“Then why did you try to drown me in Honduras?”
“Because of who you are, Samuel Shaymore.” Moira flicked a hand. “I needed you dead, and if I could use you as a sacrifice, all the better. But it was more important to eliminate you any way possible. If you died, Allen would resign. His sole motivation is protecting you from trouble. There’d be gridlock on the council, because those old windbags would take forever to replace him. Chaos. No authority to stop me from whispering how Arcanes should be destroyed.”
“So you kidnapped your own son to get the ball rolling.”
“Billy isn’t my son! He’s the bastard of Robert’s kept Arcane whore, his secretary, Catherine. Robert wanted an heir. I couldn’t have children, so we adopted Billy and Robert pretended he was mine. All these years, humiliating me. After everything I’ve done, raising his bastard as my own child, helping Robert navigate the political waters in Washington, Robert started getting soft on the Arcane problem. He said he loved her and wanted a divorce.”
Jealousy had tipped Moira over the edge. Kelly stared outside at the woman, seeing a mirror image.
Kelly was an Arcane resenting privileged Elementals.
Moira was a privileged Elemental resenting Arcanes.
The senator’s wife allowed insecurity about the younger, prettier Catherine to overshadow everything. Moira’s power, wealth and status meant nothing. Hatred had blinded her to the tremendous good fortune of simply being born into status.
“But you can’t complete the transformation to a Dark Lord. I saw the spell book. You didn’t have the children or the Mage for the sacrifice.” Sam spoke in a calm voice but gave hand signals to his teammates to start moving in.
Kelly saw a shadow slip outside.
Moira laughed, the sound like fingernails against a mirror. “My transformation is complete.”
He scoffed. “Elemental Mages can’t be Dark Lords. We don’t carry the sickness within us. It was written in the ancient book of spells for Arcanes.”
“You misread the book. It’s a book for Mages, not exclusive to Arcanes. The council decided long ago the book was too dangerous and had copies destroyed. But the Arcanes had hidden a copy in a small village in Honduras, right beneath Elemental noses. I gathered together a few Arcanes imprisoned for sedition, paid them well and promised power if they joined me and led me to the book of dark spells. And then I killed them. All the while I had my real supporters, Phantom Elementals who feel as I do and would do anything to exterminate the Arcane species. One pretended to be your commanding officer. And the others lowered themselves to pretend to be the hated Arcanes in order to carry out my plans and fool the council into thinking there was an Arcane threat to kill all Elementals.”
Her voice dropped to a thin whisper. “The ancient texts called for the blood of a courageous Mage. Gender isn’t exclusive. So I killed the bitch. And Catherine had plenty of Arcane nieces and nephews to complete the sacrifice. She proved her courage when she tried to stop my Elemental Phantom supporters from killing them. It was almost too easy, pretending to be Robert and luring the children into attending a party for Catherine.”
Horror pulsed through Kelly.
“There are good and honorable Elementals who will stop you and force others to listen to reason,” Sam said quietly, his gaze never leaving the woman.
“But they cannot. Far more powerful is an Elemental who chooses the path of darkness.”
The woman’s features began to change, darkening, her mouth turning into a red, wet slash. Beginning the transformation into a Dark Lord.
Standing on the porch, confronting the power-crazed woman, Shay saw the last piece of the mosaic fall into
