First Destroy All Giant Monsters (The World Wide Witches Research Association) (26 page)

He heard a distant rumble, almost thunder, but it went on for longer than he expected. Opening one eye he glanced at Amber. She was seated at his feet, cross-legged, hands raised over her head. The loose fabric of her linen shift was pulled tight against the breasts he remembered so well. The sound emerging from her throat was deeper than he expected. A grumbling bass note that went on and on. She took a deep breath and resumed the note. Closing his eyes again Karl could feel a new trembling in his body. Not the terror that gripped him when he thought of those snakes wrapped around his soul, but a heart calming vibration that he drew in with the air he breathed and that sank into his muscles, soothing them. Air emptied out of his lungs, long and slow, and he descended into sleep.

* * * * *

The sky above him was a vivid burning orange. The rock was digging uncomfortably into his spine.

“Took you long enough to get here,” said Amber.

Karl glared at her.

“What the h … heck are we doing back here?”

Amber looked around the empty dreamscape

“It is familiar to both of us. I thought we could work here.”

“It may have escaped your attention,” snarled Karl, “but I don’t like it here. This is the place where I’ve been attacked on a nightly basis for years, so this is not a place I feel safe for the sort of surgery you’re thinking of doing. What if the wolves turn up?”

Amber glanced over her shoulder to the distant mountains and blushed.

“Oh, I am so sorry. I should have thought about that, but it was a place we both knew. The wolves aren’t due until tomorrow morning; that’s hours away. But if you don’t feel safe this isn’t going to work. What would it take to make you feel safe? Just visualize it and I’ll try to follow you in.”

Visualize it. Karl closed his eyes. The air had already dried his mouth and throat. What had Amber been thinking? This was no place for them to be. He needed a comfortable place, someplace he knew … good times, someplace he could feel confident and relax. A drink wouldn’t hurt, either. Hearing Amber gasp he opened his eyes.

“An Irish pub,” said Amber, her lip curling. “I suppose I should be grateful that it isn’t a sports bar or a strip club.”

“You’d fit right in,” said Karl, smiling brightly.

“Well, damn,” cried Amber, blushing far down her chest.

The wolf dreamscape dress code was nude. That apparently had not disturbed her. But judging from the way she folded her arms across her bare chest and scowled, she did not feel quite as comfortable naked in a pub, even though the pub was empty except for him and her. She closed her eyes, concentrated, and faded from sight. Moments later she was back, this time wearing a white surgeon’s jacket over blue jeans and a T-shirt.

“Ready to start?”

Karl chuckled and closed his eyes.

“Whenever you are, doctor.”

He opened his eyes almost immediately and checked out what he was wearing. The pub was familiar. He’d hung out with Mike and other friends here after class during the first year of college. The wall prints and neon lights were exactly as he remembered. Now as he had back then, he was wearing loose chinos and a polo shirt. Satisfied that he was not at a disadvantage, he relaxed.

“Remember, you have to separate yourself from the layers of spells around you.”

Karl grunted and tried to concentrate. It was hard. Harder than he expected. He wanted to imagine himself encased in a magic proof suit of armor with the spells on the outside. But his mind kept drifting back to the image in the mirror. Black snakes diving into and through his body, binding him, invading him. Snakes that were slowly destroying him. What imaginary suit of armor could protect him from that? Eventually he settled on an image that satisfied him.

“Your suit of amour looks like a cross between a condom and a football uniform,” said Amber after a few moments of silence.

“You imagine your way, oh witch of the potato peeler,” replied Karl with a bite in his voice, “and I will imagine mine.”

Amber waited until Karl was resting then extended a spell through the mass of black twisted threads and into his aura. Under the gentle pressure of her will, Karl drifted deeper into a trance. She pushed again, and his aura contracted, becoming brighter. The threads still bound him, tried to coil tighter, but she slipped another spell under to hold them away.

She’d simplified the image for Karl, describing the spells as an onion. In fact to her it looked more like a spaghetti dinner. In, out, tangled about. The beginning and the end of the spells were impossible to find. As far as she could figure out, her best bet would be to try and untangle the outermost layers and see if she could find a separation point.

She started work first on the weight on his head and chest. It was worrisome that the threads plunged through his body so many times in different places; they went round and round his head and chest. Just looking at him made her own breathing shallow and her head ache. Using a fragment of the house shield spell she lifted up a loop of the thread and examined the twists and knots. It was worse than unknotting yards of wool after the kittens tied all the furniture together. But she was patient and determined and had plenty of experience trying to organize the masses of cables behind a computer desk. If she could get that weight off his mind and chest, he might begin to feel a difference … feel freer. Think more clearly.

Trust her.

Maybe that was reaching too far.

Survival at this point was the most important thing.

In this spell state she had a better idea of the passage of time. By midnight she’d unwrapped the tangled threads and laid most of them out across the ground beside them. Karl had not one, but three dominant spell threads attached to him as well as the many, many layers of onion spells. Someone had directly attacked his mind, his heart, and oddly, the strongest attachment was to his root chakra … his basic drives. The center of his sexuality.

That was just cruel.

Now that the threads were put aside she could get a better view of the remainder of the spells. All of them.

Amber rubbed her dream chin and studied the pattern of the spells and threads. He’d been rendered almost completely mind blind. She had to do something about that, if she could. It would help if he were a little less resistant to the idea of her helping him. His hands and chest weighed down under incredible burdens and his sex drive … smothered.

With all this weighing on him it was unlikely that he had the strength to flirt. Probably he remembered the courtship dance, without any real hunger or interest behind it. A strangely disappointing thought.

Amber shook herself hard. She was wasting time. The three dominant spells she wasn’t going to touch. Not without more study. With luck and a little hard work, she could lift at least the outermost layer of the onion spell from him and still have time to get some sleep before that attack at five.

All those hours of practice in the kitchen reducing little apples to piles of thin coils would now pay off. Amber flexed her fingers, bringing to mind the memory of the pressure of the plastic, the movement of the curved metal blade. The peeler coalesced into Ethereal being in her palm. She waited until she was confident in the imagined shape, size, and movement. She ran her finger lightly across the blade and studied the drop of imaginary blood that appeared on her skin. The corner of her mouth tilted up.

“And so it begins,” she muttered.

She moved the peeler lightly through the air above Karl. Meeting no resistance she moved her hand a little lower and lower again. She moved her hand over his chest, following the bumps and curves of his wasted muscles. When Karl grunted in his sleep she paused and ran her empty hand over the air. Lengthening her dream fingernails she tried to find an edge. A corner. Something to lift. The outermost spell also had to be the newest. Not crushed down by the weight of other spells it actually felt thick to her questing fingernails.

Levering up a small edge Amber inserted her peeler and started moving it back and forth, loosening the grip of the spell beneath. She worked slowly and patiently. If she had a body, she knew she would be grinding her teeth and sweating. But this was dream work. In the morning she would have a headache the size of Montana, but for now success was measured an inch at a time.

* * * * *

Much, much later Amber rolled onto her side and opened her eyes. The real world was a comforting place with the scent of recently trimmed grass and night songs to reassure her she’d returned. She wiggled her fingers and stretched, forcing her cramped muscles to loosen.

Beyond the edge of the stone circle her cousin waited patiently.

“What time?” she whispered.

“Just after two,” said Smoke.

Amber cursed weakly. “Oh, hell and dammit. Only three hours sleep if I’m lucky before the wolves came back for their morning feeding.”

Extending one hand she pointed at the stone barrier marking the edge of the magical protections and cut the circle. Immediately Smoke crossed and helped her to a sitting position.

“You’re going to need help,” he whispered, “You can’t do this alone.”

“Who said I wanted to do this alone?” snapped Amber with as much heat as she could summon. “I didn’t want to do this at all. And you said I can’t ask the WWWRAP club for help. Have you changed your mind?”

“No, but Cousin Missy, she came yesterday and put up the circle of protection. She’s ready to make her commitment. We could have the ceremony tomorrow.”

Amber straightened and pushed free of Smoke’s support.

“No. Hell, no. Seriously. How could you suggest that? For one thing, how can I be certain that helping me won’t drag her into the web?” Amber groaned and reached for her water bottle. “I’m not stupid. I’d love to have some help. If you know how to find Aunt Lucinda, I wish you would tell me.”

Smoke shook his head, dark eyes glowing faintly in the moonlight. “Helping you would be Missy’s decision. She’d take the risk. We know the house spell prevents contamination. She’s known to the house. You could just check the protection is there …”

“No,” said Amber quickly.

“Let me know if you reconsider,” said Smoke. “Time will come when you’ll be guardian. This …”

“Not now. Not yet. I’m not ready for that yet. And until I know for certain that Lucinda isn’t coming back you can’t make me.”

Karl was sitting up, biting his lip to keep from screaming when Amber tip-toed into the downstairs guest room at 5:20 the next morning. She crossed to sit on his bed. Even in the dim predawn light, he could see her hands trembling.

“Did they get you tonight?” he asked.

Amber nodded and studied his face for a moment. “I tried to reinforce the house shields and my personal shields, and I tried to stay awake, but I couldn’t stop the drain. All that changed is that I didn’t get pulled into the dream. What happened to you?”

Karl grunted. “I got to visit with my old
friends
, as usual. I wasn’t as terrified as before, now I know what’s happening, but I want this to stop. I want to get these guys and make it all stop.”

Amber put both hands on his chest, her expression intent. He watched her tongue extend just a tip beyond her lips as she concentrated. As the energy flowed from her into him he wondered what would happen if he kissed her. If he touched that wide sweet mouth and invited that little tongue into his own.

Amber moved her hands away distracting him from his speculations. Instead of their steady warmth, the places where they’d rested were suddenly chilled.

“Hey, what was that?” he demanded.

“I gave you a little Elemental energy to get you going.”

“But I still feel weak,” he protested, reaching for her wrist and trying to pull her hands back to his skin. “Give me a little more.”

“I’m weak, too.” Her voice sounded faint, “but I thought if I gave us enough to stop the pain we might be able to get another hour or so of sleep. We were up working until only a few hours ago.

“I feel … not as bad as I have,” he focused on her face. In the dim light he could barely make out her features, but she looked tired. Worse than him, and that was saying something. “I didn’t ask last night. Did anything work?”

“Sure. For a first time it went pretty well. I untangled the coils. There are three distinct threads on you, and I got a couple of complete spells off. You should find it easier to concentrate, but I warn you, you might feel a little …”

“Mike,” shouted Karl, sitting upright.

The bed bounced and Amber slid to the floor before she could save herself. She glared at him, absently rubbing her butt while Karl threw off the blankets, leapt over her, and started pulling on his clothes. Amber was treated to a view of his muscular derrière covered in thin boxers before it disappeared into loose khakis. She remained half reclining on the floor watching him dress. His hands trembled as he struggled with his shirt buttons. After a few minutes he gave a snort of disgust and abandoned the buttons, shoving his shirt tails into his pants.

“What’s biting you?” demanded Amber, climbing slowly to her feet.

“I’ve got to go. I know Mike is involved. I have to go,” he paused, staring vaguely into the distance. “I can’t ask his parents. They wouldn’t know anything about this. But someone must know.”

“If you could slow down and make sense, I’d really appreciate it,” she muttered, clinging to the bed for balance. “You know. Complete sentences. Comprehensive ideas. Noun, verb, subject.”

“Look who’s talking,” snapped Karl, shoving clean and dirty clothes together into his overnight bag. “The queen of the incomprehensible explanation.”

Amber gritted her teeth and closed her eyes. Even without a thick layer of magic overlaying his brain, he was a guy. He couldn’t help acting like a complete moron. She had to be sympathetic.

That being said, thought Amber, opening her eyes and glaring at his back, it would give her immense satisfaction to kick his fine ass, right up to his Adam’s apple. Even if that meant ruining said fine ass.

“Do you remember me telling you that having spells removed might make you feel funny?” she asked, forcing a smile into her voice.