Unbinding (20 page)

He recognized his cue. “When the other two chameleons showed up, she said she needed to take care of the stupid males and Changed. They obey her. Seem to understand what she wants pretty well, too, which helps. I don’t know if I could have found you on my own. This place is seriously weird. You sure that food is safe?”

“I doubt anything here is truly safe, but aside from the carrots and potatoes, everything smells okay. Where’s Cullen?”

“Back in the grotto. That’s where we ended up, in this grotto where Dyffaya stashed Britta. She’s a mess. Won’t leave the grotto, but she got real scared when she understood we were going, so Cullen offered to stay with her.” He glanced down at Nathan’s feet. “What did he do to you?”

“His version of a crucifixion. Impaled my feet and hung me upside down while we chatted. He left about an hour ago. It took me a while to get myself down, then get the vines off my arms.”

Benedict looked at Nathan’s feet another moment, then grunted and pulled his knife from its sheath. He cut off a hunk of venison. “Seabourne says the god can hear us. He may or may not be paying attention at any given moment, but if he is, he’ll hear us.”

“Cullen’s right. Everything here
is
Dyffaya, in a sense. It’s all the godhead, and he’s spread throughout it.”

Benedict looked at the meat in his hand. “Everything?”

“Including the food, yes. It’s godhead stuff that’s been magically transformed. Even the air we breathe is godhead stuff. But the venison, the bread, and the apples smell right, so they should be okay.”

Benedict still didn’t eat. “You warned me about the smell thing, but you didn’t get to explain. Why does the smell make it okay?”

“Food that lacks scent probably has some of Dyffaya in it. He doesn’t have a scent—I imagine you noticed that? I think it’s because he’s dead. The godhead itself is alive, though, so food that’s made purely from godhead stuff without any of the god mixed in smells like it ought to.” He paused. “Or so I think.”

Benedict sighed. “Be nice if you were sure.” But he took a bite of the venison. “Damn, that’s good. He gave us salad.”

Nathan’s eyebrows lifted. “Salad?”

“His idea of a joke. Feed the carnivores green stuff. We get plenty of water—there’s a spring—and we’ve been making the bar of soap last. Twice a day a roll of toilet paper and a huge bowl of salad shows up. After a couple days of that—”

“Wait. Wait a minute. A couple days?”

“Guess you lost track of time. Easy to do here. After we got to the grotto, Cullen cast a timekeeping spell. Don’t ask me how it works, but it does. When I left to hunt for you, we’d been in the grotto for thirty hours. Add two hours to that to allow for the period before he got his spell going, and another ten hours that I spent looking for you. That’s forty-two. Not quite two days, but close enough.”

Oh, hell. “I have not been here a couple of days. Not even close to that. I’d estimate that, for me, slightly over three hours have passed.”

“You must’ve passed out for longer than you realized.”

Nathan shook his head. “I didn’t pass out. I can’t. I can be knocked out, either physically or magically, but not for that long. And I wasn’t knocked out. Dyffaya enjoyed having me conscious and hurting.”

“That does not make sense.”

“Time must fluctuate here, with different parts of the godhead experiencing different time flows.”

“Shit. We need to go. Now. For me it’s been five hours since I left Cullen. God only knows how long it’s been for him.” He pulled off his shirt and began loading the remains of the meal onto it. Fortunately, Dyffaya had been generous. There was a lot left, enough for four or five humans or a couple lupi.

“Not the potatoes and carrots,” Nathan reminded him, and gripped the edge of the table to help himself stand.

“Sit down, dammit. You’ll ride on my back. Shouldn’t take us as long to get to him as it did to find you, since we won’t be casting around, so less than five hours. A lot less, I hope.” He looked at Dell. “Got an estimate?”

Dell thought a moment, then tapped the ground with one paw three times.

“Three hours?” Relief shaded Benedict voice. He tied his makeshift bundle together with the sleeves. “Hope you’re right.”

“What is it you’re afraid has happened to Cullen?”

“If Dyffaya kept up his little joke and Cullen’s been fed lettuce for several days, a week, whatever it’s been in his time . . . we need meat. We starve without it. Plus it’s not good if we’re alone too long.”

Only Cullen wasn’t alone. He was with Britta. “There’s no moon, so his wolf can’t come out.”

Benedict crouched in front of Nathan. “He can’t Change. Doesn’t mean his wolf can’t come out, and it’s worse if that happens without the Change. Hop aboard and hold on. I’ll be running.”

E
VEN
the fittest of werewolves gets winded after running for roughly three hours carrying a hundred and eighty pounds of Nathan on his back. The terrain wasn’t flat, either. They left the impossibly tall black trees behind after the first hour, entering a rocky region where the plants were much smaller, but they remained black. Aside from the color of the vegetation, it was typical of extremely high-magic regions—emphasis on the “extreme.” At one point they crossed a river. It began as a waterfall pouring out of a cleft in a rocky slope. It ended that way, too, some thirty yards away, pouring straight up into a second cleft.

Dell led. She, too, had a directional sense, one even stronger than Nathan’s. The two males coursed behind, watching their back trail. According to Benedict there were creatures living here—furry things, he said, with the size, build, and temperament of badgers, but with more teeth. The male chameleons had been living off the blood of those creatures; Dell had dined on Benedict’s blood.

“My feet are healed enough to support me now,” Nathan told the man carrying him as he loped along a dry stream bed at the base of an arroyo. The rocky walls on either side were all shades of black and gray.

“We’re about there,” Benedict said. Or huffed. And a few paces later he slowed as they rounded a curve in the rocky stream bed . . . slowed, and then stopped. “Cullen.” He spoke the name as if it were a command, adding very softly: “Dropping you now. Don’t move or speak.”

Nathan caught no more than a glimpse of Cullen hunkered down by a campfire before Benedict suited actions to words and dumped him. He let himself go limp, rolling as he hit the ground and coming up onto his knees rather than his feet. He might have exaggerated a bit about how healed they were.

He had a clear view of Cullen now. And everything else.

The grotto itself was a surprise. Shaped roughly like a triangle with walls of black stone striated with white and gray, its floor was the usual pale, glowing sand. A spring tucked into one corner burbled quietly to itself. As usual, there was no grass . . . but there were flowers. Brilliantly colored flowers. Red, fuchsia, yellow, blue, pink, purple—they sprouted from crevices in the rocks, from the dead sand, from the skinny black twigs of small bushes.

In the center of the grotto a campfire burned merrily, though it lacked any wood to consume. Cullen crouched on one side of the fire. He wore shoes and a wedding ring, nothing else. On the other side of the fire a young woman lay on her back, her long black hair bound in a single braid. Beneath her head was a bit of cloth—Cullen’s underwear, posing as a thoroughly inadequate pillow. His jeans and shirt had been tucked carefully around her, improvised covers. She was utterly still except for the slight rise and fall of her chest. Nathan could hear her breathing—the crescendo-diminuendo of Cheyne-Stokes.

Britta Valenzuela was dying.

Cullen was looking straight at Benedict. His eyes were the same startling blue as ever . . . and entirely different. The being who looked out of those eyes was intelligent, but he was not a man. “Not meat,” he said hoarsely. Paused, and added, “Yet.”

“No,” Benedict said. “She isn’t. I brought meat.”

Cullen rose with his usual fluid grace—which was remarkable, given how he looked. Every rib stood out. “I need meat.”

Benedict held out a hand in Nathan’s direction and waggled his fingers.

Nathan had tucked the shirt-bag of provisions inside his own shirt. He pulled it out and tossed it to Benedict, who caught it and spoke firmly. “You’ll submit first.”

Cullen growled.

“Don’t test me.” Benedict kept his eyes fixed on Cullen.

The starving man-shaped wolf dropped his gaze and went to his knees, head down. When Benedict bit into the venison, a tremor passed through Cullen’s emaciated body. Benedict tossed him a piece of venison. Cullen snatched it from the air and devoured it.

Nathan knew enough about wolves to understand why Benedict handled it that way. He needed to control the starving wolf until the man reemerged, so he’d used language the wolf understood: a dominant wolf eats first.

Benedict tossed another piece of meat at Cullen. Softly he said to Nathan, “Check on Britta, but circle wide. Your scent’s likely to bother him.”

Nathan nodded and pushed to his feet. It hurt. He moved slowly. Cullen paused, growling.

“He’s mine, too,” Benedict told him. He began walking toward Cullen. “He won’t take your meat.”

Nathan didn’t argue about whether he was Benedict’s. It worked to let Cullen go back to the important business of filling his belly, which was what counted. Right now, the lupus was operating on pure instinct. It was a tribute to his training that they hadn’t arrived to find a pile of gnawed-on bones on the other side of that fire, but training can only go so far. It was even more of a tribute to whatever core the man shared with the wolf.

Benedict kept Cullen’s attention on him, moving steadily closer while Nathan circled around. When Benedict reached Cullen he signaled Nathan to wait, squatted, and gripped Cullen’s shoulder. “You’re going to be okay.” Cullen made a sound, half sigh, half whimper, and did something the man would never have done. He leaned against the big man’s solid bulk. Benedict didn’t hug him. That human expression of comfort wouldn’t have the same meaning to a wolf. He simply braced and let Cullen lean into him. “There’s more meat, but it’s for later. Too much too fast isn’t good for you. I want you to go get a drink now.”

Cullen twisted to look at Benedict. After a moment he nodded—a thoroughly human gesture Nathan found encouraging—and stood. When he headed for the spring, Nathan started moving again.

Benedict looked up at him. “You said your feet were healed. They aren’t.”

“The skin and tendons are. The bones aren’t quite baked.” He knelt beside Britta, bent low and sniffed, then listened to her heartbeat. He straightened with a sigh and clasped her too-cool hand. Those in coma sometimes recognize touch even when their other senses are lost. “She’s almost gone.”

Benedict made a low, angry sound. “What’s wrong with her? There’s no blood.”

“It’s magic sickness. Humans can’t tolerate areas of extremely high magic. At first they’re just weak, tired. They chill easily, get disoriented. I heard a man who’d been a victim of magic sickness talk about it. He said it was like he didn’t fit in his body or his brain, as if the magic was pushing him out. Eventually victims lapse into coma and the body’s organs start shutting down. If you can get them out of the high-magic area before the coma hits, they usually make it, although their children may . . . but that’s another issue. Once they’re in coma, it’s too late.”

Benedict glanced over his shoulder. Cullen had knelt at the spring and was drinking thirstily. “What about. . . .” He indicated Cullen with a jerk of his head.

“You and Cullen should be okay. Most of those of the Blood are affected eventually, but it takes a long time—usually a matter of years, not days. Gifted humans have some resistance, too, but those without a Gift, like Britta, are entirely vulnerable.” Nathan frowned. “It hit her awfully fast. Based on Cullen’s condition, can you tell how much time passed for them?”

Benedict shrugged. “Assuming he didn’t get any meat, maybe a week to ten days.”

“There’s one hell of a lot of magic in this place, and individual tolerances vary, but still—that’s too fast.”

“She wouldn’t get up.” Cullen spoke abruptly, his voice ragged. He stood beside the small spring, swaying as if there were a strong wind. “I tried and tried, but after a while she wouldn’t get up.”

Benedict looked up. “You back already?”

“Some.” He swayed a bit. “The man’s better with words, so we . . . but the wolf doesn’t want to let go.”

“Your wolf did a good job of watching over things, but he needs to sleep now. I’ll take care of you and Britta. He can let go and sleep.”

Cullen looked at him out of not-quite-human eyes for a long moment. “Okay.” He took three steps, folded gracefully at the knees as if he’d planned it, and sank onto the sand, where he curled up in a ball the way a small child might . . . or a wolf who lacked the proper form, but was making do. Within moments, he was out cold.

So was the campfire. Cullen had been keeping it going. How long had he gone without sleep so he could keep the fire burning, trying to keep Britta warm?

Benedict nodded once in satisfaction. “He won’t sleep long. Too hungry. But when he wakes up, the man should be back in charge.”

Nathan settled more comfortably next to the dying woman, keeping hold of her hand. “Good. I have some questions for him. I don’t see the magical timekeeper you mentioned.”

“Probably his wolf either forgot to maintain it or didn’t see the point.”

Britta’s breathing paused. For a painfully long moment, she didn’t inhale. Nathan and Benedict both watched, waited . . . and her chest lifted again. Nathan continued to watch her as he spoke. “What he said about getting her up made me think he recognized the symptoms of magic sickness. Movement delays the progression. Hard to see where he might have learned about it, though.”

Benedict grunted. “He picks up all sorts of shit from his scraps of old documents. Then there was the time he spent in Edge. No telling what he heard about there.”

Was Britta’s hand growing colder? Hard to be sure, but he could add his shirt to Cullen’s. He wasn’t sure she’d notice, but it was something he could do. He tugged it off over his head. “Likely someone in Edge warned him. Edge has—”

“What the
hell
?”

Nathan looked up. An enormous version of the display he’d watched earlier hung in the air halfway between him and the spring. Dead center of the visual field were the crosshairs of a telescopic scope. They rested on Special Agent Derwin Ackleford. “Shit. We’re looking through the eyes of someone on Earth.”

Enlarged so greatly, the fuzziness outside the direct line of view was obvious, fading into the blur of peripheral vision. Nathan could make out the rifle the sniper was using and part of his hand . . . no, her hand. Dyffaya was using a woman’s eyes for this. The sniper was on a roof. A red-tiled roof. Nathan could barely make that out; it was at the very edge of the sniper’s peripheral vision. Ackleford was at street level and maybe a block away with several other people—uniformed cops, men in suits, and one of the other FBI agents. The woman.

“I do like those big-screen TVs, don’t you?” a mellow tenor said from overhead. Nathan looked up.

Dyffaya stood at the edge of one of the black cliffs surrounding the grotto. He’d chosen a different form this time, this one ostentatiously godlike—around seven feet of nude male with a face and form copied from Michelangelo’s David, right down to the cupid-bow lips. Though Dyffaya had altered one thing: he was better hung than the statue.

He’d stayed with a human shape, though, hadn’t he? Not elf. Interesting.

The god stepped off the cliff and began floating down. “Does the sniper’s view worry you? No one need die right away. If the two of you behave—oh, by that I mean Nathan and Benedict. I may invite Dell and the sorcerer to play later, but for now it will be just you two. I do hope you’ve finished healing, Nathan.”

“Not quite.”

“Pity. You’d enjoy the next part more if—
no
!”

The last word emerged as a wail. The god forgot his posing and his grand entrance. He disappeared and, in the same instant, reappeared next to Nathan. One arm swept out, shoving Nathan aside. It felt like being smacked by the statue Dyffaya had copied. Nathan fell over on his back and skidded a couple feet—rolled, and came up ready to fight.

Dyffaya seemed to have forgotten about him. He was cradling the dying woman. “There now,” he said tenderly, and stroked her face. “There now. Wake up for me, sweetheart.”

Nathan froze, listening intently. Maybe Dyffaya could heal her. He was a god. Surely he could . . .

Britta’s heartbeat steadied. Her breathing grew more even, but it was still shallow. Terribly shallow. Her eyes fluttered open. “You came,” she whispered.

“Of course. I am sorry I was slow.” He smiled down at her.

“You’re here now.” She sighed happily. For a few moments she lay quietly in the god’s arms while he stroked her hair. When she spoke again her words were clear, but her voice was faint. So faint. “I was scared, but then I got tired. So tired. There’s something wrong with me.”

“Yes.”

“You can’t fix it?”

He shook his head. His eyes glistened. “I can keep you from suffering. I can hold you. I can’t . . . keep you.” The tears spilled over. “You’ll leave me soon. Very soon.”

“I don’t . . .” Her voice had grown so soft Nathan doubted a human could have heard it. “. . . want to.”

“It’s not your fault. You’ve been loving and loyal.” His voice deepened, the resonance turning compelling as the air grew thick with the scent of beguilement, a sweet-tart smell Nathan knew well. “I have loved thee, Britta, well, but too briefly. Fare thee well.” He bent and kissed her lips.

Because Nathan was listening so carefully, he heard it when her heart stuttered. And stopped.

She vanished.