Unbinding (23 page)

An enormous black-and-tan wolf stood atop the pile of clothes that Doug had been wearing a moment ago. He grinned at them, tongue lolling.

“Son of a bitch.” Boyd sounded almost reverent.

“That’s an expression we don’t care for,” José said, “but I understand you meant no offense. Doug, you know what you need to find out. Remember—no heroics. If anything sprouts thorns or seems likely to attack, you get out of there fast.”

Doug nodded.

“He understands you.” Boyd must have known that four-footed lupi understood language, but it was obvious from his patterns that he was having trouble processing what he’d seen.

“Of course,” José said, and nodded at the man Boyd had summoned. “Lieutenant Calverone? I don’t know if you recall, but we met a few months ago. I’m—”

“José Alvarez. You helped two of my officers nab a rapist. I’m not likely to forget that.” Calverone held out a hand for José to shake. “Good to see you again. I take it this is . . . I was going to say one of your men, but that’s not the right word at the moment.” He gave a wry smile. “One of your people?”

“Doug McMillan,” José said. “He needs to check out the transformed building and the sniper’s perch on top of that church.”

Calverone glanced at his superior, who nodded. “I’m to be his escort? Good enough. Shall we go, Doug?”

“Um—hang on a minute,” Kai said. She looked at Arjenie. “It might be good to know if any wards have been set around the hobbit house.”

“Oh? Oh! I see what you mean. Maybe that’s the reason no one’s been hurt or snatched. There could be some kind of trigger that didn’t get pulled, but it’s still there, waiting.”

“It seems possible.” A side effect of Arjenie’s Gift was her sensitivity to wards. “Do you think you can do it without, uh . . .” Kai made a vague gesture. Arjenie’s ability to slip into stealth mode was supposed to be a secret. She’d used it at Fagioli, but in all the confusion, no one seemed to have noticed.

“I only have to be slightly unobtrusive in order to sense wards.”

In other words, she’d use her Gift so marginally that she’d still be seen, though people might forget she was there. Kai nodded and looked at José. He’d put his body between her and the bullets. She understood the logic. Lupi healed better by far than she, faster and more completely. But logic be damned. They could be killed, and she did not want him playing shield again.

Asking about the risk to him and his men wouldn’t get her a straight answer, though. Asking about the risk to Arjenie might. “I need your professional opinion. Is it safe for Arjenie and me to go out there?”

“If I thought the risk was unacceptably high, I’d let you know. You do what you need to do.”

Kai wasn’t happy with her choices, but that was often the case. “Okay. Let’s go.”

“I
vote we go.” Cullen still looked emaciated, but Benedict had been right. There was a man in the driver’s seat again, not a wolf.

Nathan and Benedict had waited hours for Cullen to wake up. Those hours had passed slowly, but Nathan’s initial terror had faded as it became obvious the sniper had not shot Kai. If Kai had been seriously injured, Dell would have known; if Kai had been killed, Dell would either be dead or unconscious. So Kai was all right, and Benedict was sure Arjenie had survived, too. He wouldn’t explain how he knew, but his certainty was persuasive.

“It’s worth trying,” Benedict said. “If we’re wrong about the way time works here, might as well find out.”

“Dell?” Nathan said.

The chameleon nodded firmly.

“We’re agreed, then.” Nathan wasn’t surprised. None of them wanted to stay in the grotto, and if their reasons were a mix of the practical and the emotional, there was nothing wrong with that. On the practical side, they hoped to find a more stable time zone, which is why they would head for the clearing where they’d first appeared. Dyffaya had used it twice to bring people here, so it was probably highly congruent with the physical world. They could hope that meant it was time-congruent as well.

Clearly, even if location was a factor in how time flowed within the godhead, it wasn’t the only one. The magical displays proved that Dyffaya could control the flow of time here when he wanted to. The enormous one that had appeared just before Britta died had shown Earth in lockstep with time here. So maybe they’d improve their time-flow, maybe they wouldn’t. Why not try? Britta had died here. Cullen had suffered here. Those were reasons enough to leave.

It was easy to do, with nothing to pack. A moment to settle their marching order and they were off, with Dell and her two-member harem ranging out ahead and Benedict serving as rear-guard. Cullen walked beside Nathan. They’d no need to run this time, which was just as well. Cullen wasn’t up to it.

As they moved out down the dry ravine Cullen returned to a subject they’d touched on briefly. “Why did her body poof?”

It was obvious who he meant. He’d been grimly amused when he learned that the meat his wolf had waited for so painfully wouldn’t have been available to him, after all.

Benedict said, “Maybe Dyffaya sent it back.”

Cullen nodded. “Could be. Could also be that the godhead itself doesn’t keep dead things around. We haven’t seen so much as a dead leaf, have we?”

Now that was an interesting notion. Was it the god or the godhead that didn’t want dead things around? “Dyffaya isn’t exactly alive himself.”

“Not exactly dead, either. But his body is. Do you know what happened to it?”

“Mage fire. That’s not what killed him, mind, but that’s what they did with his body. Burned every trace of it.”

“Hmm.” Thoughtfully Cullen sprouted a tiny flame on one fingertip. Black flame.

Nathan stopped dead. “Don’t do that!”

The tiny flame winked out. “Needed to see if I could. If things work here the way I’m used to.”

“Try asking,” Nathan said dryly. “Mage fire is chancy under the best circumstances, and this is an extremely high-magic place.”

“I can see that.” Cullen spoke with exaggerated patience. “It’s damn distracting at times.”

“Then maybe you didn’t realize that using mage fire in a high-magic area is like playing with matches while floating in a swimming pool filled with kerosene.”

Cullen glanced at his hand, then back at Nathan. “Anything else I should know?”

“Undoubtedly, but I’m not sure where to start.”

Benedict was amused. “Start with the assumption that he doesn’t have the sense not to play with matches when floating in a pool of kerosene.”

So as they walked, Nathan talked about the properties of high-magic places. He went into more detail on magic sickness, touched on the kinds of spells that might function differently here, and warned them about changes they might notice—loss of appetite being one symptom, but not everyone developed that. Looked like lupi were among those who didn’t. Sleep problems were common, with some people sleeping too much and others finding it difficult to fall asleep at all. The latter was common with elves, some of whom stopped sleeping altogether.

He also warned them again that they had to assume Dyffaya overheard everything they said. He doubted that the god was listening at all times, but they’d have no way of knowing when he was. No way, either, to know which Earth languages Dyffaya knew. Nathan doubted the god could absorb a new language the way dragons did, mind-to-mind, but there was an adept-level spell that was almost as good. It could capture an entire language from only a few sentences. They couldn’t try writing in the dirt, either. The god might not be observing them every moment, but Nathan suspected he’d set up magical triggers. Certain actions would probably draw his attention. Writing in the dirt was likely one of those triggers.

The telling took an hour or so. Answering Cullen’s questions took longer. He was—surprise!—intensely curious about this strange place in which they found themselves, and he had information of his own to offer. He’d run a few basic experiments on the materials at hand, with interesting results. “Leaves, rocks, bark, dirt—it’s all elementally balanced.”

“Leaves with Fire attributes?” Nathan said, startled.

“And rocks with Air. Everything partakes equally of North, South, East, and West, too. I think it’s all the same substance.”

“It’s all spirit, of course, but . . .” But Nathan had assumed that what looked like a leaf was a leaf, regardless of what stuff had been used to make it. “It’s not created,” he said slowly. “Nothing here was created. It’s shaped. Shaped at a very fine level, or it wouldn’t matter if you ate lettuce or meat. But shaped.”

“You say that like it matters,” Benedict said.

“Of course it matters,” Cullen said. “We may not know why yet, but it matters.”

“Yeah, well, here’s something that I know matters. Why aren’t we all under compulsion?”

That startled Cullen into silence, but it didn’t last. “Good question. Can we be sure we aren’t?”

“I’m not,” Nathan said. He didn’t know why compulsion didn’t work on him, but it didn’t. The Eldest himself had confirmed that when he and Winter were negotiating for Nathan’s assistance on Earth. “Oil on water,” his Queen had murmured, as if that made sense to her. Probably it did. “Of course, I could be under compulsion to tell you that I’m not, so my saying so proves nothing.”

“Reassuring,” Benedict said, bone-dry.

“He’s probably telling the truth.” Cullen sounded gloomy. “Hellhounds are supposed to be immune to compulsion. Doesn’t help the rest of us.”

Nathan couldn’t help smiling. Cullen chose the oddest things to be troubled by. “Maybe it will help to know that I haven’t smelled beguilement except for that once, when Dyffaya was soothing Britta.”

“That’s supposed to help?”

“Eh. I keep thinking you know things you don’t.” Cullen was amazingly good for someone who was basically self-taught, but there were gaps. “Beguilement is a form of compulsion. It has a strong, distinctive odor when it’s laid. I think Dyffaya renewed it, there at the end.”

“What does it smell like?” That was Benedict.

“Somewhat like a mixture of cooked peas and spoiled apricots.”

Benedict’s voice sharpened. “With a metallic undertone? Hot metal, not cold.”

“That’s it.”

“Huh. I smelled it, too. Didn’t know what it was. I didn’t smell it on Britta before that.”

“The scent doesn’t linger—at least, not to my nose. I’ve only smelled it when someone was actively laying or refreshing a beguilement. Other compulsions have a similar scent, with different notes.” Which got him thinking . . . why had Dyffaya beguiled Britta so completely?

They all die.
That’s what Dyffaya had said, and his pain had been real and deep at that moment. Sooner or later, they all died. Who were “they”?

And why had he not beguiled anyone else? Nathan was immune. Cullen might be—his shields were amazing—but the god might be able to overwhelm them. Benedict was obviously vulnerable. Nathan wasn’t sure about Dell. The familiar bond should confer a good deal of resistance, but resistance was not immunity.

And yet none of them had been beguiled. Other types of compulsion could be difficult to spot, but beguilement was easy. For Nathan, anyway. A lot of elves could use it, so he’d learned to spot the signs ages ago.

Why hadn’t Dyffaya beguiled any of them?

Maybe he could guess.

Or maybe he was making a connection where none existed. There was a word for that, though he couldn’t recall it at the moment. Might be a dragon word. He never could hold onto much of their speech, constructed as it was out of thought-engrams. But minds love connections and were prone to creating them on the spot whether they were accurate or not. That was one thing every sentient he’d ever met had in common. But this connection . . . this felt right.

Nathan returned from his reverie and realized that the other two had fallen silent, too. Following their own connections, maybe, or hunting for them. Or thinking about the lovers they’d been so abruptly parted from . . . .

Kai.
Her name went through him like a blade made of longing instead of steel.
Stay well. I’ll come back to you somehow.
“He wants to keep us.”

“What do you mean?”

Without looking over his shoulder, Nathan couldn’t see Benedict’s scowl. But he heard it. “Dyffaya. That’s what I’m thinking, anyway. He’s feeding us. Not properly, in your case, but there’s every chance he didn’t know what happens to lupi who go without meat. Your people are new to him. He’s provided the basics for sustaining life; therefore, he wants us to live. He wants to keep us.”

It was Benedict who saw the connection Nathan had spotted. “‘They all die.’ That’s what he said. He wants people around who won’t die on him anytime soon. But why us? We’re his enemies.”

“Because his followers die.” This was Cullen. “Followers or lovers—I’m not sure he sees a difference, and that’s what he meant, isn’t it? Those who love him die.”

“Or those who’ve been beguiled into loving him.”

“Hmm.” Cullen thought that over. “I’ve never heard of beguilement shortening anyone’s life expectancy, and it’s not one of the things you said operated differently in a high-magic zone.”

“I haven’t heard of it doing so,” Nathan said, “but we shouldn’t rule that out. I’m thinking, though, that maybe something about Dyffaya himself makes it work out badly for anyone he beguiles here. Here in the godhead.”

“Which maybe doesn’t tolerate dead things,” Cullen said slowly.

Nathan nodded. “And Dyffaya himself isn’t exactly alive, is he?”

*   *   *

E
VERYTHING
is relative
, Kai thought as she knelt on the ground near the hobbit house. No one had shot at her for over an hour, and she’d recharged enough for her headache to subside. Enough to do little stuff like this, too, though it didn’t look like she’d get much from it.
Come on,
she told the pretty lavender fragment hiding in the vines.
Come on out where I can
 . . .

“What in the world are you doing?”

The voice made her jump. And lose the fragment. She huffed out an annoyed breath and looked up. Franklin Boyd stood a few paces away, frowning at her. José stood just behind him, looking apologetic.

Kai heaved a sigh. “Do you ever talk to Special Agent Ackleford? Because he could tell you what I’m doing. He might also mention that it’s painstaking, tedious work and I hate being interrupted.”

“Didn’t mean to startle you.”

“You know that I see thoughts, right? As colored patterns.”

“That’s what you said.”

“Lies are snot green.”

His discomfort was more obvious in his colors than his expression. “I’ll keep that in mind. I’d still like to know what you’re doing.”

Kai reminded herself that it was usually best to get along with local law enforcement. “I told you that when magic is used intentionally, it usually leaves fragments of that intention behind. Fragments I can see. I’m collecting them.”

His eyebrows lifted. “That’s pretty amazing, but what do you do plan to do with them?”

“Reconstruct as much of the original intention as possible.”

“And what will that tell you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe nothing. It’s like crime scene people vacuuming up everything. You don’t know what will be useful, so you get everything you can. Look, I explained this to the special agent earlier. Why don’t you . . . hey, there,” she said as Arjenie rounded the corner of the hobbit house, followed by the three guards who’d been with her. “That is not your ‘tired but triumphant’ face.”

“No, this is my ‘curses, foiled again’ face. I’m not going to be able undo it. Cullen might, but I can’t. It’s strong, I can tell that much. And it’s not a—what did you call it? A lockdown ward. I checked that by pushing a piece of paper through it. Nothing happened, so it’s probably keyed to living things, but I don’t know what it does to living things. I’m pretty sure I could cross it without triggering it, but if it isn’t triggered it won’t dissipate, so the guys couldn’t go with me. Which really bugged them, so I didn’t. I thought I’d see what you think.”