Unbinding (31 page)

“You going to bring that up a lot?”

“I’m curious. You could have called me from the plane.”

“I slept on the fucking plane. First sleep I’d gotten in forty hours.” Unexpectedly she chuckled. “When Ruben pulled me into this case, I asked Ida to book me the longest flight she could find. She did, too.”

Kai grinned as she reached the top of the stairs. There was a short hall and a big metal door that led to the waiting room where the rest of her escort was. “You’re a Fire-Gifted, right?”

“You see that in my thoughts?”

“No, Arjenie told me.” She might have guessed anyway. Karin Stockman had the mercurial temperament typical of those whose Gift was Fire. It wasn’t a trait that made her an easy or obvious fit for law enforcement. “She said you’d been a city cop before the Unit recruited you. What drew you to it?”

“It’s a family deal. My dad, my older brother, my grandad, they’re all on the job. Or were. Granddad’s retired, but my dad . . . hey. How’d you do that?” Suspicion ripened in her voice.

“What?”

“Get me talking about personal stuff. I don’t do that on the job.”

“It wasn’t magic,” Kai said dryly. “Promise.” Why were people always surprised that someone wanted to get to know them? She pushed open the metal door.

“You weren’t looking at me, so I guess you didn’t see my thoughts. Or did you? It’s not your eyes you use, so maybe your magical seeing works all the way around.”

“That’s something I’ve wondered about myself. Why don’t I—or sorcerers, for that matter—‘see’ all 360 degrees instead of where we direct our eyes? Because you’re right. My eyes shouldn’t be involved, except that they seem to be. Maybe the vision center in my brain can’t process the information my Gift brings me unless my eyes are involved.”

Karin Stockman had stopped short. She was eying the three lupi who formed up around Kai. “Who the hell are all these people?”

“My escort.”

“I thought Alvarez was your bodyguard.”

“Three of them does seem like a lot, doesn’t it? Isen insisted.” Only a half-squad with her this time—José, Doug, and a man she hadn’t met before named Kevin. “Looks like Ackleford has already left,” she said as José moved to the glass doors at the front of the building. He flashed the palm of his hand in a “halt” signal and went out. “Why does he want us to stop?”

“We’re to wait while he checks things out,” Doug said. “He’ll signal if things look okay.”

“What’s your connection to these lupi that they guard you?” Stockman asked.

“I guess they don’t want me snatched or shot, both of which Dyffaya has tried. Isen’s son was one of those snatched, you know, so they’re probably hoping I can—oh, looks like we’re clear to go.” José had reappeared in front of the glass doors, flashing a thumbs-up.

“I am so ready for breakfast,” Kai said as she pushed open the door. “Any of you know where we could go that’s nearby? My treat.” She glanced at the woman beside her. “What about you, Special Agent? Want to join us?” Stockman shot her a suspicious look, which made her grin. “I’m not planning any civilian onslaughts on—well, on whatever it is you think civilians imperil. You do eat, don’t you?”

“I could use some coffee.” Stockman’s gaze shifted. “Ackleford’s still here. We’ll get him to join us. We can discuss the plan for today.”

Something in the shape of the woman’s thoughts made Kai suspect Karin Stockman had an unprofessional interest in Special Agent Derwin Ackleford. How interesting. “By all means.”

The sun wasn’t up yet, but the parking lot was well-lit. She could see Ackleford in his car. He’d lit a cigarette. Maybe that’s why he’d been in such a hurry to leave the building. There were a handful of other cars in the lot, no doubt belonging to morgue employees. Funny how many thought-remnants lingered here . . . maybe not so funny. Strong emotions tended to peel off remnants, and visiting the morgue was . . .

She stopped.
That
wasn’t a remnant. Remnants don’t shift and change. “José. That dark car at the edge of the lot. It looks empty, but it isn’t.”

“Down!” he snapped—and took off.

Kai dropped before anyone could tackle her.

Two loud shots split the air, one right after the other.

José was running flat-out, so fast her eyes didn’t quite believe what she saw. Someone leaped over Kai—Stockman, running toward the shooter just like that idiot José! The dark car at the edge of the lot suddenly shot forward, ignoring the exit to thump down from the curb onto the street.

So did Ackleford’s car. He must have floored it. His dingy white Ford peeled out after the other car. First one squealed around the curve in the road, then the other. In moments they were both out of sight.

“Son of a bitch!” That was Stockman. She’d stopped and stood there with her gun out and no one to shoot.

Kai supposed that, theoretically, there could be multiple shooters, but it seemed unlikely. She pushed up onto her knees, looked around—“Doug!”

He lay flat on his back. His chest was covered in blood.

H
E
missed night.

Nathan lay on his stomach, his head pillowed on his arms, his face pressed into his forearm to make as much darkness as he could. The gash on his thigh had long since healed. He should force himself to sleep. He could do that, though he wouldn’t sleep long. He was one of those who didn’t sleep much in high-magic areas, and by his personal clock, he’d been here sixteen days now. Sixteen days and no nights.

It didn’t help that, when he did finally sleep, the god whispered to him in his dreams. Dyffaya had made no attempts to persuade or corrupt Nathan when he was awake, but when he slept, the god whispered at him.

He could hear Benedict’s breathing, each shallow, pained inhalation. Each careful exhalation. If he tried, he could hear the much quieter breath of the friend who sat with him. Cullen couldn’t do much for Benedict other than be there, but Nathan remembered what it was to have a pack, and how much it helped to have your packmates’ warmth when you hurt.

The clearing where Dyffaya had decreed his gladiators would stay was fifty feet long and about half that wide. A stream ran down the middle, ending in a small pond where they could bathe. Dividing Nathan from the man he was supposed to kill. The man he nearly had killed today.

Nathan’s mind replayed the stroke again—the parry, his own riposte, Benedict’s quick counter, beautifully executed.

The wrong counter. Nathan’s blade had taken him in the lung.

Benedict might be Nathan’s equal in unarmed combat. He was not Nathan’s equal with swords. Not even close. Nathan had thought he’d gauged his opponent’s skill level fairly well, but the man’s speed and reflexes, combined with an instinctive knack for grasping the dimensions of a fight, had fooled him. Nathan had employed a trick that it was clear, in retrospect, Benedict had never heard of. It had been all Nathan could do to keep from skewering the man’s heart.

Could a lupus heal from a heart wound? It was taking him so terribly long to heal the lung.

Nathan had known that lupi didn’t heal as quickly as he. He hadn’t realized how hard it would be to spend hours and hours listening to his victim—his friend—fight for breath. Benedict healed so
slowly
. Nathan lay motionless and listened, his hidden eyes wet. He’d thought he knew himself so well. Now he wasn’t sure he could kill the man even if he had to.

A fine state of affairs when a hellhound didn’t know if he could kill.

Dyffaya hadn’t really minded when Nathan refused to follow through with a death-stroke after piercing Benedict’s lung. He was enjoying himself too much to end the games early, and there was still one bout to go. The god had gone through the motions, calling a penalty on Nathan for “insufficient roughness,” but Nathan’s only punishment had been to receive a foul-smelling glop instead of the usual meal. The glop tasted as bad as it smelled, but it was high-calorie nastiness. Dyffaya wanted him fueled for the next bout.

The one Nathan desperately didn’t want to fight. At least it wouldn’t take place right away. Dyffaya had agreed that it would be no challenge—and therefore not fun for him—if Nathan and Benedict fought before the lupus finished healing.

Benedict’s breath hitched. Nathan heard Cullen’s low murmur—an offer of water—and the other’s grunted assent.

It was insane to wish himself in Benedict’s place, punctured lung, slow healing, and all, just because that man wasn’t alone. There was another lesson for him. Seemed he’d lost the knack of being alone. Isolated. Cut off from everyone and everything that mattered.

Cut off from Kai.

If only he could see her one more time. Hear her voice. Touch her. Oh, gods, yes, that’s what he wanted. Needed. If only . . .

And there was foolishness, wandering among the if-onlys. He had survived the original sundering, he reminded himself, when he’d been parted from his Queen and trapped on Earth for so long. If he failed to survive this one, it wouldn’t be loneliness that ended him. If he—

Some soft sound had him rolling from prone to crouched. Dell stood at the very edge of the clearing, halfway into the trees. She met his eyes, gave her head a single jerk—
come!
—and turned.

Nathan rose soundlessly and followed.

If he’d had to say why he heeded the call from one who’d become so thoroughly Dyffaya’s creature, he might have pointed out that she was still Dell. That he owed her loyalty, and if she couldn’t return it just now, that wasn’t her fault. He might have shrugged and said, why not? He wasn’t going to sleep anyway. He might even have admitted how ready he was for any excuse to leave that little clearing, and the slow, raspy breaths of the man he hadn’t quite killed.

Dell’s large, padded paws made it easy for her to move swiftly, yet in silence. Even he could move quickly without making a sound in this place, with no twigs or dried leaves on the glowing ground. It felt good to move instead of thinking. For a time he gave himself up to that simple pleasure, following the gray shape of the big cat through the black trunks.

In their shared silence, it was easy to know when they drew near what she wanted him to hear. She stopped, looking back to see if he heard what she did.

He did. The fleshy slap of sex was unmistakable, even at a distance. The participants weren’t trying to be quiet about it. He raised his eyebrows at Dell.

She nodded once and melted off into the trees, heading away from the unknown pair. Apparently she didn’t want to be seen escorting him. What did Dell want him to see? Most likely one of those he heard was Dyffaya; the god spent a good deal of time at sex. He continued forward in careful silence.

Climax was observed with groans and gasps, followed by murmuring—and yes, one of them was Dyffaya. He recognized the voice that went with the god’s statue-of-David form, though he couldn’t make out the words. He continued to work his way closer, and the next time the god spoke, heard him clearly.

He was not speaking English. “Remind me why I don’t bring you here more often.”

A low chuckle, then: “Something to do with the amount of power involved . . . though you seem to have plenty to spare. I must be glowing, and not simply from your sexual skills, my lord, remarkable as they are.”

Nathan froze—first in shock, then because if he moved at all, it would be to kill. He knew that voice, oh yes.

“I believe that was it. Still, it’s lovely to be with one who’s received the proper training. My girls and boys do their best, and I do believe that sincere effort should be rewarded, don’t you? But even with my guidance they have much to learn. I fear my new people are terrible prudes.”

“You’ll woo them away from that.”

“Sooner rather than later, I think.”

“You mean—”

“You’re going to need as much power as I can cram into you, my lovely one. It is time for my worshipers to, as they say here, come out of the closet. Rather a nice phrase, don’t you think?”

A brief silence, then Dyffaya’s lover said, “It will be as you wish, of course, but that vow you gave your pet hellhound complicates matters for me. If you could just make one more effort to snatch her—”

“I will, of course, but not before making my bow to the public. That will take a good deal of power, and I don’t care to spend it on less important matters.”

“Of course.”

The god chuckled. “Don’t look so glum. Surely your ingenuity is not so impoverished that her death is the only solution you can come up with?”

“I—oh! Yes, that feels lovely. I suppose I can . . . of course I can. I . . . mmm, yes. Is there time for another round?”

“Time,” Dyffaya said, “is one thing I never run out of.”

*   *   *

T
HE
next “day”—an interval marked by Cullen’s time-telling spell—Nathan waited by the stream that divided their camp.

He’d run for hours last night. Running was the one boon of this captivity. Because they couldn’t escape the godhead or the god’s awareness—because every direction took them nowhere—they were free to run. The one place that was banned was the site where Dyffaya kept his other guests. The ones who served as audience.

The combination of running and anger had cleared his head wonderfully. He’d come to several conclusions. First, while it was possible he’d been lured there on purpose and allowed to observe for some inscrutable reason, he didn’t think so. He was beginning to think there was something wrong with the god—something more than chaos-wrought insanity, that is. Elves grew more devious and subtle over the years, yet Dyffaya seemed to have shed subtlety . . . or lost the capacity for it.

If so, Dell wasn’t as beguiled as she seemed, and Nathan had been able to eavesdrop without Dyffaya’s knowledge. Maybe when the god was engaged in sex, he didn’t pay attention to other things.

He’d also realized how badly he was handling isolation. His long sundering during the years when he was cut off from Faerie and his Queen had been lonely. Desperately so, at first. He’d had it easy before that, hadn’t he? As a hellhound, he’d had his pack, the Huntsman, and later, his Queen. He hadn’t had to work at finding connections to others. But he’d learned. If he hadn’t found the heart-deep connection he longed for, not until Kai, he’d learned to make other connections. He’d found people who mattered even though they weren’t his.

Now he wasn’t allowed to speak with anyone except Cullen. And Cullen was not happy with him.

That had to change. Not simply because he needed it, but because Dyffaya had so carefully arranged Nathan’s isolation. He’d pitted Benedict and Nathan against each other because it entertained him, certainly, but also because he wanted their tiny group divided. If Dyffaya wanted them divided, they needed to unite. To do so, they had to be able to communicate without the god knowing. However risky it might be.

Nathan waited by the stream for two hours before Cullen approached with two cups. Dyffaya had provided them each a cup and a blanket when he sent them to this clearing. His little joke was the size of the cups—each one held only a few ounces, so they had to be refilled from the stream frequently. After not-quite-killing Benedict, Nathan had given Cullen his cup so Cullen wouldn’t have to make as many trips to the stream. Dyffaya had promptly vanished it. Didn’t want his joke spoiled.

Nathan didn’t know how Benedict felt about him now, but Cullen’s feelings were clear. The sorcerer might understand intellectually why Nathan fought. He might realize that Nathan hadn’t intended to wound Benedict so grievously. But the intellect often makes a poor bridle for emotions. Cullen eyed Nathan coolly and didn’t speak as he knelt to fill the cups.

“How’s he doing?” Nathan asked. The moment Cullen looked up, Nathan sent his fingers flying through a trade-tongue
phrase. Cullen wouldn’t know it, but maybe he’d get the idea . . .

“He hurts,” Cullen said shortly. But he watched Nathan’s hands, then shook his head.

“I guess he can’t speak yet, but he seems able to let you know what he needs.” Nathan’s fingers formed another phrase.

“More or less.” This time Cullen’s hand made a couple of signs.

Which, of course, Nathan didn’t recognize, but his heart lifted. It seemed Cullen understood what Nathan was carefully not saying. He shook his head again—
no, I don’t understand you, either
. “I don’t know how long your people take to heal. What are the
ABC’s—
” delicate stress on that—“of lupi healing?”

Cullen frowned, then said slowly. “Not
all
of us heal at the same rate.” As he spoke, his right hand formed a fist with the thumb up.

Nathan mimicked the sign, which he hoped stood for the letter A. Cullen was bright, very bright . . . “
Attitude
makes a difference, of course.”

“Of course.
But . . .”
Cullen held four fingers up and together with his thumb tucked into his palm. “
Benedict
could tell you more than I can about how fast he’ll heal.”

Surely Cullen meant that was the letter B. Nathan copied it and spoke with the same slight emphasis. “
Benedict
can’t talk at the moment.”

“Then I
can’t
tell you much.” His hand shaped a semi-circle, clearly a C.

Elated, Nathan repeated it. “You
could
make a guess.”

“At least a
dozen days
.” Index finger extended, thumb touching the other fingers.

They made it halfway through the alphabet before Cullen stood, admonishing Nathan obliquely to practice. Nathan was delighted to do as he’d been told, silently rehearsing the letters he’d learned while he worked through his asanas.

He was taking a chance, yes. One he thought justified, though he couldn’t explain why to Cullen, not yet, not with only half the alphabet available to him. But if Dyffaya acquired languages the same way Nathan’s Queen did, he did so through a spell only an adept could master. It was a complex and difficult spell, and Nathan knew little about it, but he’d always heard it needed only that a few sentences be spoken in the adept’s hearing for the spell to capture a new language.

“Spoken” being the key. As far as Nathan knew, the spell did not work on sign languages.