Unbinding (7 page)

“I make blood pretty fast,” Benedict said. “I could donate some. My men could, too.”

“That’s, um, generous, but . . .” Kai dwindled to an embarrassed halt.

Nathan rescued her. “What Kai’s uncomfortable saying is that Dell prefers not to permanently shrink her possibilities for prey if she doesn’t have to. It’s not that she intends to hunt you or the others—just that she prefers to keep her options open.”

Benedict nodded. “Makes sense.” He looked over at Dell, who still stood next to the ladies’ room, as far from everyone else as she could manage. He raised his voice slightly. “Keep it in mind, though, if the need arises.”

Dell’s face didn’t show any reaction, but Kai felt her heightened interest and what felt like . . . utility? Pragmatism, maybe. “She’s thinking about it. She’s, ah, she’s been curious about you lupi.”

Benedict’s eyebrows lifted a fraction. “Wonders what our blood tastes like?”

“Well, yes.”

Benedict just nodded. It was not the reaction she’d expected from either his human side or the wolf. Predators don’t usually like being seen as prey. “Something you should know,” she went on. “I would’ve told you before you made your offer, but I didn’t know you were going to. Blood-gift goes both ways. Neither of you can be prey to the other, so you have to taste her blood, too.”

Benedict slid an amused look at Nathan. “Tastes like chicken?’

“Not in the slightest.”

“Benedict,” Dell said clearly. “I accept offer of you. Not men of you. You.”

When Dell made the effort to form full sentences, she was being formal. Benedict seemed to recognize this. He gave her a small bow, then looked at Kai. “Anything else I should know?”

“She’ll want to change back to her original form. Give her—” Kai interrupted herself when the chameleon started to go in the ladies room. “Use the men’s room!”

Dell looked back at her, affronted. Females were very much at the top of the chameleon hierarchy. They were rarer than their male counterparts. Larger, too, and—according to Dell—smarter, stronger, faster, and better in every way. She did not like being mistaken for a male. “I know, but the cops might need to check out the ladies’ room. You don’t want to be interrupted.” She looked back at Benedict. “She’ll need a few minutes. I’ll let you know when she’s done.”

Arjenie’s brow was furrowed. “Benedict, are you sure this is a good idea? You’re not getting into some kind of macho I-can-do-it-if-he-can game, are you?”

“Probably to the first,” Benedict said, “no to the second.” That’s all he said, but it satisfied Arjenie, who went back to whatever absorbed her on her laptop. He frowned at Nathan. “Hunter. You have any idea what’s going on? I don’t see what the Great Bitch gets out of this.”

Nathan looked faintly astonished. “You’re still thinking it was your Great Enemy behind this?”

“Who else? Whatever the motive, it took a helluva lot of power to transform flowers to butterflies.”

“Which attacked
Kai
. Who is not a target for your enemy.”

“Kai and thirty or more other people.” Benedict was impatient. “Look, we’ve been through this sort of thing before. The opening salvo in one of
her
attacks often seems pointless, but who else has that kind of power to lob around?”

“Itzpapalotl, for one,” Arjenie said.

Benedict blinked. “What?”

“The Aztec warrior goddess. That is, she’s the goddess of childbirth, but the Aztecs considered that the female equivalent of a warrior.” She turned her laptop so the screen faced them. It held the image of a being with a skeletal head, butterfly wings, and the clawed feet of a big cat. “It’s the butterflies. I’ve done a lot of research on the Great Bitch
,
and she’s never been associated with butterflies, not under any of her goddess names. Itzpapalotl has. Her name means obsidian butterfly, or possibly clawed butterfly. She’s particularly associated with the Rothschildia orizaba moth, which doesn’t look anything like the butterflies that attacked us, so we should keep other possibilities in mind, like Xochiquetzal, the Aztec goddess of pleasure and beauty, whose retinue is birds and butterflies, only the way these butterflies bit people doesn’t really fit. She was one of the few peaceable sorts in the Aztec pantheon. There aren’t many butterfly associations with any of the Western pantheon. There’s Psyche, of course, but even if she is still able to manifest—which doesn’t seem likely—her only association with butterflies is the wings she was sometimes depicted with.”

The expression on Benedict’s face suggested he was about to get himself in trouble. “You don’t think we’ve had enough deities messing with us, you have to go looking for more?”

“What I think,” she said tartly, “is that transformation on this scale means either an Old One or a deity is involved. Not necessarily an Aztec deity, but that’s a place to start.”

Benedict’s expression darkened further. Kai spoke to save him from himself. “Dell’s ready.”

“Okay.” He ran a hand over the top of his head, muttered, “Itz-papa-what-il?” and headed for the men’s room.

A
S
soon as the door shut behind Benedict, the one next to it opened and a female cop came out of the ladies’ room. Kai hadn’t noticed her go in. Either the woman had an awkwardly weak bladder, or someone wanted to find out if Nathan was right about it being unoccupied.

“Hunter!” Ackleford called. “Come here a minute.”

Kai glanced that way. Ackleford stood next to the man she’d suggested he talk to. He hadn’t asked Kai to come, though, had he? He wanted Nathan—who frowned, but started that way. Kai huffed out an impatient breath. She’d been told that Ackleford had a bias against women. Looked like she’d heard right. Should she elbow her way into that discussion, or would it be better to—

Outside, someone screamed.

Dammit! She didn’t have any kind of weapon with her. Others headed for the front door—Ackleford, and of course Nathan, and even Lieutenant Jenkins—

“Wait up,” Cullen called out. “It’s just Sam. He must have startled someone when he landed.”

Kai sent reassurance to Dell, who’d just started to feed when the scream put her on alert. “Who’s Sam?”

“Also known as Sun Mzao.” Cullen paused, grimaced. “Sarcastic bastard. He isn’t talking to the rest of you?”

“The black dragon,” Kai said flatly. “You call him Sam?”

“Right,” the lieutenant said. “Out.” She touched her lapel mic to disconnect and announced, “The dragon has parked himself on the roof of the building next door. It upset people.” She looked tense, which was a more appropriate reaction, Kai thought, than Cullen’s. “I don’t—hang on.” She touched her mic again. “No, Phillips, you don’t do a damn thing about the dragon, except make sure that no idiots bother him! Got that?”

Everyone in the room was listening avidly. Two men stood up, and two more were already headed for the front door.

“Sit down!” Ackleford barked. “No one’s going out to look at the pretty dragon. I mean you,” he said, pointing at a young man with blue-streaked blond hair and a nose ring who was still edging toward the front. “Sit your ass down and stay put.”

Kai wasn’t surprised when the man did as he was told.

“You can do that?” Cullen asked the empty air in front of him. “Okay, dumb question, but I want . . . yeah, yeah, okay.”

“You’re talking to Sun Mzao?” Nathan asked.

Cullen nodded, clearly listening to something the rest of them couldn’t hear. “Deal,” he said crisply. Then, to the rest of them: “Sam wants a closer look. He’s in a bit of a hurry, so he’s going to borrow my Sight so he doesn’t have to take out a wall.” Apparently thinking he’d explained things adequately, he turned and headed for one of the wrought iron gates that led to the patio.

Nathan turned to Ackleford, who was a few paces away. “You wanted me for something, Special Agent?”

Ackleford stared at Cullen’s departing back, then shook his head hard, like a horse shaking off biting flies. “Yeah. How did you know there’s only one exit from the restroom?”

“Aside from where it’s located, you mean? Dell checked.”

Ackleford cast a glance out at the patio where Cullen was doing whatever it was the dragon wanted him to do. “You think he’s okay? I mean . . . hell. Will whatever he’s doing take long?”

“It’s hard to say how long a dragon in a bit of a hurry will take,” Nathan said, “when we don’t know what he’s interested in. You might want to arrange for that private space Cullen wanted to use to check out those who’ve been bitten.”

Ackleford heaved a sigh. Kai didn’t hear what he muttered—the level of babble in the room was rising again, as people got over their shock at having a dragon right outside. She decided to have a word with Arjenie and headed back to where Arjenie was still sitting with her laptop. Kai took the chair next to hers. “You checking out more deities to annoy Benedict with?”

Arjenie grinned. “He does hate having gods messing with us. I can’t say that I blame him.” She cast a quick glance at the restrooms. “How long does Dell usually take to feed?”

“She doesn’t know Benedict’s tolerance for blood loss, so she’s taking it slow, stopping to check with him. Um . . . I thought you should know that deities aren’t the only ones who can pull off transformational magic.”

“I’ve heard that sidhe lords can, but surely only on their own terrain?”

“A few could do it elsewhere, but you’re right—it would be a lot harder. Still possible for some, though. But also, we don’t know for sure that we’re looking at real transformation. It could be illusion.”

Arjenie looked dubious. “They weren’t really butterflies?”

“No, they probably were. But we don’t know that they started out as flowers. They might have been bloodsucking bugs all along, but we saw flowers. That would be an easy illusion for an elf whose talents ran that way.”

Arjenie’s brow puckered. “Okay, I can see that. It wouldn’t explain where the creatures came from, though, or why some elf wanted them to bite us.”

“True. No doubt I’ve got elves on the brain after dealing with them so much.” Kind of like the way Benedict assumed the lupi’s enemy was behind this—he’d been dealing with
her
way too much. Kai suspected that her own response wasn’t as reasonable as his. Benedict knew for certain that an Old One was actively seeking to destroy his people. Kai had no reason to think there was an elf anywhere in this realm, much less one who’d send butterflies to suck her blood. She shrugged. “I thought we should keep the possibility in mind.”

“Sure. Until we have more data, we can’t—”

Pay attention. I won’t be here long.

The mental voice that cut through Arjenie’s physical voice was as cold and crystalline clear as ice.
Sun Mzao
, Kai thought, her heart jumping once, hard, in her chest. The black dragon. One of the four beings whose thoughts were utterly hidden from her, though the reverse was emphatically not true. She had shields, but nothing that would keep out the Eldest.

Glancing hurriedly around, she could tell by their expressions who else had heard him. Arjenie, yes. Nathan. Also Ackleford, who looked like he’d been hit in the head. But the lieutenant was talking to one of her officers, oblivious.

Nathan Hunter is correct that today’s event almost certainly did not involve the being we do not name. He is also, obliquely, the cause of the event, which created considerable disruption in the probabilities. Those took me some time to trace, although I was reasonably certain of their origin. I have now confirmed that origin.
Kai Tallman Michalski.

“Yes?” Had she squeaked like a mouse? She felt like one, with the weight of that mind pressing on her.

Did you see any sign of intention in the thought patterns surrounding you at the time of the event?

“I had my Gift turned off. Looped, actually, not turned off, but the effect’s the same. The eye drops the doctor used messed it up. My Gift, I mean. I was afraid I’d go into fugue.”

You have been taught to loop your Gift?

Was it scorn or incredulity flavoring that icy voice? “Um. Yes.”

Your instructor is either incompetent or has little regard for your welfare,
the Eldest observed dispassionately.
You are far from ready for such a technique.
It is unfortunate that you chose to employ it at that particular time. I can say definitely that the event was caused by an outbreak of chaos energy. I cannot say whether this outbreak was directed or random.

“The knife.” Nathan’s voice rang with sudden understanding. “Nam Anthessa. You’re saying that its power didn’t return to its maker when I killed it.”

That is both clear and puzzling. I can theorize about why the power remained here, but I do not know, nor do I have time to speculate. I have delayed longer than I like already, but since you are in this realm at my request, I chose to discharge my obligation before leaving. I do so now.

I see two possibilities, both of which will entail additional outbreaks. In the first possibility, the chaos energy was undirected, in which case it will continue to break out randomly until it has been exhausted. In the second, the chaos energy was directed. If so, it is unlikely that Dyffaya áv Eni achieved his goal—whatever that may be—with a singular outbreak, so you may expect more.

“Wait a minute,” Kai said, her stomach going tight and unhappy. “Wait one minute. Dyffaya is the sidhe god we just—well, not killed, because he was already partly dead. Defeated, I suppose. But his knife is truly dead. Nathan killed it. That was supposed to destroy his link to our realm.”

So we believed. But while Nam Anthessa is gone, its energy is not. If that energy is being directed, who better to do so than the god of chaos? This is why I owed Nathan Hunter a warning before departing. Dyffaya is best known as the god of chaos, compulsion, and madness. He was also, at one time, the god of revenge.