Tempest Reborn (13 page)

It was an odd sensation, and very unpleasant. I thought about poor Anyan, totally pushed aside in his own brain, and I shuddered. I also wondered why the creature didn’t just take me over, full stop, before remembering how weakened the White was by having an unwilling host.

Although there were times when I’m not sure I’d altogether mind being taken over. Being a champion was tiring.

Meanwhile, the creature was busy. Its mental buzzing kept increasing as if it were growing excited.

Are you finding something?
I asked, and the creature somehow sent a vibe of both acknowledgment and a command to be patient. It was very good at communicating mentally.

So I did the equivalent of twiddling my thumbs as the creature rifled through my brain. I seriously doubted I had any secrets from it to begin with, but I certainly wouldn’t after this…

[There it is,] the creature said, a note of marvel in its voice. [What a clever man is your barghest.]

I felt absurdly proud, even as I demanded an answer.
What did you find?

[Just as I thought, he’s not communicating with you. Even with the White’s power, he wouldn’t be capable of that.]

Disappointment flushed through my system.
But I thought you said…

[Patience,] the creature said, chuckling. [He’s not communicating with you; you’ve managed to find him.]

Me?

[Yes. You piggybacked on my own ability to reach out mentally. Obviously unintentionally. But while you were dreaming, you must have been searching for him, using my abilities. I’m a part of you in a lot of ways now, Jane, both through the power of the champion and through our time together, so close, over the past months.]

Wow
, I thought, nonplussed.
I did that?

[It makes sense. You miss Anyan. You love him. Your mind may know he’s gone, but your heart doesn’t. So it took advantage of the tools it could find when you were sleeping and your doubting mind was turned off.]

But how did I find him?

[You’re right that he is a bit like me. He is trapped, and he does have a lot of power. I think he felt you. I think for him, he’s probably constantly in a state that’s a bit like dreaming. So once he realized you were looking for him, he made himself a beacon for you.]

So the dreams are real?
I asked.

[Yes. They’re real.]

I wept then, like a baby. Huge, tearing sobs that nearly choked me. I was making so much noise that I wasn’t at all surprised when my door was flung open to reveal Ryu.

‘Another dream?’ he asked, rushing to my side.

‘No,’ I told him. Then I shook my head. ‘Yes.’ And then I started laughing hysterically before I got out of bed, not caring that I was wearing only a long T-shirt and panties, to do a triumphant dance, whooping like a drunk at Mardi Gras.

‘Um, Jane, what happened? Are you all right?’ Poor Ryu probably thought I had been drinking.

Grinning at him like a maniac, I finally stopped my little dance.

‘I’m more than all right, Ryu. I’m fabulous. Anyan’s alive.’ And then with that, I started crying again.

Obviously completely confused and perhaps fearing for my sanity, Ryu took my hands, urging me to sit down next to him.

‘You’re not making any sense, Jane. You need to calm down and tell me what happened.’

So I did.

‘I’ve been having these dreams. I thought they were just that, dreams. But they were really weird. Basically, I’d meet up with Anyan in this hut and we’d, um … we’d do things.’ I flushed red with embarrassment, not least because it was awkward telling your ex-lover about dream sex with your current beau. Especially when he was a dragon.

‘Anyway, we’d also talk, and that’s the part that was weird. He was always really sad and cryptic, worrying about someone watching or listening to us. So I had the creature check it out.’

‘And?’ Ryu said.

‘And they weren’t just dreams, they were
real
. I was using the creature’s power to reach out to him, without knowing. And Anyan knew that, and helped me find him.’

‘Holy shit,’ Ryu said, as blown away by this knowledge as I was. ‘That’s huge.’

‘I know,’ I said, a fresh barrage of tears flooding my eyes.

‘This changes everything.’

I nodded.

‘Maybe we can use this,’ Ryu said, already starting to strategize like the baobhan sith I knew so well.

And he was right. Knowing Anyan and I could somehow communicate might turn out to be a vital weapon.

But for me it was way bigger than that. I now knew, beyond a doubt, that Anyan was alive inside the White. He was alive, and he wanted out.

And I was ready to move heaven and earth to make it so.

Using Daniel’s resources, we were back in Rockabill at the end of the next day. The creature was still recovering from its apparition of the Red from Hong Kong. Meanwhile, the White’s bones came with us, packed in a body bag. Everyone flipped out when Ryu and I walked into Anyan’s with it, until we explained what the ominous black bag contained.

Also upon landing, I’d told my friends about my dreams, and how they weren’t really dreams. I tried to be subtle about their erotic nature, so that my dad wouldn’t be party to hearing about his daughter’s mind-sex with her dragon-lover, but I don’t think it was very subtle. Especially since Grizzie was hooting with laughter and making dirty gestures with her fingers. Everyone else listened with considered interest, reacting with various levels of excitement when I ended my talk by telling them what it meant – that Anyan was alive and well somewhere in the White.

Iris and Tracy cried with me, while Grizzie only just managed to hold back tears by complaining that she never got any ‘dream bonkin’.’ Caleb and Daoud also seemed pleased, as did Gog and Magog, even if they weren’t as demonstrative.

My dad, after assiduously ignoring Grizzie’s off-color remarks, gave me the kind of hug that dads excel at. The kind that told me all he wanted on this earth was my happiness, and that he would do all he could to help me along the way.

It was a good hug, and I told him I loved him.

Overcome by emotion, Amy the nahual waitress, who just happened to be at Anyan’s after dropping off some food, offered to go home to get some weed to celebrate, but we refused her generous offer.

We were ready to get to work.

But first I needed a swim, to recharge my power. The creature might be lending me tons, but part of what it had done was allow me to hold more of my own water magic. So I took a quick swim, after which I grabbed some of the food Amy had brought over (priorities!), knowing that Caleb was already getting down to work. When I was ready, we all sat down to listen to his report.

The satyr was sitting at Anyan’s long trestle table that had pride of place in his gorgeous kitchen. The rest of us took positions around the table, or sitting on counters. We were almost the full gang – Iris, of course, and Grizzie, Tracy, and my dad. Amy had stuck around after hearing my good news; and Gog and Magog were in attendance. Daoud had gone back to Boston to help Camille with a problem – some local baobhan sith had gone on a bit of a bender and killed a few humans. To my surprise, Hiral had gone with him. The gywllion and the djinn had struck up a friendship, and I think Hiral was bored waiting around doing nothing with us. But even without him, we had a lot of brains to puzzle over our problem, and with a tuna melt in my belly and the Atlantic charging my powers, I felt ready for anything.

‘So, I’ve been going over the poem, after translating it myself. Then I found an article online, as I said, written in the 1920s.’ Caleb passed the article to Ryu, who passed it to me, and I had to smile at the title.

‘“The Poem of the Philosopher Theophrastus upon the Sacred Art: A Metrical Translation with Comments upon the History of Alchemy”. By C. A. Browne. Not exactly pithy, but it definitely does the job,’ I said, then felt my eyebrows rise as I read the next line of the printed-off article. ‘Wait, this was published in
The Scientific Monthly
?’

Caleb smiled. ‘Fascinating, is it not?’

I wanted to tell Caleb that it wasn’t fascinating – it was the universe interfering again. I wondered what happened to the scientist, Browne. Was he laughed out of his university for caring so much about alchemy and writing about dragons? Or was he humored? I couldn’t help picturing C. A. Browne as one more chess piece on a board set up by forces far beyond our control or comprehension.

‘Indubitably,’ I said, because it seemed a more appropriate response than any of my other thoughts.

‘This article has been invaluable, not least because Browne is constantly reminding his reader that alchemy was not just about the transmutation of metals but about the transmutation of the soul. I’ve printed off the relevant portions of Browne’s text. I actually prefer his translation to mine, so I’ve used his.’ Caleb sent stacks of paper around the room – one around the table and one he passed to Gog, for those who weren’t sitting with us. We each took a sheet and started reading, while Caleb spoke.

‘I’ve started with this idea of Theophrastus’s that the transmutation process had to take two steps, and that both steps are helped along by this stone he talks about. I’ll read you this first section:

Caleb looked at us as if he were waiting for comment. Everyone else in the kitchen just looked confused.

Gamely, Gog tried his hand. The gray-skinned coblynau shifted his huge frame on his booted feet as he spoke, as if he were a nervous schoolboy in class. ‘So, we have to do something to the White. Is that why you brought back them bones? And then we get a marvel? What’s the marvel?’

We all turned back to Caleb, since Gog had done a good job asking all of our questions.

‘Exactly. The marvel is the stone. That’s the next quotation on your handout,’ Caleb said, pointing to a block of text on the handout that he’d kept. Then he read.

‘Huh?’ Amy asked, her pretty, surfer-girl features screwed up into a look of utter confusion. Confusion that I, for one, shared.

‘I know,’ Caleb said. ‘It’s really obscure. And Theophrastus himself is no more help in the poem your monk sent us, writing:

I considered banging my head against the table, but knew that would be bad form. My dad covered my hand in his, warning me to have patience. Iris went ahead and spoke for all of us, though, when she said, ‘Caleb, come on, this is ridiculous. What do we have to do?’

The satyr shifted in his chair, obviously uncomfortable.

‘I’m not really sure. We have to use fire, I think. Or magic. And do something to get the stone, and the White’s bones have to be involved. Other than that, I’m stumped.’

‘You can’t be stumped!’ I said, regretting my words even as I said them. ‘I’m sorry. I know you’re doing your best. But there has to be a clue in there somewhere.’

Caleb waved his handout in the air. ‘There are plenty of clues. Clues aren’t the problem. It’s what to make of those clues…’

‘Too bad we don’t speak stone,’ Gog mused, staring up at the ceiling. ‘I’m a coblynau, and I speak to earth, but that’s not really the same now, is it?’

Gog finished speaking, then looked down to find all the Rockabillian supernaturals staring at him like he’d just reinvented the wheel. He backed up a step.

‘Gog, I could kiss you right now,’ I said, causing Magog to puff up like an enraged squirrel. Ignoring her, I turned to Ryu, who was already standing.

‘I’ll go get him,’ was all the baobhan sith said as he headed out the door.

Luckily, I’d saved Gus’s life once before and our little stone-spirit owed me.

Gus’s surfaces gleamed in the light of the kitchen. He was barely tall enough to see over the table, meaning that I, sitting on the opposite side from him, had a peculiar view consisting of just a bald pate and glasses, both reflecting like the moon, hovering over the edge of the table.

Gus’s shiny head cocked one way, then the other. He reached out a tentative hand to touch the bones, then withdrew his fingers with a jerk.

‘There’s a stone in there,’ he said eventually. ‘I don’t know how, but there is.’

I sat up in my chair, and everyone else took an involuntary step forward. We’d been trying not to crowd the stone spirit, but now all bets were off.

‘Can you help us get it out?’ I asked. ‘Can you talk to it?’

‘Oh, yes. It’s very loud. It’s very angry about being kept so long. And it didn’t like that bag you put it in.’

I glanced at Ryu, who gave me a curt shake of his head, warning me to keep it together. Gus’s rapport with rocks totally skeeved me out. It was like finding out that all the toys you played with as a child were really alive. And judging.

Gus’s rocks were snarky apparently, and they were everywhere. I hated the idea of being surrounded by judgmental pebbles, and tended to react with inappropriate fits of mockery.