Tempest Reborn (29 page)

Various forms hurtled around us, many of them making an aggressive push toward us as others took a defensive line. We had appeared magically in the midst of a bunch of soldiers, after all. So those who recognized us tried to keep us from being attacked by those who didn’t. I only half registered what was happening, however, as my attention was mostly focused on Trill.

Her pearl-gray skin had paled to a ghastly white, her black fingernails looking even more eerie against her pallor. Her eyes flickered back in her head as she lost and regained consciousness. I clutched her cold hand, my mouth moving in a silent prayer as I took in the horrible belly wound. I think she’d been speared straight through.

It was only when I heard the familiar sound of clip-clops behind me that I dared breathe.

‘Move,’ Caleb said curtly, and I shuffled like a crab to the side. The satyr did what I’d seen him do only once before, with me, when I’d been hurt after an attack by the ifrit-halfling, Conleth. He took Trill into his arms and literally wrapped her up in his healing magic. Hope rushed through me as the satyr’s strong healing power lapped at my shields. But it was quickly dashed when he opened his eyes, a pained look on his face.

‘We need to get her to the infirmary. Now.’ Caleb looked around at the watchful human soldiers surrounding us, and one quick-witted individual made a motion to follow. She led us swiftly out of the doors opposite, across a tarmac over which a gray sky threatened storms, and into another building. We turned right, trotting down the hall to a set of double doors that led us into the welcome sterility of a hospital ward.

‘She’s been impaled,’ Caleb said to the doctor on duty, a frazzled-looking woman with wiry red hair held back in a tight ponytail. ‘I’m healing her as much as I can, but something’s blocking me.’

‘The fucking Red,’ I hissed as the woman motioned to a bed. Caleb laid the kelpie down gently. Trill was totally unconscious now.

Caleb frowned. ‘The dragon was seen over the waters. How did she—’

‘She made herself a champion,’ Ryu said curtly. ‘An anglerfish.’

‘She must also have given it some of her ability to wound without recourse to healing magic. Not all of it, though. I can make a dent. But Trill’s wounds…’

While Caleb talked, the doctors were at work. The satyr never stopped sending power pulsing through that lifeline of healing magic he’d created between him and the kelpie. Ryu and I fed him power, through which I could feel a little of what he was able to do.

It wasn’t much. Basically, he was keeping Trill alive, but he couldn’t do a lot to actually heal her. It was more than he was able to do with someone wounded by the actual Red, but not a lot.

The doctor was shouting commands for blood, various medicines, and other specialists. Needles were inserted all over the place while Trill’s wound was cleaned and prepped for surgery. Not a single doctor or nurse balked over the fact that their patient had gray skin, a foreshortened muzzle, or seaweed hair, and my heart swelled at their professionalism. I knew I was clinging to straws by that point, but it seemed right that one of our little band would be taken care of by human and supernatural alike.

When they whisked the little kelpie off to surgery, we followed. Caleb kept sustaining her, and we kept feeding him power. The surgeons quickly got down to business, and I admit I turned away. My forehead found the cool tile wall in front of me as I leaned toward it, exhausted. I knew it wasn’t so much physical or magical as mental tiredness, but it felt like I’d been hit by a truck.

Hands on my waist pulled me around, then one hand moved up to cradle the back of my head, pulling my forehead away from the tile and toward my favorite man-wall. Anyan lifted me, and my legs moved around his waist as he walked me over a few paces. Then he sat on something. I don’t know what, as I kept my eyes closed the whole time, greedily lapping up that sudden feeling of security that came over me.

‘Go feed, I’ll take over for you,’ Anyan said, his strong arms keeping me in a comforting squeeze. I pulled back to look at him, and saw a pale, worried expression. His arms around me tightened spasmodically, and for a second it looked as if he would cry.

Ryu didn’t respond verbally, but I felt his power slip away as Anyan took over for the baobhan sith. Before he left, Ryu’s hand found my shoulder.

‘You were great out there,’ he said wearily.

I craned my neck to look at Ryu. ‘So were you. And Trill probably wouldn’t have made it if you weren’t so quick.’

He shook his head. ‘Not quick enough.’

‘Nonsense. You saved her. Now, go rest up. Restore your power.’

Ryu nodded, giving Anyan a curious look. The barghest did look really pale, but of course we would all be upset about Trill.

‘Thanks,’ Ryu said, turning on his heel to stride away. His wetsuit clung to his strong back and thighs.

Some soldier girl’s about to get lucky
, I thought, but without jealousy. I already felt pretty damned lucky, at least when it came to Anyan.

Now we just needed Trill to pull through…

It was a long few hours as the surgeons worked. I think I dozed, lulled by the steady beat of Anyan’s heart, which I concentrated on to tune out the muffled sounds of surgery. Various machines made pings and beeps, while the doctors murmured commands the nurses echoed. Every once in a while, something would squelch or suck wetly, causing me to shiver.

Throughout it all, Anyan held me, the both of us feeding Caleb our power while the satyr patiently did his own work, shoring up the efforts of the surgeons with a layer of magic and keeping Trill’s body functioning.

After what felt like a day, Anyan tapped me gently on the back. I raised my head from his chest and then stood, my legs feeling a bit wobbly. I turned to face the doctor, who by that point looked almost as pale and fatigued as her patient.

‘She’s not out of the woods. But we’ve done what we can. The next few hours will be critical.’

I nodded, tears blurring my vision. I didn’t want Trill to be critical, or in any woods, let alone bad woods.

‘Your people have another healer on hand to take over for yours,’ she said, nodding at Caleb. If the doctor looked tired, Caleb looked worse. His craggy face had gone crevasse-like, his blue eyes reddened like he had pink eye, blinking blearily out of dark pits.

‘I’d go rest. Come back in a few hours. If anything happens, we’ll wake you.’

I mumbled a protest that Anyan ignored, steering me toward the doors. Iris was waiting for Caleb, and she whisked the satyr off without comment, although she did give me a fierce hug. Caleb and Anyan exchanged an inscrutable glance, but it could have been about a thousand things.

I might have wondered about that glance more if an Alfar I didn’t recognize hadn’t walked into the room, his healing powers already extended toward Trill. A halfling came trotting up a second later, also extending a powerful healing feeler. I couldn’t help smiling at that. The rebels and Alfar were still trying to outdo each other, but for once I didn’t mind.

The rebel healer did pause, giving me an update on the rest of our forces. Many of the halflings had made it back safely, although quite a few had died. The Alfar forces had been wiped out.

I was so emotionally numb by that point that I could barely process what the healer was saying. But I was grateful some had survived and saddened others hadn’t. With every death, I had more and more motivation to go after Morrigan.

Anyan took me to a little room with a cot, where he reached for the zipper on my wetsuit.

‘You need rest,’ he said roughly, peeling the suit the rest of the way off me.

‘So do you,’ I said, peering at him. He looked exhausted.

He shook his head. ‘I’m fine. Now, in bed.’

After the barghest tucked me in, I cadged a few hours of much-needed sleep. After which Anyan insisted I take a quick swim. Luckily we were right on the coast, if a bit high up. But Anyan used the earth to make me a set of stairs leading to a rocky beach. I swam fast and hard, soaking up as much of the ocean’s power as I could to fill my own reserves. Then we were back at the base, being shown to the recovery room, where Trill slept.

We weren’t allowed to go in this time, not least because I was covered in seawater and a general coating of grime. But we could see the little kelpie through the doors.

Trill looked so small, covered in bandages and surrounded by machines.

‘We’ve got to end this.’ My voice was husky, my throat clenched with a combination of grief, relief, and fear.

The barghest gave one of his trademarks grunts, but this one seemed even more full of emotion than usual.

‘Part of me thought that, after we rescued you and got rid of the White, maybe we could just keep a handle on the Red. Maybe we wouldn’t have to go after her. And then, after today…’ I didn’t finish my thought. I didn’t want to say that we’d nearly seen our friend die, so I moved on. ‘She’ll just keep doing things like this until we stop her.’

Anyan put a hand on the nape of my neck, not to stop me from talking but to comfort me as I clarified for myself what I must have known all along. ‘I’ll lose all of you, one by one, just like we almost lost Trill. Next time we might not be so lucky. The creature might not be able to apparate us – I think it just about knocked itself out doing us three this time. Or the wound will be a few inches to the right or left, somewhere that kills instantly. Or we won’t have healers around to keep someone alive till we can get help.

‘She’ll just keep coming, and coming, and coming, until there’s no one left.’

We watched the shallow rise and fall of Trill’s chest for a moment. Then I turned to Anyan and buried my face in his body, wrapping my arms around him.

He held me for a long while, and when he did speak, his voice was rough with grief.

‘You’re right, Jane. We do need to end this. But there’s something you need to know … Come with me to the café?’

Confused, I followed obediently as he led me to the little room that served as a café for the soldiers. He bought us coffee from the machine and sat down across from me.

‘I didn’t want to have to show you this yet, but there’s no better time. While you were saving the sub, Caleb and I had a chat. It was about this. Caleb made it.’

With that, Anyan gave me a handout. That’s when I knew I was in trouble. The only reason one needed a handout was if (a) the information was so complicated it needed to be seen (which this clearly wasn’t), or (b) the person giving the information didn’t want to have to give it.

‘What’s it about?’ I asked, not really wanting to read it.

‘It’s about the second part of the poem. About how to get rid of the Red. The whole second part of the text is actually quite short. The bulk of the work was done by you and Gus, creating the stone, and then doing that first transmutation of the stone into silver. Now, in alchemical parlance, we have to get that silver to gold, or what Theophrastus calls “the second slaying of the dragon”.’

Anyan motioned toward the handout, his expression grim. I read aloud what was written, the knot in my stomach tightening evermore:

We all sat in silence, staring at our sheets of paper.

‘Does this say what I think it says?’ I said eventually. My voice was remarkably calm.

Anyan shook his head, his shaggy hair swinging vigorously.

‘I don’t know what it says yet, Jane. We’re still trying to work out all the possible meanings—’

‘It reads pretty clear to me,’ I said, interrupting the barghest. My hands clenched into fists around my handout of doom.

‘And I won’t do it,’ I added for good measure.

‘Jane, if that’s what we have to do, it’s what we have to do. The Red can’t be allowed to live. And if this is the only way…’

‘I just won’t do it,’ I insisted. ‘This whole thing is ridiculous…’

Anyan raised his voice. ‘We don’t know yet—’

‘Anyan! Stop it. It’s clear as day, just like the other texts. It’s telling me I have to gut you and bathe the stone in your blood. That’s not going to happen. We’ll find another way. Or we’ll just chop the Red up again and keep her in some sort of giant blender. Whiz her up every time she starts to recongeal. I’m not killing you.’

Clearly taken aback by my blender imagery, it took Anyan a moment to respond. When he did, his voice was gentle, but firm.

‘Jane, you said it yourself. We have to end this.’

I blinked at him through a haze of sudden tears, seeing the determination written all over his face.

For I knew then that he was ready to die. Because he loved me so much, and everyone else in his life, he would die for us. If sticking the labrys in him and bathing the stone in his blood was the only way we could take down the Red, he’d do it.

My first reaction at that thought was to scream at fate and stomp my feet and go ape shit. But I managed to suppress that urge. Instead, I forced myself to think through the problem.

My voice this time was muffled.

‘I want to see the poem. The real one.’

‘Okay,’ he said, his hand stroking over my hair. ‘We can go over it.’

I looked up into his beloved gray eyes. ‘No. I want to read it alone. I need time to think.’

I wondered what he thought then. That I needed time to adjust myself to the idea of killing him?

He bent to kiss me. The touch of his lips was full of promises that we could not keep.