Cougar's Courage (Duals and Donovans: The Different) (14 page)

Grand-mère finally set her plate down and said, “At last. Now we can get down to business.”

“We were waiting for her?” Jack tried not to sound rude. It just came out that way.

The next thing he knew, he felt something warm and wet on his lower leg.

He was being pissed on by a glowing lynx.

Who knew the piss from an incorporeal cat stank so much? You’d think a fellow feline wouldn’t mind the smell so much, but when he was in wordy form, it smelled as nasty as it would to a human.

“Cara…” Somehow he managed not to laugh, but it was a struggle. Despite the gravity of the situation and the nastiness of being a target for lynx pee—or maybe because of the gravity of the situation—it was pretty funny. And a sign that Cara had what it took to be a good shaman, including the irreverent and annoying sense of humor. “Cara, what are we going to do with you?”

“What? All I did was think,
oh, piss on you…
” She stared with a combination of fascinated horror and reluctant amusement. “Lynx, stop! Sorry, my spirit guide isn’t housebroken.”

The spirit guide stopped, then made a grand gesture of “burying” Jack’s leg before bounding back to Cara’s side.

“They rarely are. At least felines usually don’t shit where they eat. Lesson whatever number we’re on—be careful what you wish for these days, because you might get it.”

He didn’t expect that this mild, friendly warning, after all she’d been through, would be what finally got her to tear up. She still didn’t break down and sob, which she probably needed to do, but her eyes definitely got moist, and one crystalline drop trickled down her cheek.

Every muscle in his body, every instinct, wanted him to run to her and hold her close until she was cried out.

He fought the instinct down. His touch was the last thing Cara needed right now. Maybe ever.

Chapter Seventeen

She knew Jack didn’t mean it that way, because he couldn’t have known her thoughts from long before they’d met. How many times had she fantasized, while Phil was alive, about a man who was a little wilder and more primal, more adventurous both in bed and in general? Life with Phil had been cozy and comfortable, but even while they’d planned the wedding, she’d sometimes wished for more.

Had she somehow wished Phil’s murder with her doubts?

Jack must have read something in her eyes, because he said, “Lynx piss is one thing. But you can’t make humans you’ve never even seen do horrible things. Even Grand-mère has to know you exist before she can interfere with your life.” He smiled at Cara, not the teasing grin she’d become used to, but one that looked genuinely kind and reassuring. Even his aura looked warmer and less spiky. While that didn’t come close to making everything okay, she thought it might make life bearable for the next few minutes.

“I hope to Powers that these murders and the things attacking Rafe and Jack and Cara aren’t related to us,” Elissa said abruptly.

“Huh? Why to you? The sorcerer had been looking for me. Not that I can imagine why a bunch of creepy backwoods sorcerers even knew I existed.”

“They needed a way in,” Elissa said, “and thought you might be one since you had family here. But if they’re looking for anyone in particular here, it’s most likely us. The Agency can’t attack us directly in Canada, and no one seems to be in any hurry to extradite us, but money talks, and people who won’t balk at human sacrifice wouldn’t balk at a little freelance work.”

“I hate sorcerers.” Jude’s voice was close to a roar, startling in the small, cramped space. “I don’t care what Elissa says. They all seem to be bad news.”

“The ones in the village seem okay,” Rafe said without any real conviction. “And I’m sure Elissa said they had one in the family.”

“Those Donovans’ll marry anyone. She married us, after all.”

The name clicked in Cara’s head, flipped a switch. “You’re
those
Donovans… The ones who blew open that illegal American government operation last spring but killed someone in the process?”

“Yeah, that’s us,” Jude said, preening a little.

Elissa added, not preening at all, “The person we killed wasn’t exactly a person anymore. More like a human body animated by something really nasty from another plane.”

“We all agreed you were the best-looking fugitives ever, but your wanted posters don’t do you justice.”

The three fugitives seemed to remember they were talking with a police officer, because they looked from one to the other nervously. A signal passed between Jude to Rafe, and from Rafe to Jack.

Even Grand-mère was staring at her as if she expected Cara to pull out handcuffs.

Cara unexpectedly barked out something close to a cynical laugh. “Don’t worry. I’m pretty far out of my jurisdiction here. Hell, I’m not clear I’m in the same dimension as my jurisdiction. And after tonight, I understand why you did what you did. We have people dead and no one but us remotely equipped to deal with the killers.” She felt a comforting hand on her shoulder. Rafe’s.

That’s right. He’d been a cop himself before he found himself in a situation where the only way to get justice was to break the law.

Rafe said quietly, “Human law works well for humans. But human law doesn’t take the Different world into account. Things happen to us that human law doesn’t begin to cope with, even when it tries. Can you imagine the three-person police department in the nearest village dealing with a bunch of killer sorcerers?”

She tried to—and as she did, the room flooded with blood red and so did the inside of her brain. The burns on her arms, which had been lulled to calm by Nella’s potions, throbbed. The wound in her shoulder tore open. Her leg and wrist ached dully, not the sharp pain of a fresh fracture, but that of one partly healed and pushed too hard by an active patient. Lynx materialized on her lap, lying on the leg that had once been broken, butting at the once-sprained wrist until Cara got a clue and let that hand rest on her back. The glowing fur was as soft as you’d expect a lynx’s to be, but it tingled against her skin.

The pain dulled, and as the pain dulled, her inner vision cleared as well so she could see what had been hidden by the film of red.

Uniformed bodies mutilated like Ben’s had been.

A little village—one road, a tiny, ramshackle store, a bar, a church and trailers and somewhat shabby houses, some with parts of trucks and defunct snowmobiles in the yard, or deer hanging frozen from front-yard trees awaiting butchering.

Only this ramshackle store looked looted and so did the bar. The once handsome frame church was on fire, the body of the priest hanging from the cross in the churchyard. Another body sprawled in the road, and this one looked like a child’s.

Cara managed not to scream. She made herself blink and saw the room she was in again, oil lamps and a sturdy table scattered with the remains of food, and worried faces staring at her. Even Lynx looked mildly concerned.

Cara took a deep breath.

Her nostrils filled with the scents of cooling steak, red sauce, oily campfire coffee.

She made it out the door, and the fresh air contained her queasiness. Barely.

She still crashed to her knees in the snow just outside the open door, breathing deeply and trembling. “Visions suck,” Grand-mère said conversationally.

Hearing
suck
on Grand-mère’s lips set off Cara’s incongruity meter, but she couldn’t manage to smile. Lynx hovered next to her, as if trying to reassure her with her presence without being annoying—a courtesy she wouldn’t have expected.

“Easy there.” Jack’s voice was hard to recognize when he was neither sarcastic nor fierce and erotic. He placed one hand flat on her back.

The touch tingled like Lynx’s fur had.

Her stomach settled down. She still felt queasy, but not like she was about to be sick. She rocked back on her heels and looked up at Jack.
Thanks
, she mouthed, not quite daring to speak out loud and shake her tenuous calm.

He looked about as green as she felt. “Yeah, visions suck. I don’t get them a lot, thank the Powers, but they always shake me up.”

She stood and realized she was feeling much better.

“Inside with you.”

When she got back inside, she asked, “Is the church in the nearest town white clapboard, with a big honking cross in the yard?”

Jack nodded.

“We don’t get the local police involved,” she said firmly. “This problem stays in Couguar-Caché, or more innocents will die.”

She poured herself another glass of water. Glass in hand, she sat more abruptly than she’d intended. “I suppose it’s too much to hope for that shamanic visions ever involve playful kittens, winning lottery numbers or sexy people naked?”

Rafe, Jack and Grand-mère all shook their heads. “They’re not always bad,” Rafe said. “But no lottery numbers and usually no attractive naked people, unless they’re either in danger or dangerous.”

“Damn.”

She put her head down on the table. Grief was exhausting. Magic was exhausting. Being constantly over her head and outside her realm of experience was exhausting.

She yawned, took a deep breath.

The meat-and-wood-smoke-scented air in the cabin freshened. A breeze passed through it, carrying scents of pine and spring mud and new growth. Impossible not to raise her head and open her eyes.

Grand-mère’s white hair had the faintest of green tinges at the scalp, and a few fresh new leaves clung to the end of her braids. “I’m sure you’re all exhausted, but ponder this. The Americans think they have brought this evil upon us. Cara fears that she has. Jack is simply angry, and rightly so. But why do you children think evil is unique to your generation? This enemy has been with Couguar-Caché for generations.”

No one spoke, not even Jack, as Grand-mère started her story.

Chapter Eighteen

“The white human’s bible talks about the sins of the fathers falling upon the sons.” The green faded abruptly from Grand-mère’s hair. “But sometimes it’s more generations than that. I’m afraid, children, that you are caught up in a conflict that started before Canada was known as Canada.” She hung her head. “I made an enemy of a sorcerer once, but before he became my enemy, we were close enough that he was able to steal a bit of my power. He isn’t immortal, but he’s extraordinarily hard to kill, and since he has some of my power, I have not been able to defeat him permanently, though I have kept him at bay for many years. And he has a particular hatred for my descendants. Once a generation or so, he tries something. Always before, I have been able to beat him back before he harms the village. But this time, he has more allies, and as the wilderness shrinks, it becomes harder and harder for me to exert myself in the outside world. So I will need allies this time myself.”

The nature spirit looked from Cara to her actual descendants, and then to Jude and finally Elissa, studying each one sharply and yet, Cara thought, affectionately. Finally, she proclaimed, “It might work this time. It is hard for me to fight one who has a sliver of my powers and more ability to affect the normy world, but it should be less so for you. The sorcerer knows what the people of Couguar-Caché can do. But there are people in this room who are nothing like anything he has seen before. Unlike anything the world has seen before, in some cases.”

Cara had a ton of questions, but she needed a moment to digest the fact she’d walked in the middle of a centuries-old fight with opponents she knew nothing about except they’d killed Phil and at least two other people. Oh, and they’d known what she was before she did, which added to the terror factor.

Rafe didn’t hold back. “Grand-mère,” he said, respect for his ancestor overlaying rage. “Are this sorcerer and his minions responsible for my parents’ deaths?”

“It’s more complicated than yes or no. The ones who shed your parents’ blood were not alone in bearing the responsibility—and there were villains involved who were also saviors.”

She slumped as if the memory of all the time past, all her losses, was crushing her at once. “There is more,” she added, “and worse. For many years, he has attacked only those who leave the protection of the village—like your parents, Rafe, or his attempt on Cara. But the blood magic we found tonight was intended to break through our defenses and let him infiltrate our home. I don’t know that it would work. I am still strong here. But he is determined to try.” The old manitou pointed to the cradle where Jocelyn slept. “I think he comes for your child.”

Cara froze, expecting the baby’s parents to freak. Instead, Elissa nodded and said quietly, “I feared something like this would happen.”

“Why?” Cara couldn’t stop herself from asking.

“Jocelyn’s unique. She was born on the Winter Solstice, and she has three parents.”

“Yeah, but…” Cara paused as the words sank into her skull past years of normy experience. “Literally three parents? Three sets of DNA? How?” She’d assumed the baby was Rafe’s biological daughter, which was odd enough, since duals and humans couldn’t normally interbreed. Three parents, though, hit her freaky meter, which she thought had recalibrated so nothing that didn’t involve blood sacrifice of friends would jar it anymore.

“My heritage makes it possible, and a touch of fae blood in Elissa. Jocelyn has the bloodlines of manitou, human, fae and human, and two different kinds of dual. And her human ancestors included both witches and shamans. No one knows what she may become, but her powers will most likely be immense and unusual. This sorcerer has long sought such a child, and he will stop at nothing to claim her.”