Huntress, Black Dawn, Witchlight (10 page)

“About eight, I think.”

“Did Aradia have some special vision eight years ago?”

Morgead was staring across the street, now, his eyebrows together. “How should I know? She’s been having visions since she went blind, right? Which means, like, seventeen years’ worth of ’em. Who’s supposed to tell which one the poem means?”

“What
you
mean is that you haven’t even tried to figure it out,” Jez said acidly.

He threw her an evil glance. “You’re so smart; you do it.”

Jez said nothing, but she made up her mind to do just that. For some reason, the poem bothered her. Aradia was eighteen now, and had been having visions since she lost her sight at the age of one. Some particular vision must have been special. Otherwise, why would it be included in the prophecy?

It had to be important. And part of Jez’s mind was worried about it.

Just then she saw movement across the street. A brown metal door was opening and two small figures were coming out.

One with feathery blond hair, the other with tiny dark braids. They were hand in hand.

Something twisted inside Jez.

Just stay calm,
stay calm,
she told herself. It’s no good to think about grabbing her and making a run for the East Bay. They’ll just follow you; track you down. Stay cool and you’ll be able to get the kid free later.

Yeah, after Morgead does his little “test.”

But she stayed cool and didn’t move, breathing slowly and
evenly as Thistle led the other girl down the stairs. When they reached the sidewalk, Jez pressed the starter button.

She didn’t say “Now!” She didn’t need to. She just peeled out, knowing the others would follow like a flock of well-trained ducklings. She heard their engines roar to life, sensed them behind her in tight formation, and she headed straight for the sidewalk.

The Wild Power kid wasn’t dumb. When she saw Jez’s motorcycle coming at her, she tried to run. Her mistake was that she tried to save Thistle, too. She tried to pull the little blond girl with her, but Thistle was suddenly strong, grabbing the chain-link fence with a small hand like steel, holding them both in place.

Jez swooped in and caught her target neatly around the waist. She swooped the child onto the saddle facing her, felt the small body thud against her, felt hands clutch at her automatically for balance.

Then she whipped past a parked car, twisted the throttle to get a surge of speed, and flew out of there.

Behind her, she knew Raven was snagging Thistle and the others were all following. There wasn’t a scream or even a sound from the housing project.

They were roaring down Taylor Street. They were passing the high school. They were making it away clean.

“Hang on to me or you’ll fall off and get hurt!” Jez yelled to the child in front of her, making a turn so fast that her
knee almost scraped the ground. She wanted to stay far enough ahead of the others that she could talk.

“Take me back home!” The kid yelled it, but not hysterically. She hadn’t shrieked even once. Jez looked down at her.

And found herself staring into deep, velvety brown eyes. Solemn eyes. They looked reproachful and unhappy—but not afraid.

Jez was startled.

She’d expected crying, terror, anger. But she had the feeling that this kid wouldn’t even be yelling if it hadn’t been the only way to be heard.

Maybe I should have been more worried about what she’ll do to us. Maybe she
can
call blue fire down to kill people. Otherwise, how can she be so composed when she’s just been kidnapped?

But those brown eyes—they weren’t the eyes of somebody about to attack. They were—Jez didn’t know what they were. But they wrenched her heart.

“Look—Iona, right? That’s your name?”

The kid nodded.

“Look, Iona, I know this seems weird and scary—having somebody just grab you off the street. And I can’t explain everything now. But I promise you, you’re not going to get hurt. Nothing’s going to hurt you—okay?”

“I want to go home.”

Oh, kid, so do I, Jez thought suddenly. She had to blink
hard. “I’m going to take you home—or at least someplace safe,” she added, as honesty unexpectedly kicked in. There was something about the kid that made her not want to lie. “But first we’ve got to go to a friend of mine’s house. But, look, no matter how strange all this seems, I want you to remember something. I won’t let you get hurt. Okay? Can you believe that?”

“My mom is going to be scared.”

Jez took a deep breath and headed onto the freeway. “I promise I won’t let you get hurt,” she said again. And that was all she could say.

She felt like a centaur, some creature that was half person and half steel horse, carrying off a human kid at sixty miles an hour. It was pointless to try to make conversation on the freeway, and Iona didn’t speak again until they were roaring up to Morgead’s building.

Then she said simply, “I don’t want to go in there.”

“It’s not a bad place,” Jez said, braking front and back. “We’re going up on the roof. There’s a little garden there.”

A tiny flicker of interest showed in the solemn brown eyes. Four other bikes pulled in beside Jez.

“Yeeehaw! We got her!” Val yelled, pulling off his helmet.

“Yeah, and we’d better take her upstairs before somebody sees us,” Raven said, tossing her dark hair so it fell over one eye again.

Thistle was climbing off the back of Raven’s motorcycle.
Jez felt the small body in front of her stiffen. Thistle looked at Iona and smiled her sharp-toothed smile.

Iona just looked back. She didn’t say a word, but after a minute Thistle flushed and turned away.

“So now we’re going to test her, right? It’s time to test her, isn’t it, Morgead?”

Jez had never heard Thistle’s voice so shrill—so disturbed. She glanced down at the child in front of her, but Morgead was speaking.

“Yeah, it’s time to test her,” he said, sounding unexpectedly tired for somebody who’d just pulled off such a triumph. Who’d just caught a Wild Power that was going to make his career. “Let’s get it over with.”

J
ez kept one hand on the kid as they walked up the stairs under the dirty fluorescent bulbs. She could only imagine what Iona must be thinking as they shepherded her to the top.

They came out on the roof into slanting afternoon sunlight. Jez gave Iona’s shoulder a little squeeze.

“See—there’s the garden.” She nodded toward a potted palm and three wooden barrels with miscellaneous wilted leaves in them. Iona glanced that way, then gave Jez a sober look.

“They’re not getting enough water,” she said as quietly as she said everything.

“Yeah, well, it didn’t rain enough this summer,” Morgead said. “You want to fix that?”

Iona just looked seriously at him.

“Look, what I mean is, you’ve got the Power, right? So if you just want to show us right now, anything you want, be
my guest. It’ll make things a lot simpler. Make it rain, why don’t you?”

Iona looked right at him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m just saying that there’s no reason for you to get hurt here. We just want to see you do something like what you did the night of the fire. Anything. Just show us.”

Jez watched him. There was something incongruous about the scene: Morgead in his high boots and leather jacket, iron-muscled, sleek, sinewy, on one knee in front of this harmless-looking kid in pink pants. And the kid just looking back at him with her sad and distant eyes.

“I guess you’re crazy,” Iona said softly. Her pigtails moved as she shook her head. A pink ribbon fluttered loosely.

“Do you remember the fire?” Jez said from behind her.

“Course.” The kid turned slowly around. “I was scared.”

“But you didn’t get hurt. The fire got close to you and then you did something. And then the fire went away.”

“I was scared, and then the fire went away. But I didn’t do anything.”

“Okay,” Morgead said. He stood. “Maybe if you can’t tell us, you can show us.”

Before Jez could say anything, he was picking the little girl up and carrying her. He had to step over a line of debris that stretched like a diagonal wall from one side of the roof to the other. It was composed of telephone books, splintery logs,
old clothes, and other odds and ends, and it formed a barrier, blocking off a corner of the roof from the rest.

He put Iona in the triangle beyond the debris. Then he stepped back over the wall, leaving her there. Iona didn’t say anything, didn’t try to follow him back out of the triangle.

Jez stood tensely. The kid’s a Wild Power, she told herself. She’s already survived worse than this. And no matter what happens, she’s not going to get hurt.

I promised her that.

But she would have liked to be telepathic again just for a few minutes, just to tell the kid one more time not to be scared. She especially wanted to as Val and Raven poured gasoline on the wall of debris. Iona watched them do it with huge sober eyes, still not moving.

Then Pierce lit a match.

The flames leaped up yellow and blue. Not the bright orange they would have been at night.

But hot. They spread fast and Jez could feel the heat from where she was standing, ten feet away.

The kid was closer.

She still didn’t say anything, didn’t try to jump over the flames while they were low. In a few moments they were high enough that she couldn’t jump through them without setting herself on fire.

Okay, Jez thought, knowing the kid couldn’t hear her. Now,
do it
! Come on, Iona. Put the fire out.

Iona just looked at it.

She was standing absolutely still, with her little hands curled into fists at her sides. A small and lonely figure, with the late afternoon sun making a soft red halo around her head and the hot wind from the fire rippling her pink-trimmed shirt. She faced the flames dead-on, but not aggressively, not as if she were planning to fight them.

Damn; this is
wrong,
Jez thought. Her own hands were clenched into fists so tightly that her nails were biting into her palms.

“You know, I’m concerned,” Pierce said softly from just behind her. “I have a concern here.”

Jez glanced at him quickly. Pierce didn’t talk a lot, and he always seemed the coldest of the group—aside from Morgead, of course, who could be colder than anyone. Now Jez wondered. Could he, who never seemed to be moved by pity, actually be the most sensitive?

“I’m worried about this fire. I know nobody can look down on us, but it’s making a lot of smoke. What if one of the other tenants comes up to investigate?”

Jez almost hit him.

This is
not
my home, she thought, and felt the part of her that had sighed and felt loved and understood wither away. These are not my people. I don’t belong with them.

And Pierce wasn’t worth hitting. She turned her back on him to look at Iona again. She was dimly aware of Morgead
telling him to shut up, that other tenants were the least of their worries, but most of her attention was focused on the kid.

Come on, kid! she thought. Then she said it out loud.

“Come on, Iona! Put out the fire. You can do it! Just do what you did before!” She tried to catch the child’s eye, but Iona was looking at the flames. She seemed to be trembling now.

“Yeah, come on!” Morgead said brusquely. “Let’s get this over with, kid.”

Raven leaned forward, her long front hair ruffling in the wind. “Do you remember what you did that night?” she shouted seriously. “Think!”

Iona looked at her and spoke for the first time. “I didn’t do anything!” Her voice, so composed before, was edging on tears.

The fire was full-blown now, loud as a roaring wind, sending little bits of burning debris into the air. One floated down to rest at Iona’s foot and she stepped backward.

She’s got to be scared, Jez told herself. That’s the whole point of this test. If she’s not scared, she’ll never be able to find her Power. And we’re talking about saving the world, here. We’re not just torturing this kid for fun….

It’s still wrong.

The thought burst out from some deep part of her. Jez had seen a lot of horrible things as a vampire and a vampire hunter, but suddenly she knew she couldn’t watch any more of
this.

I’m going to call it off.

She looked at Morgead. He was standing tensely, arms folded over his chest, green eyes fixed on Iona as if he could will her into doing what he wanted. Raven and Val were beside him, Raven expressionless under her fall of dark hair; Val frowning with his big hands on his hips. Thistle was a step or so behind them.

“It’s time to stop,” Jez said.

Morgead’s head whipped around to look at her. “No. We’ve gotten this far; it would be stupid to have to start all over again. Would that be any nicer to her?”

“I said, it’s time to
stop.
What do you have to put out the fire—or did you even think of that?”

As they were talking, Thistle stepped forward. She moved right up to the flames, staring at Iona.

“You’d better do something fast,” she shouted, “or you’re going to burn right up!”

The childish, taunting tone caught Jez’s attention, but Morgead was talking to her.

“She’s going to put it out any minute now. She just has to be frightened enough—”

“Morgead, she’s absolutely terrified already! Look it her!”

Morgead turned. Iona’s clenched fists were now raised to chest-level; her mouth was slightly open as she breathed far too fast. And although she wasn’t screaming or crying like a normal kid, Jez could see the tremors running through her little body. She looked like a small trapped animal.

“If she’s not doing it now, she’s never going to,” Jez told Morgead flatly. “It was a stupid idea in the first place, and it’s over!”

She saw the change in his green eyes; the flare of anger and then the sudden darkness of defeat. She realized that he was going to cave.

But before he could say anything, Thistle moved forward.

“You’re gonna die!” she shrilled. “You’re gonna burn up right now!” And she began kicking flaming debris at Iona.

Everything happened very fast after that.

The debris came apart in a shower of sparks as it flew toward Iona. Iona’s mouth came open in horror as she found fiery garbage swirling around her knees. And then Raven was yelling at Thistle, but Thistle was already kicking more.

A second deluge of sparks hit Iona. Jez saw her put up her hands to protect her face, then fling her arms out as a piece of burning cloth settled on her sleeve. She saw the sleeve spurt with a tiny flame. She saw Iona cast a frantic look around, searching for a way to escape.

Morgead was dragging Thistle back by her collar. Thistle was still kicking. Sparks were everywhere and Jez felt a hot pain on her cheek.

And then Iona’s eyes went enormous and blank and fixed and Jez could see that she’d made some decision, she’d found some way to get out of this.

Only not the right one.

She was going to jump.

Jez saw Iona turn toward the edge of the roof, and she knew in that same instant that she couldn’t get to the child in time to stop her.

So there was only one thing to do.

Jez only hoped she would be fast enough.

She very nearly wasn’t. But there was a two-foot wall at the roof’s perimeter, and it delayed Iona for a second as she scrambled onto it. That gave Jez a second to leap through the fire and catch up.

And then Iona was on the wall, and then she was launching her small body into empty space. She jumped like a flying squirrel, arms and legs outspread, looking down at the three-story drop.

Jez jumped with her.

Jez!
The telepathic shout followed her, but Jez scarcely heard it. She had no idea who had even said it. Her entire consciousness was focused on Iona.

Maybe some part of her was still hoping that the kid had magic and could make the wind hold her up. But it didn’t happen and Jez didn’t waste time thinking about it. She hit Iona in midair, grabbing he small body and hanging on.

It was something no human could have done. Jez’s vampire muscles instinctively knew how to handle this, though. They twisted her as she fell, putting her underneath the child in her arms, putting her legs below her like a cat’s.

But of course Jez didn’t have a vampire’s resistance to injury. She knew perfectly well that when she hit, the fall would break both her legs. In her weakened state it might well kill her.

It should save the kid, though, she thought unemotionally as the ground rushed up to meet her. The extra resiliency of Jez’s flesh would act as a cushion.

But there was one thing Jez hadn’t thought of.

The trees.

There were discouraged-looking redbud trees planted at regular intervals along the cracked and mossy sidewalk. None of them had too much in the way of foliage even in late summer, but they certainly had a lot of little branches.

Jez and the kid crashed right into one of them.

Jez felt pain, but scratching, stabbing pain instead of the slamming agony of hitting the sidewalk. Her legs were smashing through things that cracked and snapped and poked her. Twigs and branches. She was being flipped around as some of the twigs caught on her jeans and others snagged her leather jacket. Every branch she hit decreased her velocity.

So when she finally crashed out of the tree and hit concrete, it merely knocked the wind out of her.

Black dots danced in front of her eyes. Then her vision cleared and she realized that she was lying on her back with Iona clutched to her stomach. Shiny redbud leaves were floating down all around her.

Goddess, she thought. We made it. I don’t believe it.

There was a dark blur and something thudded against the sidewalk beside her.

Morgead. He landed like a cat, bending his knees, but like a
big
cat. A three-story jump was pretty steep even for a vampire. Jez could see the shock reverberate through him as his legs hit concrete, and then he fell forward.

That must hurt, she thought with distant sympathy. But the next instant he was up again, he was by her side and bending over her.

“Are you all right?”
He was yelling it both aloud and telepathically. His dark hair was mussed and flying; his green eyes were wild.
“Jez!”

Oh. It was you who yelled when I jumped, Jez thought. I should have known.

She blinked up at him. “Of course I’m all right,” she said hazily. She tugged at the kid lying on her. “Iona! Are
you
all right?”

Iona stirred. Both her hands were clutching Jez’s jacket in front, but she sat up a little without letting go. There was a burned patch on her sleeve, but no fire.

Her velvety brown eyes were huge—and misty. She looked sad and confused.

“That was really scary,” she said.

“I know.” Jez gulped. She wasn’t any good at talking about emotional things, but right now the words spilled out without conscious effort. “I’m sorry, Iona; I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.
We shouldn’t have done that. It was a very bad thing to do, and I’m really sorry, and we’re going to take you home now. Nobody’s going to hurt you. We’re going to take you back to your mom.”

The velvety eyes were still unhappy. Tired and unhappy and reproachful. Jez had never felt like more of a monster; not even that night in Muir Woods when she had realized she was hunting her own kind.

Iona’s gaze remained steady, but her chin quivered.

Jez looked at Morgead. “Can you erase her memory? I can’t see any reason why she should have to remember all this.”

He was still breathing quickly, his face pale and his pupils dilated. But he looked at Iona and nodded. “Yeah, I can wipe her.”

“Because she’s not the Wild Power, you know,” Jez said levelly, as if making a comment about the weather.

Morgead flinched. Then he shoved his hair back with his knuckles, his eyes shutting briefly.

“She’s an extraordinary kid, and I don’t know exactly what she’s going to be—maybe President or some great doctor or botanist or something. Something special, because she’s got that inner light—something that keeps her from getting mad or mean or hysterical. But that’s got nothing to do with being a Wild Power.”