Lies and Prophecy (20 page)

Liesel was receiving the impressions directly from me, but she was the only one. Robert wasn't a good enough telepath to maintain a link for long, and without him, the rest of the Circle was more or less blind. Which was all to the good. They could see enough to work, but I didn't want to compromise Julian's privacy more than necessary.

What my roommate and I were treated to was not a pretty sight. My first impression was that someone had tried to tear Julian in half, and had come frighteningly close to succeeding. His mind was raw and bleeding. Only his strength had held him together. Voices screamed at him from every side, some intelligible, the vast majority not.

Liesel was momentarily at a loss. She recovered quickly, though, and began to instruct me. Under her direction, I “splinted” the damage, wrapping warm bands of healing energy around Julian to hold his mind together. With that pressure relieved, we were able to start laying blocks against the pain, from where his gifts had been scraped raw. I even put up thin barriers over some of the worst memories. I didn't dare come close enough to know what they held, for fear I'd be pulled in, but it was easy to tell which ones were dangerous. They shone like bloody beacons in Julian's mind. When he recovered, he could take the blocks down himself, but in the meantime, they'd protect him from flashbacks.

And throughout it all, I continually reminded Julian of our presence. First of Liesel and Robert, near me and trusted; then, one by one, the rest of the Circle. Grayson I left out. He probably couldn't sense her through the circle perimeter anyway, not seared as he was.

While I worked, his subconscious mind began to prowl about restlessly. Just as Liesel admitted she couldn't think of anything more to do, he found the shields Grayson was maintaining over him.

I will not be chained!

Power—more than I would have thought he could muster in his condition—came out of nowhere to explode against the shields. They
reflected
the energy back at him, and I barely managed to throw up more shields to protect him before it hit. “Gods damn it, Grayson, that'll kill him!” I screamed.

From outside the circle, I heard her swear blisteringly. The shields shifted just before Julian blasted through my feeble protections and attacked again. He wasn't after me; I was just in his way, and swatted aside like a fly. His enemy was the barrier she held. At least she'd stripped the reflective layer—what idiot put
that
on him? Not Grayson, I was sure. She had more sense.

Julian's mind was a wordless blaze of fury. A wilder was often a match for a Ps.D., Grayson had said. If this came down to battle between them … why was Julian attacking?

The answer was staring me in the face.

“Drop the shields!” I shouted.

Another hit. Grayson was holding steady, but I didn't want to think about what this might be doing to Julian. “
Do it!
”

They vanished.

Julian had already sent another bolt flying. It slammed into the circle perimeter, and some of it penetrated our barrier to collide with the room shields. We couldn't take much more of this. But that was his last strike; as the energy flared and faded, he subsided. I felt him probe around a few times, making sure nothing else was constraining him, and then he retreated back into himself, shutting out the world.

The other Circle members were reeling. “Hold the link,” I said through clenched teeth. “We have to check him.”

Julian was in total withdrawal again. Our work had done some good, though; he no longer radiated pain. In fact, he seemed to be on the mend. And with the shields on him gone, I was willing to bet there would be no more upheavals.

“All right,” I said at last, sagging with weariness. “Let's close this down.”

“What set him off?” Michele asked from where she had collapsed in a chair.

“The goddamned shields.” I flung my athame onto the table in fury. “Grayson, who the
hell
designed them like that, to throw his own power back at him?”

“I don't know,” the professor replied grimly. “But I intend to find out. I should have inspected them more carefully myself, but I just took them over as a unit and didn't examine all the components.”

“They shouldn't have been on him in the first place.”

“I realized that at the same time you did. I'm sorry it took so long to take them down, but they were designed to prevent easy removal.” She snorted in disgust. “Flagrant stupidity. I will speak to that doctor of his.” I wouldn't have wanted to be in that man's shoes, not with Grayson in this kind of mood.

“Why did the shields send him over the edge?” Geoff asked.

I exchanged looks with Liesel and Robert. When Julian's mind blazed into life, we'd caught some of what drove his fury, but not all. “He doesn't like to be confined. In any way. Particularly when someone's trying to stop him from using his gifts. It's something that dates back a long time, I think. Before now he was too far in retreat to realize those shields were there, but our healing woke him up.” My eyes flicked to Grayson. “I told you not to tie him down again. That applies to this too.”

The others gaped to hear me give orders to a professor, but she was nodding. “I understand. And if I have to flay that man alive to have my instructions followed, I will. We do
not
need a wilder on a killing rampage.”

“Leave him in peace and I think it'll be okay.” The adrenaline was fading now, and weariness dragged at me. Up before dawn, then reading Julian, then having my world flipped on its head, then this. Forward momentum was the only thing keeping me together and on my feet, and it was almost gone. Once I told Grayson about Falcon, then I could go home for a panic attack or sleep, whichever won.

So I gathered my frayed nerves and held back from the rest as they headed for the door. “Professor Grayson, could we speak with you for a moment?”

Liesel heard me and stopped, but a slight shake of Robert's head sent her on. She'd have plenty of questions later, I was sure. “Certainly, Kimberly,” Grayson said. “Come with me; you'll both need some food after that effort.” We followed her through the hospital. Five minutes later, all three of us were supplied with fruit drinks and granola bars, and we settled down in a deserted waiting room.

“Now, what did you want to discuss?” Grayson asked.

I glanced around. No one in sight, and this wasn't a high-traffic area. We might as well talk here as anywhere. No place was right for this kind of bombshell. “I know what happened to Julian.”

Grayson leaned back in her plastic chair, eyebrows raised. “All right. I'm listening.”

Robert watched me as I opened and shut my mouth a few times. Damn him; this wasn't easy. The bald truth would be best, but it took me three tries before I could say it. “He was attacked by the sidhe. The Otherworld is returning.”

Silence. In the distance I could hear a faint beeping and the rattle of a gurney. Grayson's face was completely expressionless.

“Go on,” she said at last.

Go on?
That was
all
? The woman was unreal. “I guess I should start at the beginning.” I took a deep breath, than plunged into the story, from Samhain onward. Grayson let me recite it in my own time, watching me without moving. One disappearance after another; I filled in the holes as best I could, explaining what the Unseelie had done, and how the Seelie had counteracted it. “You remember me saying someone else helped him—that was them. They freed him, and brought him back here.”

She might have been suspicious, disbelieving, astonished, hungry. I couldn't read anything from her dark face or eyes, and she let as little slip empathically as Julian did. “So how did you learn this? You didn't know any of it when you were here earlier.”

“No, I didn't.” I took another deep breath. Almost done. My voice shook when I told her about Falcon, and Robert shifted as if he wanted to lend moral support but didn't know how. “On Samhain, they became able to touch our world, though only a little,” I finished. “According to him, on the solstice the way will open fully, and this won't just be Welton's problem any more.”

There. I'd said it all, and now the problem was in Grayson's hands.

She closed her eyes, sitting perfectly still. Robert and I glanced at each other, then back at her.

“And they say First Manifestation almost destroyed the world,” she whispered.

I hadn't even thought that far. There wouldn't be the chaos of out-of-control gifts—at least I hoped not—but those had only accounted for some of the deaths; many others were lynchings, baselines lashing out at bloods, the source of their problems. One half of the world trying to murder the other. Would we band together against the Unseelie, or rip ourselves apart again?

Shit. I hadn't explained that part.

“Falcon said he came to warn us, too,” I added. “He didn't know what the Unseelie had been trying to do to Julian, but he said they want to use us against the Seelie. And he said we'd better find a way to stop them, fast, or we'd find ourselves their slaves.”

“I see,” Grayson said. Her eyes were open now, but she wasn't looking at me. “Did he say anything else?”

My mind skimmed through the conversation. “He's coming back. I don't know when exactly, but he said they—the Seelie—would want to know how Julian was doing.”

Grayson was motionless, staring off into space. I fought the urge to wave one hand in front of her eyes to break her trance.

“Very well,” she said at last. “Go home and rest.”

Both Robert and I stared at her. “That's it?” he asked in astonishment. “Nothing more?”

Her look was frosty. “What more do you want me to say?”

“It would be reassuring to have some idea of what you intend to do.”

“Are you going to tell the University administration?” I asked.

“No,” Grayson said. “Not yet. And you're both under orders not to speak of this to anyone until I say you may.”

“Who
will
you tell?” Robert demanded.

She was taking our less-than-respectful behavior remarkably well. Probably she was still too stunned by our news to even notice. “The Guardian Ring.”

“Guardian Ring?” Robert echoed, annoyance replaced by curiosity.

Grayson nodded. “Our guiding body.”

Of course. Grayson might no longer be in active service, but she undoubtedly still had connections among them, and they were the perfect ones to tell. And I wasn't surprised that they had some kind of governing authority. Why the hell was Grayson telling us this, though? I had a strong feeling it fell into the category of Guardian affairs not talked about outside the profession. She must be severely unsettled by our news to let something like that slip. Not that I blamed her for being in shock. It made her a little more real.

Her reverie was fading; she fixed both of us with a sharp look. “You will not speak of that, either. Tell no one anything until I give you permission. And behave as normally as possible—do your work, don't be conspicuously absent from classes. If I find you've disobeyed me, the consequences will be severe. Am I understood?”

We nodded, Robert almost managing meekness. It was hard to be anything else, with Grayson in full command mode.

“So,” she continued. “As I said, you should rest. We all should. I'll speak with you again before long.”

~

Waking was like swimming upward through tar. Drugs weighted down his body and mind, clinging, heavy, making everything slow and hard. Julian fought his way through the lethargy and at last managed to open his eyes.

Smells, sounds, the harsh feel of the sheets against his skin—he was in a hospital. He'd known that, but hadn't known if it was true until now. So much of what came before it hadn't been real.

His mind reached out reflexively, checking. It encountered the smooth barrier of a shield, and without thinking, Julian gathered force and punched through it.

He flinched in pain as it shattered. Thin, hardly any substance to it at all; the thing had just been there to protect a raw part of his mind. He sensed others now, equally fragile, layered all over him.

“I wouldn't recommend doing that again.”

Julian struggled against the weight of the drugs to turn his head to the side. Focusing his eyes was difficult, but he made out a dark, white-haired figure standing by the monitors at his side. Grayson.

“The only shields on you are there to help you heal,” the professor said. “You'd be wise to leave them alone.”

He would trust that—for now. Not that he had much choice. “What happened?” Julian whispered. His throat couldn't manage anything louder.

Grayson regarded him steadily, one hand resting on the bedside rail. “You have dedicated friends,” she said at last. “One in particular. Kimberly Argant-Dubois. She's an interesting young woman.”

Kim. Julian remembered her presence.

So that was one of the real things.

“They've done some mind-healing on you,” Grayson went on. “Her, and the rest of her Circle. Not much; they aren't fully trained. But enough to put you back together.” Her gaze sharpened. “They also told me what you've been doing.”

At her words, he realized that he knew what she meant. Not just in a general sense; he
remembered.
The holes in his mind had been filled again, though he wasn't quite ready to examine their contents in detail yet.

“The sidhe,” he said.

“Yes.”

He closed his eyes. “I would have told you. But I didn't remember.”

A pause, before she answered. “I believe you. But we'll need to talk, once you've recovered more.”

That would be an interesting conversation. As much as he hated to admit it, though, Julian knew she was right; he was in no state to attempt it yet. The chemicals flooding his system were only part of it. He felt battered, physically and mentally, to the point that even lifting his hand was an effort.