Night Season (11 page)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Cullen looked up at the first shout. He got a good whiff about the same time. Not that he recognized the scent, but it said "carnivore" loudly.

Brooks was lucid but clammy. Cynna had done right to wrap him in her coat—shock was a real danger, given the man's physical fragility. Cullen couldn't tell about the tibia, but one glance confirmed that Brooks's wrist was broken—an obvious radial fracture needing immediate reduction and maybe surgery, judging by the visible misalignment. Only surgery wasn't among their options.

Neither was even crude bonesetting, not yet. "Sorry," Cullen told his patient, and slid his amis beneath the leather and the man, rising with Brooks in his arms like an oversize infant.

McClosky grabbed Cullen's arm. "What are you doing?"

Cullen jerked free. "Run, fool!"

Cullen followed his own advice. His knee hadn't finished mending, and his foot was still weak. He was slow. He lurched more than ran, but the group clustered around the presidential assistant wasn't far. His burden was still conscious when Cullen knelt and unloaded him as gently as possible beside the Wright woman.

Cynna and the rest were still sprinting toward them. McClosky puffed up just as Steve snapped, "What's our target? And where?"

"That way," Cullen said, nodding at the forest. "And I don't know. You—Tash—what are these—"

"Shit, shit, shit!" Gan piped, shifting from foot to foot, eyes wide and bright with fear. "Shit, shit, shit!"

Tash spoke calmly, her sword ready, facing the forest. "Dondredii aren't true sentients, but they have a rough group intelligence. Wen thinks this pack numbers twenty or twenty-five. We have a chance. You are injured?"

"Knee's banged up. It'll heal, but hasn't yet. You?"

"Not significantly." She looked at Steve. "Do you have more bullets for that gun you shot me with?"

"Eight rounds left in this clip, and seven more clips."

Seven. Good God. Cullen spared a moment to bless Steve for being such a paranoid gun freak.

"Clips?" Tash repeated.

"Lots more bullets," Cullen explained, "Do dondredii burn?"

"
Shit
!" Gan cried loudly.

They poured out of the forest maybe a hundred and twenty yards away. They ran with a swinging gait halfway between ape and hyena, using their upper limbs as a second set of legs, and they smelled like spoiled meat. They made no cries, no sound at all, as they ran.

Instinct struck, quick and brutal.
Change. I have to Change, to meet the enemy armed with teeth and speed
—

Cynna skidded into place beside Cullen, beating Wen and the gnome by a few paces. "Holy shit. Give me my bag, man." But she didn't wait for it to be handed over, grabbing the bag as Wen arrived and dumped the gnome on the ground beside Brooks.

A hundred yards and coming fast. They looked like zombie apes—pale, necrotic skin, grossly heavy upper bodies, and the flat faces of apes or men.

Wen stretched out a hand. Tash slapped a knife into it. "Across from me," the big woman told him, adding something in her own tongue before switching back to English. "Wen will try to disrupt their group mind, but working alone, he may not succeed. They'll surround us before attacking. Those with weapons or killing magic will form a circle around the rest."

"What do I do?" Panic made McClosky's voice high and shrill. "I don't have a weapon."

Ruben spoke from the ground, his voice thin but clear. "You will move to the center of the circle and attempt to keep Ms. Wright alive. Agents Timms and Weaver, take direction from Tash."

"Cynna Weaver," Tash said, "can you kill?"

"Yeah, I'm not as good as Timms, but I can shoot something that wants to eat me when it's close enough." Cynna smelled scared. She sounded and looked ready, though, had her weapon out and steady.

"You will take my right. Sorcerer, what—"

"I want a gun," Gan said, hopping in place. "I really, really want a gun."

Eighty yards. Long, matted hair on their heads. None elsewhere, not even around the genitals. Some were female. That didn't matter. He couldn't let it matter.

"Do they burn?" Cullen asked again.

"Yes. You throw fire? Good. Stand between Wen and Cynna Weaver. Closer. Stand closer to each other. I need room for my sword. Yes."

Cullen's heart thudded against his ribs. He felt sick. He wanted to thrust Cynna into the middle of the circle.
No
, he told himself fiercely.
No. She has a gun. She can use it. The more of them we kill, the safer she'll be
. But it was hard, damned hard, to let her take her place with the protectors instead of the protected.

How the hell did Rule deal with this?

Sixty yards.

Tash said, "When in group mind, they ignore pain. Unless Wen can break them from the group mind, we must kill them to stop them."

Cullen could see their gaping mouths and the sharp, carnivore's teeth lining them. "My range is about twenty yards. Steve?"

"Fifty yards for the maximum stopping power." Normally Steve was a mercurial type—hot-tempered, driven, demon-ridden. He was calm now, as relaxed as Cullen had ever seen him. Nothing like the prospect of shooting monsters to settle a man down. "I'm waiting for forty yards, though, given the poor light."

"I don't want to get killed," Gan wailed. "I don't have much soul yet. I might be just dead if I die."

Wen shoved the little not-yet-gnome into the center of their circle. "Quiet." He turned to Cynna. "Shoot their heads, if you can. It will help me interfere with the group mind."

"I'm not good enough for head shots," Cynna said.

"I am," Steve said happily. He brought up his right arm, supported it with his left, and started firing.

The gun's blast shocked Cullen's ears, though the rest of him was prepared. Steve fired methodically. One after another, the creatures stopped, looking surprised as bullets tore out the backs of theirs skulls along with the blood and brains. Cullen stood with his right arm extended, most of his mind focused on the link between himself and the diamond in his ring. He'd draw on it, but wouldn't use mage fire, not for this—too hard to control, too many targets. He'd drain the stone too fast.

Part of him was amazed. He'd known Steve was supposed to be a good shot, but the little bastard didn't miss. Not once.

The ones Steve didn't kill were spreading out. Were there only twenty of them? Looked more like thirty. And they were getting close—

"Now, sorcerer," Tash said.

There
, Cullen told Fire, pointing at the closest one.
Burn that
. Power leaped through him in a glad rash. The beast burst into flames.

So did the next one. He heard Cynna fire her gun, heard Steve slap a new magazine in his gun, and he kept pointing.
Burn. Burn
.

The second one he'd blasted wasn't dead yet. It was crawling toward them. Flames danced along the creature's blackened body. It had no face left, no hands, but crawled on its elbows and knees, and it was getting close. Cullen swallowed and pointed again—

Cynna's gun barked. The creature flopped onto its stomach and lay still, reeking of burnt flesh.

Brooks spoke firmly, his voice clear enough in spite of interruptions by the roar of Steve's gun. "Mr. Seabourne, concentr—
(gun blast)
—farther away. The others will
(gun blast)
closer."

Right. He needed to let Wen or Cynna kill any who got too close, or they'd have a flaming body stagger or crawl in among them. He wasn't used to fighting as a team. He wasn't used to trusting…
Never mind. That one. Fire, go there
.

Fifteen yards away, another beast burst into flame. Cullen pointed again. Another went up. And another. But Fire answered sluggishly the next time. Cullen's eyes stung, and he blinked sweat from them. Why was he sweating? Must have too much heat built up. Better burn another one, get rid of the heat. His diamond wasn't depleted. He could do this.
Had
to do this, couldn't let them get close to Cynna… but where was a target?

There. He saw one. It was running away. As his arm swung automatically to point it out to Fire, he swayed, losing his focus. Damn! Have to… what was that? Something large leaped out of the forest to take down his prey. It looked like… he blinked, trying to focus.

"Hey." Cynna's arm came around him. "You can stop now. They're mostly dead, except for a few that want to get away at least as bad as we want them to leave."

"You and the shooter left me little enough to deal with," came Tash's voice from behind him. She might have been disappointed. "Wen broke the group mind when they grew few enough."

Cullen blinked again and focused on Cynna's face. He didn't see any blood. "You're okay, then. Good." He nodded, frowned, and added, "Better let go now." And passed out.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Kai leaned against the runneled bark of an oak taller than her apartment building back home, breathing through her mouth. The mage light behind her head, the one she controlled, was bobbing in agitation. Her stomach hurt, her mouth tasted like something had died inside it several days ago, and her throat burned. And the smell…

Nathan had a water bottle in one hand, their small spade in the other. His colors were calm, the usual pool of indigo and purple with silvery thoughts swimming through them. The smell didn't bother him. The flaming bodies hadn't, either. Her vomiting had, but only because it was a sign of her distress.

He handed her the bottle and knelt in the leafy loam to use the spade, digging a hole next to her vomit.

Kai rinsed and spat the first two swigs, then sipped cautiously. Humiliation tasted almost as sour as what she'd just ejected, but was it harder to get rid of. She took a deep breath. "I'm sorry. I should at least be cleaning up after myself."

Nathan looked over his shoulder. "Why are you apologizing?"

"I'm betting you didn't puke your guts out the first time you killed."

"No, but humans are often squeamish. It's odd, considering your innate violence." He finished covering the former contents of her stomach with dirt and stood. "You didn't kill, Kai."

"They were killed because of me. Because I played with their minds, sending them here—where they damned near killed a whole bunch of people. If they hadn't had that Fire mage with them—"

"But they did, though I'm not sure he's a mage. Have you grown omnipotent while I wasn't watching?"

"All right, all right. I couldn't have known those people would be so close to the forest. But if I hadn't been messing with the dondredii they wouldn't have burned." Trying to learn how to use her Gift. That's what she'd been doing.

"If they hadn't been here being killed, they'd have been somewhere else killing. That's what they do. They are predators. Not very efficient predators," Nathan added, moving to the stack of saddles and saddlebags at the edge of the small clearing. He slid the spade back in one of the saddlebags. "Individually, they're weak and nonsentient. In group mind they approach real sentience, but—"

"Their group mind is insane. Yeah, I noticed. I didn't do their sanity much good."

"You have much to learn. That's why you were practicing on them rather than on true sentients. Kai, will you be all right by yourself for thirty or forty minutes?"

She nodded, though part of her wanted him to define "all right." In some ways she hadn't been all right for quite awhile. "Why?"

"The people the dondredii attacked didn't wander too close to the forest. They're gated in."

"Oh. Oh, shit. Though I guess I'm glad we found them."

"I need to make sure this is the group my queen spoke of."

"Of course. Go slink around. Ah… I guess you can be sure they won't see or hear you?"

Nathan's smiles always looked freshly minted, as if he'd just discovered the expression. This one blended amusement with pleasure: she didn't need to worry; he was glad he mattered to her. "I can be sure of that."

"Should we… a couple of them are injured. I know we're not supposed to contact them, but it feels wrong to do nothing."

"They have called the Ekiba, who have healers. You will be all right here?"

Kai glanced across the small clearing where their horses were tethered. From here she couldn't see Dell. The big cat's dappled fur blended well with shadows and darkness, and it was very dark indeed beneath the trees. Nor could she hear her, but she knew what the chameleon was doing. Feeding. Quite happily, too. Squeamishness was as foreign to Dell's nature as bloodsucking was to Kai's, and yet their bond remained strong. "Dell will know if anything gets close, and we haven't seen anything here she couldn't handle."

"I didn't ask if you would be defended. I asked if you would be all right."

She met his pale gray eyes, and just like that, she
was
okay. Loving him was easy. Sometimes it made the other stuff easier, too. She smiled. "I will."

He came to her and kissed her lightly. "So will I, then."

Nathan faded into the forest as easily as Dell, and even more silently. Kai walked over to the horses, moving far less gracefully. Thighs, hips, butt—everything hurt. She was in good shape and knew how to ride, but she hadn't done it in years.

They had three horses—a stolid chestnut they used for a packhorse; the bay mare that Kai rode; and Nathan's mount, a rawboned gelding with a bad disposition.

"Hsst," she whispered to the roan gelding, who'd snorted at her approach and backed off, his colors flaring into an edgy, annoyed orange. "Hsst, there, you're okay." She stopped and slid into fugue—slid quick and easy, which brought a prickle of fear. She let that prickle alone. Poking at it just made it stronger.

Fugue was a strange, glassy state where words didn't belong. She'd brought intention with her, though, and after a moment dreamed her way into her affection for horses. All horses, even big, bad-tempered geldings who tried to bite her. She held out a hand, sent a puff of a pink thought-bubble at him, and popped out of fugue. "See? Not saddling you now. Just coming over to tend your feet, and you need that, hmm?"

The pink wound its way into the gelding's thoughts. His ears came forward, and he snuffled at her hand. Kai chuckled. "Love means food to you, does it, big boy? Sorry—no treats." She scratched along his ear, though, which he liked, then took out her pocketknife. It had a nail file that served well enough for a hoof pick.

She picked up his near front hoof and dug the embedded grass and dirt. The familiar chore soothed her. Nathan had to do pretty much everything for them here, and the dependence bothered her more than maybe it ought to. But at least she could do this. Grandfather had made sure she knew how to care for horses.

Most of the time these days she felt incompetent, and it was not a feeling she was used to. But so much of her life now consisted of things she wasn't used to. All-powerful queens. Traveling to another realm. Falling in love… well, no. She'd done that long before she knew what Nathan was. But being loved back, that was new.

She finished tending the gelding's hooves and stood back, her head cocked, looking for her pink thought-bubble in his colors. It had broken up, as she'd meant it to, its bits blending with the slow, simple shapes of animal thought.

Kai focused on the horse's colors until she slid into fugue again. Once there, she had trouble remembering what she'd meant to do… oh, yes. Reclaim her bits. She liked the way they looked in his dusty colors, though…
No
, she told herself firmly, the word itself almost enough to tilt her out of fugue.

Slowly, gently, she
wanted
the bits that were hers. Like wishes in a dream, the soft, pink threads unwrapped themselves from the gelding's colors and drifted toward her. They sank into her own colors and dissipated.

She blinked. Swayed. In spite of her sudden exhaustion, accomplishment thrilled through her. She'd done it. Twice now she'd been able to reclaim the thought-bubbles she sent while in fugue. If she could take back what she sent, she could be sure of not doing lasting harm while she learned how to use her Gift.

Since her life depended on that, Kai could put up with a little exhaustion.