Tracking the Tempest (26 page)

The ifrit halfling picked me up, cradling me to his chest. He started to walk away but hesitated at Anyan's harsh cry.

“Conleth, stop!” the barghest commanded. “Stop and look at her. She's badly hurt. What can you do for her?”

My one good eye made out Conleth's face peering down at me. I licked my swollen bitten lip and whimpered piteously.

“Please, Conleth,” I wheezed, my voice breathy and unnatural.

Conleth stood there, studying my face. So I really turned on the waterworks, which only made me cry even harder as the tears brought fresh agony to my swollen, bloody eye.

“I can heal her, Conleth, and we have an even better healer coming. I can smell him; he's near. He'll fix her, and I swear to the gods I won't let anyone hurt you or capture you. You saved Jane, and I owe you. I'll guarantee your safety, and she'll get the help she needs.”

Conleth didn't respond, but his arms around me tightened.

“Please,” the barghest pleaded. “I'm begging you.”

Con gave me one long, last look and then turned around toward Anyan.

“You heal her and you let me go?”

“I promise.”

“How can I trust you?”

“You can't, Conleth. You don't know me. But look at Jane. She needs to be seen to; that you can trust.”

Conleth's bright blue eyes met my good one and he nodded sharply.

“Fine. I set her down; you come get her. But when you're done with her, you give her back to me.”

“Of course,” the barghest lied smoothly. “Just give us the chance to take care of her.”

Con stalked forward a few paces before setting me down on the cold, damp floor of the warehouse. Then he scuttled backward, raising his flames. Anyan gave the ifrit just enough time to return to his corner before the big man was at my side.

“Jesus, Jane,” he whispered, gathering me to him. “Caleb!” he shouted. “Here!”

While we waited for the clip-clops of the satyr to get nearer, Anyan began to heal me himself. He didn't seem to know where to begin, and I felt his right hand touching me all over as the healing warmth of his power shifted from my eye to my cheek to my mouth to my neck and then to my forearms before returning to my eye. I gritted my teeth against the pain of the injuries and the occasional pain of the healing and concentrated on Anyan's other hand. It was clutching my hip, holding me close, but I found it with my own. I wrapped my fingers around his, needing the comfort of his strength, and he responded by shifting his hold on me so his big hand engulfed mine. He was trembling.

“I'm so sorry, Jane,” he whispered, stroking his healing fingers down my cheek again and again. I shook my head.

“My fault. Get diapers next time,” I croaked out between my swollen lips. “No more potty breaks. Ever.”

“No more ‘next times,’” the barghest responded grimly. “Ever. You're not allowed to leave Rockabill again until I say so.”

I might have argued with that if I hadn't started coughing up blood.

“Caleb!” Anyan shouted again, turning his attention to my chest and sides. “Hurry the fuck up!”

Just as I was starting to feel distinctly woozy, I felt another set of hands on me and Caleb's powerful healing magics flood through my body. Although unsure of exactly how long I'd been held unconscious by Conleth, I knew it had to have been quite some time for Caleb to be fully operational and for everyone to have found me.

Suddenly, Ryu's voice was there, then Julian's and Camille's. People were yelling but I couldn't see why, mostly because Caleb had given up trying to heal me one injury at a time and just went ahead and enveloped me with his shaggy body, blasting me with wave after wave of healing magic.

When Caleb finally unwrapped himself from me, I understood why there was so much drama. Anyan was standing between an extra-fiery Conleth and a very pissed-off wall of baobhan sith. Camille, Julian, and Ryu were all poised to strike, but Anyan wouldn't let them. Meanwhile, Conleth couldn't seem to choose between staring at the barghest in surprise and glowering at Ryu.

Caleb wasn't done healing me, and his magics were still whizzing around my body as I watched Anyan negotiate with the others. I heard something about how Con had saved Jane. The barghest was pointing at the motionless lumps that were Graeme and Fugwat. When Julian walked over to prod the spriggan with the toe of his Vans, he noticed I was awake. So he wandered over to give me a boost.

Lying there in Caleb's arms, soaking up his healing energies while Julian began to recharge me, I let myself believe, for a split second, that everything was going to be okay. I imagined Conleth getting the help he needed. I imagined Graeme and Fugwat brought to justice for killing Edie and Felicia. Maybe they'd even squeal on Phaedra, and then Phaedra would turn on Jarl. The good guys would win, and we'd all ride off into the sunset, safe and whole.

Which was why Phaedra chose that exact moment to show up, Kaya and Kaori in tow.

Sometimes I felt like Murphy's Law incarnate.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

T
he harpies came first, both their power and their wings beating the air around us. One of them cried out when she saw Graeme, rushing to his side to crouch above him and murmur endearments. Kaya, or Kaori, began weeping when she saw his face, before we felt all of her power shift toward healing him. Kaori, or Kaya, went to poke at the spriggan with one dun wing, before sending her own blast of healing magic at Fugwat.

We were so distracted by the harpies, and especially by the fact that Graeme, the sadistic rapist, appeared to have a girlfriend, that none of us noticed Phaedra's entrance. Except for Conleth.

“You!” we heard him shout, and we all turned first toward him and then toward where he was pointing.

The little Alfar emerged from the shadows, still clad in her leathers and knives.

“Me,” she said drily.

Suddenly, I remembered Con whispering to himself. “
The woman and her pet psycho,”
I recalled him saying as I looked from Phaedra to Graeme.
“I told you I'd see you again…”
Suddenly, Con's ramblings made sense.

Everything fell into place.

When we'd seen those claw marks on Silver's legs, we'd feared Kaya and Kaori's involvement in his death, but we hadn't known their motivation. Or the motivation of their mistress, Phaedra, or her master, Jarl. But now I knew.

“She's been behind everything the whole time,” I whispered. I'd had my suspicions, but now, to me at least, it was all as clear as day. Jarl had to be the sponsor; Phaedra wouldn't have the resources to run an operation like that. When Con escaped, she and her team wiped out everyone who could have known of Jarl's involvement in those laboratories. In case anyone was watching, she'd burned the bodies to make it look like Conleth had done it.

And she'd known where Conleth was the entire time; after all, she must have sent that note about Felicia to Conleth. Donovan must have tipped the girl off, like she did Silver and her boyfriend. Told Felicia to hide. The young woman did a good job, and so Phaedra used Con as she'd used him this whole time: to camouflage her own crimes.

Which meant that, at any point, Phaedra could have stopped the ifrit's murders, but she hadn't. She needed him out there, killing, as her scapegoat. Felicia, meanwhile, was supposed to be the link that bound Conleth to the Chicago murders, even though he had nothing to do with them…

Then my frantic mind caught onto another stray thought.

If Phaedra knew where Conleth lived in Southie, did she know about this place?

Because it was one thing if she'd followed as Anyan and Ryu had tracked Conleth and me back to this place. It was another thing entirely if Phaedra had known of the existence of this warehouse the entire time.

This could be a trap,
I realized, my blood freezing in my veins.

My thoughts were interrupted as everyone responded to Phaedra's entrance. Caleb's arms tightened protectively around me and he retreated backward. Julian, Camille, and Ryu fanned out, keeping an eye on the Alfar. Anyan strode forward, his power exploding forth in a blunt, bullying wave.

I was so busy watching Conleth's reaction to Phaedra that I didn't see Ryu had made his way to my side.

“Jane, are you all right?” he whispered, taking me from the satyr. I felt Caleb's power shift away from healing and toward offensive magics.

“Are
you
all right? I was so worried…”

“I'm fine,” he murmured, leaning down to kiss my face all over. “What did Conleth do to you?”

“Not Conleth, Graeme.”

“Oh gods. What did he do?”

“Beat me up. Conleth saved me.”

Ryu started to say something else, but I shushed him. “Listen, Con knows Phaedra.”

“That's impossible—” Ryu began, just as Conleth yelled, “Phaedra, you bitch!”

I raised my stiff, but now healed, eyebrow at Ryu.

“What the… ?” Ryu's voice trailed off as we all turned to watch the circus.

Phaedra and the ifrit halfling were circling one another. Con's power was flaring out in brutal waves that would have incapacitated most other beings. But the Alfar's shields deflected it without strain.

“You lied to me, you bitch! You said ‘my people' were coming for me. You told me about your world. You gave me hope, and then you let me rot in that lab with that monster!”

The little Alfar's bloodred eyes were wide. “I promised you nothing, halfling. I explained to you the truth of your heritage. If you chose to misinterpret my words, it is through no fault of mine.”

Conleth's power flared stronger, his fire burning so hot it was tinged with blue.

“Goddamn you, stop
lying
! You gave me hope!” he cried, as he shot off a fireball at Phaedra. It ricocheted off the Alfar's shields and flew to the left, nearly taking the ear off Graeme's harpy girlfriend as she cradled him in her lap, crooning sweet nothings at his ruined face. She looked up, surprised, and then went back to her beloved sexual deviant. And I thought Linda Allen had issues.

Phaedra retaliated with her own wave of power that met Conleth's shields dead-on. He staggered under the force of the blow, but his defenses held.

They battered at each other like this for a while. To protect ourselves against the magic flying about, my group had gathered together around where Ryu and I were standing, feeding our own power into Anyan's shields, as he was the strongest.

“We have to help him, Anyan,” I shouted, as Con nearly went to his knees under a particularly fierce barrage by Phaedra. The barghest either couldn't hear me over the din, or he ignored me. He was busy distributing our combined power about his own shields as energy boomed out like cartoon sound waves from where Con and Phaedra's attacks met each other in the middle.

“Ryu, please,” I cried. “He saved me! Help him!”

Ryu looked at me like I was nuts. “Jane, it's Conleth. He's a monster.”

“Maybe, but he never had a chance! We can give him one! Phaedra is the
real
monster—” My voice was cut off as a container came toppling off a stack behind us to smash down directly where we were standing. It landed with a bone-rattling crash just as Ryu flung us to safety.

The toppling container gave Phaedra her opportunity. Conleth, distracted by the noise of the falling steel, lost his control for a split second. Nobody's fool, Phaedra had been waiting for just such a moment. The instant his shields wavered, she hit him hard, with two simultaneous blasts of pure Alfar elemental force. The combined elements hit him full in the chest, and he collapsed to his knees. He stared down at the smoking ruin of his torso before looking to where Ryu held me. Conleth raised his hand in supplication, and I strained forward, but Ryu's arms were like a vise around my waist.

Phaedra strode toward the ifrit halfling, pulling at one of the two hilts that peeked out from behind her shoulder. A machete flowed into her hands, the steel cold and deadly in the weak glow of our few, forgotten mage lights. I screamed, fighting against Ryu's grasp, as Anyan shouted as well. But before the barghest could stop her, the little Alfar had raised her gleaming blade to hack downward at Conleth's neck. With a single sickening chop, she held his head in her hands. I tasted bile as I collapsed in Ryu's hold.

The Alfar scanned over her prize dispassionately before she dropped Con's head next to his still-twitching body.

“Kaya, Kaori, away,” she commanded, advancing on us. The harpy who'd been healing the spriggan grabbed him firmly under the armpits and, using a massive amount of power, launched herself and her giant burden up and out of the warehouse, crashing through a skylight to escape. The other did the same with Graeme. They hovered, just over the roof, and we felt their power grow.

“While it has been entertaining playing with you, I am afraid that our time together is at an end. The boy is dead, and with him his secrets. Except that you have all become what humans call ‘loose ends.' You know too much, and I regret that you must follow your halfling friend into oblivion.”

Phaedra's little mouth was upturned in a small smile as she sprang her trap. Using the power of the harpies' element, air, as a catalyst, she unleashed her own imitation of Conleth's fire. But she also bound us, at the same time, in a tight web of Alfar force that pushed us together into the center of the room and kept us from moving. With every beat of the harpies' wings far overhead, the fire raged higher, until even the metal containers seemed to be burning.

Phaedra paused, and I felt a shift in her mojo as she locked her web into place. We were trapped, coughing, in the maelstrom of her power as her artificial inferno swiftly advanced. Then she turned tail and fled before she could get caught in her own trap.

Everyone around me was furiously trying to staunch a section of the flames surrounding us, but their struggles only seemed to make the Alfar's trap grow tighter. I tried to keep out of the way, but my eyes were streaming and I was coughing like crazy.

Nevertheless, through my rising panic, and the Alfar's net, the Atlantic beckoned.
Water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink,
my brain cackled unhelpfully. Particles of seawater hung in the air, droplets of moisture connecting me, like an invisible string of beads, to the water directly below our feet. The ocean would take care of the fire, obviously. But I'd been probing at Phaedra's web with my own severely weakened power, and I thought I understood how she'd made it. I knew that I could bring it down if I only had the resources.

I stared down at the floor and remembered Conleth and his electricity.

“Bring the mountain to Mohammed,” I murmured as I closed my stinging eyes, centered myself, and
pulled
.

I had only a little bit of power left from Julian's abbreviated attempt to recharge me. And for a second, I thought it wouldn't be enough. When I reached and nothing happened, I nearly panicked. But I pulled myself up sharply and reached again, hard. This time, it was enough to make contact. Using the dregs of my force, I called to my ocean, and much to my surprise, she answered with all the passion of a long-lost lover.

None of the others were aware of what I was doing, and they were so busy battling the fire they didn't hear what I heard. They didn't hear the ocean still, as if drawing in a breath. They didn't hear the suck of the waves receding, gathering themselves. But they did hear what came next, as crashing waves broke through the tall windows on all four sides of the warehouse, soaking us and putting out Phaedra's fires. And with every drop of water that touched me, more of the Atlantic's power forced its way into my body.

We were still caught in Phaedra's net, but most of the fires were out as torrents of water crashed through the thin, rusted walls of the warehouse. Then the sea was actually rising through the floorboards as unnatural waves rose up directly underneath us to meet me. As the water pooled around my ankles, I felt myself both reinvigorated and consumed by the power of the ocean, and I began to understand my devil's bargain.

For the sea always takes as much as she gives, and I had just asked for one hell of a favor.

The water was up to our knees now, and the ocean's power arced through me like electricity. The force was so strong that it lifted me, causing me to float, my arms and legs spread like Michelangelo's famous drawing, a few feet above my friends' heads. Ryu blinked up at me, stunned, his wet hair plastered to his head like a slick, dark cap. But I was brought back to the business at hand as another, increasingly painful, surge of power shot through my body, blasting out of me willy-nilly. I knew, at that moment, what a forty-watt lightbulb must feel like when it gets plugged into a hundred-watt socket. I was going to get that damned web down, but the ocean was going to burn me up doing it.

I closed my eyes and concentrated, trying to dampen down the pain as I focused the Atlantic's power on a particular section of Phaedra's trap. It felt complicated and solid, but it was really just like one of Anyan's knots. It had a seam where it joined, and if I could force the seam apart, we could escape. And while I wasn't confident I was going to survive my bright idea, I did know my only chance was to get the job done quickly.

I opened myself even wider, and the ocean responded by flooding me with more of her power. The influx was too much, and the pain was turning into agony; it felt like the power was building to a point where it would explode out from my skin. Meanwhile, as if to reiterate her claim on me, tendrils of seawater rose from the floor to wrap around my wrists, ankles, and my waist. The water caressed me, gentle as a lover, as it made its way under my top to writhe between my breasts and wrap itself around my neck. The ocean's elemental force surged through my watery bonds, and I screamed as my system was taken to its breaking point.

The pain was too much, making it hard to concentrate. But then I felt something warm, solid, and decidedly nonaqueous wrap around my ankle. I looked down to see Anyan's hand grasping me as the barghest countered the force of the ocean with his own elements of earth and air. He grounded me, siphoning off the excess energy that would otherwise have torn me apart. My pain lessened, allowing my mind to focus—once again—on Phaedra's Alfar web.