by Zoe Chant
“It sounds very much like a demon,” Wystan said. “Chief, I know this doesn’t help, but…maybe when the Thunderbird started that fire, it was already too late for your family.”
“Maybe.” Buck stared down at his hands. “Maybe they were already gone, and the fire just took their bodies. I hope so. God help me, I hope so.”
He looked up abruptly. His eyes were bright with unshed tears, and fierce as a hawk’s.
“And if demons did kill my family,” he growled. “I will burn every last one of them in return. Every. Last. One. So you’d better tell us how we can do that, Joe.”
Chapter 20
“Joe.” Seven touched his hunched shoulder, feeling his rigid muscles under her palm. “You have to stop. You can’t keep putting yourself through this.”
For a moment, he didn’t respond, still lost in his vision. Then he blinked. He looked up from the basin of water at last. The corners of his mouth twitched upward in a faint shadow of his usual grin.
“I’m okay.” He knuckled his bloodshot eyes. “I can keep going. Maybe I’ll see something new this time.”
She pulled the basin away as he started to hunch over it again. “You have not seen anything new the last hundred times. You have to rest.”
Even in her arms, he’d barely slept last night. He’d been up well before dawn. She’d woken to find him cross-legged on the floor of the bedroom, hunkered over a shallow bowl of water. She hadn’t even been able to drag him away for breakfast.
“You have to rest,” she repeated, yet again. Her own eyelids felt heavy with exhaustion, and she’d only been watching him, not an endless replay of a snatch of the future. “What good will you be at Bluebrook, if you wear yourself out now?”
“I won’t do any good at all if I don’t discover what’s coming.” He tried to tug the basin back in his direction. “Everyone’s counting on me, Seven. Everyone.”
She held onto the basin firmly. Water sloshed over the edge. “And you will not let us down. You haven’t let us down. You’ve foreseen enough that we are forewarned.”
“I haven’t seen enough!” His voice rose. “What am I going to tell everyone? ‘Yep, still going to be a fire at Bluebrook, but all I can see of it is a glimpse of our enemy and then everything goes grey and fuzzy and I wake up in chains?’ Somehow, she’s able to knock me out. Somehow she’s able to neutralize us all. Even though we know she’s coming, even though the whole squad is prepared, even though we’ve got Wystan and his shield. I have to work out how. I have to work out how to stop her.”
She yanked the basin away entirely, holding it out of his reach. “If you were meant to learn anything more about what is to come, you would have seen it by now.”
“I’m probably not looking in the right way.” He buried his face in his hands, shoulders dropping in weariness. “Sea, I hate this. Everyone’s relying on me. And I’m just stumbling in the dark. I should have listened to the Master-Seers better.”
She considered his slumped, despairing posture.
Then she tipped the basin over his head.
He spluttered, water running down his face. “Seven! What was that for?”
“For talking even more utter nonsense than usual.” She folded her arms across her chest. “You told me that the Seers do this with a silver basin and purest seawater. You have a plastic bowl and a bottle of Evian. And even so, you’ve seen more than any of them could ever dream. You’ve done enough, Joe. Now stop beating yourself up about not being able to achieve the impossible.”
The basin hung lop-sided on his head like a very unstylish hat. Slowly, he started to smile—a real smile this time, that made her heart flutter in answer.
“I am being kind of a drama queen here, aren’t I,” he admitted.
“Just a bit.” She rapped her knuckles lightly on the basin, making it tip over his eyes. “Now come and have some breakfast, or I’ll have to hit you over the head with my stunsword. Again.”
“Ah, but behold!” He pushed the basin back, grinning at her from under the rim. “I am armored against…your…tricks…”
He trailed off, eyes widening. Then he surged to his feet, letting out an ear-splitting whoop.
“Er,” said Seven, as he grabbed her hands. “What?”
“That’s it! Armor! Seven, you’re a genius.” He swung her round in a circle, cackling like a rooster in a henhouse. “I could kiss you.”
“What,” she started to say again—and then lost the power of speech entirely, because he did.
His tongue plunged between her lips, fierce and triumphant. She sank into the kiss, her body molding against his. Without conscious thought, she brought her hands up, locking them around the back of his strong neck.
He pulled back at last, with a last teasing nip that made her breath catch. He pressed his forehead against hers.
“Not long now.” His turquoise eyes glowed like sunlight through tropical water, alight with barely leashed desire. “Sea, I can’t wait until we can claim each other. Come on! We have to go find the others.”
She found herself tugged in his wake like the tail of a kite as he plunged out the door. “Why?”
“Because I figured it out.” He grinned at her over his shoulder. He was still wearing the basin, perched on his head at a jaunty angle. “It’s you, Seven. You’re the key. It’s you!”
“The key to what?”
“Everything.” He dragged her onward, not giving her a chance to question him further. “Chief! Chief!”
Joe’s yell was unnecessary. Buck had already emerged from his office, striding in their direction. He took in Joe’s headwear, and his grim expression turned pained. Seven distinctly heard him mutter to himself, “I am not going to ask.”
“Chief.” Joe pushed the basin back from his eyes again. “I think I know how the hellhounds will try to take us out. And more importantly, I know how to stop them.”
“Good,” Buck said grimly. He held up a radio. “Because guess where we just got called out to.”
Chapter 21
“Are you sure that this will work?” Rory asked Joe.
Joe shrugged. “No. But Wystan thinks it will.”
Wystan was pacing around the edge of the base in unicorn form, stopping now and then to touch the point of his horn to the ground. A dozen actual unicorns followed him at a respectful distance. They were all adult stallions from Sunrise’s herd, but Wystan dwarfed them like a racehorse among ponies.
Rory blew out his breath, watching Wystan’s slow progression. “I’d just feel a lot better about this if you’d seen it work, Joe.”
“I haven’t seen it not work,” Joe said, with a touch of irritation. “I told you, I don’t see everything, bro. And until yesterday, you didn’t even know I could see anything at all. Yet somehow you managed to make decisions without my blessing.”
Whatever Rory might have said in response was forestalled by Wystan cantering up to them. With a shimmer of rainbow-edged light, he shifted into human form.
“It’s done.” Wystan looked tired, but satisfied. “The barrier is complete.”
Rory stared at the base, which appeared unchanged. “I was…expecting it to glow, or something.”
“That would be a bit of a giveaway, wouldn’t it?” Wystan lifted his eyebrows, a small, smug smile playing around his lips. “Go ahead and try walking forward, Rory.”
Rory gave him a dubious glance, but did so. He’d only taken three steps when a crackling silver shield sprang into existence, right in front of his nose. The griffin shifter leapt back with a startled curse.
Joe grinned as nickers of equine laughter drifted from the watching unicorns. “I’d say it works. Is it permanent, Wys? Like the shields around the unicorns’ old mountain, or your own ancestral lands back in England?”
“No. Those wards were reinforced over many years. But one should last at least a few days without any further input from me, according to Petrichor’s lore.” Wystan gestured at a large stallion with a silver horn and grey
eyes. “He’s the herd’s equivalent of a historian. Even though he doesn’t have shield powers himself, he knew enough theory to teach me to create protective wards. We’ve been experimenting around the ranch over the past few months, before fire season started. I didn’t want to leave Candice unprotected.”
Rory poked at the barrier with a gloved finger, and jerked his hand back as silver sparks snapped at him. “And you’re sure it’ll hold if the hellhounds attack again? Their last assault seemed to drain you pretty quickly.”
“That’s because I was having to actively shield everyone. This is different.” Wystan tilted his head, as though searching for the right words to explain it. “Think of it as building a wall out of bricks. In a pinch, I can pile them up and hold them in place with brute strength, but they’ll fall apart the instant I let go. But if I have enough time, I can mortar them together to make a much stronger barrier. One which stays up even when I’m not here.”
“Sounds good.” Rory stepped back, and the barrier faded into invisibility again. “Although I do have to point out that you seem to have locked us out as well.”
“That’s just because I haven’t given you the metaphorical key yet. Hold on.”
Wystan shifted into unicorn form. He touched his horn to Rory, and a brief shimmer of light outlined the griffin shifter’s stocky body. He did the same to Joe, which was a bit disconcerting. Unicorn magic looked pretty, but it felt like having a billion spiders briefly run across your skin.
Wystan shifted back again. “There. I’ve already given access to the others. Including the Thunderbird, but please don’t tell Buck that.”
“Don’t tell me what?” Buck growled, emerging from the storeroom next to them.
Wystan jumped, going an interesting shade of red. “Er. Nothing, Chief.”
Buck scowled indiscriminately at the unicorn shifter, the unicorn herd, and the general vicinity. “You done sprinkling glitter, or peeing on the corners of the buildings, or whatever it was you needed to do for your little magic trick?”
“Yes. The wards are all set up. And the stallions from the unicorn herd are briefed and prepared. They’re ready to fight if needed.”
Petrichor snorted. He nudged Wystan with the point of his horn.
“Yes, I was getting to that,” Wystan told the stallion. He turned back to Buck, his blush reaching his ears. “Er. I did have to promise them two salt licks and a bag of peppermints each in return for their service.”
Petrichor neighed in agreement. A few of the other stallions licked their lips.
“Wonderful. So now I have to hide ‘payments to guard unicorns’ in the crew’s financial accounts.” Buck sighed heavily. “I hate my life.”
Edith emerged from the storeroom, followed by the rest of the squad. Seven came last, looking pale and worried. He tried to catch her eye, but she looked down, fiddling with the scabbard slung from her belt.
“All good, Chief,” Edith said to Buck. “Everyone’s ready to go.”
“Everyone except me,” Blaise groused. Alone in the group, she was still dressed in jeans and a t-shirt rather than full turn out gear. She cast Buck a hopeful look. “But if you’ve changed your mind, I could get myself kitted out in thirty seconds.”
Buck nodded at Joe. “His call, not mine. I’m no happier about it than you.”
The weight of responsibility was heavier than his fully loaded backpack. “Sorry, bro. You and Fenrir gotta sit this one out. This alpha hellhound chick has a special interest in both of you. We can’t give her a choice of targets.”
“You two can make yourselves useful babysitting that.” Buck jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the Thunderbird, which was lurking some way off, half-hidden behind the mess hall. “I’m still not real thrilled about letting it stay while we’re out.”
The massive bird withdrew a little further into the shadows, as though aware it was being discussed. Its unblinking white stare stayed fixed on Buck.
“Unfortunately, we don’t have a choice about that, Chief,” Wystan said. “Candice thinks it’ll take another couple of days for it to be fully healed. She and Sunrise are working as fast as they can, but between the hellhound pack and the crash landing, the Thunderbird sustained an awful lot of damage. Perhaps you could assist them, Blaise.”
Blaise eyed the Thunderbird with distinct unenthusiasm. “I’m a firefighter, not a nurse. And that thing gives me the heebie-jeebies. It keeps staring at me like I’m a snack.”
“Maybe it’s hungry,” Edith offered.
“Well, we’re fresh out of demons,” Buck growled. “It better not need to eat. If it takes a crap in my base, I’m rubbing its beak in it.”
*Will tell Stormheart that, Man-Alpha.* Fenrir’s mental voice was solemn, but his tail wagged with amusement. He leaned against Blaise’s leg, making her stagger. *We will guard the den while pack hunts.*
“I wish you’d stay behind too,” Rory said to Edith. “Just this once.”
Edith’s hands fluttered, but her jaw was firm. “Hellhounds or no hellhounds, there’s still a fire to contain. We’re already under-strength. The squad is going to need me. Don’t worry, Rory. I’m prepared.”
“Us regular folks who can’t turn into furry critters can still pack a few tricks up our sleeves,” Buck said, drawing aside his jacket to reveal the gun holstered at his hip. “Let’s hope it’ll be enough. Is this going to work, Joe?”
Joe flung up his hands. “Why does everyone keep asking me that?”
“Uh, I don’t know.” Blaise rolled her eyes. “Maybe because you can see the future?”
“I’m not a Magic 8 Ball! Prospects hazy, try again later, okay? Everyone stop shaking me in the hope of getting a different answer!”
They were all staring at him, even the unicorns. With effort, he got a grip on himself again. Smiling felt like bench-pressing an elephant, but he did it anyway.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “Little tense, here.”
“Well, that’s reassuring.” Buck shook his greying head. He stomped off in the direction of the crew transport. “Come on, you lot. Let’s get this freak show on the road.”
Joe hung back for a second, letting the others stream past him. He fell into step with Seven, right at the back of the group.
“Hey,” he said, lowering his voice. “This will work. And it’ll earn you your knighthood at last, you know. Not even Lord Asshole will be able to argue otherwise. After today, you’ll have everything you ever wanted.”
Her face was drawn and pale under her helmet. “But you haven’t had a vision confirming that we’ll succeed.”
“I don’t have to.” He squeezed her shoulder, feeling the hard edge of her armor under the padding of her jacket. “I have you.”
Chapter 22
The worst part of any battle, Lord Azure had told Seven once, pompously, is the wait beforehand.
Nine hours ago, Seven would have agreed with him. Now, however, she had changed her mind.
Digging miles of fire line through thorny undergrowth, on a baking summer’s day, with a wildfire breathing down her neck, in full armor. That was definitely the worst part.
“Seven.” Wystan touched her shoulder, interrupting her as she hacked at a stubborn root. “Stop and drink something. We can’t have you passing out from heat exhaustion.”
“I’m fine,” she said, though she was drenched from head to toe in sweat. She cut through the plant at last, scraping it aside to leave nothing but bare soil. “Look after yourself rather than worrying about me. How are you managing?”
Wystan grimaced, tugging at the neck of his outer jacket. His torso was bulked out like the Michelin Man by the double layer of turn out gear he was wearing. “I believe that we have invented a new and unique form of torture.”
“Less talk,” Callum grunted from behind them. Sweat dripped down his forehead, but his Pulaski swung with tireless, mechanical precision. “More digging.”
Out in front of them, Joe paused, turning his head. He had a tree clamped
between his massive jaws, soil dribbling down from the roots. The ruff of iridescent spines on the back of his neck rippled, the sea dragon equivalent of flashing a grin.
“Something funny?” she murmured.
He was a good twenty feet away from the rest of the squad, but sea dragons could hear a whisper of song from across half an ocean. He tossed the uprooted tree to one side with a casual flick of his powerful neck, freeing his mouth.
“Trust Callum to be consistent,” he said, in the low, rumbling notes of sea dragon speech. “He said that before, in my first vision of this day. Right before the ambush. Tell Buck to be ready.”
Buck glowered up at Joe’s towering form. “Is he saying something, or just burping?”
“Joe wants to know how much further you need him to break ground,” Seven said, raising her voice a little. “He’s getting tired.”
It was a code phrase. Hellhounds had the ability to make themselves invisible and intangible—Fenrir had called it going sideways, though he hadn’t been able to explain why—which meant that the pack could be shadowing them even now, listening to every word. Not even Callum’s pegasus senses would be able to detect them.
The mythic shifters on the squad could communicate with each other telepathically, but both Buck and Seven herself were excluded from that private channel. Only shifters of the same general type could speak mind to mind…unless they were mated.
Soon, Seven thought, hoping that it was true. I’ll be able to speak to him that way soon.
Buck nodded, a twist of his mouth showing that he’d understood the secret message. “Tools up!” he called to the rest of the squad.
They all stopped cutting line, gathering into a loose huddle. They were supposed to act like they were just taking a normal break, but Rory and Wystan kept craning their necks like owls at the slightest sound, and Edith was practically vibrating in place. Even Callum looked twitchy.