A Summoner's Tale - The Vampire's Confessor (Black Swan 3)

by Danann, Victoria

  "Your father has a voice like an angel. And you'll find that his singing is even sweeter than you think.

  "There's a big, black dog right here next to me who's been dreaming of a little elf like you to play with. You're going to have such fun. Your Auntie Aelsong told us so. You're going to have such fun. And you're going to be such fun. Just like your dad."

  The coals in the fires had been going long enough to warm the cottage so that it was comfortable. Ram, Storm, and Litha sat quietly not saying much.

  Ram turned his head. "Did you no' hear that?"

  Storm listened intently. "I didn't hear anything."

  Ram got up and went to the door. "There. That."

  Storm listened again. "No. I still don't..."

  They heard voices outside. Ram opened the door to find Kay and Able trotting up. They both dismounted. "You got room for these horses in your little barn?"

  Storm hadn't told Ram that Kay was coming. He was so surprised and so touched that it took him a minute to find his voice. "You rode here in the snow? At night?"

  Kay looked at Ram funny. "You sound like that surprises you."

  Ram gathered his composure. "The 'little barn' was no' designed for four horses, but they can double up for a night like this. 'Twill keep 'em warmer if anythin'." Ram took the reins of the black charger from Kay. "Go on in and get warm. Able and I will take care of the horses."

  Kay's legs were feeling cold and stiff as he opened the door and walked into the cottage.

  "Any news?"

  "Litha says she's alive and in New Forest. Glen Catch is bringing a Whister from Edinburgh with supplies. He'll be here before it gets light. I asked him to bring some cold weather gear in your size, but that might be too large a request."

  "You're hysterical."

  "So are you. In that hat." Kay had forgotten about the blond braids tied under his chin. He pulled the hat off and ran a hand over his head. "There's a little chicken left. Some apples, cheese, bread."

  "Yeah. I'm hungry. Got a kid with me who might be hungry, too. He led the way out here so all I had to do was keep up." Kay looked around while he was taking off his gloves, scarf, and coat. "So this is the famous retreat for feral boys."

  Ram came in with Able whose face was red from riding hard into an icy wind. Litha got up and led him over to the fire. "I'm Litha. Are you hungry?"

  Able nodded. "Aye, ma'am."

  "Are you hungry? We have some chicken."

  "Awesome." Everyone in the room stopped and looked at the boy who was being raised in an isolated culture and wondered if it was possible that 'dudeness' had reached an archetypal level of universal consciousness. "The whole village will be out searchin' at sunrise."

  Ram looked at Able. "They will no' know which way to go." He removed the boots he was wearing after he stomped the snow off them. "I rode my horse into the ground and covered a lot of territory without findin' one single sign of her."

  "Rammel..." Ram's focus went toward the sound of Storm's voice like a homing beacon. "...why don't you try to get a little rest? Go crawl up on your big bed. We'll stay quiet." He just stared at Storm like he was too tired to process a thought and too worried to make a decision. "You won't do her any good if you're too tired to think."

  Ram let that sink in for a few beats before throwing himself down on his bed stomach first without another word. Litha sat near the fire and taught Able a card game to pass away the dark hours. Storm and Kay sat on the sofa and talked quietly. There was no way Storm could miss that Able was appreciating spending time with his beautiful wife, but he couldn't begrudge the kid that.

  While the others were preoccupied, Ram surreptitiously pulled the coverlet down so that he could put his face deep in Elora's pillow. Her scent, lingering there, was more comforting than all the words his friends could say. He wished he was a telepath. He hoped she knew that he was coming.

  I do no' know what's wrong, but I know you're alive. Just hang on.

  When Glen pulled up to the part of the private airfield that was owned by The Order, at 0500, the Whister was sitting next to a hangar with football stadium spotlights trained on it. Smythee was giving directions to the guys who were loading on the stuff Glen had requested, or rather, demanded.

  The pilot was holding a clipboard and checking off the inventory. Everything was there except for Doctor Nance. Glen had insisted Elora's doctor be there. Simon had agreed.

  Glen told the driver to wait a minute while he talked to the pilot. "You Smythee?"

  "That would be me." He was an American.

  "You heard from Nance?"

  "The doc? No."

  Glen turned away and speed dialed Nance whose number had been programmed a few hours earlier.

  "This is Dr. Nance."

  "Where are you?"

  "That you, Catch?"

  "Where are you?"

  "Christ! On the way. Do you need help with the grouchies? I might have something."

  "Perhaps you don't fully understand the situation. This woman has a lot of friends."

  "I understand. Ten minutes away."

  "Shall I let my driver go?"

  "I'm already halfway there. Yes. Let him go."

  Glen ended the call without saying anything further. If any of the members of B Team had seen that exchange, they would have said they had just witnessed what the young Sol Nememiah must have been like.

  Hearing Smythee direct the placement of various items on the Whister, Glen strode over to look for himself and supervise if needs be. He held out his hand for the clipboard and, out of courtesy rather than necessity asked, "Would you mind?"

  Either the pilot wasn't good at hiding his emotions or didn't care to try. He clearly did mind, but slapped the clipboard into Glen's hand anyway.

  Skimming down the list, he was glad to see checkmarks next to each item indicating that everything had been rounded up, requisitioned, begged, stolen, borrowed, bought - made no difference to him how the stuff found its way into the van that delivered it. The only thing that mattered was that it was on that Whister when they lifted off at 0615.

  He handed the clipboard back to Smythee and climbed in to have a look around. The usual configuration had been altered. The seats had been taken out to open up cargo space. On one side of the fuselage, a retracting bench had been lowered to accommodate up to two seated passengers with minimal space. And minimal comfort.

  Two stretchers were secured to the other side, fairly standard equipment for Black Swan Whisters. This one had also been equipped with a winch and pulley rescue harness that hadn't been standard equipment an hour before. Two large bins designed to carry cargo had been added and hooked into the D-rings in the floor.

  Glen took a look inside. One of the containers held the five backpacks. Along with standard issue items like water and granola bars, each included a sat phone and ten sets each of hot hands and hot feet heat-on-demand packets. Four of them also held an old school compass in case a sat phone failed, a small med kit, and a tranq pistol that held six rounds, revolver style.

  The tranqs were included at Ram's insistence partly for the safety of the search party and partly for the safety of creatures they might encounter. Even in a search and rescue application, the New Forest was foremost a preserve and the animals were to be protected.

  In addition to the tranqs, each pack included a very special, little something for encounters of the two legged kind; the new XXM-7 pistol that Monq and his team had designed. It could hit an enemy whether he was behind a tree, a rock, or inside a building. In the hands of a marksman like Storm, there was nothing scarier when it came to weapons, except possibly drones.

  Last, each backpack was outfitted with a lightweight warm to zero blanket. They were operating under the assumption that, even in the best case scenario, when Elora was found she was going to be cold. Glen could just hear her saying, "You have a gift for understatement, rookie."

  The other bin held medical items filled from a list Doc Nance had supplied.


  Smythee looked over Glen's shoulder into the bin and then moved away. "A lot of meds for one person."

  Without glancing back, Glen said, "One person and a dog."

  The pilot turned to gape at Glen's back. "A dog?"

  "Hmmm."

  "Did you clear that with Simon?"

  Glen stopped what he was doing, turned to face the middle-aged pilot, and gave him a look that indicated Glen was trying to be both patient and indulgent, but also communicated that both were wearing thin.

  "Simon put me in charge of this mission, Mr. Smythee. Are you questioning his judgment?"

  "No. It's your judgment I'm questioning. You seem to have an awful big attitude for a kid."

  Some people don't read signs well. Apparently Smythee was one of them.

  Glen gave no warning before releasing the werewolf part of himself. In the blink of an eye he was in Smythee's face with a snarl so loud the pilot couldn't believe it originated in a human throat. Everyone who had ever heard a werewolf snarl for the first time had that same reaction.

  With wide eyes the pilot scrambled back so fast he caught the back of his knee on the edge of the lowered bench and ended up sprawled on his butt looking supremely undignified.

  Glen stood over him and let the snarl resolve into a low level growl that was every bit as menacing and, in some ways, even more frightening. The vibrating rumble ebbed and flowed with Glen's breath. Louder when he exhaled. Quieter when he inhaled. Every hair on the pilot's body was standing straight up.

  The sound stopped abruptly and was replaced by Glen's normally cheerful personality. "I can see you don't like me, Smythee. Problem is: I don't have time to try and change your mind and I don't have time to have my decisions questioned or second guessed. Please. Reassure me we're not going to have a problem with my leadership." The humiliated pilot looked up at Glen from where he sat on the rubber mat of the cargo floor and shook his head from side to side with genuine sincerity. "Good. I'm sure you still have things to do before we leave at," Glen stopped and glanced at his watch, "0615."

  Glen turned his back on Smythee, pulled out his phone, and dialed Nance again. This time he didn't sound as quite as friendly. "Where the hell are you?"

  "Pulling up right now. I can see you."

  Glen shut the phone without another word. He opened the gym bag he'd brought on board. He'd managed to round up some thinsulate socks that he thought would stretch to accommodate Kay. He'd also scrounged several knit items that, while not exactly Kay's size, could probably be stretched to accommodate a somewhat snug fit: a black cap and a thick army issue sweater. He zipped the bag up, stowed it in the compartment that carried the backpacks, and secured the bin for flight.

  When Nance pulled himself into the Whister, Glen didn't waste any time telling him to go over the med supplies quickly and make sure everything he needed for a worst case outcome was there. At 0605 Nance confirmed that everything was there.

  Glen turned to the pilot. "You good to go?" Smythee just nodded. "How long do you need to get the engine warmed up?"

  "Thirty seconds."

  "Okay. Doc, you can sit up in front next to the pilot. I'll take the bench." Glen looked at the pilot. "We have to assume the trees will prohibit setting down. Your job is to get us as close as you can. We'll lower the packs first, then me.

  "Once I'm on the ground, the two of you need to go find a place to set down and wait for one of us to call you. These phones have already been linked to each other so you might get the call from anybody. If someone else finds her, you follow their instructions just like it came from me. Understand?"

  Smythee nodded with unquestionable sincerity.

  "Good. Let's go. It's 0613. All the better."

  The contractions were five minutes apart. Some of them were excruciating enough to bring back memories of the journey that delivered her to the dimension where she now found herself in the dark, birthing her baby alone, well, alone except for seven wolves and a dog.

  Sometimes she had shouted obscenities aimed at her husband and only wished she could grab him by the hair and mock him in person saying, "So! There's no danger of pregnancy, my girl. Humans can't get pregnant by elves, Elora.

  "Too manly to wear a hot pink condom, are you? From now on you'll wear condoms with hot pink lace if I say so!"

  When the labor pain would begin to subside, she would regret her tirades.

  "Helm, I'm ashamed for filling your little ears with such things. Please don't tell your father I said those things and especially don't tell him the bad names I called him. He doesn't act like it, but he has tender feelings. One time I called him a dickhead and thought he was going to cry.

  "He also hyperventilates if he gets scared that something is going to happen to me. He's probably having trouble breathing right now."

  She thought it must be getting even colder outside because she had reached the point when she couldn't make her teeth stop chattering. Either it was getting colder or she had lost so much blood her body temperature was diving.

  Let it be the cold. Let me live to see this little boy.

  "Don't worry, Helm. Your daddy will come for us.

  "Have I told you he's a hero? The very best kind?

  "He goes about quietly saving the world while acting like it's no big deal. One time I saw him put his body between a knife and a woman he didn't even know. She probably wasn't worth one of his nail clippings, but he doesn't think like that. He doesn't stop to evaluate who most deserves a place on the planet. He just does the epic thing instinctively.

  "And you've got some of that in you."

  She was so exhausted she drifted into unconsciousness. There, in her half-dream sleep state she heard someone moaning from pain. Having a lot of experience with physical ordeal, her empathy kicked in. She was thinking, "Who is that? Why doesn't someone help them? Someone should help them. I should help them." She struggled to wake so that she could go to the aid of the person in distress. She was climbing, climbing, fighting the desire to cocoon and sleep forever, almost reaching the surface of consciousness. And then she was awake to find she was the one moaning.

  Oh, gods, it's me. I'm the one who needs help. Ram. Where are you?

  The pressure built until she couldn't suppress a scream. It wasn't a choice. It tore from her voice in a primal fury that exposed the illusion of control. Civilization - thumbs and language - just a light coating of veneer over the truth of our bestial natures.

  The wolves lying next to her moved away. There wasn't light for her to see what they were doing, but every time Elora screamed they stood together in a tight pack, facing the entrance to the lair, and howled in harmonies that were both discordant and beautiful. When the contraction ended and her scream trailed off, the howls ceased. It was as if they were disguising the sound of her scream to keep from alerting other predators that someone was in distress.

  She didn't have the energy to think about the fact that this was odd wolf behavior, at least it was behavior that had never been recorded.

  When it grew quiet, she resumed her conversation with Helm though she was so tired she couldn't be sure what she was saying.

  "He's gonna be mad when he finds out that you're not two weeks away after all. He's gonna say we scared him. A lot.

  "But then he's gonna wrap us up in his arms and give us big hugs." She could picture it in her mind and thought she could almost feel it. "And lots of kisses."

  When it got quiet again, she thought she heard a whistle of air, like wind trying to make its way down the ramp into the lair. That was followed by a larger whoosh that could easily have been the sound of many trees surrendering fall leaves to a gust.

  The wind was blowing hard.

  ***

  CHAPTER_18

  BLACK SWAN FIELD TRAINING MANUAL Section III: Chapter 4, #2

  Only active duty Field Trained personnel may accompany knights on assignments that fall into the category of hazardous duty. The presence of other personnel places everyone at greater risk.
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  The sat phone rang. Ram had finally dozed off, but he was on his feet lightning fast and looking around the room dazed and disoriented and wanting to know if there was something to be done.

  Storm looked at him with that famous, enviable calm, the phone in his hand, and said quietly, "I got this."

  It was Glen calling to say they were only a minute away.

  The Whister's search lights hit the cottage as they hovered above. Glen had told Storm the plan; that they would lower the supplies first and he would follow.

  While the men went outside, Litha got up and put more logs on both fires then drew water and filled two kettles for tea.

  It only took six minutes to lower the packs and retract the wide weave nylon harness. The wind had come up and caused some considerable sway on the way down. As Glen stepped into the cables he was glad he wasn't one of those guys with heights issues. He wouldn't like to humiliate himself with three quarters of B Team watching.

  In fact, he did make an impression. On the way down he began to resemble a human pendulum. As he neared the ground he was swinging faster, the outer points of the arc growing farther and farther apart. Storm noted the kid's cool demeanor. Glen was in a situation that would cause most people to piss themselves, but he wore the experience like it was nothing extraordinary.

  Without discussing what needed to be done, Storm and Kay positioned themselves so that they could catch him simultaneously on the next pass, which would be close to the ground. Just six more inches and they'd be able to reach him. As he came toward them Storm counted it down just for fun.

  "Three. Two. One."

  Glen slammed into the two big men and all three of them silently absorbed the shock of using bodies to stop a two-hundred-pound object in flight and the aftermath of unpleasant vibrating. Biological payback, like the body registering a formal protest.

  They got Glen out of the harness quickly and sent the Whister on its way to wait.