Inked

by Karen Chance

  I leapt over the body before it stopped moving and, a moment later, the tunnel dead-ended into a small chamber. An electric lamp threw a single pool of light in the otherwise dark room. I had a split second to notice a large shape slumped by a chair, then I was grabbed from behind.

  I spun, forcing my attacker into the wall. I pressed up against his back, my forearm locked across his throat, a knife in my hand, coming up—

  “Lia!”

  I froze for an instant, then my tat managed to focus on my assailant’s face. I spun him around and stopped, staring. For a second, I didn’t get the whole picture, just pieces here and there. Dark hair stuck up in wild tufts, sweat gleamed at a temple, a bruise decorated a tightly clenched jaw. And there, finally, what I’d hoped to see most—whiskey dark eyes glittering in the low light. Cyrus.

  And then I started noticing other things, like the fact that his skin was gray from exhaustion, his lip was split and half his face was a yellowing bruise. But none of that mattered next to the fact that he was unquestionably, miraculously here and alive. He pulled me to him, slowly, careful not to startle the half-crazed war mage, and then his hands were in my hair and he was kissing me with passionate hunger.

  He drew back after a few seconds, and the series of expressions crossing his features—disbelief, incredulity, outrage—was pretty impressive. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  I licked my lips, trying to make the transition from making out to making up. “I came to rescue you?”

  “Rescue me?”

  I glanced around. Cyrus looked pretty beat up, but he was in one piece, which was more than I could say for the Were slumped on the floor behind him. A set of manacles had been ripped out of the wall and the chain wrapped around the creature’s neck, hard enough to half sever it from the body.

  “Well. It seems awkward now.”

  “I warned you off—twice! And I know you received the messages!”

  “What messages? I haven’t heard from you since—”

  “The memories!”

  “Oh.” Those messages. “I thought you were sending me clues how to find you.”

  Cyrus threw up his hands. “How is sending you Danger/ Ambush an invitation to come closer?”

  “You never sent me—”

  “The garden hose?”

  “What?”

  “You ambushed me.”

  It took me a moment to get it. “Oh, come on! That’s hardly the same thing as—”

  “At that distance, there was no way to send anything but memories, and the most powerful are the ones we both shared. That’s why I sent the soufflé for Disaster. As in, coming in here would be a very bad idea?”

  I blinked. “You used my cooking to mean disaster?”

  “It was a metaphor.”

  “And what was the scene at the bar supposed to tell me?”

  “What bar?”

  “Never mind.” It sounded like I’d been picking up on a little more than was intended.

  Cyrus bent to relieve the dead guard of his gun and his shirt rode up. He looked as though he’d been stitched together out of spare parts, his belly livid with bruises. I drew in a sharp breath. “You’re hurt!”

  He shoved the gun in his waistband. “They used me for a punching bag for the last twelve hours, hoping Sebastian would sense it and come looking for me.”

  “Sebastian?”

  “This was a trap for him. Luckily, he was smart enough not to fall for it. What I’d like to know is why you weren’t.”

  I did a little reciprocal glaring, half-pissed, half-scared. You had to do a lot of damage to Weres to outstrip their healing ability, but his body clearly hadn’t been able to keep up. I strongly suspected that he was on his feet out of pure stubbornness.

  “I came because Sebastian asked me,” I told him. “He showed up at Central this morning, after patrol hauled Grayshadow’s body out of a ditch—”

  “Grayshadow is the one behind this! He was here until a few minutes ago, torturing me. Then you showed up instead and now he’s gone to challenge!”

  Cyrus strode back the way I’d come. I caught up with him edging around the body of the Were. “I think I’m a little behind on—”

  “Yes, you are! Which is why you don’t come charging alone into a maze infested with creatures who have nothing left to lose!”

  “I thought we’d settled this. It’s my job.”

  “No. Your job is policing the human population. This is Were business. Sebastian had no right—”

  “Sebastian had every right! Or am I not part of Arnou?”

  Cyrus rounded on me, quietly furious. “You were brought into Arnou for your protection! Not so you can take on an entire gang by yourself!”

  “And what about you? I wouldn’t have been here in the first place if you hadn’t decided to take on a Hunter alone!”

  “There is no Hunter! And I had no plans to play hero. I was trying to find out who was killing our people. I intended to hand Sebastian any information I discovered and let him deal with it.”

  “So what went wrong?”

  “Everything,” Cyrus said bitterly. “Starting with my supposed helper. Grayshadow wants leadership of the clan. He hates the alliance with the humans and he’s half insane with ambition. He knows that replacing Sebastian now will not only give him control of Arnou, but will also make him bardric.”

  I shook my head. “There must be some mistake. Grayshadow isn’t doing anything these days. We have his body at Central—Sebastian ID’d it for us himself.”

  “He ID’d the corpse of a vargulf, an enemy of the gang Grayshadow hired to help with his scheme. The man was once part of Arnou, so he smelled right, and with that much mutilation, who could tell?”

  I sorted through the mass of information he’d just dumped on me, and grabbed the biggest nugget. “You’re saying Grayshadow is the Hunter? But he’s a Were.”

  “There is no Hunter! Grayshadow used the terror that term holds for us to cover his tracks. If Sebastian had shown up to rescue me, he’d have killed him as he did White Sun and blamed it on the Hunter. Then with both of them dead, he’d waltz into Sebastian’s position with no opposition. He’s my brother’s Third.”

  “But Sebastian didn’t show.”

  “No, he sent the Corps instead. So Grayshadow has gone with Plan B: to challenge. Sebastian’s inability to stop the Hunter gives him cause. And White Sun was the only warrior Arnou had likely to win against him. No one else will dare take the challenge, meaning Sebastian will be forced to fight himself.”

  “I take it you don’t think he can win.”

  Cyrus paused at the entrance to the main tunnel, breathing heavier than he should have been for the short hike. “People think that because Sebastian is a diplomat, he’s a pushover. He’s not. I’ve sparred with him enough to know that. And he’s younger and faster than Grayshadow, although possibly not as strong. If it was a fair fight, it would be an even contest.”

  “If it was?”

  “Grayshadow doesn’t want a chance to win,” Cyrus told me grimly. “He wants certainty. And he thinks he’s found a way to get it.”

  “The wolf wards.” A few things started to click into place.

  “You’ve seen them?”

  “I had them in my hand—briefly.”

  “Well, Grayshadow has them now. He showed them to me when he returned this afternoon. He wanted to gloat about the fact that while Sebastian might defeat him, he couldn’t take out five wolves at once.”

  “Five?”

  “Himself and the four wolves he killed. The life force he stole from them will give him unbelievable strength. No way can Sebastian stand against that. No single Were could!”

  “That’s why he was at the wardsmith’s,” I guessed. “To pick up the final ward. And once the man had delivered it, he was of no further use. So he killed him and left one of the gang behind to wait for me, to retrieve the rest of the weapons once I tracked the guy down.”

  “I don’t
know about that. I just know what he plans to do with them now.” Cyrus started for the corridor, but I pulled him back.

  “But why did Grayshadow go to all this trouble? If he wants to discredit Sebastian, why didn’t he just tell everyone the truth about you? Sebastian said he knew!”

  “Because the only way he becomes bardric is by inheriting the office,” Cyrus said impatiently. “By our laws, the bardric is the chief of the leading clan—in this case, Arnou—whoever that may be. But if a new election is called because Sebastian has lost the chiefs’ respect—which would almost certainly happen if they found out about me—”

  “It would go to Whirlwind of Rand.”

  “Very likely.”

  “So instead of discrediting Sebastian, Grayshadow plans to kill him. But that doesn’t explain what you think you’re going to do.”

  Cyrus’s jaw tightened. “Kill him first.”

  He changed and slipped out the door so fast, I didn’t even see him go. But I heard Jamie curse and the sound of a knife hitting wood. “Jamie, no!” I hit the main tunnel at a run, to find Jamie and Caleb facing off with a huge black and tan wolf.

  “It’s Cyrus!” I told them.

  “That would be more reassuring if his hackles weren’t raised,” Caleb commented.

  “And if he wasn’t growling at us,” Jamie added, yanking his knife out of a support beam.

  “You just tried to stab him!”

  “Well excuse the hell out of me!” Jamie said, livid. “It’s not like the rest of us can tell the difference! One huge hairy beast looks much like—”

  Caleb gripped his shoulder. “Don’t go there.”

  I belatedly realized that my feet were wet. There was maybe an inch of water in the hall, enough to slosh against the sides when I moved. “What’s going on?”

  “This place is flooding, as I told you,” Jamie snapped. “We have to get out of here.”

  Cyrus bounded away and we followed. Water was inching its way down the tunnel as we neared the warded wall again. The floor must have been slanted, because the farther we went, the deeper it got. It was halfway up my shins by the time we reached the end.

  Caleb threw a sound shield around us. “Careful. Some of them are still in the outer room.”

  I hadn’t needed the warning. Someone had a light and it lit them up through the thin skin of the ward, like silhouettes in front of a bonfire. I cautiously stuck my face through the faux clay and got a shock.

  The remaining Weres—and shit, there were a lot—were standing on the far side of the cave, near the door. The ward was still coughing and sputtering, hiccoughing floodwater into the cave every time it flickered out. When it flicked back on, the waterfall coming through the gap was chopped off like a neck on a guillotine. The level in the cave was rising fast, but for some reason, the Weres weren’t leaving.

  Then one of them was shoved forward by an older man with flowing silver hair and a goatee, a leather coat and dusty boots. Cyrus whined softly and I got the idea. Grayshadow.

  The younger Were didn’t look happy, but he cautiously approached the ward anyway, as if waiting for it to cut out again. It should have been permeable from this side, with no need to wait. But the water must have messed up the charm, because when he tried to jump through as I had, he missed.

  Badly.

  The ward flicked back on and sliced him in two lengthwise, killing him before he had a chance to scream. One half of his body tumbled back into the cave, the other fell into the river raging in the tunnel outside and was immediately swept away. Grayshadow made an expression of distaste, kicked the remains aside, and selected another guinea pig.

  We watched as this one made it through—barely—and another took his place. This one wasn’t so lucky. “He’s trying to wear out the ward,” Jamie muttered from behind me. “He’s using them to sap its strength.”

  “Why are they doing this?” I demanded. “They don’t owe him any loyalty! They’re outcasts!”

  “Not for long,” Cyrus said, his voice tight. Jamie and Caleb did a double take. I guess they hadn’t thought Weres could talk while in wolf form. Or maybe it was the deep, guttural sound of his wolf voice that startled them. “Grayshadow offered them a place in Arnou once he takes power.”

  “He’s lying!”

  “Of course, but they’re desperate. It’s the best chance, maybe the only chance, most of them will ever have to regain Clan status. So don’t expect them to disobey him—or to show us any mercy.”

  “Let’s make sure we don’t need any,” Jamie said, pulling his huge sword.

  “What is that?” I demanded. It was definitely not standard-issue.

  “Claymore. I’ve noticed that knives don’t work too well on these beasties,” he told me. And then he charged, throwing himself through the warded stretch of wall, yelling at the top of his lungs.

  The rest of us looked at one another, and then plowed through after him.

  The reaction was a little different than I’d expected. The odds were heavily in our opponents’ favor and Weres don’t spook easily. But they were a gang, not trained troops, and they’d already been under enough stress. A screeching war mage brandishing a huge sword was the final straw.

  The Weres started shoving toward the door, those in back pushing the rest in the direction of the ward’s deadly bite. The ones in front panicked and started fighting back at the same time that we attacked from the rear. And things disintegrated from there.

  A few of them either kept their heads or decided they’d have a better chance against us than the door. One ran at the wall, launched himself into the air and landed on four legs instead of two. And jumped straight at me.

  I shoved my forearm sideways into his jaw and prayed the spelled leather would keep him from ripping my arm off while I stabbed him hard over and over in the side. He got claws into me anyway, under the shortened hem of my coat, before I could close a shield. I screamed—they hurt like knives— and snapped a shield in place.

  We staggered together into the wall, my shield trapping his paw. He was unable to finish tearing me apart and unable to pull back, my spelled daggers following him like buzzing hornets. He smashed us into the wall repeatedly, trying to break free, as I struggled to get my gun up.

  It was useless; I’d have to drop my shields to fire and he’d gut me before I could pull the trigger. I concentrated on tightening my shields instead, drawing the power into a tight band around his wrist, slowly squeezing. A moment later his paw popped off in a gout of blood and my shields snapped shut around it.

  The Were fell away, howling, and I found to my surprise that I was still in one piece. More or less. And then I was jumped by two more.

  There was no more time to think after that. The fight grew too furious, and it was down to reflexes and training. It could have been five minutes or fifty before I looked up to see Jamie sever the neck of one Were, thrust his sword backward to impale a second, jerk it out and whirl to decapitate a third.

  Caleb was fighting with his back to the wall a little way off, hard-pressed by two Weres at once. I reached for my potion belt to help him, only to find that it was empty. The pile of half-melted corpses bobbing in the water around me might explain that, but it was no help to Caleb. Then he proved he didn’t need any, sending twin fireballs to engulf his opponents.

  The bodies fell to the floor, splashing into the lake the cave was fast becoming. There were five more Weres standing, but Cyrus wasn’t one of them. Neither was Grayshadow.

  I clamped down on the panic rising in my throat, swallowing it back down like nausea. I had to shut down that line of thought before it could take hold. Before it could take me places I couldn’t afford to go.

  “Where—” I started.

  “That way!” Jamie waved his huge sword at the entrance. “The cowardly bastard left a minute ago and your man took off after him.”

  Caleb nodded. “We can handle this. Go!”

  11

  THE water level outside the ward was h
igher than in the cave, coming up chest high on me. And the current was unbelievably fast. It swept me away before I got a single foot on the floor, pushing me down the pitch-black tunnel at a crazy pace.

  I crashed through cobwebs, was tossed into unforgiving concrete, and then a pipe in the ceiling poured more water on me as I passed underneath. I surfaced, gasping and spluttering, only to be grabbed by the flow and thrown down a long stretch of tunnel that turned and slanted like a mine shaft. Cement blocks and rocks the size of bowling balls tumbled through the flood, pounding my shields over and over. Every time I started to stand up, the current knocked me down and I finally quit trying.

  My waterlogged coat was threatening to drown me, so I shrugged out of it, then narrowly avoided being beheaded by another water pipe. I snagged it with one arm and stared around frantically for some sign of the others. Even with my owl tat, the tunnel was pitch dark, and all I could hear was the wind screaming like a banshee overhead. But I didn’t think they’d gone out the way we’d come in. Weres are strong, but they don’t have shields. And no one was battling that current without them.

  A glance back the other way showed me I was right—two shapes, black on black, were thrashing in the water farther down the tunnel. It might have been my imagination, but I could hear Cyrus’s breathing like the beat of my own heart, smell his sweat, see details I shouldn’t have been able to pick out in the dark this far away. Which is how I noticed when a rainbow of colors streamed over his face—light from some outside source. And suddenly, they were gone.

  I let go of the pipe and the water swept me after them, but not before throwing me against the wall. My shields popped and my shoulder took the brunt, twisting violently. I screamed, but it didn’t matter; even wolf ears couldn’t hear me over the drain’s ceaseless roar.

  A sliver of light grew in front of me, the ceiling rolled back and I found myself in an open air channel. Steaming hot rain was sluicing down, daggering into the swirling current and threatening to send my head under. Ahead of me was another tunnel mouth, and curtains of cement rose on either side at least fourteen feet tall.