Laurell K Hamilton - Meredith Gentry 07 - Swallowing Darkness

by Swallowing Darkness(lit)

  She screamed and shrieked. The darkly glittering throng at her back stepped away. She stood there with the pack melding to her body. But she moved in a circle of empty space. None of them would chance touching her. They knew the story of what had happened to Pascoe and Rozenwyn; no one would risk such a fate.

  She began to run toward our Humvee. Even as I prepared to destroy her, I admired her bravery. She knew what I was going to do, and she would, with her last effort, try to take me with her. Her determination was flawless.

  A rifle shot rang out, so close I was deafened by it. Our driver, Corporal Lance, was shooting out her window, and had taken out one of Siobhan's legs at the knee. I hadn't even been aware that Lance had rolled her window down. But I had to focus, had to keep the spell where I needed it. Had to... Siobhan's flesh rolled, her face going under a wall of her own internal organs as if water were drowning her. But she was sidhe, and she could not die for lack of oxygen. You could drown me. It had been one of the proofs my aunt had used to call me worthless. But Siobhan would not die just because her mouth and nose were inside a ball of her own flesh. Sidhe do not die that easily.

  Moonlight glittered on blood and shiny things that should never see the light of day. There was nothing left of her but a ball of flesh. Her heart was on the outside, pulsing, living, just like the last time I'd done this. I was too far away to hear her scream, but I had no doubt that she was screaming. Screaming or cursing me.

  "What is that moving on her front?" Gregorio asked.

  "Her heart," I said.

  "She's not dead?"

  "No."

  "Jesus!"

  "Yes," I said.

  Some of the armored figures had dropped to their knees, but not all. I saw Conri, in his red and gold, he who had tried to kill Galen once. I aimed the sword at him, and he began to melt. It could have been anyone though, any who stood. If they knelt, they could live, but if they defied me, they would suffer. It was that simple.

  As Conri screamed, and twisted inside out, the last standing warriors dropped to their knees. The ones who were already on their knees pressed their faces to the ground. It had bothered me when my guards had tried to do that, but this night, this moment, I was glad of it. They had come to kill me, and all whom I loved. If I could not destroy them all, then I needed them to fear me.

  Corporal Lance yelled as she handed her rifle to Gregorio and rolled up her window. "Close your window, we gotta move!"

  "Why?" Gregorio asked.

  "Wizards. You don't think when you're doing spells." She started the engine and we started forward. "Raise your damn window!"

  "If you raise the window, I can't do this spell," I said.

  "The bomb is still going to go off."

  "You said it couldn't hurt this car," I said.

  "You're our protectee. I'd rather not take the chance."

  She eased us forward, and started angling around the truck in front of us. The radio was asking why we were moving. The word "bomb" seemed to galvanize everyone. Engines roared to life, and unfortunately, there was confusion. Too many people had fallen to the illusions and tricks, so there were just a few moments of confusion while they sorted who would collect the people who were hurt or dead. Seconds only, but seconds count.

  I don't know what I had thought would happen. I simply put the bomb inside Siobhan's body. Had I thought that her flesh would be enough to contain the explosion? I think I had, but I was no solider. I wasn't truly even a warrior. I made the mistake of someone whose main ability is magic. I didn't think of the physical, and suddenly the physical was all there was.

  The concussion of the bomb rocked the Humvee, splattering it with bits of flesh, bone, and shrapnel. My window was open. Something smashed into my right shoulder and upper chest. I was rocked backward, thrown onto the seat, and ended on the floorboards.

  I'd lost my grip on Aben-dul. I managed to yell out, "Don't touch the sword, whatever you do! Don't let anyone touch the sword!" I forced myself to get up and grope for the hilt. If Gregorio or Lance touched it, they'd be turned into what Conri and Siobhan had...

  Gregorio's face was over me. "You're hit!" She turned back to the driver. "She's hit. The princess is hit!"

  I just kept trying to reach the sword. It was as if the world had narrowed down to me getting the hilt back in my hand. I couldn't let them touch it. They wouldn't know. They wouldn't understand.

  Gregorio ripped my cloak away. I crawled back up on the seat as Corporal Lance drove us over the uneven road. My hand closed on the hilt as I felt Gregorio behind me. "I have to see the wounds, Princess, please."

  She'd climbed into the back with me. Her hands were bloody as she reached for me. I turned from her, and used every bit of concentration I had left to slide Aben-dul into its sheath and set the locks.

  Gregorio turned me to face her as the Humvee bounced over the road. "Fuck! We need a medic, now!"

  I looked down where she was looking, and saw nails sticking out of my body where the leather coat had left it bare. I stared down at the blood and the things sticking out of me, and thought, "Shouldn't it hurt more?"

  "Her skin's cold. She's going into shock. Shit!"

  I thought, "No, I can't go into shock. That might kill me. Wouldn't it?" I couldn't seem to think clearly. But the moment I decided not to go into shock, the pain hit me. It was like a smaller cut, when it doesn't hurt until you see the blood. But this was not small, and the pain was shearing, burning. Why did it burn? Was it my imagination, or could I really feel the nails embedded in my flesh?

  I grabbed Gregorio with my left hand, because I couldn't raise the right one. Something was very wrong with my shoulder. "I need Doyle. I need Rhys. I need my men."

  "We're getting you to safety, then we'll worry about your guards," the driver yelled back.

  Corporal Lance kept us moving, and the other Humvees moved so that we could. We were moving past the car that had held Galen, Sholto, and Mistral. They weren't in it. Gregorio was trying to get me to lie down. I batted her hands away. Where were they?

  I sent my magic seeking them, and felt a tug on that line of power. Someone who was attached to my power was hurt, very hurt. His life flickered like fire in a strong wind. Death was coming.

  I couldn't think of anything else but that I had to get to him. Had to get to him. Had to... I touched Gregorio on her face, and whispered, "I'm sorry," then smiled at her. I called my glamour and let her see not what I wanted her to see, but anything she wished to see. Anything if it would get me out of here, and to that flickering light I could feel out there in the dark.

  Her face softened, and she whispered, "Kevin."

  I smiled, and when she leaned in to kiss me, I kissed her back, ever so gently, and laid her down on the seat with a smile still curling her lips. She would dream of the man who had given her that kiss. It was a type of glamour that was completely illegal, under the same heading as a date-rape drug. But I had no interest in anything but getting out.

  I opened the door. Lance slammed on the brakes, and yelled, "What are you doing, Princess?"

  "He's dying. I have to help him." I stepped out into the road. I used my good arm to cradle the injured one, and began to move through the trees. I would have run, but that line of power was flickering too low. If I ran, I would lose it, as if my running were a stronger wind than his life could survive. I prayed, and wrapped glamour around me. Glamour to keep our driver from seeing me and dragging me back. Glamour to hide from the sidhe who wanted me dead. Glamour to make me look like whoever the person expected to see, and would be glad to see. It was a type of personal glamour that I had never tried before, but I just suddenly knew that I could do it. I hid by being whoever or whatever they needed to see, and I moved away from them all. I had to find him before he died. I wouldn't let myself think who it was that I chased in the dark. There would be time enough to see who I had lost when I got to his side.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Of everyone i had expected to find at the end
of that powerful drawing in, a soldier was not among them. The man lay on his stomach, hidden where he'd crawled into the woods. His uniform had done what my glamour did, hidden him.

  I would have questioned whether I'd taken a wrong turn or followed the wrong scent, but the sense of urgency and rightness was too clear. This was the man who had drawn me, blind with magic, through the edges of battle.

  I knelt in the leaves and weeds in the winter-locked forest. I had to turn him over with my left hand, for my right shoulder was still full of the nails. I could flex my hand, but I could not raise it high enough to do anything but steady the man's body as I pushed. The pain from just that small helping movement was excruciating. It left me breathless, and the bare trees swam in streamers of sickening black and white. I rested on the man's chest for a moment, eyes closed, not sure if I was going to throw up or pass out.

  Then something fell against my cheek. The touch made me raise my head. A single pink rose petal slid onto the man's chest. The Goddess was with me. I would not fail.

  I raised my eyes and found the face under the uniform. It was the wizard Dawson, with his pale hair and paler face. So terribly pale among the darkened trees. He looked like his own ghost.

  I touched his face with my good hand. He was icy to the touch. I checked for the big pulse in the neck. My chest tightened, because there was nothing. Then... a tenuous, hesitating pulse. He was near death, but not dead.

  I whispered, "Goddess, help me help him."

  The pink petal blew or rolled onto his lips. His eyes flew wide, and he grabbed my injured arm. The pain took my vision, filled the world with white starbursts and nausea.

  My vision cleared, and someone was holding me in their arms. It was Dawson, sitting up, looking down at me. "Princess Meredith, are you all right?"

  I laughed. I couldn't help it. He'd been the one who was almost dead, and he wanted to know if I was all right. His hand hovered above my shoulders and arm where the nails were still embedded. He held up a bloody hand, and showed me a nail.

  "I woke up with you and this on me. I was dying. I know I was dying. You saved me. How?"

  I had no idea how to explain. I opened my mouth to say "I have no idea," but what came out was, "Remember when you felt the call of my touch?"

  "Yes."

  "I followed your call."

  "But you're hurt."

  "But you're not," I said. "Help me up."

  He did what I asked, no arguing. Maybe it was shock, or maybe he couldn't refuse me. I neither knew nor cared. There was more need out there in the dark. I could feel it.

  Dawson kept a steadying hand on my good arm, and let me lead us through the trees. The fighting was a distant sound of guns, the flashing of lightning, and green fire. The fire meant that Doyle was still alive. I wanted to go to him, but another single pink petal fell onto the front of my coat. In that moment, more than any other before it, I trusted in the Goddess. I trusted that she would not have me save the soldiers and lose the men I loved. I prayed for courage enough not to falter or question. My reward was another body on the ground.

  The man lay on his back. Dark eyes stared up at the sky. His mouth opened and shut as if he couldn't figure out how to breathe. The front of his uniform was torn away from one side of his chest. It had been peeled away as if by something stronger than human hands. His chest steamed in the winter air. I'd never seen a wound steam in the cold, never thought, "The warmth of life is floating away."

  Dawson helped me kneel. He said, "Brennan, this is Princess Meredith. She'll help you."

  Brennan's mouth opened, but no words came out, only a trickle of blood that was too dark, too thick. I laid the pink petal on his face, but there was no miraculous waking. He was awake, and the terror in his eyes said that he knew he was dying. I did not know how I had healed Dawson, so I did not know how to repeat it.

  I prayed, "Goddess, help me help him."

  Brennan shuddered, his body convulsing, and there was a sound in his chest as he tried to breathe. Dawson said, "Help him, please."

  I laid my hand on his wound and prayed, and then there was pain. Pain that stole the world, and then I found myself waking, collapsed across the soldier's chest.

  A hand was stroking my hair. I opened my eyes to Brennan staring down at me. Dawson cradled Brennan's head in his arms, and they both looked at me. They looked at me as if I were the most wonderful thing in the world. They looked at me as if I'd walked on water. The thought filled me with no comfort, only a vague anxiety. I had never wanted any human being to look at me like that.

  Brennan held a bloody nail up so I could see it.

  Dawson said, "It fell out, just like mine did. Blood and the nail, and then he was healed."

  I nodded as if that made sense to me. This time I had a solider on each arm, but when Brennan took my injured arm, it didn't hurt quite as much. I think I was healing each of my nail wounds every time I healed a solider. Did that mean that I could only heal as many as I had nails in my flesh? On the one hand, being healed would be good, but on the other hand, there were many more soldiers than the nails I had in my body. Would I lose the ability to heal the rest when I was healed myself? I didn't want to stay injured, but... I let the thought go. We would do what we could, then we'd see. I did my best not to think too hard about anything. I did my best to keep walking, and let the men I'd saved help me. If I thought too hard, I'd be like Peter walking across the sea to follow Jesus. He did fine until he thought too hard, then he fell beneath the waves. I could not afford to fall. I could feel the need of the injured in the dark. That need called to me, and I had to answer it.

  We found two soldiers together. I didn't know what Cel and his people had done, but it was as if all of the wounded had crawled off to die. Where were the doctors, the medics? Where was everyone? I could hear the fighting in the distance, a little closer now as we moved, but whatever illusion had been used had made them crawl away to die, and not seek help.

  Dawson and Brennan helped me kneel beside the fallen soldiers. It took me a moment to realize that one of the soldiers was a woman. She was hidden under a vest and some gear. Her skin was almost as dark as Doyle's in the night of the trees.

  Dawson said, "It's Hayes."

  Brennan was kneeling beside the other soldier, who was collapsed on one side. "It's Orlando, sir."

  I laid my hand against Hayes's neck, and felt something sticky. I didn't bother to raise my hand to the faint light. I knew it was drying blood. It shouldn't be drying that fast, should it? Had I lost track of time?

  I spoke out loud without really meaning to. "Was she ever wounded?"

  "Yes," Brennan said. "We both got hit in the same ambush. She dragged my ass to safety, just like she did Orlando here."

  "Was your chest wound an old wound?" I asked.

  "Yes, ma'am. That prince, he pointed his hand at me and it was like the wound just came back. Then he ripped my vest back so he could see the wound. He seemed to enjoy seeing it."

  "Was she wounded in the neck?" I asked.

  "Yes, ma'am."

  Cel was hurting my people. He was hurting people who had sworn to protect me. They were dying to protect me and mine. It wasn't right. We were supposed to protect them, not the other way around.

  I prayed to the Goddess as I touched Hayes. She was brave, and had saved lives once with this wound in her body. It seemed wrong to make her live through it twice, but even in the midst of the horror, she had grabbed another solider and dragged him with her. So brave.

  There was pain, and this time I didn't pass out. This time I saw the nail push its way out of my flesh in a spurt of blood. The blood spattered Hayes's face as her eyes flew wide, flashing white. She gasped, and grabbed my arm. The nail fell on to her chest, and her other hand closed on it automatically, as if she hadn't noticed.

  "Who are you?"

  "I am Princess Meredith NicEssus."

  She clutched my arm, her fist clutching the bloody nail to her chest. She swallowed hard. "It doesn't
hurt."

  "You're healed," Dawson said, leaning over her.

  "How?"

  "Let her heal Orlando, and you'll see."

  Dawson helped me stand, but I was feeling a little better, and didn't have to lean so heavily on his arm. I still let him and Brennan help me to my knees. I still couldn't move my shoulder, though my hand and lower arm now had more range of movement.

  There was no visible wound on Orlando, but his skin was cool to the touch, and I couldn't find a pulse in his neck, not even that thready hesitation that Dawson had had. I tried not to think what that meant. I tried not to question this miracle, or to think too hard that I didn't really know what I was doing or how. I prayed harder, and laid my hands on the man's cooling skin.

  A shower of rose petals blew across us, like pink snow. I felt the man shudder underneath my hands, and there was more pain, more blood, and another nail fell into his half-open hand. His hand convulsed around the nail, just like Hayes's had done.

  "Dear God," Hayes said.

  "I think you mean Goddess," Dawson said.

  The man on the ground stared up at me, his face frightened. "Where am I?"

  "Cahokia, Illinois," I said.

  "I thought I was back in the desert. I thought... "

  Hayes gripped his shoulder, and turned him to look at her. "It's all right, Orlando. She saved us. We're safe."

  I wasn't sure about that last part, but I let it go. I had only a few nails left, only a few more lives to save. When I was healed, would I lose the ability to save them? I wanted to be healed, but I didn't want to lose any of them. They had offered their lives to save us, and I wanted to repay that. They shouldn't die in our war.