"Leave me alone!” she cried out, wiping at her face with her other hand. “Get away from me!"
The figure stopped several yards away, a hulking silhouette shrouded by the pouring mist. “I mean you no harm,” he said.
"Where's my grandfather?"
"Gone. He had to catch a flight to Japan."
"So he had nothing to do with this?"
"With what?" The figure stepped forward, slowly coalescing into a man built like the proverbial Mack truck. He wore a tight black tee shirt, nearly misshapen by the corded muscle swelling beneath the tightly stretched cotton fabric.
"With whatever was injected into me—whatever made me sick!” she snarled, pulling up the sleeve of her nightgown to reveal the needle mark on her forearm.
His blunt face twitched, almost into a wry grin before settling back into a placid plainness. He knows exactly what I'm talking about, she realized. "Bastard!" she screamed, hurling the spell at him.
It rolled and crackled in the air like a patch of ball lightning, sending out tendrils of electricity in all directions as it surged towards it target.
He tried to dive out of the way but it pursued, howling with a fury as it hurled pieces of itself in his wake. “Get it off me!"
Then, as abruptly as it had come, the vertigo, weakness, and nausea fled. She stood, feet splayed against the wet grass, and seemed to take root like an oak. She leaned forward and whipped her head back, thick hair sending a thick spray of moisture behind her. “Stand still, damn you!"
"Lady, you're nuts!"
Her answering smile was cold as the wind whipping rain down her back. “Mister, I want answers. I'm tired of being the wallflower here. And, you know, I'm not going to play by your rules any longer. Stand still or I swear, I'll burn you where you stand."
He froze. The ball rose up over him and hovered there, as if waiting for a word from her to strike. He turned searing golden eyes on her, back-lit by some arcane inner fire. “You don't know who you're fucking with, woman."
She laughed. “No, I suppose I don't. But you're going to tell me."
His face screwed into a snarl. “I hate magic,” he spat. Then he smiled. Slowly. Viciously. All the while looking over her shoulder. “My reinforcements have arrived. Where are yours?"
She risked a glance over her shoulder to see a handful of people approaching through the haze. They were too far away to identify and she couldn't afford to take her eyes off this brute for more than a second.
He still stood in the same place when she turned back, eyeing the crackling ball warily. “You'd better think on this, girl. It's not going to stop me, but it's damn sure going to piss me and my friends off."
She set her jaw. “You think so, do you?” Damn, he's probably right. She shot another look and saw them drawing too close for comfort. She found, to her surprise, she recognized two of them. One was Gavin Chase, former PAC psychologist and current rogue agent, and the other ... she felt her throat close suddenly. The other one was her brother.
Her brief moment of shock was apparently all her captive needed. A fist the size of a freight train caught her on the side of the head and sent her spinning into oblivion.
* * * *
"I'm ready to leave,” Ben growled at Loki, who simply smiled in response.
"I'm sure you are. But we're not. And since we gave your friend the other gate activator, you're stuck here until we're finished."
Snarling wordlessly, the werewolf stomped away to sit dejectedly atop a long log laid out in front of the bonfire on the beach. The natives were cooking salmon and the savory smell set his nose to twitching involuntarily as he drew a deep breath.
Another scent cut through the smell of baking salmon just before Mandy settled on the log beside him. She stared into the fire for a long minute before turning to regard him curiously. “Dr. Coyote told me who you people are,” she said abruptly. “It seems impossible, but I guess it's not."
"Take my word for it,” he sighed, “it's not."
"How many universes are there?” she asked.
He could only shrug. “Hundreds, maybe thousands. I have no idea. Maybe more than that."
"Incredible. Can I ask you something personal?"
He shifted uncomfortably. “I suppose."
"If it's too much, just say so, all right?"
He nodded. “Okay. What do you want to know?"
"When you think I'm not paying attention, you give me the oddest looks. Do you know another version of me in your world?"
The question took him by surprise. He slapped himself mentally. He knew his Amanda was perceptive. Why should he be shocked that this one was no dummy either? That line of reasoning made him feel like an ass. “I think I'm in love with her,” he admitted with a rueful shake of his head.
"I thought it was something like that,” she said. “Does she know?"
He shrugged. “I'm not sure she knows I exist.” Realizing how trite that sounded, he grinned. “Okay—she knows I exist. I'm just not sure she cares."
She reached out and grabbed his chin, turning his gaze to meet hers. “That's probably why,” she said. “You're giving her the soft sell. If she's anything like me—and I have no reason to believe she isn't—she's not going to appreciate that at all. Goddess, what's wrong with you? Are you that uncertain of yourself?"
He flushed. “Why shouldn't I be?” he growled. “I'm a monster."
"A monster? How do you mean?” She sounded genuinely curious as she leaned away from him and scanned him from head to toe. “You look normal to me."
"You'll have to take my word for it. I'm not going to show you."
"Have it your way,” she sighed. “My advice to you is to go for it. Don't be ambiguous—it wouldn't win me over. Tell her exactly how you feel.” She shook her head in seeming disgust. “A monster."
She lifted her gaze once again to meet his eyes. “So ... what about your friend? The Midnight Kid's double?"
"Huh? What do you mean?"
She gave another gusty sigh. “I'm asking if he's taken, you dummy."
Dummy? He flashed her a irate look. “Taken? Cory?"
"I thought his name was Raven."
"Uh ... well, yeah, it's Raven now. I guess."
She let out a disgusted huff. “You don't even know your friend's name?"
"He changed it,” he responded, between gritted teeth. Was she teasing him? Or just being difficult on principal?
She blinked. “Oh. That makes sense. Why?"
"That's too complicated to get into,” he grunted. “It's kind of a secret identity."
Her brow furrowed. “Secret identity?"
Of course she didn't quite get the reference, though the words themselves made sense. He felt like smacking himself upside the head. Or holding up his hand in the shape of an “L” in the middle of his forehead. Loser. She didn't grow up with comic books and superheroes, you idiot. “You don't ask any easy questions, do you?"
"I thought ‘is he taken' was a pretty damn simple question,” she retorted.
"Are you always this difficult, or just with me?"
She smiled sweetly. “I don't know. Is your lady friend this difficult?"
He thought back to what little time he'd spent with Amanda and couldn't help but grin. “I imagine she is."
"So you shouldn't act so surprised."
He didn't quite know how to answer that, so he didn't bother. Instead he answered her first question. “No, he's not taken."
"Well, was that so hard?"
He rolled his eyes. “Damn near impossible,” he replied with a taut smile. “I thought I'd pass out in the middle of it."
"You look like you just swallowed a—” She suddenly pitched off the back of the log. A laugh caught in his throat as the rifle report echoed down the hill. He snapped to his feet, eyes scouring the hillside. He leaped backward over the log, landing in the gravely sand next to Mandy. She lay there gasping, blood welling from a hole in her lower chest. Blood-flecked foam rose to her lips as sh
e coughed, eyes wide with pain. Lung shot. Dammit! “Hold on, Mandy. Just hold on."
He stood back up just in time to catch the second bullet himself. It slammed into his right pec, spinning him halfway around. He whirled back and launched himself like a rocket, clearing the log, the fire, and half the beach in a single bound.
The locals came alive at the same time, rushing out of their huts with weapons in hand. Loki and Coyote appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Ben skidded to a halt. “Mandy's hit. She's laying on the other side of that log over there."
Another bullet whizzed past them. “One sniper,” he snarled. “I'll take care of him."
Loki moved as if to stall him as Coyote headed for where Mandy lay. “Ben, wait—"
But he was already moving away, hurtling up the hill as the change took him. He let the agonizing transformation wash over him while still in motion, not faltering for a single step. The creature that reached the crest of the hill was more wolf than man, but resembled most of all one of the great apes in the way it moved.
At the summit he spied a figure leaping onto a waiting horse, spurring it into a gallop with a single lash of his feet against its flanks.
It was a fast horse. Unfortunately for the sniper, it wasn't fast enough. Ben dropped to all fours, shifting almost effortlessly in to his wolfen form, and putting on a burst of speed that carried him to a point just off the horse's left flank.
He surged upward, a single thrust of his powerful back legs carrying him up and over the beast as his clawed forepaws lashed out and snagged the rider by the shoulders. The mount let out a scream of fright, stumbled, then raced on as Ben carried the rider to the ground.
He crouched over his victim, jaws dripping fetid saliva. He wrapped one clawed hand in the man's padded collar and twisted. “Who are you?"
The answer seemed obvious, particularly since he recognized him from previous night's little battle, but he wanted to hear it from the man's mouth. “Who sent you?"
"No estoy asustado de usted, demonio!” the man spat, his eyes making a lie of his words. Ben grinned wolfishly. He'd passed Advanced Spanish with a solid B and, while this particular dialect wasn't quite the same as the conversational Spanish he'd learned back home, it was close enough. I'm not afraid of you, demon.
"Mejor pida el Madonna para proteger su asno, Pedro, porque estoy a punto de tomar una mordedura de ella.” Better ask the Madonna to protect your ass, Pedro, because I am about to take a bite out of it.
The man let out a startled gasp. “Madre Dios!"
"What, gringo werewolves no habla Español where you come from?” Grinding his teeth against the rending pain, Ben shifted back into his ape-like were form. He dug his talons deeper into the man's jacket. “If you don't tell me what I want to know, I'm going to tear your fucking face off, burn it all crispy so you don't bleed to death, then drag you into town where even las putas will run screaming from your ugly ass.
"How's that for demonic, pendejo?” The needle-sharp tips of his claws twisted against the man's flesh. “Talk to me and I'll let you go. Defy me and suffer."
* * * *
Loki glanced at his doppelganger and shook his head slowly. “There's nothing I can do for her without more modern equipment. And I can't take her through the gate. The shock will most likely kill her.” He frowned. “Can you work anything with magic?"
Coyote thought about it, then shook his own head. “No. It would take too long to get a circle together. She'd be dead before I could call more than a handful of witches."
Loki blinked at that. “You can't work magic on your own? Or have a single one of your witches do it?"
Clearly taken aback, Coyote gaped at him. “It takes numbers to raise energy. I would have thought you'd know that."
This statement caught Loki by surprise. He regarded his twin curiously. “You have to raise energy to cast spells?” He'd already done a magesight scan of the world. There was more than abundant mana—there was no reason he could see they should have to combine their resources to create a single effective spell.
Unless they were somehow making mana.
The notion set him back on his heels. Mana didn't need to be created, it just happened naturally as a by-product of the forces that brought new universes into being. Either excess power not needed for the creation, or that which remained unused because it wasn't quite enough to spawn a new dimension. That these people knew nothing of the power available for the taking yet had gained some rough mastery over magic regardless spoke volumes about them and their ancestors. He sighed. “I don't have enough skill at healing to attempt it,” he said, “and she doesn't have the time to wait for me to actually teach you what I know about mana that you do not."
"Then she's...” He couldn't say it. Coyote looked down at the semi-conscious woman with anguish written across his face.
"Going to die? I'm afraid so,” Loki told him regretfully. “Unless some of the native healers—"
"Their methods take too much time. They...” He took a deep breath, obviously holding back a sob, “They could ... never heal a wound of this severity."
A spinning vortex of black smoke swirled into existence a few feet toward the beach, materializing into the duster-draped form of the vampire Raven. He strode out of the shadows cast by the fire and crouched next to the injured woman. “I can save her,” he murmured, gaze sweeping up to take in both the immortals and their matching expressions.
"By giving her your virus?” Loki asked.
Raven nodded. “It's the only thing that will do it. Now that she's on the edge of death she doesn't have anything to fight the virus with. But I won't do it against her will."
He leaned close to her as his stare bored deeply into her pain-filled eyes. “Mandy. Can you hear me?"
She gave a weak nod, gasping like a fish caught on land. Her chest cavity had started to fill with fluids, compressing her lungs. She only had a few minutes left.
"I can make you like me,” he told her. “You won't be alive, precisely, but you will still exist. You will be immortal, and powerful, and able to go anywhere you want. Except in the sunlight."
"Do it,” she gasped. “Please."
He dragged a razor edged fingernail across his wrist, peeling the flesh away and watching as blood oozed to the surface. “Drink,” he commanded, lowering his arm to her mouth.
She hesitated for a brief moment, then fastened her mouth to the wound. After a moment or two of this she collapsed back, her breathing growing more and more shallow until it simply stopped. Raven stood, a surging motion so quick the other two wouldn't have caught it at all if they hadn't been immortals. “Three nights."
He vanished in a swirl of darkness.
"So,” Coyote said with a grimace. “Are all vampires that ... abrupt?"
Loki snorted. “Raven's a bit of a mystery. I really don't know much about him. Vampires are just like normal people—their personalities range all over the place.” He frowned across the fire, then slowly turned, scanning the village and the hill where the gate had opened originally. “I wonder how he did that,” he mused.
"What?” Coyote asked, matching his frown and following his gaze.
"The last time we saw him he walked through the worldgate back to our world. How did he get back without first re-opening the gate?"
"That's your area of expertise,” his double replied with a quirk of his lips. “Not mine."
"Wise-ass."
"Who, me?"
Loki rolled his eyes. “We'd better stash her in your wagon for the time being. She'll rise in three nights. Shouldn't be too difficult to keep her safe until then."
"All right."
* * * *
Ben crouched in the shadows, watching the camp with burning, feral eyes. The small tent city perched on the edge of the Nisqually must have contained as many as five hundred soldiers, nearly a quarter of which were roaming the camp at any given time.
His initial plan, which was to sneak in and slice Don Diego up like a sirloin stea
k for barbecue, wasn't going to work the way he'd hoped. The center tent, a majestic yet gaudy affairs with a soaring roof and dyed red and yellow canvas panels, had to be his. But the camp didn't die down enough for him to creep any closer.
For the first time he envied Cory—or would that be Raven?—his ability to come and go so unobtrusively. It would certainly be a handy talent to have right about now. He could simply rush in and trust in his strength, speed, and animalistic ferocity, but despite his bones and muscles being far more dense than the average human's, a lucky shot to the face would kill him just as dead.
Not worth the risk.
Seeing Mandy, the very image of his Amanda, laying their on the ground panting her life away filled him with a cold dread he couldn't shake. What if Amanda was in danger, too? he asked himself. They wouldn't send her in there by herself, would they? He didn't wait for an answer to that. He wasn't sure he wanted one.
He nearly jumped out of his skin when Raven materialized out of the darkness at his side. “Holy crap! Don't do that,” he hissed, the words nearly mutilated beyond comprehension by his wolf's muzzle.
The vampire didn't seem to have any problem understanding him. “Sorry,” he whispered. “I thought I'd find you here."
"Here?” Ben sounded incredulous in his own ears.
"Here as in wherever Don Diego had gotten to,” Raven amended. “He's got more soldiers than we saw last night."
"I'll say. Still a small bunch by modern standards, but quite enough to fight a guerilla war if that's what they're after."
"Doubt it. More likely they're going to ride into the towns and villages and use their normal intimidation tactics. It's not like they're really facing any strong opposition. A village witch or two isn't going to be able to take care of all of them."
"What about the natives?"
"What about them? The local tribes aren't very warlike. Never have been. They can fight if they're pressed, but it's not on their list of favorite things to do. They'd rather go out in a canoe and harpoon a whale."
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