It didn’t bear thinking about.
Right now, what bore thought was the shower she would take when she reached home. She automatically reached for Dolan’s hand even as it dropped toward hers, and allowed him to pull her up over a rough spot. Allowed him, hell—some part of her reveled in his strength. Her mother had been like that, too—stronger than she looked. Stronger than she possibly could have been, in her wiry way.
But Dolan faltered, looking up toward the ranch—not so far now. And Meghan felt it an instant later—heard it, inside herself. A silent, wounded cry of pain—a cry for help. Wards shattered, land attacked—and beyond the edge of their very steep horizon, an ugly yellow-orange glow. It had the same feel as the grody spot Meghan had discovered not so very long ago—only this afternoon, as surreal as that seemed. The same malevolent intent.
“The ranch,” she breathed. Jenny. Anica.
Dolan dropped her hand, lunged a few steps uphill and hesitated, looking back at her.
“Go!” she cried at him. “Go help them!”
And he did. The shift sent crackling blue sheet lightning into the darkness and then he raced swiftly, silently away.
For the first time since her mother’s death, Meghan wished that she, too, could take the coyote. But that much hadn’t changed. Her vision, her perceptions and possibly other things she hadn’t found yet—but not that. There was no coyote lurking in Meghan.
So, being merely human, she ran. She clawed her way uphill, her breath coming sharp and rasping by the time she hit the gentler slope just behind the house and ran a diagonal up to the ranch flat itself. And there she stood, gaping, trying to orient herself—to turn what she saw into pieces that made sense. To turn what she heard into something coherent.
A woman shouting, sheep bleating, a woman’s scream, an animal’s cries overlaid in surreally inhuman tones. Flames burning the air, a dust devil of fire whirling through the yard, sparks shooting out from everything it touched—dirt and stone and pipe corral and the sudden whoosh of a small outbuilding bursting entirely into flame. A horse bellowed in outrage; the pounding, solid hoofbeats of a warhorse charging into the yard where it—
She suddenly did it, put it all together and saw Dolan skirting the edges of it all, dark and low, saw Luka loose and charging straight at the whirling dust devil turned to flame, ears plastered back and head snaking low, furious stallion herding behavior from a horse longgelded but never entirely convinced of it.
It galvanized her into action. “Luka!” she screamed, and charged out into the yard herself, angling to put herself between the horse and the flame devil—as if she could do a thing to stop either of them. “Luka, no—!” And she projected it at him with all her newfound inner strangeness and strength until his stride faltered. He shook his head in fury, eyes rolling—and then gave in to the compulsion, whirling to kick out at the flame devil just before he would have reached it. Meghan had a sudden image of those sturdy white legs bursting into flame like so much shredded paper, and with a wordless cry, she projected something of herself between them.
Luca’s back feet hit nothingness with the sound of distant thunder; he raced away, head lifted with that sideways threat that meant he would come around for another try, and then suddenly Dolan was there at Meghan’s side, human as human got, breathing reassurance in her ear. “Good,” he said. “This is your land. It’s reaching for you, do you feel it? It’ll give you what you need. Keep the ward up…keep it up and push it. I’m right here. I’ll show you—”
Meghan realized then that she stood with her eyes tightly closed and her hands fisted at her sides, the reality crashing in on her. It all started to fall apart. Her whimper of dismay came unexpected, edged with panic.
“I’m here.” His hands landed on her shoulder. Follow me.
His touch in her mind was as familiar and intimate as his touch on her body. He dropped her into ward vision where she could see what she’d so instinctively done, and he reached out toward the curving shield of bright lines—unable to actually touch it, but showing her how—and then taking her mind’s hands and guiding her. She could touch; she could draw on the unfathomable well of power that suddenly opened beneath her, shocking her, plunging her into it over her head until he showed her that, too, deftly slowing that source to a trickle, power that she could sip—could very well see—as it flowed around instead of through him. He used only the strength from within himself, and when she looked from her odd, split point of view, the strain of it showed at the corners of his mouth, the set of his brow.
She grew the wards; she tangled the bright threads into solidity. As Luka charged around again, swerving in for another kick, she frantically spread the ward all the way around the flame devil, encasing it. She just as frantically fed it power, tempering the wards as Luka dealt it two swift kicks and blasted away—and then Meghan staggered in surprise as the flame devil stuttered away from those kicks, damaged by the blows from one noble old white horse and dragging at her as it did.
Feel that? Dolan asked her, pouncing on the moment. Now use that same feeling to push. Push it right out of your boundaries.
She didn’t ask why—she didn’t have to. She just as suddenly knew; the knowledge leaked right over from Dolan. Outside her ranch wards, outside her claimed land, the flame devil would dissipate; the Core wouldn’t waste energy on a failure. Tentatively at first, then more assertively, she pushed at the thing; she herded it and badgered it, as her inner eye showed her the way off the property…off Encontrados land. Dolan stood behind her and held firm when she faltered, reminding her to accept more of the land’s offerings when she needed them.
And then came the moment when she gave one final shove and the land surged in a wave of good riddance and the flame devil fizzled into a sudden shower of sparks and nothingness.
When Meghan opened her eyes, she found her legs had folded out from beneath her. She sprawled on the ground, with Dolan right behind her and holding her upright. He drew her back, pressing a long kiss to her temple, leaving his mouth there as he murmured, “Damned good job for a Sentinel reject.”
She might have fainted then, her body awash with unfamiliar exhaustion, her personal resources stretched and drained. She might have…except now her eyes were open.
Now she could see what the flame devil had wrought on Encontrados.
Chapter 12
Dolan’s feet throbbed. He hadn’t planned on taking back his human form when he’d left the house without his boots—or of walking any distance in the decidedly untamed juniper woods. For only an instant as he came out of ward view—wrapping his arms around Meghan’s shoulders so they overlapped across her chest in a decidedly familiar and even intimate embrace—his feet grabbed his attention.
And then the rest of reality rushed in. The cries of pain in the background—that was Jenny; he’d seen her trampled by panicked livestock. Even sheep could break bones if they hit just right. Those same sheep crashed through the underbrush in the distance; Anica, who’d gone after them, probably no longer heard them at all. Another sheep cried out, sounding eerily like a child. On the other side of the yard, horses called into the night, seeking reassurance—seeking Luka, perhaps. They crashed carelessly around their stall runs; only luck would save them from injury.
Meghan stirred in his arms; her hair tickled his nose, along with the scent of Meghan herself. Recently loved, recently propped against the astringent soil, more recently yet in the singeing presence of a flame devil. He took a deep breath of her—a luxury, that—and as he let it out, she said, “Luka. Where’s Luka?”
He had a vague impression of the horse from ward view, chivvying the flame devil, charging and kicking out as it moved along—herding it. Right on into the night. “Out there. Safe, last time I saw him.”
“He’ll find his way home, then,” she said, but her voice was all worry and no confidence. Then she stiffened, the rest of the world finally coming into focus for her—her fear for that world striking home in her heart an
d spilling over into Dolan. “That’s Jenny,” she said, her voice rising. She pulled away from him, pushing herself to her feet. Each movement looked to be an effort, but he felt her reach out for the same strength he’d just shown her, sip at it and then straighten easily as she hunted the source of Jenny’s cry.
Oh, the Sentinels had made a mistake with this one, all right.
He got to his feet right behind her, keeping his voice low—not breaking her focus. She was going to need it. “I’ll get your herbs,” he said. “I think you’ll need them. And I think, Meghan…after this night, they have to know the whole truth.”
“Won’t that piss off your precious Sentinels?” She all but spat the words at him, and he couldn’t help but laugh. Short and hard, the amusement of it dark.
“Yes,” he said. “It probably will. Go find Jenny—the sheep knocked her down, I don’t think it’ll be serious—but she saw me, and she saw the flame devil.”
“She’s terrified,” Meghan murmured, her anger draining away.
“Yes. Go. I’ll be right there.” As soon as he found her herbs. And as soon as he put on his damned boots. He had a feeling that the jaguar would be out again tonight, but in the meantime it served no one if he heroically shredded his feet by running straight into the aftermath of the attack.
He ran to the house, treading lightly on hard ground scattered with stones. He barged into her bedroom as though he’d always been welcome there, knowing exactly where she kept her mother’s things; he left the storage bin open on her bed, tucked the herbs under his arm and scooped up his boots, not hesitating to jam them on his feet, sans socks, when he reached the porch.
And then he could truly run, heading straight for Meghan and Jenny, orienting everything else as he moved. The sheep were farther away; Anica was returning without them, her scent strong on the breeze and filled with profound fear. And Meghan…her distress reached him on deeper levels.
When he reached her, he saw why; he smelled what he’d been trying to ignore beneath the charred wood and hot metal singeing his nostrils. At least one of the sheep had been caught up by the flame devil; it lay in a stiffened, charred mass. And it was still alive.
Meghan turned on him, even though she couldn’t possibly have heard him over the sound of Jenny weeping and the sheep’s weak bleating. “This wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t gone after you! If I hadn’t left them!”
He bit back his snort of response, forced himself to crouch quietly in the darkness, bitter smoke wreathing around them all. Holding out the wooden herb box, he said quietly, “It damned well would have. And we would have been caught up in the middle of it, instead of being in the position to deal with it.”
Jenny twisted around to stare at him with puffy eyes, not quite able to target his gaze directly in the darkness. “You know what this was?” she asked, and her voice fast grew accusing. “You knew this might happen?”
“No,” Dolan said, fighting the instant guilt, the voice inside that said he should have known, had he been thinking clearly. Two probes…the Atrum Core clearly hadn’t been about to just go away. He’d drawn them here…he’d let them find Meghan. Now they were trying to flush him out…and to take care of an unknown threat while they were at it.
Meghan.
He said to Jenny, “I’m sorry. I had no idea they’d—”
And even that was too much, for Meghan hadn’t explained about the Core. But Jenny looked away from him, blinking hard; her hand groped for Meghan’s. “You tried to warn us.”
“I didn’t know,” Meghan said, and her voice sounded as though she’d been inhaling smoke all evening long, as if the flame devil had scorched her throat. “I never would have let you stay.”
The sheep made a strangled noise, and both women stiffened. Dolan cursed under his breath; Meghan said, “We need the rifle—”
“It’s in the closet,” Jenny said, sounding strangled as well. Not so far away, Anica called to them all, very nearly returned from her futile attempt to gather their scattered charges. “The shells are—”
But Dolan made an impatient noise and stood, moving off to the brittlebush that had somehow escaped the flames. Far enough away, he thought, so Jenny wouldn’t seize up from fear on the spot. And there he changed, stretching into the strobe of blue light, into the form and its power. Physical power, this time—just what he needed. Meghan’s angry exclamation, Jenny’s little shriek…they barely registered as he stalked to the sheep and broke its neck with one swift mercy blow. And then he loped off into the small point of land that followed the base of the hill looming above them, knowing his scent alone would effectively turn the strayed sheep back home. He left Meghan to explain, to try to apply her herbs and talk her way out of the position he’d just put her in.
If she could.
Better to know now if she couldn’t.
Meghan’s cry of protest died in her throat. She didn’t have to see or hear Dolan to know he’d left; she could feel it. Damn him for that—for the leaving, for the fact that she so easily followed his presence now. For taking the jaguar right in front of Jenny before he’d left.
He’d be back; she could feel that, too. His intent. She could even feel his understanding of her reaction.
Well, the hell with that. She had to deal with what was here. With Jenny, whose hand now trembled in hers, and with Anica’s arrival—for the canny woman took one look at the two of them and demanded, “What happened?” And then she gave a small bark of laughter, ran her fingers through hair already sticking out in wild directions, and said, “I mean, what else happened?”
Meghan said, “Sit down. And give me a moment here. I’m too tired to do this and talk at the same time.” Firm enough to preempt Anica’s insistence…if only for now.
Anica sat as Meghan went to work on Jenny’s ankle, applying a compress of the enhanced herbs and then feeling her unfamiliar way for a trickle of the earth’s power to seal it all in place and put a fast start to the healing. Only a little…and cautiously. For all she knew, she could kill Jenny by misusing the power.
Of course I could. Such powers could kill or heal at the whim of the ones who wielded it, and now she had that power.
Dolan had changed her life forever, initiating her.
Anica craned her neck to look at the sheep enclosure. “Wasn’t there one left behind—?”
“It’s dead,” Meghan said shortly.
“Dolan killed it,” Jenny said distantly. “He turned into a jaguar and then he killed it.”
Anica’s laugh came short and hard. “Right. First some sort of weird ball lightning, and then Dolan turns into a big cat. I don’t think so.”
The words left Meghan’s mouth unexpectedly, briskly. “I warned you.” She closed the herb box with a snick of the latch, her movements jerky. “I tried—”
“Whoa,” Anica said, and Meghan’s new night vision showed her perfectly that her friend’s eyes had narrowed. “You warned us? You knew it could come to this? That conversation by the barn was a pathetic attempt to warn us about this?”
“No.” Suddenly miserable, so glad her friends couldn’t see her as well as she could see them, Meghan nonetheless shook her head. “I had no idea. I didn’t know they could…or that they would.”
Anica suddenly sounded just a little bit dangerous herself. “Maybe you’d better start at the beginning. If you can find it.”
Meghan knew exactly where the beginning was. She just didn’t know how to say it. What the hell was Dolan thinking, forcing her hand like this?
Forcing you to face who you are.
“My mother,” she said, but that didn’t work so she stopped and tried again. “There are people…” And that didn’t work, either. Where to start, indeed? With the Core, and their hunt for an ancient manuscript and the powers it would give them? With the Sentinels, just as ancient and secret and so impossible to even imagine?
He’s back.
Why ever Dolan had left, he was back. Behind her, crouched in the greening
brittlebush and creosote, and still the jaguar.
Meghan didn’t have to turn around to know it. Or to know his intent an instant before it became obvious. He’d started this, and now he’d help her finish it. He flowed out from the darkness, dappled black on black, and Meghan knew the instant that Anica spotted him, the instant Jenny stiffened in fear.
Dolan didn’t make her wait long. Ready for it this time, she narrowed her eyes against the flickering, blueheat lightning of his change, trying to see past it to the nature of the change itself, and failing. And when Dolan stood before her, she said coolly, “Making decisions for others again, I see. Couldn’t just let me sort this out, could you?”
“We don’t have time for it.” He looked at Anica. “The remaining sheep aren’t far from here—they’re in that little clearing against the hill.”
She looked him up and down, then did it again. And then, eyes narrowing, blurted, “Where the hell do your clothes come from?”
Meghan laughed. Not a lot of humor there, but…enough. She’d once demanded the same thing of her mother. But while her mother had explained about organic materials and the changes the original Vigilia had made to themselves, Dolan barely acknowledged the question. “All part of the package,” he said, and reached out to pull Jenny to her feet. “How’s your ankle?”
She snatched her hand back from his. “Don’t even try to pretend we’re going to have a normal conversation!” she cried—and then stopped to consider. “It’s…better. It’s not normal, but…it’s better.”
Dolan gave her space, putting out a hand to Meghan in turn. Meghan glared at it, undecided, and he inclined his head slightly. “Go ahead, then.” You tell them.
Still in her head, then. Fine. Then he knew she was tired of being pushed around. By him, by the Core, by circumstances. “My mother,” she said bluntly, standing on her own so he offered his hand to Anica instead, “was a coyote.”
“Oh, hell,” Anica muttered. But she took Dolan’s hand and came to her feet beside Meghan.
Sentinels: Jaguar Night Page 10