by Eileen Wilks
A small flame burst where he’d pointed and then died. And a wave of wonderful cold sucked much of the heat from her stomach.
“I moved the heat around. Instant chill on your tummy. Better?”
“Yes. Thanks. Now help me up.” She held out her hand.
Instead of taking it, he bent, slid an arm beneath her shoulders, and then lifted. It hurt, but the world didn’t wink out. Once she caught her breath she did a quick scan of the area.
They were alone except for the dead.
There were a lot of them, dimly seen heaps crumpled here and there all over the small yard. And one mound near her feet—that would be Harlowe, or what was left of him. She wasn’t eager for the police spots to reveal the details.
They’d be here soon. Sirens warbled their alarm from only blocks away. “Benedict?”
“Damned hero.” He shook his head. “Timed things a little too close.”
Something lurched in her chest. “He’s dead, then.”
“Hell, no. Full of holes, but he didn’t even have the decency to pass out. Made us go get his knife back before he’d let himself be taken away. If he makes it through the night he’ll be fine—though even he will take a while to heal.”
“The others …” Whoever they were, and she had plenty of questions about that. “They took him away in spite of his injuries?”
“Can’t leave anyone behind. Your compatriots would arrest them. The dead, though …” He hesitated. “Traditionally, they serve a final time by taking the blame for any dead humans. There are a number of them tonight.”
“Not Rule,” she said firmly. “You won’t be pinning anything on him. He’s not dead, and I can swear that he didn’t kill anyone. He was with me.”
“Lily.” He looked haggard. “The staff exploded, then vanished. Rule went with it.”
Two cop cars screeched around a corner, lights flashing, sirens howling.
“Argue with me later,” she said quickly. “Here’s the deal. Don’t answer questions from anyone but me. Lawyer up if you have to. I’ll say I think Harlowe burned himself up trying to kill me. I didn’t see you, after all, so I can’t testify about what you did or didn’t do. And magic’s dangerous stuff, right? Using the staff on a sensitive could have made it backfire on him.”
“It’s as good a story as any.” He sounded indifferent.
He’s grieving, she realized. He doesn’t believe me about Rule, and grief is making him numb to his own fate. “Cullen,” she said, and reached out to rest her hand on his bare arm … and froze.
Because it wasn’t there. The buzz, the hum, the indefinable texture of magic she should have felt the second she touched his skin … it was gone.
SHE came awake all at once, jolted by fear. In her mind there lingered the echo of an eerie howl. Something about that sound …
She didn’t hear it now, though—just the same angry, high-pitched babble as before. The same brassy sky glared down. No clouds, no sun. The same terrible pain throbbed on her stomach.
The weight on her legs was gone.
Her breath sucked in. Need gave her the strength to raise up on one elbow.
A huge wolf stood at her feet. He was beautiful—his coat black and silver, his proportions elegant. He was also angry, his lip lifted in a snarl that advertised the long, wicked teeth.
He was growling at the source of the babbling—a creature like nothing she could have imagined. It was a bright, greasy orange. And naked. And at least halfway male.
Aside from the small, soft genitals, the creature’s lower half resembled a kangaroo or a child’s toy dinosaur with its oversize haunches and spiked tail. Big feet. No belly button. The chest was muscular but decorated by a pair of very female breasts tipped by olive green nipples the size of half dollars. In contrast, the arms and shoulders looked almost human.
No hair. Neither around the genitals nor on the round head. A wide slit of a mouth crowded with teeth every bit as pointy as the wolf’s, but not as long. The eyes were large and heavily lashed, absurdly pretty in that face. They were set too far apart above a pair of sphincters that she supposed were nostrils.
It stood about three feet tall. The size of a child.
“What are you?” she asked.
It jumped, its eyes widening. Then it rolled those eyes in a disconcertingly human way. “Great. That’s just great. You didn’t understand a word I’ve said, did you?”
“Were those words?”
“You’re just lucky I know English,” it grumbled.
The wolf glanced at her and stopped growling. He backed up, careful to keep the creature in sight, until he stood beside her.
She didn’t like lying flat. She didn’t like being naked, either, but there didn’t seem to be an alternative at the moment.
Sitting up hurt, but she managed it. She pushed her hair out of her face and her fingers brushed something at her neck … a chain with a pendent. The feel of the pendent comforted her, both the shape and the faint buzz of magic from it. She clasped it in one hand and leaned against the wolf.
His fur wasn’t as soft as it looked, but it felt good against her skin. He seemed content to serve as her support, so she laid an arm on his back and rested more of her weight against him. The contact felt good. Right.
He made a whining sound, almost like a question.
The creature spoke. “I suppose you didn’t understand him, either.”
“I suppose you did?”
It raised both hands to its head as if it wanted to rip out the hair it didn’t have. “Could things be worse? Could it get any worse? I’m supposed to be in you, on Earth, but here I am, back in Dis—”
The ground rumbled. And moved.
Her fingers clenched in the wolf’s fur. Earthquake? Her heart pounded. For the first time she looked around.
Rock. That’s all she saw—big rocks, little rocks, pebbles. Orange, rust, gray, and yellow rocks. No trees, no grass, no weeds or water. Off in the distance she saw a single mountain, dull black and topped by what looked like a caldera. A dead volcano?
She hoped it was dead.
But she couldn’t see far. They were in a small cul-de-sac, a low point bounded by the rock humped up around them. Rock that might be dislodged if the earth twitched again.
She didn’t want to be here. She wasn’t sure where she needed to go, but this was the wrong place for her, wrong in every way. She needed to move, to get out of here … but just sitting up drained her.
How could she travel? Where could she go?
The creature groaned. “She is so pissed. We’ve got to get out of here. There’s a Zone real close. A Zone,” it repeated impatiently when she looked blank. “You know. Where the regions overlap.”
The wolf curled his lip in what looked more like scorn than temper.
“I know, I know. You don’t trust me, but you should. As far as Lily’s concerned, anyway—”
Lily?
“—because I can’t let anything happen to her. I’m tied to her, by Xitil’s great, glowing nipples! If she dies, I die! That stupid man was supposed to help me get into her, but I didn’t get all the way in because your stupid sorcerer messed up the staff and now I’m tied to a stupid sensitive who shouldn’t be here and Xitil is fighting it out with Her and—” its voice rose to a squeaky crescendo—“we’ve got to get out of here!”
The wolf turned his head to look directly at her with what she was sure was a question in his dark eyes.
“Don’t ask me,” she said in a voice dry as dust—dry as all the aching, empty places inside her. “I don’t know what to believe, what to do. I don’t know who you are, why we’re here, where ‘here’ is, or …” She tried to swallow past the dryness, but her words came out raspy. “Or who I am.”
The sky around the dull black cone of the volcano suddenly flared, shooting from dark brass to incandescent orange and gold—sunrise arriving with a bang. A second later, the ground shimmied beneath them, accompanied by a dull, distant rumble, like thunder be
low the ground.
“Remind me,” the creature whispered, “not to ever, ever ask if things could get worse.”
NINETEEN
THOUGH the man was always with the wolf, just as the wolf remained with the man, the form did make a difference. Instinct was closer to Rule when he was four-footed, words more distant. Which might have been just as well. Being more deeply of the moment than the man, the beast felt little fear for the future.
Not that there wasn’t plenty in the present for alarm. Plenty that made him want to lift his nose and howl … but he’d already done that. The demon, damn its greasy orange hide, was right. It had been a stupid thing to do, but he couldn’t have stopped that howl if his life had depended on it.
Which, of course, it might. Worse—so might Lily’s. There was no saying who or what might have heard him. But in that first terrible second of discovery, wolf and man alike had lost control.
He’d tried to Change. And couldn’t.
Now the beast wanted to act. Food, water, shelter—those needs the beast understood. The man agreed, but where to find any of that in hell?
Rule reined in his sense of urgency. There were no immediate threats. If the volcano was erupting, it was distant enough not to pose an urgent danger. What was it Benedict used to say? There’s a time to act, a time to plan the next action, and a time to gather facts so you can plan.
A puff of sadness ghosted through him at the thought of his brother, who might well be dead. The wolf, more immediate than the man, paid it little heed. If he and Lily survived and managed to return home, then it would be time to worry about Benedict’s fate.
Rule lifted his nose. The air was dry, windless. It carried little scent, and most of that was alien, useless to him.
He looked at the other two. Lily was fingering the nearly healed wound on her shoulder, perhaps wondering where that earlier hurt had come from. Her brows were knit. Her eyes looked lost.
How much was gone? Her personal memories were missing, obviously, but she hadn’t lost everything. She retained language and basic motor skills. Did she remember Earth, even if she’d forgotten her family? Did she know he had another form, even if she couldn’t remember his face? Some part of her knew him. He was convinced of that. Hadn’t she accepted his support earlier?
But he couldn’t ask her. He couldn’t hold her or tend her wound. He couldn’t even speak her name. Rule wanted to lift his nose to that ugly sky and howl again, but that would be entirely stupid.
She was so alone now, bereft even of memory. Unable to offer a man’s comfort, he went to her and touched her arm gently with his nose. And recoiled.
Mixed with her own beloved scent was a whiff of cloves and exhaust. The scent of the demon.
She turned to him, her expression abstract. “Something wrong?”
Terribly wrong. But he couldn’t tell her. Tentatively he sniffed again. The demon scent was faint, but it came from her skin. Yet the demon was obviously separate from her, so she couldn’t be possessed. Could she?
The demon had said something about being tied to her. That tie was what he smelled, he supposed … but he hadn’t realized it meant some part of the creature was actually in her. Part of her.
She’d sensed his turmoil or felt the need to ease her own. She reached for him, running her fingers through the thick fur of his ruff, scratching lightly. Relief flowed through him. The comfort of the mate bond was unchanged by whatever tie she had with the demon.
He turned his head to look at it. The demon was jiggling from foot to foot, looking all around anxiously … very much all around, because its head had the range of motion of an owl’s. When it saw that Rule was watching, it said, “You’ll have to take charge. We’ve got to get moving, and she’s missing too many marbles to know what to do.”
Rule bared his teeth.
“Speak English,” Lily said, “not babble.”
He’d hardly noticed that the demon had reverted to that other language. Somehow he understood the creature whether it spoke English or not … and it had seemed to understand him earlier.
Well, it was worth a try. He yipped at it.
“Ask questions later,” the thing said, jiggling. “When we’re in Akhanetton.”
Rule lowered his rump and sat, staring pointedly at the demon. Lily glanced from him to the demon. “I don’t think he’s going anywhere. What did he ask?”
“All right, all right. He wants to know why I understand him.” The demon rolled its eyes. “You people don’t know anything. Meanings are one of the Rules.”
“Is that supposed to mean something to me?”
“Not to you,” the demon said morosely and plopped down on the ground. It sat rather like an ape or a gargoyle, though its thick tail caused it to tilt forward. The way its legs were jointed, they naturally splayed to the sides, with the knees pointed straight up—a position that put its genitals on prominent display.
“Then you’d better keep talking.”
It heaved a sigh. “In the earth realm, you’ve got your laws of nature, gravity, and all that. Here we’ve got the Rules. One of them is that meanings are clear no matter where you are, so everyone always knows what you mean even if they don’t know what you said. Unless you’re really clever, that is—good at hiding one meaning behind another. I’m good,” it added with simple pride. “Sometimes I can almost lie.”
“I just hear your words. I can’t tell what you mean. Or …” She looked at Rule, a small frown tucked between her eyebrows. “Or him.”
The demon huffed out a breath. “It doesn’t work with a sensitive. All sorts of things won’t work right with a sensitive. And you’re wearing Ishtar’s token. Nobody told me about that. You’d think someone would have mentioned …” Its eyes widened. “Maybe Xitil didn’t know! Maybe She didn’t tell her! Oh, oh, oh!” It bounced to its feet. “Xitil must be so pissed! We’ve got to get out of here!”
“And go where?” Lily demanded. “Where’s better than here? And who is Xitil?”
“Xitil’s the prince of this region. My prince. We need to cross to Akhanetton—that’s the closest region. It’s scary.” It shivered. “All that open sky … but there’s no telling what will happen here. Xitil’s fighting with Her.”
“With who?”
“I’m not going to say Her name. Any of her names. She’s a goddess. She might hear.”
Rule growled a question.
“Okay, so it’s Her avatar that’s here, not the goddess Herself. That won’t make much difference to us. Xitil won’t be minding the store with the fight taking all her attention. Up could become down, or it might rain ashes, or—oh, you don’t know anything, do you?” It looked hugely frustrated. “Dis is divided into regions. The regions, they aren’t just ruled by their princes—they’re determined by their rulers. Hot or cold, what grows or doesn’t, all the little rules are set by the prince, who’s part of all of it because she’s eaten part of everyone. Do you see?”
“She’s eaten part of everyone?” Lily said, revolted. “She ate part of you?”
“That’s how it works! You people with your souls are used to death, so you kill too easy, but we preserve life.”
“By eating each other alive?”
“Yes. Can we go now?”
“Not yet. You said my name is Lily.”
It nodded. “Lily Yu.”
“And his name? The wolf ’s?”
“He’s called Rule Turner.”
“Rule.” She said it thoughtfully, as if searching for recognition, some snippet of memory. And looked disappointed. “I know him, though.”
“Sure. You have sex with him a lot. Well, when he’s not a wolf, you do. I don’t know if you have sex when he’s like this.” It tipped its head to one side, eyes brightening—and penis beginning to harden. “I’d like to see that if you do.”
Rule growled.
Lily ignored irrelevancies to focus on her questions. “What do you mean, ‘when he’s not a wolf’?”
“He’s lu
pus. You’re human. And I,” it said, penis and expression drooping once more, “am in so much trouble. Neither of you is supposed to—yipes!”
Rule had heard it, too, and had spun to face the new threat before the demon stopped speaking.
Feet. Lots and lots of running feet, headed their way.
The demon bounded to a tall, nearly vertical rock face. “Get her over here!” it cried. “Get her flat against the rock, or they’ll trample her!”
Some kind of stampede? Making up his mind quickly, Rule pushed at Lily with his nose.
“You want me to do like the creature says? I don’t … what’s that?”
Her ears must have picked it up now, too. Rule pushed at her urgently. Whatever was headed their way was coming fast.
She grimaced, but, by using his back to steady herself, managed to get to her feet.
He’d known she was hurt. Though he didn’t remember those last moments on Earth, he’d smelled it when he awoke. But now he saw her wound clearly, and it worried him. Just below her navel was a puffy blister shaped like a fat cigar, but bigger. The skin around it was bright red and weepy.
Second-degree burn, he thought, alarmed. Were there bacteria in hell?
Stupid question. She’d have brought some in on her skin, and he could only hope her system was able to fight them off. The pain would be fierce, the healing slow. She needed medical treatment, dammit. He couldn’t supply so much as a bandage. He had no shirt to tear into strips.
Neither did she.
That was odd, now that he thought of it. Why hadn’t her clothes arrived with her? The Lady’s token had made the crossing, but not Lily’s clothing.
He had no answers, and damn little help to give. He could only pace anxiously alongside her as she stumbled toward the overhang, then place himself between her and the demon when she sank to the ground, her back against the rock. He heard the pounding of her heart—too fast—and her quick, short breaths.
Seconds later, the wave hit.
TWENTY
THEY cascaded over the edges of the cul-de-sac so fast and in such numbers that Rule couldn’t sort out what an individual creature looked like. He had an impression of endless gray bodies with too many legs, and a pungent smell like mushrooms and grapefruit. They hurtled to the floor of the cul-de-sac in the hundreds and kept running, pouring up the other side in a steady stream.