Unbinding

by Eileen Wilks

  He hung upside down from one of the trees. Twin branches impaled his feet. His arms were bound tightly to his sides by a vine. A black vine, just like the trees.

  The first impalement, the one through his gut, had hurt worse initially, a shock of pain so intense he hadn’t been able to breathe. Benedict, Dell, and Cullen had all sprung forward to help, but that wasn’t part of the god’s plans. He’d opened another pit to drop them into—this one, he’d chattily explained to Nathan, with a tunnel to take them to the place where he’d left “pretty little Britta.” He’d then closed off their access to the clearing.

  Nathan had walked off that branch one agonizing step at a time. When he came free, Dyffaya had applauded—and immediately wrapped him up in the vine, pierced his feet, and set him to dangling. Giving him no chance to draw Claw, much less use it.

  That pain kept getting worse. It was interfering with his concentration, and he needed to be able to concentrate. If he could slow his healing enough, eventually his weight would finish ripping his feet apart and he’d fall to the ground. Of course, Dyffaya likely had something else in mind to do if that happened, but at the moment Nathan didn’t care.

  “No comment?” Dyffaya inquired. “I thought you’d be cheered by your friends’ cleverness. They’ve got me quite blocked from that node. Of course, the woman will probably incinerate in a day or two, so this is only a temporary setback.”

  Nathan’s voice was breathy. “I can’t . . . understand the display, I’m afraid.”

  A visual display of some sort hovered in the air between Dyffaya and Nathan. It consisted of swirling colors that Nathan couldn’t resolve into any kinds of shapes. There was no sound, just the colors.

  “You can’t?” Dyffaya glanced at the display. “Silly me. I’m using the wrong setting. You’re really quite human in some ways, Nathan.”

  The swirls suddenly resolved and Nathan was looking at a small, three-dimensional representation of Isen Turner’s face. Isen was speaking, but Nathan only caught a few words; the man’s beard made lip-reading difficult. Something about a sandwich, though. Then Nathan saw a plate holding a sandwich and a hand reaching for it.

  Kai’s hand.

  He was seeing the world through Kai’s eyes.

  * * *

  KAI found herself taking a bite of the sandwich she didn’t want without knowing why she’d given in to Isen’s suggestion that she finish eating. The man was uncanny.

  Her stomach didn’t approve. She set the sandwich down.

  “Too much kick in the sauce?” Isen asked. “Not enough?”

  “No. No, it’s good.” She laid a hand over her unhappy stomach.

  “All right. We’ve settled that we aren’t under immediate threat, either of attack via the nodes or of having more of our number snatched. Our next priority is those who’ve been taken.”

  “Nope,” Nettie said, startling Kai. She twisted in her chair. Nettie was crossing the room from the wing that held most of the bedrooms. She looked rested; her color was back to normal, and the faint pain lines bracketing her mouth were gone. “Sorry to disagree, but our next priority is a cleansing. At least that’s mine and Kai’s priority.”

  Kai’s stomach clenched.

  Isen frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “I can’t believe I forgot.” Nettie shook her head. “I must have been more wiped out than I realized. When Kai went into that trance—”

  “It wasn’t a trance,” Kai said, then turned to the others to explain. “Dell had just killed the chameleon who nearly killed Nettie. Dell was wounded already, and the other two attacked her. They were under Dyffaya’s control, so I had to cut that, and fast. But . . .” She swallowed, remembering that terrible stretching. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that a god is really, really powerful. I did manage to break his control, but the recoil slammed me out of my body. While I was out there”—wherever there was—“he grabbed me.”

  Isen’s eyebrows lifted. “You broke a god’s control?”

  Put that way, it did sound kind of impressive. Or unlikely. The look on Isen’s face suggested he was leaning toward the latter.

  Nettie frowned. “You didn’t tell me that you weren’t in your body when Dyffaya grabbed you.”

  “I didn’t?” Kai searched her memory and found she didn’t have much idea what she’d said right after returning to her body.

  “You mentioned being gone. I thought you meant . . . never mind what I thought. I didn’t follow through. We’ll do the cleansing now.”

  Kai shook her head. “Getting Cynna clear of her tie to the node is more important.”

  “Her what?” Nettie gave Cynna a look, then waved her hand. “Explain later. Come on, Kai.”

  The phone in Kai’s rear pocket buzzed. Not her phone. Nathan’s. She’d gotten it from Carl when she questioned him. She took it out. “This is Kai.”

  “I need to talk to Hunter.”

  “Is this Special Agent Ackleford?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I was going to call you. Nathan’s been taken by the god.”

  The curses that followed were brief but heartfelt. “Then I need the other guy. Seabourne.”

  “He was taken, too.” Be crisp, Isen had said. Kai did her best to be crisp as she gave Ackleford a brief account of the two attacks.

  “Shit.” A moment’s silence. “I’ll let Brooks know, but he’ll want to hear from you, too. You got his number?”

  “I can get it.”

  “Good. Call him on the way. Looks like we’ve got another chaos event. I need someone who can help with the woo-woo end of things.”

  “I guess that’s me.” The coven that used to help the Bureau had pretty much dissolved after their high priestess’s death while under the control of Nam Anthessa. Kai borrowed Isen’s notebook so she could jot down the address he gave her, along with a few details. When Ackleford finished, she looked around at the others. “A historic building in Old San Diego just sprouted flowers or turned into a plant or something. Reports are garbled. I’m headed there now.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Arjenie said.

  Cynna stood, too—then sat again abruptly. “Shit. I can’t go. Not while I’m tied to the node.”

  “How’s your stomach, Kai?” Nettie asked suddenly.

  Kai blinked. “What?”

  “You keep rubbing your stomach.”

  “I’m fine,” she said impatiently, and when Nettie just kept looking at her, snapped, “A little queasy, okay? Nothing major. Stress. Arjenie—”

  “You’ll come outside for the cleansing before you leave.”

  Kai shook her head. “Ackleford needs someone who has some understanding of magic. I’m not Nathan or Cullen, but I’m what he’s got.”

  “After you’ve been cleansed.”

  Anger flared. She pushed to her feet and turned her back on Nettie. “Come on, Arjenie.”

  “Isen,” Nettie said. “I need you to stop her.”

  * * *

  HEALING took energy. Slowing his healing did, too. Most of that energy was magical, but some was physical. Hanging upside down didn’t help. The pooling of blood in his head called for continual, low-level healing, which was draining. All in all, Nathan was getting very hungry—enough that he noticed it in spite of the agony radiating from his feet. It was hard to focus on the images hovering near his head.

  But he saw two of the lupi lay hands on Kai, stopping her. Why did they do that? He’d missed something. If Kai wasn’t looking right at someone he couldn’t read their lips. Even when she did look at them when they spoke, he was bleary with pain. Hard to concentrate . . .

  “I knew that shaman was going to be a problem. Oh, well. Change of plans.” Dyffaya had hunkered down in the easy squat he’d used before so he could watch along with Nathan. “Look at her fight! A little panic is a wonderful thing. Pit
y she didn’t have time to draw the knife. A nice blade, that. Custom work?”

  Nathan licked dry lips. Thirst was beginning to compete with hunger and pain for his attention. The images showed Kai being held by two lupi while Nettie walked up to her. “Yes.”

  “Very nice,” Dyffaya repeated. “Not as fine as your blade, of course—we really must chat about that—but very nice. I’d enjoy seeing her use it some time, but that won’t happen today.” He snapped his fingers—and the images vanished.

  “Tired of . . . watching?”

  “I could have made the shaman do it, but this is more fun. If I retrieve my power myself, when they go through their little cleansing ritual they won’t find a thing. They’ll wonder if anything was there in the first place—or if it’s still there and they simply can’t find it. They won’t quite trust the only one who can see my handiwork, and she will begin to doubt herself even as she resents their distrust.”

  Kai was free of Dyffaya’s influence. As of right now. Relief made Nathan dizzy. It would be nice if he could pass out. “Didn’t have . . . much of your power in her, did she?”

  Dyffaya shrugged pettishly. “She’s more resistant than I’d expected, but it’s challenges that make life interesting, don’t they? You don’t answer. No doubt you’re feeling slighted. I can’t blame you. This”—he waved a hand, indicating the way Nathan hung—“is hardly worthy of either of us. So simplistic it scarcely counts as revenge. Don’t worry. I’ll do better.”

  “I’m . . . not entirely . . . happy to hear that.”

  Dyffaya gave a boyish peal of laughter. “In which case, do worry. But not right now. I’ve been indulging myself, playing with you while others attempted the less interesting chores, but that hasn’t worked out. I’m sorry to have to abandon you, but I really must take a more direct hand.” With that, he vanished.

  And popped up again some fifteen feet away—in front of a table complete with white tablecloth and silver covers over dishes Nathan could smell vividly. And water. There was water in the crystal carafe. “I’ve been forgetting my duties as host! I’m sure you’re getting hungry by now. Please help yourself. Everything will stay warm, however long it takes you to get here. Some of it is even safe to eat.” He winked and vanished once more.

  Nathan’s thoughts were sluggish. He might not be able to pass out or go into shock, but this amount of pain made it hard to think. He worked his way through events slowly to be sure he understood.

  First Kai’s situation. Clearly the god had managed to sink a mote of power into her. He could see through her eyes, probably influence her, but he wasn’t in full control or he would have gotten all her senses, not just vision. Now he’d retrieved that mote of power, releasing Kai . . . or had he? Had he said that outright or only implied it?

  Dyffaya might be wearing a human form just now, but he was sidhe, and sidhe do not lie. They enjoy deception, they hoard truth, but they don’t lie outright because it puts a crimp in their power. The more powerful they are, the worse they’re affected by false speech. There were a few rare exceptions. Nathan was one himself. But Dyffaya wasn’t. At least he hadn’t been before his death, which admittedly was a very long time ago, but the dead don’t change much. Nathan thought he could count on Dyffaya speaking some version of truth.

  The god had implied that he’d released Kai by making the images go away. He’d stated what he believed the results would be . . . if he retrieved that mote before the cleansing.

  If. Powerful little word, that. If meant Dyffaya might still have a mote of power in Kai that he believed he could hide from the Powers that Nettie would call on. Or it might mean he’d done exactly what he implied, but put that maddening if in place so Nathan couldn’t be sure. Or it could mean he wanted Nathan to spot the deceptive phrasing and conclude that he’d removed the mote, but the deception itself was the lie and he’d really left the mote in place.

  It was typical elfin circumlocution: tell the truth in a way that looks deceitful to keep your opponent off balance. Nathan’s brain obviously wasn’t operating at full power—he should have noticed the phrasing right off. Unfortunately, noticing it didn’t keep it from working. Just as Dyffaya wanted, he couldn’t be sure. He set the question aside for now.

  Which meant it was time to address his own situation. Which he’d been putting off, hadn’t he?

  The solution was obvious.

  Oh, but he did not want to do this.

  Nathan squeezed his eyes closed and counted to five in his head. Then he used all his considerable strength to rip one foot free.

  This time he went ahead and screamed. Then he panted and whimpered for a time. Eventually he yanked again—and screamed a second time as his other foot, left to support his entire weight, ripped open. And he fell.

  * * *

  THE clean, astringent scent of sage hung heavy in the air. Kai’s left foot had fallen asleep, which made no sense because she was lying on her back. She felt stiff, as if she’d been lying there for hours, though she didn’t see how the cleansing could’ve taken that long.

  Not that she knew. When the lupi grabbed her, she’d fought—briefly and ineffectually, but she’d tried to get loose. So Nettie had put her in sleep. She still felt dopey, reluctant to open her eyes . . . though the latter was more because she didn’t want to look at anyone. She wiggled her foot.

  “. . . successful?” That was Isen.

  “As far as I can tell,” Nettie said. Her voice came from just behind Kai. “How do you feel, Kai?”

  “Groggy.”

  “Not angry anymore?”

  “That was panic earlier, not anger. I told you that.”

  “True,” Isen said. “You smelled of panic then. Now, however, you smell angry.”

  Kai made the effort, opened her eyes, and sat up. Shit. She had quite an audience. Nettie sat cross-legged nearby. Isen, Cynna, Arjenie, and a rangy lupus named Pete were stationed at the various compass points, forming a large circle around Kai. Lots of wary gray or worried purple in their thoughts as they watched her. Waiting to see if her head started spinning, no doubt.

  Kai gritted her teeth against the urge to stick her tongue out at them. “How would you feel if you’d been grabbed and held and put in sleep against your will?”

  “Royally pissed. Though I hope I’d get over that once I understood the necessity.”

  Had it been necessary? She frowned. She’d felt like herself all along . . . except for that panic. She’d never had a panic attack, but that must be what one felt like. Still, she was so raw and scared for Nathan and Dell, it wouldn’t be surprising if today was her day to react badly to being grabbed. And that was the only time when . . . no. No, it wasn’t. She’d thought about binding someone. Earlier, when she realized the others shared some secret they didn’t want her to know about, she’d actually considered forcing someone to tell.

  That really, truly wasn’t like her. “Shit,” she whispered.

  “How’s your stomach?” Nettie asked.

  “Fine.” She grimaced. “Really fine, not I-wish-you’d-quit-asking-that fine. I take it I’m all cleansed?”

  “As far as I can tell.”

  “I’d rather hear a nice, solid ‘yes.’”

  “I’d rather be able to give you one. If you’d been possessed by a demon, I’d know for certain. Dyffaya is much harder for me to sense. I suspect I only become aware of him when he’s actively influencing his host.”

  His host. Meaning her. Which made him a parasite, didn’t it? A parasite god.

  “But the cleansing was properly conducted, so you ought to be free of him.” Nettie placed her hands on the small of her back and arched it in a stretch. She looked tired. “Just in case, though, pay attention to your gut.”

  “Ah . . . okay. Why?”

  “We may think we live right behind our eyes—in our brains—but we experience our core identities
in our guts. That’s why we talk about gut feelings, gut instinct, or say that something disturbing was gut-wrenching. Your gut was disturbed.”

  “That’s not exactly foolproof. Being stressed half out of my mind can mess with my stomach.”

  “Yes. So can the intrusion of someone else’s desires in your core. You’ve got a strong sense of identity, Kai, or you wouldn’t have reacted to Dyffaya’s intrusion that way. Pay attention to what your gut tells you.”

  Right. Kai took a deep breath and tried not to feel like she’d been slimed from the inside. “We have to assume that Dyffaya knows everything we said.”

  Isen nodded. “As well as everything you know.”

  “What? No, it doesn’t work like that.”

  Isen’s face looked polite. His colors were angry. “He was in your head. We have to assume he browsed around while he was there.”

  Kai tried again. “He’s sensitive to thoughts in some way, but so am I. We don’t know what form his sensitivity takes, but sensitivity isn’t telepathy. And even telepathy doesn’t make someone able to access information the target isn’t actively thinking about.”

  “Sam can do that. Is this god less powerful than the black dragon?”

  They really had no idea what the Eldest was capable of, did they? “When it comes to mind magic? Yes.”

  Isen’s eyebrows shot up. “You sound very sure.”

  Cynna spoke. “She’s right, Isen. About the difference between telepathy and mind control, I mean. I may not geek out on theory the way Cullen does, but I know that much. Reading a mind is a whole different skill set from controlling one. It’s like . . . I can drive a car, but I can’t build one.” She grimaced. “And that analogy sucks, but the point is, we’ve got no reason to think Dyffaya reads minds.”

  “Maybe,” Arjenie said, “it’s like with the birith spectrum and how Isen can turn into a wolf, but not a fox or a chicken.”

  “Rooster,” Isen said dryly. “Surely you mean rooster, not chicken. Very well. I was making an unwarranted assumption, but neither can we afford to categorically eliminate the possibility. Dyffaya has already exhibited one skill he wasn’t supposed to have.”