Unbinding

by Eileen Wilks

  José didn’t quite stand on the brakes, but they stopped dead in the right-hand lane of Kumeyaay Highway. Which the cars behind them didn’t appreciate, but no one hit them, so Kai didn’t care. The charm in her hand was glowing. Faintly, but it was glowing.

  She swung her arm left as far as she could. Then right. No perceptible change. She unclicked her seatbelt and leaned over into the backseat. The glow dimmed slightly. At least she thought it did. “We’re right on the edge of its limit. Keep going straight, but not fast.”

  She got herself straightened out again and watched the charm intently. In the realms she’d be doing this on foot or the back of a horse. Plenty of time to adjust at that speed. Not so much at highway speeds, though José was going slower than the rest of the traffic.

  “That’s what you get?” Ackleford said. “It lights up?”

  “Like a game of hot and cold. The closer we get, the brighter it glows. When we get really close it starts blinking.”

  “Huh.” A moment later he spoke again. “All right, Major, start rolling. We don’t have an exact location yet, but we’ve narrowed the area and those ICVs of yours aren’t exactly fast, so . . . section Two-Nine, as discussed. Generally speaking, you’ll be heading toward Old Town.”

  Old Town. Where the hobbit house was. Kai’s heart began beating faster. “In Faerie, if you wanted to stash four people where no one could get to them, you’d put them behind a good, strong ward.”

  “Yeah, so what? We aren’t—shit. Fox said there was a ward on that place, didn’t she?”

  * * *

  KAI stood in the open-air mall that connected the two buildings belonging to the Café Coyote. The charm in her palm was blinking madly. José stood on her right, watchful and wary. Ackleford was on her left.

  The streets and businesses in Old Town had reopened today, though the ones immediately adjacent to Whaley House remained closed. Ackleford’s ID had gotten them through the barricade, though it had been a near thing. One of the cops had tried to detain Kai. Ackleford had told him no, only with rather more words—words like “fucking” and “goddamn.” It had worked, though it might be only a temporary reprieve. But temporary might be enough, if they could figure out how to get past that ward.

  The hobbit house looked like it had yesterday—green and gaudy with flowers—only with not so many cops surrounding it. The weather was different, too. Low-hanging clouds had moved in, covering the sun.

  “I don’t like it,” José said.

  “I’m not crazy about the idea,” Kai said, “but we’re low on options. It’s probably a fire ward or a keepaway. Arjenie said it was using a lot of power, and those are the most common high-power wards. They’re also some of the quickest to set, and this one went up fast. If it’s a fire ward, the amulet will protect me. If it’s a keepaway, that’s mind-magic. Either my shields will block it and I’ll be able to go through, or they won’t. In which case I won’t be able to pass, and we’re no worse off than we are now.”

  “There are other kinds of wards,” José said. “And sometimes Cullen sets multiple wards.”

  Kai was trying hard not to think about some of the wards she’d heard of. Like mind-wiper. That was a nasty bit of business. “But keepaway is quick and the others take longer. Building wards in layers takes a lot longer. One day isn’t enough time for layers.” A sidhe lord who wanted to keep something safe might set several layers of wards—simple repulsion, keepaway, fire if the keepaway didn’t work, with maybe a mind-wiper or heart-stopper as the last resort if the others were breeched. But wards often didn’t play well with each other. Setting up multiple layers might take that lord weeks, even months.

  Of course, they were dealing with a god, not a sidhe lord.

  “Marines will be here in about ten,” Ackleford said. “We’ll wait on them.”

  “Are you going to have them shell the hobbit house? Because I don’t see what they can do about a ward other than . . .” Suddenly Kai’s skin crawled. The hair on her arms stood up.

  “What is it?” Ackleford looked around, scowling, as if he felt it, too.

  The air swam with magic and imminence, the certainty of something about to happen. Like standing right where lightning was about to strike, or watching the curled mountain of a tsunami wave hover over you. Dread woke in the pit of her stomach. It was a sensation she recognized. “Someone nearby is performing a Great Rite.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means we just ran out of time.” Kai drew Teacher and started forward.

  Both men stepped out from the shelter of the open-air mall with her. “Neither of you can cross that ward,” she snapped. “You won’t help me by burning up.”

  Ackleford grunted. “Maybe not, but I can shoot through it. It didn’t stop that paper Fox slid through it. It won’t stop bullets. Speaking of which, you need a gun.”

  “I can’t shoot one.”

  “You can stick someone with that oversize knife, but you can’t stand to fire a gun?”

  “I could fire it, but I wouldn’t hit anything. I’ve never even held a gun. I’ll stick with what I . . . oh, shit.” The imminence suddenly cracked open, freezing Kai in place.

  A face appeared in the sky directly over the hobbit house. A beautiful face, startlingly so, with dusky skin, full lips, Asian eyes. The cheekbones were Slavic. The nose was as Roman as Nero. The face glowed, as did the mist swirling beneath it. Mist that grew solid, or solid-seeming, until a man the size of a high-rise stood amid the lowering clouds. A man with the face of a god.

  “My people,” the god-man said, and his voice was the wind, heard everywhere. He smiled sweetly, lovingly. “Though you do not yet know yourselves to be mine, you will. I am called Dyffaya áv Eni. My realm is chaos, and I am here to make you mine.

  “Oh, but I am besotted with you—your love of change, your delight in the new and the different! I would court you like a lover, if you allow it.” The clouds framing him turned golden, swirling into fantastic shapes—castles, flowers, birds. “I bring dreams and dance, song and story, the electric arc of change. I have much to give, for all things flow from chaos—the joy of discovery. Delight in the odd or peculiar. And darker things. Your city has had a taste of chaos now. I can do more.” The clouds darkened. “Dreams may be nightmares. Do not turn me aside.

  “I am not a jealous lover. I long for a place in your hearts, but I don’t need to be your only one. Attend your church or synagogue if you wish, but don’t turn me aside, my lovely ones. I insist. You will worship me.”

  He knelt up there in the air and held out two vast, cupped hands, as if offering a drink of water. Opened them—and spilled out monsters.

  “Call on Me,” he said, and his voice was thunder now, not mere wind, as creatures rained down on Old Town—red-skinned beasts like hairless hyenas. Two-legged lizards with saber-toothed grins. Scaled creatures with enormous claws. They floated down as the god spoke. “If one of My pets finds you, fall on your knees and ask for My protection. Call on Dyffaya. Call on chaos. I will hear, and you won’t be harmed. You may be marked, but you won’t be harmed. Afterwards, look for My sign.”

  One finger moved, tracing a lightning-bright sigil shaped like a backwards C with the arms almost touching. “Look for my sign!” he thundered—and vanished.

  Kai wasn’t paying much attention to him by then. She was busy.

  The creature charging her had red eyes and a lot of slobber around its toothy muzzle. It was the size of a St. Bernard. The one José was firing at was the size of a small pony, with scales and great big claws. Maybe Ackleford was shooting at that one, too. She couldn’t see, but she heard his gun go off.

  Fortunately, the beast was as slow as a St. Bernard, too, and a lot dumber. It all but ran itself up on her blade. Which in turn slowed her a moment. She barely got Teacher free in time to deal with the pair of red-skinned monsters coming up
behind it.

  They had the massive chests and sloped backs of hyenas, mottled red skin, and the teeth of crocodiles. And they weren’t as stupid as the first beast. They dodged her blade and split to circle her and the others, looking for an opening.

  Maybe they’d never seen guns before. One of them charged José. The other went for Ackleford. It didn’t work out well for them.

  “Pull back!” Ackleford yelled, moving in front of her with his gun extended.

  Something really large and hairy had spotted them. It looked like a cross between a lion and a woolly mammoth—lots of fur, short legs, massive body, tusks. And big. Fifteen feet at the shoulders. It lumbered toward them at a fair clip for something so large. Ackleford fired. It didn’t seem to notice.

  Kai reached for the beast’s mind—a seething turmoil of angry reds and oranges that scarcely qualified as thought, but was the product of that mind, not under someone else’s control, and so available to her.

  The great beast’s front legs folded. It sank slowly down, fast asleep.

  “Cool,” José said.

  A fusillade of shots sounded from the police barricade, out of sight due to the curve of the road. A scream.

  Kai spun just as Ackleford shouted, “Incoming!”

  A damned battalion of the hyena creatures streaked around the curve of the road, heading straight for them. Too many, way too many to send into sleep, but she could get a couple of them. Kai reached out quickly and touched the mind of the one in the lead, sending sleep. It faltered and collapsed.

  “Fall back,” José commanded tersely, and began retreating backward, firing steadily. Ackleford kept pace with him. One, then another and another of the creatures fell—but there were too many, and the tide of beasts was splitting as they ran, aiming to surround them. Smart beasts, or controlled? She didn’t see the signs of control she’d seen in the chameleons, just lots of maddened, red-orange fury.

  They weren’t going to make it to cover.

  “Take this,” José said, handing Ackleford his gun. “I need teeth.”

  As he began the Change, the beasts charged.

  Kai set her feet, made sure her body was loose, relaxed. Teacher, I’m going to need some help. That was her last clear thought for a while.

  She took the first one through the neck before José completed his Change. The second and third fell to Ackleford’s gun and to her blade. She lost track after that, though she remained aware of the enormous wolf—bigger than the red beasts, and faster—who kept them off her back while she shifted and spun and coated the street with slippery red blood.

  At some point Ackleford’s gun stopped firing. Out of ammo. She closed up automatically, keeping the beasts away from the unarmed man. One of the animals got through, but he blunted his teeth on her vest. And then she split his skull open.

  She did not notice when the Marines arrived until they started firing. Whatever they were shooting was very, very loud. And effective. After a few seconds of that devastating fire, the remaining hyenas took off.

  Abruptly Kai was back in charge of her body again, panting for breath, her arm aching—but from exertion, not a wound. Everything the vest didn’t cover was covered in blood, but none of it was hers. She was amazingly intact and about to ask if the others were okay—when the lion-mammoth stirred and shoved to its feet.

  She gathered her focus. She’d sent sleep twice, but she wasn’t tapped out. She could—

  “Now that,” Ackleford said, “is just not right.”

  She was about to tell him it was okay, she’d handle it—when a peculiar gust of wind, some swish of sound, made her look up.

  Another battalion of monsters had arrived, this one airborne. Bats. Giant bats, their wingspans longer than a pickup, and two of them were stooping down on Kai, Ackleford, and José. “Come on,” she said, grabbing his arm. They needed cover—and to get out of the line of fire so those Marines could fire whatever-it-was without hitting them.

  The lion-mammoth was between them and the Café Coyote. Ackleford, jarred into motion, did a fine job of dragging her toward the hobbit house. With its overgrown, vegetative wall at her back she stopped, turning to look for José.

  Something smashed into the back of her head. Pain blinded her, swarmed up from the depths and swamped her, carrying her down into darkness.

  THIRTY-SIX

  KAI had woken from a head injury twice. The first time, after the crash that killed her parents, she’d come back in bits and pieces, knowing a terrible grief but not the reason for it. She’d been in a coma that time, which was why she’d come back piecemeal, bits of memory tangling up with the present, words elusive at first. The second time had been in Faerie. She’d awakened pretty much all at once, her head sore but her mind clear.

  This time seemed to hit somewhere between the two. She floated up into pain, bobbing along on its surface for some timeless interval, aware only of the pain . . . and failure. Failure so deep and terrible it made a weight she could barely breathe through.

  Eventually she realized that pain must mean she’d been hurt. But she wasn’t in a hospital. It didn’t smell right . . . though she did smell blood, the rest of the smells weren’t right. And she was lying on her side, not her back, and whatever she lay on did not feel like a hospital bed.

  Monsters. There’d been monsters, yes, she remembered now. And Ackleford and José and . . . she got her eyes open.

  Her vision was badly blurred. She blinked a few times . . . oh. Not a damaged retina. A dislodged contact. When her eyelid moved she could feel it stuck up high on her left eyeball, which felt dry and scratchy. She had drops in her pocket. She started to reach for them—only she couldn’t move her arms. Either of them. Her hands were fastened behind her back.

  She closed her left eye and the room came into focus, though what she saw didn’t make sense. She lay on a too-short couch in a nineteenth-century parlor. Where in the hell . . . oh. Whaley House. She’d been outside it. Now, apparently, she was inside.

  Or maybe she was still unconscious and having the weirdest dream ever.

  “There’s no point pretending you aren’t awake,” a smooth, light voice said from somewhere behind her. “I can tell the difference between waking and sleeping thoughts, you know.”

  Kai jolted. Which hurt her head enough to wash away most of the shock from hearing that voice, though the sense of failure persisted. How had she not known? Not guessed? Not had one bloody clue . . . “Not pretending anything. Not moving because my head hurts. Someone cracked my skull.”

  A woman moved slowly into view. She was beautiful, of course, long-limbed and ethereally slim. It wasn’t a human beauty, though the dress she wore was a human style. Her eyes were too large and widespread, and no human ever had irises of such pure aquamarine, or hair in that soft, pale shade of yellow. Her limbs were overly long in proportion to her trunk, her shoulders too narrow—but that’s how elves were built. Soon you stopped seeing those proportions as odd and saw only the grace.

  “That was I,” Eharin An’Ahedra said languidly. “I wasn’t sure how hard to hit, and it seemed better to err on the side of too much force than too little. Why are you keeping one eye closed? It looks odd.”

  Kai’s mindhealing teacher was speaking excellent English with a hint of Midwestern twang. That had not been true the last time Kai saw her. “My contact is stuck in the wrong place. Would you mind untying me so I can put some drops in my eye?”

  “Yes, I would. What is . . oh, a lens you put into your eye. How primitive.” She sat on the coffee table and tilted her head. “I had expected to be bombarded with questions. You’ve always been so dreary about that—questions, questions.”

  “Where are José and Ackleford?” She’d failed them. Failed everyone.

  “Who?”

  “The two men who were with me. Well, one was a wolf at the time you cracked my skull.”


  “I don’t know what happened to the wolf. Probably he was killed.”

  No, José couldn’t be dead. Couldn’t. It would be all her fault and—and that dreary gray bubble clinging to her temple wasn’t hers. She didn’t see her own thoughts. “Stop that,” she snapped. Rather clumsily—it was hard to focus when her head hurt—she shoved Eharin’s malicious thought bubble away.

  “It took you long enough to notice.”

  “Have you ever had a concussion?”

  “I thought you were claiming your skull was broken?”

  Kai lay quiet a moment, gathering her resources. Trying to think about something other than how much she’d like to kill Eharin. The desire was almost pure, it was so vivid. She’d always believed that anyone could be driven to kill, under the right circumstances. She hadn’t known that a split head and betrayal were her own triggers.

  “Is it my death you’re contemplating?” Eharin asked, mildly curious.

  Kai’s teacher might not have much power, but she had two centuries’ more experience than Kai did at interpreting what she sensed. She couldn’t read Kai’s mind, but she could make uncannily good guesses about what she sensed. “Oh, yes. What about Ackleford? Is he all right? And those four people, the ones you brought here—where are they?”

  “They died happy, providing the fuel we needed to enact today’s script.”

  Kai felt a sudden spasm of grief. If only she’d been faster, better, able to detangle the mess Dyffaya had made of those minds. She thought of the young woman who’d struggled briefly against the compulsions. It hurt.

  Eharin made a tch sound. “If you were going to live long enough for it to matter, I would counsel you, as your teacher, to abandon your absurd sensitivity. It interferes with the detachment necessary for careful work.”

  As if her counsel meant anything now. Kai’s throat was thick. “Ackleford?”

  “He’s busy telling everyone what to do. I believe he’ll succeed in getting that woman out of jail. She’s supposed to be good with wards. He hopes she’ll be able to lift the one barring them from this floor of the house.”