Flux of Skin

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  Her space was framed by tires, and if the vehicle started, she’d be smashed to nothing. She had to get out. Her hip screamed, the pain holding her leg immobile, but she had to get to Ladon.

  Another hand reached under the SUV, this one bigger than Andreas’s. This one taloned and with six digits.

  Dragon cupped her shoulders and with great care pulled her toward Ladon. Save Human, he signed. The beast rocked back and forth, his head swinging low. Please save Human.

  Rysa rolled on top of Ladon where he lay on the asphalt, and pushed her hand into the wound. She straddled his hips and pressed hard, feeling for the tears and the ruptures.

  But there was too much blood. Too much confusion. She wasn’t a doctor and she didn’t know what to do. Her mind boiled in her own brain, inside her own skull, and someone was shooting and she heard AnnaBelinda yelling.

  Both dragons screamed in her head.

  “Dragon, stop!” She needed help. She needed his strength and his focus, like before, when she pulled the Burner venom out of Ladon’s shoulder in Salt Lake City. She needed to know where to use her healer. “Map for me, like before! Dragon, please!”

  Just outside the vehicle, next to the open door, Dragon stopped moving.

  The beast latched onto her seers.

  Her perception of Ladon’s body changed. Her awareness of his skin tripled, quadrupled. She knew the workings of his muscles better than her own, and the way his nerves connected, how they fired and when, overlaid her own chest, arms, and legs. She knew his blood flow, its patterns and its pressure. Understood his breathing and the weave and weft of his veins and arteries.

  Her healer dug in, knitting, weaving, sewing. A bullet had ruptured something she didn’t know the name of, but she knew it was important, so she healed it first. His bones spilled his blood, so she knitted them together, telling them to make more blood, and make it fast. She reinforced his chest wall, telling his ribs and his muscles not to rip ever again.

  And she made the blood stay where it was supposed to be.

  But something was wrong. Not right here, with Ladon, but somewhere else. Nearby. Yells, screams, more bones cracking. A Shifter smashed against the side of the SUV.

  Dragon roared and his mapping vanished from Rysa’s mind as fast as it had snapped on. She panted and leaned over Ladon.

  “Rysa.” He was panting too. Worse than she was.

  She’d healed him but he’d lost a lot of blood. Maybe more than even an immortal could afford to lose. Rysa clasped her hands around his chest again, willing her healer to make him whole.

  “Stop!” He lifted her up and pulled her hands back. “I’m okay. Stop, love.” He yanked her close, wrapping his arms around her. “You’re barely breathing. You have to stop!”

  He looked around. “Andreas!” he yelled.

  Energy whipped between Ladon and Dragon and the beast sprang away, toward the yelling.

  “Sister’s getting the van. Sister-Dragon’s with Derek.” He looked around as he pushed her hair out of her face. “Andreas is a friend.”

  Rysa coughed. She was supposed to breathe. Air was supposed to move into her lungs, then out again, but she felt as if a gremlin sat on her chest, even though she leaned over Ladon with her face buried in his shoulder. How could she feel this hot? When the RV flipped, she hadn’t felt this hot.

  “Andreas!” Ladon bellowed again.

  The shadow moving behind her spoke. “She’s way too hot.”

  “Help her!” Ladon turned her so she faced the big man.

  “You activated yourself?” Andreas asked. His huge hand covered her forehead and her eyes when he touched her head. “You’re out of balance.”

  No shit, she thought, but she couldn’t say it. Her throat wouldn’t open.

  He sniffed her face before glancing up at Ladon.

  His mouth opened wide and he leaned into her, lips sealing over her nose and mouth. Andreas Theodulus Sisto, this huge friend of Ladon’s, held her arms and forced his breath into her body.

  He pulled back. “Can you breathe now?”

  She gulped, sucking huge amounts of air into her chest. Her head cleared, too. The world righted, up returning to up and down to down. “What did you do?”

  How did he clear out the constriction so fast?

  “You’re de la Turris. I took a chance and fed you the calling scents I know activate your clan’s healing ability.”

  “How do you know… Do you know my aunt?” He’d fixed her and she could talk. “Is she okay? Is she coming?”

  Could they get to Lucinda de la Turris, too?

  Andreas sat back on his heels, and his face mirrored Rysa’s confusion. “Aunt?” He shook his head. “What aunt?”

  “Dmitri found her aunt, Lucinda, in Cordoba, Spain.” Ladon lifted her to her feet, but kept them low and against the SUV.

  A hundred feet away, the van pulled around, between the Seraphim and the two dragons, who paced the vehicle.

  “Your clan is in Argentina. None of them have returned to Spain since the late 1500s, when Fates killed my brother.” Andreas touched Rysa’s cheek and her shoulder in much the same way Ladon did, as if assessing her mood and her health. “You are the only Lucinda de la Turris, Rysa.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Who told you she had an aunt?” Andreas jumped to a squat, his huge body a barrier between Ladon and Rysa and the approaching van.

  “Derek, when he talked to—damn it.” Ladon leaned against the SUV. Derek had been talking on the phone with “Dmitri” for a good long time while they drove home from Salt Lake City. Long enough for a strong voice enthraller to plant significant instructions in his head.

  How long had Vivicus’s people been at Dmitri’s bar? No wonder Dmitri wasn’t answering his calls. The Seraphim must have taken over The Land of Milk and Honey.

  All during the drive to Rock Springs, someone capable of mimicking Dmitri’s voice as well as enthralling over a phone must have been talking to Derek.

  Because normals were weak and Derek was the easiest to enthrall.

  “The Seraphim must have sent their best to Branson.” Ladon slapped the SUV. “Dmitri’s been down for at least three days and we didn’t know it.”

  Voice enthrallers had done this to Derek before, long ago, after they first pulled him out of Siberia.

  They took him again in ’84. Ladon had gotten him back, and somehow Derek always found the strength of character to come through the brainwashing.

  Ladon searched around the floor of the vehicle. “Tell me you have a stun gun in here.” All he saw was a blood-soaked seat when he peered inside. He’d bled that much?

  “No. I don’t.” Andreas hopped back, putting himself solidly between Rysa and Ladon and the approaching van.

  Ladon swung open the SUV’s back door and pulled Rysa behind it.

  Sister spun the van and it rocked to a stop. The passenger door flew open. Derek jumped out, his pistol up and pointed back at the Shifters.

  Rysa’s color had started to return, but fever still radiated from her skin. Her past-seer danced over his mind anyway, a sweet, musical call. “Why didn’t I see all this before?” She blinked, her eyes wide. “What’s wrong with me?”

  “Beyond the fact that you are too sick to be using your abilities?” Andreas glanced over his shoulder at her, then to Ladon. “How long has she been with you? Didn’t you at least give her some training?”

  “We have other issues to deal with right now, Andreas,” Ladon said.

  “Mira was right. She needs me.” Andreas huffed and turned his back on both Ladon and Rysa. “You are impossible, Ladon-Human.”

  “You talked to my mom? When did you talk to my mom?” Rysa moved toward Andreas, but she stopped and rubbed her hip. “Ow!” Her seers vanished from Ladon’s mind.

  Damn it, she was hurt. Confused, too. Not a good combination, especially for someone prone to panicking.

  “Get in the SUV, Rysa.” Ladon pushed her toward the backseat. “And stay d
own.”

  “I’m not getting in there with all that blood!” She jerked back.

  Andreas kept his eyes on Derek. “Tell Brother-Dragon to come here.”

  Derek’s enthralled, Ladon pushed to the beast.

  “Where’s Rysa?” Derek asked. “Is she okay?” He glanced at Ladon. “Are you okay?” He cocked his weapon, his eyes narrowing. “Where are the dragons?”

  Sister leaned toward the passenger seat. “Let’s go! We need to—”

  Dragon relayed the information to Sister-Dragon, and the other beast to her human. Sister’s gaze landed squarely on her husband.

  Andreas took a step forward. The entire area flooded with massive amounts of ‘comply’—enough so that Ladon felt Rysa suck in her breath and lean toward the SUV seats, even though disgust filled her face.

  “Give me the gun, Tsar.” Andreas reached out his hand.

  Derek’s face changed. Blankness smoothed his face and clouded his eyes. Behind them, all the Seraphim stopped. None approached. They all stood still, watching.

  Ladon heard Rysa gasp at the same time he felt her seers blossom across the parking lot. He felt her hand on his shoulder. And he knew exactly what she was about to do.

  “Derek!” Sister and Rysa screamed at the exact same time.

  He didn’t respond to either woman. The blankness of his face worked down his neck to his shoulders. He lifted his gun hand, and aimed at his temple.

  “Sister-Dragon!” Rysa’s seers spread through the entire lot, striking outward like spikes instead of tentacles as they looked for the dragons.

  Sister-Dragon was close enough. Rysa’s seers snapped tight to the other beast and the dragon vented only feet from Derek. The flames curled around him, brilliantly bright but not hot, the special flame the dragons used to dazzle.

  Sister-Dragon’s roar echoed off the van, to the SUV, and into the lot where the few remaining Seraphim stepped back.

  Andreas staggered into the SUV, and all his calling scents dropped off to nothing. “By all the old gods, Rysa’s powerful.” His hand waved behind his back at Ladon. “Why the hell didn’t you give her the basics?”

  They’d been busy. And Ladon wasn’t sure he remembered “the basics” anyway, much less how they applied to a singular Fate, or a woman with attention issues, or a Prime operating with the wrong talisman. “We need to fix this problem.” He pointed at Derek.

  Ladon ran from behind the door. Sister-Dragon swiped for the gun.

  Sister was out the van’s passenger side door and running for her husband, her own gun dropped onto the seat.

  Derek dodged the dragon’s grab. Whatever they did enhanced his reflexes. His gun arm came back up.

  Rysa’s seers flicked backward and snapped hard onto Dragon. Everything Ladon shared with the beast, every sensation, every sight and sound, expanded to a level of detail he’d never known before. The surface of the asphalt took on a modulated roughness that, moments before, he hadn’t been capable of noticing. The dust in the air shimmered, each particle distinct. He smelled the Seraphim—knew exactly where they all were, by their scents and the trigonometry of their shadows, their bodies, and the ground.

  Rysa had opened up Dragon’s perception.

  Derek no longer moved as if he’d shoot himself. His shoulder dropped and his elbow extended. He now aimed at the one person here who truly threatened the Seraphim’s goal. The one with the ability to change the direction of his enthralling—Andreas.

  “Get down!” Ladon whipped around and waved toward his Second. The just-healed damage in his chest whipped with him, deciding it didn’t want to stay where it was. It wanted to crawl through his lungs, gouging as it moved, and burst through his trachea and into the base of his brain.

  Ladon dropped to his knees.

  The bullet whizzed by his head and hit the back of the SUV, inches from Andreas.

  Between him and the van, Sister and Rysa tackled Derek at the same time.

  It didn’t work. Derek moved with Rysa and away from his wife. He pivoted, and tossed Rysa to the ground. Sister ran past Ladon at full speed.

  Derek is using his training. Dragon vanished. Sister-Dragon appeared, then vanished also, moving to another location. The dragons flashed around the lot haphazardly, using another of their dazzle techniques. They oscillated between each other like a pair of giant, super-luminescent fireflies.

  Ladon saw their hides dim. He saw their intended movements in the way they cinched their limbs just before moving. He knew where each was, not because of his connections to the beasts, but because he saw it.

  It was too much. His mind fell behind and he couldn’t process what his brain took in. Sister ran by him, slowing and turning to swing back, but he didn’t catch it. The Seraphim snickered, but he didn’t understand.

  And his insides throbbed.

  “Put down the gun!” Andreas bellowed.

  The lot filled with ‘comply’ again, so strong that if Ladon had been holding a gun he would have dropped it. But Derek didn’t. His face blanked again, and once more his hand lifted the gun toward his temple.

  Ladon rolled on the ground. He needed to get up. “Pull back the ‘comply!’” Every time Derek was dosed with ‘comply,’ he moved to shoot himself.

  The ‘comply’ yanked back toward Andreas—a visible current moving through the air. It pulled out of Ladon’s mouth. He felt it scrape across his tongue, smelled it reverse in his nose. Andreas called back his scents.

  Rysa screamed. Derek had her by the hair and his gun up and aimed at Sister’s head. He didn’t speak. He did nothing other than drag Ladon’s love toward the waiting Seraphim.

  The dragons had no choice but to back off. Fear pulsed between the beasts and they wouldn’t risk Sister. Ladon had already been shot.

  But Ladon wouldn’t let Derek hurt Rysa. He’d not let Derek hurt himself.

  “Derek!” Ladon yelled. “Stop!”

  The other man blinked. His hand dropped slightly, and the gun lost aim. Sister bolted to the side and Andreas pulled her behind the SUV’s open door.

  Tell Rysa to release the dragon perceiving. Tell her I can’t follow. It’s too fast. Ladon pushed.

  A sense of inquiry flooded back from both beasts. They didn’t know she’d opened up Ladon’s senses. They didn’t understand.

  How? Dragon didn’t know what to show her. How was he to explain in nothing but pictures?

  I know. Sister-Dragon pulsed something to Rysa. We shared in the tunnel.

  Rysa stiffened in Derek’s grip, but the extra sensations stopped.

  Ladon’s vision contracted to what he needed to see—Derek and Rysa—and nothing else. Nothing extra. Flank him.

  The invisible beasts rolled around Derek, one on each side, Dragon poised over Rysa who stared up at Derek, her seers now as silent as her voice.

  Pallor inched across her skin. If Ladon didn’t get her away, she’d stop breathing again.

  Nothing in the lot moved. The truck behind the van grumbled but no one stepped out or raised their hands.

  “Do you remember when I taught you how to move like that, Derek?” Ladon raised his hands, palms up. “After I found you in ’84. You wanted to learn to protect yourself.”

  Derek didn’t respond. His eyes still glassy, he dragged Rysa around the front of the van, toward the Shifters.

  “They’re in your head again,” Ladon said. “Are you going to let them in? Don’t you want to protect yourself?”

  Derek stopped and his head twisted to the side as he looked down at Rysa. “I had four sisters. They watched out for me. I was a handful and they made sure I did not get hurt.”

  Rysa cupped the hand he’d wrapped into her hair. “You’ve been watching out for me.”

  Derek let go and Rysa dropped to the ground.

  Ladon inched closer, as did the beasts. They needed to get the gun away—and to get both Derek and Rysa behind the van and out of the Seraphim’s sight lines.

  They’d started to mill around, but
back far enough that Andreas couldn’t easily enthrall them. Ladon counted six—a driver in each truck and four on the ground watching Derek and Rysa. On the other side of the lot, other vehicles sped away, probably the true believers with Vivicus’s body. They’d protect him until he woke up.

  Were the ones in front of them true believers or were they more mercenaries? The true believers wouldn’t hurt Derek. Mercs, though, were an unknown.

  Rysa didn’t crawl away when Derek let go. Nor did she lean back or do anything to escape. She stood up.

  Ladon reached out his hand. “Go behind the van.” She needed to get out of the sight of the mercs.

  She didn’t listen. Gently, slowly, she cupped Derek’s elbows, her gaze only on his face, but she squinted as if she couldn’t see him—as if he was inside a shadow and she couldn’t quite make him out.

  Her body wavered. She was having problems standing, but she held on. “I don’t want to see you like this anymore, Derek. This can’t happen to you.”

  Behind Ladon, Sister growled. He’d heard her make similar noises before. This growl wasn’t targeted toward Rysa. Nor was it targeted to the Seraphim threatening her husband. This growl, like the other, similar noises Ladon had heard her make over the centuries, crawled from Sister’s core.

  Somewhere, perhaps in the tunnel, perhaps just now, his sister had seen Death flutter its torn and decayed wings and throw its shadow over her husband.

  Rysa saw it, too. The way she moved around Derek, the way she narrowed her eyes as if she could no longer see him clearly. The women saw the truth.

  Rysa’s hands moved to Derek’s shoulders, then to his cheeks. She blinked again, trying to see him closely, and did something that made Ladon’s wounds scream again. Made him want to bleed out onto the ground, his soul and his life wanting to die. Something his woman should never want to do with another man. Ever.

  Rysa kissed Derek.

  One of the Seraphim yelled.

  Derek blinked, shock rolling through his body when he couldn’t pull away from her.