Night Broken
Page 31

The dog nearest me was female; I could see her form inside the dogs bodysort of wrapped in the flesh of the larger animal. She had a womans body, na**d and made more disturbing by a head that was a smaller version of the dogs. She had dogs paws from her ankle on down. She crouched on all fours. Binding magic wrapped her from head to paw in a shimmering pinkish fabricsince joining the pack, I was getting pretty good at spotting those. Pack bonds were part of my daily life, and what held her was a magic very similar but not the same. If the pack bond was spider silk woven into a chain, this was a Mandarins robe used as a straightjacket.
That was not all I saw, though, because my seeing of her was not limited to what I could sense with my eyes. Age. She was so old, this dog. Older than the structures around her by millennia or more.
Her eyes glistened red in the night and focused on us. She opened her mouth, displaying sharp teeth that were too many and too long to fit in her mouth. She barked at us, the noise bigger than it should have been and with an odd whistling sound to it that made me want to cover my earsit wasnt that unearthly and terrifying sound that Coyote had said was the tibicenas, but it was something akin to it. Everything about the tibicena was bigger, more powerful than the lines of the body she presented to the real world.
The other dog the other dog was Joel. If the womans binding magic was a robe, his were silk ties. They wrapped securely around him but did not envelop him completely. They werent part of him yet.
Like the female, he saw us, too. The dogs body that encompassed him was poised on the deck, watching us, but silently. While the dog was motionless, Joel was not. He pulled and tugged at the bindings, peeling them back and leaving gaping wounds that bled behind. As soon as he cleared one place and started on another, the bindings grew back.
I wondered how old the man Id killed when I shot Juan Floress dog had been.
Coyote leaned forward, and whispered into my ear, When it looks like a mortal creature, the mortal flesh encompasses the tibicena and may be killed as any mortal creature. When it is wrapped in the tibicenas form, it cannot be harmed by mundane means.
And when he said the word tibicena, the head of the walking stick sharpened into the blade of a spear. My eyesight sharpened, too, and I saw that there was a third layer I had not been able to distinguish before. Surrounding each dog was a shadow that grew more solid as my hand clenched tighter on Lughs walking stick, a shadow that was large and hairy with red eyes, as in the story Kyle had told. Hugepolar-bear huge. Four or five times as big as any werewolf Id ever seen. Gradually the other, smaller forms disappeared inside the giant dogsboth of whom were looking directly at me.
Coyote slipped back, grabbed my ankle, and dragged me backward, out from under the hedge like I was a rabbit hed caught. He dropped my ankle, grabbed my elbow, and hauled me to my feet. Before I could catch my balance, he all but threw me down the cliff face wed come up. I managed to stay on my feet, using the bottoms of my shoes like skis and leaning my weight back on the walking stick for balance in a mockery of glissading.
As a kid, glissading down steep, snow-covered mountain slopes had been an upgrade in difficulty and fun to simply sledding. Fun wasnt a term I applied to glissading down a cliff that had no snow for padding in case of accident and using an ancient artifact that might breakand wasnt that a lovely thought? I had a pretty good idea about what would happen when an old fae artifact was destroyed. At least the spearhead had returned to its more usual form, so I wasnt likely to stab myself with it, too.
I didnt fall until I was almost at the bottom. So when I rolled, I hit that improbably soft ground and emerged not much worse for wear. Gary landed on his feet beside me, and on the other side, Coyote grabbed my armexactly where hed grabbed me before so I was sure to have bruisesand hauled me to my feet, again.
Run, he said.
Gary grabbed my hand and pelted down the path, pulling me in his wake. The path still had its cover of greenery, but now the ceiling of leaf and stem was tall enough for us to stand upright in.
As soon as I was running all out, Gary dropped my hand. I tucked the walking stick under my free arm, put my head down, and ran as the howls of the dog became baying and a second dog joined in the chorus. Joel had evidently lost his battle for controland Coyotes trick with the landscape didnt stop the dogs from hunting us in it.
Speaking of Coyote I glanced over my shoulder in time to see that a four-footed coyote had stopped in the middle of the path behind us. He was a little bigger than the usual coyote, but if Id seen him out my window, I wouldnt have given him a second look. He gave me a grin and a wag of his tail before running the other way.
Stupid, stupid, stupid, Gary chanted as he ran. Stupid freaking Coyote. Always getting me in trouble.
I bumped him with my shoulder. Accept some responsibility for your own life, I panted, finally. You could have stayed sitting in the middle of the road. You chose to come with us.
Gary gave me an irritated look. Whose side are you on anyway?
He wasnt as out of breath as I was. Maybe he had more practice running.
I didnt know there was a side to be on, I grunted.
I could still hear the dogs. No. Not dogs. I thought of the giant forms, the ones that Coyote said could not be harmed by mundane means. These were Guayotas children. They were tibicenas.
They sound like theyre getting closer, Gary said. I wished he hadnt, because Id been thinking the same thing.
I thought Coyote was going to divert them. My voice was breathy because I didnt have much air to spare.
Right, said Gary. Just like he diverted the police when I ended up in jail. I think were the intended diversion here.
He dumped me in a river where there was a monster killing things, I told him.
There you go. Thats the Coyote I know and hate.
The woods and brush thinned, and we were running on the hill down to the gravel road wed traveled before.
Which way? said Gary.
I looked frantically, but there was nothing to distinguish one direction from another. Although the moon had been in the sky when we ducked into the tunnel of brush, there was no sign of her now. I felt down the pack bonds and the bond I shared with Adam. Though I could tell they were somewhere, I got no sense of where they were in relation to me. The connection was foggy, as if they were a lot farther away than an hours walk.
You pick, I said, as we hit the bottom of the hilland he jerked my hand and pulled me to the right.
I made the mistake of looking up the hill and caught sight of one of the tibicenas cresting the topthe female. She saw us and bayed twice before plunging down the hillside after us. I quit looking back and concentrated on runningand on hoping that she didnt give that cry wed heard before, the one that hadfrozen me in my tracks.
Isnt that walking stick supposed to take you home? Gary asked. Why dont you say the magic words? Theres no place like home. Theres no place like home.
Where did he get enough breath to be sarcastic? If he wasnt being sarcastic, then he didnt know fae artifacts as well as I did.
They arent Dorothys ruby slippers, I said. Fae artifacts have a mind of their own, and this one is particularly contrary.
Id turned my head to glance at him, and I noticed that there was a house in the distancethe first house Id seen all night.
Look, Gar I ran full tilt into something solid planted right in front of me. I lost my balance, and my feet skidded sideways to tangle with Garys. Everyone fell, tumbling and rolling on a gravel driveway because Gary and I had been running really fast. And the solid thing hadnt been a tree, like I thought, it had been Adam.
Hi, I said, panting, sprawled out on top of my husband, whod done the chivalrous thing and taken the brunt of the fall. A funny thing happened when I went to get a glass of water. He smelled so good, warm and safe and Adam.
Coyote had dumped Gary and me right in front of Honeys house, at the exact spot where my husband stood had been standing until I hit him running full out when he wasnt expecting an attack from the ether.
Still lying flat on his back, Adam looked over at the walking stick that had missed clocking him in the head by an inch, maybe less. Coyote hadnt fixed the walking stick entirely, or possibly at all, because I got the distinct impression that the walking stick had tried to hurt Adam but hadnt quite managed it. I tightened my hand on the old wood, and the impression faded until it was only a stick in my hand. The effect Adam had on me was such that it was only then I remembered that I should be afraid.
I lifted my head and listened as hard as I could. But I couldnt hear them.
Are they still following us? I asked urgently.
Were not dead, said Gary, who hadnt moved from his prone position on the ground. Id guess that we lost them when we got dumped back here. Its too much to say that were safe, not when Himself is aboutbut safe for now.
I take it you met with Coyote? Adam said politely as he sat up so I was sitting on him instead of lying on him and glanced at Gary. Both of you?
Gary got up and started pulling goathead thorns out of his arm. I hate Coyote, he said without aiming the remark at anyone.
I ignored Gary and answered Adam. Was it the walking stick that gave it away? I asked with mock interest that would have worked better if I werent still trying to catch my breath. My heart was beating so hard that the force of my pulse almost hurt.
No, I figured it out earlier, when your scent trail disappeared into nothing. Mostly. The walking stick just meant my suspicions were correct. Adam closed his fingers on my shoulder, not quite hard enough to hurt. Dont do that again, he said. My heart cant take it.
I didnt intend to do it the first time, I half whined. I would have all-the-way whined, but it was suddenly too difficult to whine. Why was it that I could run and runbut a minute or so after I stopped, I couldnt breathe anymore?
I could happily have stayed safe in Adams arms all night if it werent for the fact that I was covered with sweat, and I had to straighten and give my diaphragm a fighting chance to force my lungs to start working properly.
I stood up, and Adams hand loosened, sliding from my shoulder to my arm until he had my hand.
Ill certainly try not to wander off with Coyote again without your knowing about it. But try is all Ive got, I told Adam when I had control of my breath again.
He looked up at me. There was heat in his gazethere is always some spark of heat when Adam looks at me, but there was also need that was deeper than sexual. I could see the shadow caused by worry, possessiveness, and a vulnerability that allowed him, the Alpha wolf, to stay on the ground when I was standing. That vulnerability (and the possessiveness) meant that Adam would never let me leave him, as hed let Christy leave him.
I didnt like him vulnerable to anything, even to me. I pulled on Adams hand, and he stood up.
I love you, too, I told him, and he smiled because hed let me see what he felt. I cleared my throat. I think Coyote was trying to help.
Gary made a derogatory noise. When I looked at him, he was staring down the road. He didnt trust in his safety, even when the danger couldnt be heard or scented. I wondered if he wanted to be safe, or if he was more like Coyote. Like me, he was covered with sweat, but he seemed to be breathing better than I was. He must have stayed in good shape while he was in prison.
Where did Coyote take you? Adam asked. He had kept my hand.
Lets go find someplace to sit down, I said. I needed a shower more than I needed to sleepand I needed to sleep, now that the adrenaline charge was dying down, like a bee needed flowers.
Honey had a picnic table in her backyard. Sitting on the table, Gary and I took turns telling Adam what had happened. I dont know why Gary sat on the table, but I was still so jumpy that I didnt want to chance trapping my legs if we had to run again. Adam paced. I envied his energy: he hadnt been chasing after Coyote all night.
Before wed gotten very far in our narrative, Darryl, then Mary Jo, joined us. Mary Jo gave me a full glass of water. I drank half of it and dumped the other half over my head to rinse away the sweat that was still dripping into my eyes with stinging force. The water helped my eyes but not my cheek.
You can turn into a coyote between one breath and the next, said Mary Jo when I got to the bit about running from the tibicenas. Ive seen you do it. You are faster that way, so why didnt you change when the tibicenas were chasing you?
Clothes, said Gary. You try changing when youre wearing your clothes, and the next thing you know, youre tangled up in your jeans.
At least you dont have a bra, I agreed sourly.
While you were out running around, you got an interesting phone call, Adam told me, pulling my cell phone out of his back pocket. He hit a button. Wulfe wants to talk to you.
I put it up to my ear. If hed said that last before hed hit the button, Id have objected. Jumpy and exhausted are not a good state for talking to Wulfe, Marsilias right-hand vampire. The last time Id seen him, hed been trying to kill meand Marsilia, the vampire who ruled all the vamps in the Tri-Cities. There was an outside chance that Wulfe had actually been trying to protect Marsilia, but I had no trouble assigning him as much villainy as seemed to want to cling to himand a bit more.