Sentinels: Lion Heart

by Doranna Durgin

  Another image, then, strong and clear: the cougar, stopping in his hunt, his head turning unerringly north, his eyes wide and clear and knowing.

  And that’s when she thought to look closer at the power flows—not a power wrangler, no, but if she went looking she could sometimes see, if not nearly with the depth and sensitivity as—

  The cougar, now squeezing his eyes closed to feline smile, head tilted in that way that meant he was sifting power, tasting it…all the nuances, all the layers, the distance as nothing to such sensitivity and skill.

  And then she could feel it, too, so much different from the rolling bass power of the mountain, tinged with Ryan’s trace; this came in gentle whispers, flowing across the contours of the land to mingle and mesh, drawing from a wellspring beneath the mountain itself. She felt her jaw drop; she felt the very stupefied look on her face as she realized how right Ryan had been, how he’d truly known—how narrow her focus had been, to think the Sentinels were the only ones who would realize there was a problem with the mountain, or that they would be the only ones affected by this particular aspect of that problem, should the Core steal and store enough energy to wreak its havoc unchecked.

  In her mind’s eye, the cougar crouched, immersing himself in sensations—experiencing without interfering. And Lyn, too, let it wash over her until she became aware of a scrutiny. Her eyelids sprang open, her gaze unerringly drawn to the man sitting on horseback beside the oldest man who led the prayer. Across that distance, they regarded one another; then the man nodded to her—just once, an acknowledgment.

  Lyn, somewhat shaken, nodded back. Just once. And withdrew somewhat from her exploration of that power, embarrassed at her clumsiness.

  The cougar snarled warning—

  She reeled at the sudden onslaught of amulet-based corruption, springing to her feet and overwhelmed by the stench of Core workings in play. Right this very moment and what else could they want but to tap the power she’d just witnessed? Her scan of the parking lot, of the village site, showed her nothing—Gausto’s people could be comfortably ensconced in one of those parked vehicles. The stench swirled around her, triggered by amulet but anchored right here at the old Sinagua village—remotely, too many layers for a simple severing. The museum projectile point. They’d planned ahead. Horrified, she turned back to the Navajos, saw she’d gotten the one man’s attention—his frown told her that much, and his alert gaze held wary understanding.

  She wasn’t Ryan, to shift power around, to divert and block and manipulate it.

  But she could shield.

  She bit her lip, took an uncertain step forward, shields blooming to life around her even as amulet corruption mixed with the beauty the prayer had evoked—latching on to it with Velcro hooks, a swirling and oozing parasite. The chanting faltered; a young man stepped toward the elder with concern.

  Lyn was no shielding specialist; she had no innate skill with it. Ryan’s response to her shields…that had been a response to her.

  But to stand here and do nothing?

  Dammit, Ryan, you should have come with me!

  And if she saw the cougar leaning into a new crouch, a predatory crouch, she quickly blocked it out, finding a renewed determination to stand solo. She centered herself, and she reached out—reaching to that shared spirituality, to take it within her protection. She let it fuel her, and instead of filling her as Ryan had, it filled her shields, pushing them outward…expanding them…expanding them….

  She took another step forward, fists clenched, jaw clenched, determination narrowing her eyes—unheeding how it looked from the outside, that the reporter had noticed something amiss, that a communal murmur of concern had replaced the prayer—and she pushed the shield out until it was just barely big enough to surround the people below, if not the actual source of the spiritual power, then its conduit.

  But the shield was brittle and it was thin; it wouldn’t hold. She could feel the creeping grip of the amulet’s hooked fringes scraping its edges, and her vision went gray around the edges and her knees started to wobble and she thought I’m only a tracker. She floundered in an instant’s panic—and then she got a hint of Ryan’s trace.

  Not imagination. He’d really been there, watching her. Aware of the riders’ arrival, aware of their prayer, aware of their power…aware of the attack from without.

  And now he reached out with a deft touch and he flicked away the amulet’s grasping claws. Just like that. He folded that darkness back in on itself and it popped out of existence with an extended shriek of ethereal sound that made Lyn cry out.

  Something nudged her thoughts then, right through those thinned, brittle shields—but after an instant of panic, she knew. Ryan. He’d said something to her. Why he thought she’d hear him this time, she didn’t know. She couldn’t hear him and she didn’t want to hear him. If he’d been here, he could have just spoken to her. And why not? she thought at him—but just right there, in the privacy of her own mind, as much a cry of dismay as a demand. Why didn’t you come today? Had he tried to lure her away from this, knowing it would happen? Or tried to stay away, fearing it would expose him somehow?

  Trust. Right. He’d just saved her, he’d just saved this entire group, and yet…trust him?

  She couldn’t find it in herself. Not when he’d thrown her so off her game; not when she’d thought she understood him, thought she could work with him, only to be so astonished he would split them up this easily. He knew she got too absorbed in tracking…knew she left herself open to trouble…

  She wouldn’t even contemplate the fact that it was easier this way. Easier not to trust, to return to her comfortable and isolated little world, the exacting tracker with impossible expectations, traveling to where she was needed and then…leaving. Alone.

  God, was that self-mockery she heard in her own thoughts?

  A rustle of sound alerted her; she stiffened and opened her eyes to discover that she was no longer alone.

  High-level sect members had the same general stamp about them. A swarthy complexion, hard masculine features, black hair…all of which might have been attractive had they not been arranged around such a stylized look—slicked-back hair, plenty of silver jewelry, a definite touch of kohl around the eyes, hands neatly manicured and nails buffed to a high gloss.

  Which didn’t meant they couldn’t cause a serious amount of damage, when so inclined. Especially when those hands were full of amulets. Only one of the men now approaching Lyn—spread out, already cutting off her escape through the parking lot, the village, or up into the woods—held amulets, but that was enough. Crudely stamped metal slung on cords, the amulets held stored workings, stored energy…there was no telling what any one of them did. Or what any one of them would do to her.

  She backed a step—backing downhill, against all instinct. The ocelot wanted to take over, to take her far into the trees—far up a tree. But downhill was the only way left to her, toward the people she’d been trying to protect in the first place. Unless she wanted to change in front of them all, chancing that instant of vulnerability to Gausto’s men as they closed in on her, chancing the blatant daylight change in front of a people who might just well believe her to be akin to an evil skinwalker—or, come to think of it, in front of that reporter and her photographer.

  You see? she cried silently to Ryan. You shouldn’t have split us up—

  Never mind that she could have gone with him.

  “That was inconvenient,” said the man with all the amulets, and indeed, he looked annoyed as he stepped closer. “It would have been better for you if you’d stayed out of it.”

  “Hey, it wasn’t me who messed with your creepy little amulet,” Lyn said, taking another step back. Her heel landed on a rock, wobbling, and she hunted sounder footing while trying to look perfectly casual about the whole thing. “Don’t you have some sort of amulet you can use to tell what’s really going on?” she suggested. “Something? Because you’re getting this one wrong.”

  The man
shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. You’re Sentinel. That’s enough.”

  Lyn pulled her shields in close again, fortifying them—reshaping them. Hardening them. “Guys, we’re out in the middle of a public place. Witnesses. A reporter, even. That’s not good for either of us. Me, I vote we adjourn and take this up another time—”

  The man with the amulets plucked one from his stash. “You’re the only one they’ll be looking at.”

  Did she even want to know what it did? It could force a change to the ocelot…it could short-circuit her brain to insanity. It could make her believe she was a chicken for all she knew—and the truth was, no, she didn’t want to know at that. She didn’t want anything to do with Gausto’s stench or his amulets or his Core. She was a tracker, that’s all. A small nimble ocelot who could follow a trail anywhere…

  Ryan!

  But Joe Ryan was miles and a mountaintop away.

  Okay, now she’d stopped thinking rationally; now she was panicking. Now she’d given up what power she had, and she sure wasn’t going to let them make the rules. Let the others see her change—let them wonder. That photographer would never be quick enough, and the riders would be busy enough hanging on to their horses, and—

  Except she couldn’t. Talk about going dark…talk about twisting the rules to suit herself…

  Changing in front of witnesses wasn’t done. Changing in front of reporters?

  Not done.

  Because protecting the secret of the Sentinel’s existence was more important than protecting any given individual. And if anyone knew that, it was the tracker who hunted the dark.

  Ryan! She took another step backward. Another. Gausto’s man matched her, step for step, the one specific amulet now singled out and dangling from his grasp. Unhurried, certain of his prey. Smug, even. Nothing worse than smug on those Core-stamped features, and Lyn found herself gulping a breath on the heels of having forgotten to breathe at all, and then gulping again in surprise as she came up short against an obstacle where her memory told her none had existed.

  It stamped a foot and breathed gently upon her hair, a surprised and curious sound.

  Not a tree, then.

  “Little sister,” said a quiet voice, “are you in need?”

  Gausto’s man with his amulet had stopped advancing—looked, in fact, as surprised as Lyn felt. She dared to shift her gaze, tipping her head just enough to realize…it was not just this one horse and rider. It was all of them. Arrayed behind her as the landscape allowed, silent in support. And they looked not at her, but at the men threatening her.

  Amulet Man had gall, she had to hand it to him. He said, “This isn’t your concern.”

  Lyn couldn’t see the rider’s expression, but she well heard his dry amusement. “We have come to recognize those who would take from us. You tried to take. She helped to stop you. So it has become our concern.”

  Lyn was grateful enough to lean back into his horse—grateful, too, that the animal was so well seasoned that it simply accepted her in spite of her nature. Sentinels and horses…often didn’t mix. She raised an eyebrow at Amulet Man and said, “You’re the ones they’re looking at now.”

  No disputing that. He didn’t even try. Nor did he hide his displeasure, as he so casually pocketed the amulets. “We know you.” He stepped closer, flashing his teeth in a sudden unfriendly smile. “We have the taste of you now. So we’ll finish this later.”

  She managed to suppress her shiver until he turned his back on her. His movement served as a signal to the other sect members, who silently melted away—retreating to the parking lot in no great hurry. After a moment, two engines turned over, and one vehicle after another pulled neatly from the lot.

  Lyn sagged slightly. She realized that she stood in the full sizzling sun, midday heat suddenly surging hard against her. The smell of hot horse, the creak of saddle leather, the palpable aura of support and kindness around her…She covered her face with both trembling hands, took a deep breath and straightened, turning to face the riders and their families. “Thank you,” she said. “They meant me serious harm.”

  “As they meant us serious harm,” the man said—a middle-aged man with a weathered face, the most amazing heirloom squash blossom necklace, and a turquoise bracelet with such weight and age to the piece that it spoke of significance. “We have been aware of their kind, mingling with those who would desecrate the mountain. This is the first time they have been so direct.”

  The oldest man, steadied at the elbow of a younger man Lyn could now see bore the stamp of the same features, said, “Doko’oo’slííd has been stirring, and these men are somehow behind it.”

  Careful, careful. She could no more expose the Core than she could expose the Sentinels. Thousands of years of existence had depended on such secrecy. She said, “That’s what we believe.”

  “Ah,” said the old man. “The one who isn’t here today. The man. You came in his stead?”

  “Something like that.” She couldn’t help her dry tone. And she couldn’t help but wonder, again, why Ryan had insisted on the mountain today when he could go to the mountain anytime, and today—now—was the only time he could have met the riders here. When, if he’d been here, he could have stood beside her, a safeguard against that tight focus of hers. She wouldn’t have been taken by surprise…there would have been no need to bring outsiders into the clash between Sentinel and Core.

  She wouldn’t have been alone, facing Gausto’s men and their amulets with only the kindness of strangers to back her up.

  The loneliness of it bit at the back of her throat. Cruel memory gave her images of the night before—of Ryan’s face, of the arch of his tightly muscled body, the cry in his throat, the look in his eye as he reached for her again. That silly, you-got-me grin. Those moments when she thought she’d never feel alone again.

  Right.

  She looked back at the rider who’d backed her, at the old man who’d led the prayer, and felt the nuances of what had happened between the Core and her shields and Ryan’s snarling rejection of the amulet’s parasitic advances. You came in his stead? “Yes,” she said, and nodded, this time a firmer answer. In his stead, or in spite of him, or perhaps regardless of him—because that was clearly the way it would be. “Something like that.”

  Chapter 16

  A weary cougar sprawled out at the top of the world. Bone-tired, footsore…heartsore.

  He hadn’t expected her to respond to his silent query; she couldn’t, as far as he could tell, truly perceive such private communication.

  But he hadn’t expected her to close him off so abruptly, either. Hadn’t expected that clear, hurt zing of one betrayed. Still didn’t understand it. He’d been watching, hadn’t he? He’d known when the riders had reached their destination; he’d known when the prayer bound them together. And he’d felt the amulet’s power—a slice of purulence across the bright day. Had Gausto’s men thought he wouldn’t? Had Lyn thought he wouldn’t?

  Maybe they’d thought he couldn’t.

  Maybe they’d expected his strange susceptibility to the power surges that now bore his trace.

  Oh yes. Weary.

  But that didn’t mean he could simply stay here and soak up the sun. Or even soak up the power—quiet, natural waves of power this afternoon, as if the Core’s distraction elsewhere had left the mountain alone. With miles beneath his worn paws and no particular success to claim as his, it was time to head downhill, take back the human and drive back home—to find Lyn.

  She was confused within herself, he knew that much. Whereas he wasn’t confused at all. He knew what he wanted. More than that—he knew damned well what he wanted.

  He also knew better than to assume he would get it.

  He’d certainly thought he’d have better success this afternoon. He’d crisscrossed the Peaks, his mind on precarious landing sites for a small chopper. Between Raspberry and Bear Paw springs…the best option for any pilot, but he’d found nothing. No disturbance, no scent, no sign. East o
f Flagstaff Spring, the same story. Surely they weren’t coming in from Lockett Meadow, with its adjoining campground…way too public…

  He sneezed, an annoyed cat noise, and rubbed his face against one big paw. In fact, he’d found exactly nothing. And that meant returning below with nothing to show for his time—for his insistence—but his sore feet and dusty nose.

  Well, maybe he’d do something about the nose before he actually reached home. Water waiting in the car, the hem of his shirt…it would do.

  And it did. He descended back down to the Snowbowl parking lot unseen, changed on the fly as few could and pulled his shirt off to use as a damp towel outside the car. He grinned at two bold college co-eds and their admiring applause, but didn’t let it slow him down as he donned the damp shirt, starting the SUV even as he snapped the seat belt into place.

  This would have been a whole lot easier if you’d been returning triumphant, boy-o.

  He snarled softly. He’d been so certain the source of the disruption was up there…and dammit, he was still certain. But the way things had gone down today…

  Might be a good time to pull out those good steaks from the freezer, fire up the grill and see about that chocolate fudge brownie ice cream he’d been saving for the right day. Hmm. Unless she was a pralines-and-cream kind of woman…

  Well, he’d risk it.

  Thing was, given a second chance…he’d make the same choice. And he had really hoped that Lynn would trust his instincts, his need to hunt the mountain for the root of the disturbance that had so deeply affected him.

  Maybe it was easier to forget when she wasn’t the one who’d gotten lost in that screaming gray pain. Maybe he’d expected too much, thinking that his experience and time in this place deserved a certain respect. But with his knowledge of the mountains, with her tracking ability…between the two of them, a second effort might have yielded more than his sore feet and formerly dusty nose. If he could, he’d still talk her back up there for the following day—but he had the feeling she’d want to haunt the hotel, to try tracking Gausto’s men to their bolt-hole.