Eye of the Tempest (Jane True)

by Nicole Peeler

  He paused, with relief or disappointment, I don’t know. I couldn’t assume either reaction—after all, I know he had cared for me, but he was also Ryu. And a month was a long time for someone like him, despite his longevity. He was a mover and a shaker, not a waiter-arounder.

  After that we made some small talk for about ten minutes. We discussed Caleb and Iris, and we talked about my dad having been healed. We did not talk about Anyan. Eventually, Ryu was the one to wrap up the conversation, reminding me that all I had to do was call and he’d be there in a snap.

  I thanked him, and I meant it. Then he hung up. And then I waited.

  Only to discover that nothing happened. I didn’t feel any unrequited lust, or any anger, or any grief. I felt the pleasant feeling one feels when they’ve talked to someone who is important to them, and the conversation had gone well. I felt like… Ryu and I could be friends.

  And that felt good.

  Less good, however, was the other thing I suddenly both felt and heard: an explosion from somewhere to my right.

  What the fuck? I thought, as the rest of the forest went silent.

  I was about halfway between the edge of town and my house, so basically in the middle of nowhere, which meant it couldn’t have been a car backfiring. Plus, it had been strong enough to be felt, and not just heard, so that meant some kind of explosion. And as most of our locals avoided hunting with grenades, an explosion had to be something nefarious.

  Another huge boom rocked toward me again, but this time I was ready. Putting out my feelers, I recognized a clear undercurrent of magic.

  Without thinking, I raised shields and a mage ball and ran toward the sound. Well, scrabbled is more accurate, as the underbrush was pretty dense. When I did start thinking, my first emotion was pride that I had, finally, learned some reflexes that sent me toward danger rather than from it. My second emotion was to worry about what the fuck I was getting myself into.

  But I didn’t let my fear stop me. Instead, I put a little magic into my run, pushing forward with my shields to clear the ground in front of me so I could move faster. I backed off on my magic only when I knew I was getting near the commotion. I could hear what sounded like pretty intense fighting from right up in front of me.

  Hoping to sneak up on whatever was making all the racket, I shut down the mojo as I crept toward what had to be a glade. In the dim evening light, I could see stars twinkling from a space free of canopy… and a fuck ton of magic being thrown about like it was D-day here in Boofookey, Maine.

  When I neared the clearing—hunkering down to stay behind a cover of undergrowth—I nearly gave myself away by swearing.

  For standing directly in front of me—less than a yard away—was the unmistakable tree-trunk legs of a spriggan. And since I could clearly see the now rather melty face of Graeme, the rapist incubus, standing on my right-hand side of the glade, I knew that spriggan had to be my favorite shit-for-brains thug, Fugwat.

  What the fuck are they doing here? And where is Nell? There was no way the gnome could be unaware of such explosive trespassing.

  I got lower, so I could peer between the spriggan’s spraddled legs to see what he and Graeme were attacking. What I saw made my blood boil.

  Pinned by enemy fire against an enormous boulder, his arms spread as if protecting something precious, stood Gus. His bald pate gleamed with sweat and his glasses hung off one ear as he bravely defended his rock.

  Or are the rocks defending him? I wondered, as I watched various stones—some mere pebbles, some as large as my fist—unearth themselves from the ground and go winging toward Graeme and Fugwat.

  I stood, quietly, ready to attack Fugwat from behind and make my way to Gus, when a series of shrieks pierced the air.

  And where goeth Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, there followeth the damned air brigade, I thought as, sure enough, Kaya and Kaori (whichever was which) came streaking downward, harrying Gus away from his rock. My rescue plans were put on hold as I tried to figure out a way to save Gus from four baddies without getting both of us killed. I was also trying to figure out what, exactly, Phaedra’s lot was doing in the first place.

  It’s like they want Gus’s boulder, I realized, even though I couldn’t, for the life of me, figure out why anyone but Gus would want the stone spirit’s rock.

  Then again, I can’t really understand why anyone would want Gus, either. I’m sure he was a very nice stone spirit and all, but man he was hard work.

  Speaking of which, I thought, as the harpies’ attack on Gus intensified. The poor little guy was obviously struggling, and I was hiding in the bushes.

  No fucking way, I thought, remembering that moment when Anyan was attacked and I just stood there. Not this time.

  Inhaling deeply, I stood up right behind Fugwat, who’d moved forward a few feet toward Gus’s boulder. Conjuring the biggest, baddest mage ball I could muster, I held the swirling iron-gray orb in my hand as I used my outdoor voice.

  “Fugwat! Duck!” I shouted, praying that my plan worked.

  And it did. Fugwat dropped like he’d been shot, leaving Graeme’s flank totally undefended. I let fly my mage ball, which smashed through the incubus’s token side-shields and into the side of his head with a crunching noise that was music to my ears.

  It’s not that Graeme was more of a threat than the spriggan, really. I just liked him even less.

  By the time Fugwat had raised his rather empty head to see what had happened, I was across the clearing and running to Gus’s side. He’d seen me and was reaching out a plump hand when the lean, dun-colored shape of Kaya (or Kaori) came streaking down from the sky, landing a solid blow across the stone spirit’s forehead.

  Blood gushed from Gus’s wound and I cried out, extending my hand and my shield toward him as I solidified the latter using a combination of power woven through the water saturating the air. The second harpy, Kaori (or Kaya), bounced off my impromptu shield with a thud before she could strike Gus.

  Squawking painfully, she tumbled to the ground. While I wouldn’t normally kick a person when she was down, I was more than willing to kick any of Phaedra’s murderous lot. So I dropped my shields, funneling my force into another large mage ball. Instead of throwing this one, however, I bowled it at where the harpy lay, hooting piteously. Her sister snatched her up from the ground just a second before the mage ball could strike.

  They spoil all my fun, I thought, as I finally gained Gus’s side.

  The stone spirit was weaving on his feet, clearly wounded. As I had absolutely no healing skills (another huge gap in my education), there was nothing I could do but try to keep him from getting hurt any worse until Nell finally arrived.

  And where the hell is that gnome? I thought, as I watched Kaya (or Kaori) land her sister Kaori (or Kaya) a few feet from where Graeme lay. I think the rapist incubus was smoldering, which pleased me to no end.

  The mobile harpy sent a blast of healing energy at Graeme, even as Fugwat finally cottoned on to the fact that he’d been tricked and insinuated both his sizeable bulk and his even more formidable shields between me and his cronies.

  Gus’s hand clutched at mine as he pulled me toward him to get my attention.

  “Save her!” he pleaded with me. “They want her! I don’t know why, but they want her!” It took me a second to put two and two together, and then I realized that the “her” in question was Gus’s boulder.

  I was about to tell him that I’d try when we both fell silent under an onslaught of incubus magic so dark, so violently sexual, and so terrifying that both Gus and I turned as one.

  Graeme stood there, his waxen face even odder than before. The incubus had been gorgeous once: an Apollonian delight of perfectly symmetrical, golden male beauty. But such beauty had only barely masked the monster peering out of those sky-blue eyes. When Conleth—the ifrit halfling—had melted Graeme’s original face, the subsequent healings had left the incubus with a weird, waxen parody of his former glory. In other words, he now looked on the
outside like the horror he was on the inside.

  Graeme stepped forward, waving his cohorts behind him. The look in his eyes froze my blood; he wasn’t any more of a fan of me than I was of him.

  “Jane, you stupid little cunt,” he articulated in a tone that was paradoxically friendly and light. “What on earth do you think you’re doing?” Graeme backed up his words with a wave of juju poured directly at me. It was so strong that I staggered, whimpering as visions of sex and pain crowded into my brain on a wave of magic.

  Focus, Jane, I scolded myself, bracing myself both physically and with my power. Trying to keep my shields up and intact, I pulled Gus closer to me. I wasn’t sure if I was trying to protect him or to remind myself that I wasn’t alone with Graeme.

  “You’re not meant to be here fighting like this,” Graeme’s voice floated toward me, and with those words came more images, more suggestions. I shook my head violently as my shields wavered.

  What the hell is this? I thought, frantically. I’d never dealt with anything like what Graeme was doing. Physical assaults, sure. But mental? I didn’t even know that was possible.

  “Jane’s not a fighter,” came that voice, again, the words searing into my mind. “Jane’s meant to be tied up… fucked… like the little slut she is.”

  I’m not a slut! my brain insisted, that word jarring me enough that I managed not only to solidify my shields, but also to raise a mage ball that I lobbed at Graeme’s head.

  And what’s wrong with being a slut, anyway? grumbled my libido, as Graeme’s shields absorbed the impact of my missile. But he did step back a few paces, giving me some breathing room.

  “I think you mean some other Jane,” I yelled, hiding my growing fear behind bravado. “ ’Cause this Jane’s gonna kick your ass!”

  Okay, it sounded a bit lame, even to me. And Graeme’s only response was a chuckle so evil it raised the hair on my arms another inch. I must have looked like a scared cat or a porcupine, at that point.

  “Slut,” Graeme hissed. “Just a little slut, built for your pain, my pleasure.”

  I growled, lobbing another couple of mage balls that I pulled out of the air with practiced ease. Anger was making me strong, but I needed to watch my power levels.

  Unfortunately, Graeme was able to deflect my barrage and keep talking. Behind him, the spriggan had backpedalled toward the boulder, where he was doing something I couldn’t quite make out. It was a testament to how badly Gus was hurt that he didn’t even seem to notice his rock was being man-handled.

  “Don’t act like I’m lying, little Jane,” Graeme said loudly, trying to refocus my attention on him. And succeeding at it. “I know it’s what you want, what you crave…”

  Again, images assaulted my mind: bodies bent, chained, whipped, bruised, cut… blood and semen dripping across lacerated flesh and I moaned.

  “That’s it, Jane… open your mind… drop the inhibitions that fetter you… let… me… in.”

  And with those words, Graeme’s magic rolled across me so powerfully that I fell to my knees, my head feeling as if someone were forcing a chisel into my skull.

  I groaned, putting my hands up to my ears to block out his voice… but the voice was inside my head… It was Graeme… but he was inside… and I had to block him out, but the more I tried the more I realized… the voice is yours, Jane.

  The voice was mine. And I did want it… I was his slut, his fuck toy, to be used and discarded, and only his pleasure mattered because his pleasure was my pleasure was his pleasure…

  Graeme’s searingly cold blue eyes were right in front of me, so I crawled forward, toward him… your lover…

  … my lover…

  And then his hands were in my hair as he jerked my head up so that I knelt in front of him. Gus’s small fists pummeled at my lover’s torso, but they were ignored until, with a negligible flick of his wrist, Graeme flung the stone spirit away with his power.

  In that second, his power divided by Gus’s assault, Graeme’s hold on me broke just enough that I struggled, hard, suddenly remembering who and where I was. And that Graeme was anything but my lover.

  In that split second, two things happened.

  The first was that Graeme grinned evilly as he hauled me up to my feet and toward him. But instead of biting me, as I’d expected, he only whispered in my ear.

  The second was that Nell’s power blossomed through the glade like a mushroom cloud. The force of her mojo shook all of us to our bones as she stood atop Gus’s boulder, peering around to get a bead on the situation.

  Then, with another huge outpouring of power, she apparated all of the bad guys out of her territory and, hopefully, straight to the moon.

  Once I knew Gus and I were safe, I used all my remaining energy to stay upright.

  “What happened?” Nell demanded, levitating over to check on me and the stone spirit.

  Raising my head wearily, I looked the gnome in the eyes.

  “Something tells me we just found the first lock,” I said, feeling my knees buckle.

  Without Graeme’s hand in my hair, I was in no shape to keep myself upright. So I tumbled to the side, where I was caught at the last second by large, strong hands.

  Anyan’s face was more than a little worried when he turned me over, asking how I was. “He was in my mind,” I babbled. “In my head, like he was me. Telling me what I wanted, who I was—”

  “Shhh, Jane. I know. He can do that,” Anyan said, stroking his hand across my cheek. I had to remind myself that it was Anyan’s hands, not Graeme’s. Then I remembered what Graeme had said, and I shuddered, pulling away from the barghest.

  Sitting up, I drew my jean jacket tighter around me. “Why didn’t you tell me he could do that? Why didn’t I know?”

  “I’m sorry,” Anyan replied, letting me move away from him. “There was so much to teach you, and so little time.”

  “Why did he never do that before?” I asked.

  “Um…” Anyan said, clearly trying to figure out what to say. “He didn’t really have to before,” the big man finally said, sounding embarrassed. It took me a second, and then I cottoned to what he was saying.

  I’d been so weak before that Graeme didn’t need to pull out his big guns.

  I bit my tongue on the nasty retort I had waiting. I was letting Graeme get to me, and taking it out on the barghest.

  But what Graeme said… came an insidious thought that, try as I might, kept worming deeper into my consciousness.

  Shivering, I looked toward where Nell knelt over Gus. What I really wanted to do was take a scrub brush and Lysol my brain. But if I couldn’t do that, I wanted a distraction. No more thinking about Graeme.

  “Is Gus all right?” I asked, even as I forced myself to take a deep breath. But I couldn’t stop thinking about what Graeme had said to me.

  Anyan is Anyan. Graeme is Graeme. And a liar, I reminded myself, even as I focused on Nell.

  “He’s hurt. Anyan’s stabilized him, but I think we should get him to Caleb or Dr. Sam,” answered the gnome.

  “Can you apparate us?” I asked, wanting to get right the fuck out of this glen so I could think straight. I felt like I was wearing Graeme residue, and I needed to get away, to where I was only me again.

  “Yes. You both ready?” she asked.

  I nodded and stood, as Anyan moved toward me. I tensed, but didn’t let myself move away.

  It’s Anyan, I told myself, trying to get Graeme out of my head. It’s Anyan. Don’t let that monster get to you.

  So I held still as Anyan walked to my side. I held still as the barghest raised his hand. I didn’t flinch when he took my chin between his fingers.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  I forced myself to nod, and I forced myself to say, “I’ll be all right. Just really freaked out.”

  Anyan nodded to me and then nodded to Nell.

  “We’re ready to go.”

  It was only when Nell’s magic surrounded me that I allowed the long, roll
ing shudder to work its way up and through my body. For every time Anyan touched me, I heard Graeme whispering again.

  Don’t act innocent, slut. I know that’s just how your barghest likes it.

  CHAPTER NINE

  I think Dr. Sam is stoned,” I whispered to Trill, who nodded gravely.

  “He was with Amy,” she whispered back, and I grimaced. That would explain the red eyes. And the fact that the goblin was wearing only boxer shorts and a few multicolored leis.

  “Is Gus going to be okay?” I asked, from where I sat next to the kelpie. She’d taken Anyan’s overstuffed chair, and I was perched on the arm. Gus was stretched out on Anyan’s sofa as Caleb and Dr. Sam attended to the little stone spirit.

  “He’ll be fine by tomorrow. He got quite a knock to the head, but we got to him before his brain could swell too much,” Caleb’s deep voice rumbled.

  I grimaced as Dr. Sam giggled delightedly and totally inappropriately.

  “Why on earth did they attack Gus?” Anyan asked. He was sitting on his fireplace ledge across the room from me.

  “Who knows?” Nell replied, rocking away in the littler rocker she apparated everywhere with her. “But it was definitely a coordinated attack. Phaedra got my attention and kept Anyan and me busy while her entourage went after Gus.”

  “They weren’t after Gus,” I interrupted. “They were interested in his rock.”

  “His rock?” Anyan asked. “Why on earth would they want Gus’s rock?”

  “Why on earth would they want Gus?” Trill countered, voicing what we were all secretly thinking.

  “A great big fucking Zen garden?” Dr. Sam questioned the universe.

  “Maybe,” I conceded to our stoned doctor’s wisdom. “Or maybe there’s something on or inside that rock we’ve never noticed. I’m betting it is, or it houses, one of the locks. We need to check it out, carefully.”

  Caleb nodded. “Definitely. But how about in the morning? We’re all tired, and it’s not going anywhere. Plus, I left Iris alone.”