The Wild Rites Saga Omnibus 01 to 04

by Anna McIlwraith

  He looked up at Emma, expression raw. Then he seemed to notice that he was stark naked in front of her. His back stiffened, he lifted his chin, and color flushed into his face.

  Emma made herself hold his gaze for a second longer, and then turned away casually. “Is my parka around here, Fern, I’m freezing.”

  He turned away too to help her find it, and while they were pretending not to know that both their parkas were balled up under one of the sleeping bags to cushion their heads against the hard ground, Emma heard Red getting dressed. She also heard his ragged breathing and wondered if he was going to have an all out panic attack. She’d never seen a shapechanger have one, and although it’d be a welcome change from her always being the one to lose her shit, she wanted Red to be okay.

  I would’ve thought it was a good thing, Fern sent, shaking Emma’s parka out and meeting her eyes with worry in his own. Two good arms. Isn’t that a good thing?

  Emma let him shrug her into the parka. He’s old, Fern. I doubt he remembers what it was like to have two good arms.

  Red cleared his throat, and Emma and Fern both turned. He was dressed in his cargo pants and gray thermal t-shirt, still barefoot. Emma didn’t know how he could stand the cold ground.

  He couldn’t quite meet anyone’s eyes. “I thought it’d go away if I changed,” he said, voice like rocks. “It can’t be real. It’ll evaporate when the sun comes up, or turn into a pile of sticks soon as I touch someone with it.”

  Across the campfire, Shadi made a thoughtful noise. “There are certain curses and charms which —” he stopped when he caught the look Emma shot him.

  Red didn’t look comforted. Emma tried to think of something helpful. “Does it work?”

  Red looked at her finally, and Emma saw in his eyes just how afraid he was — afraid to believe. “Yeah,” he nodded, making a fist with his right hand and wincing. “Hurts. But it works.”

  “The way a regenerated limb always hurts when you change back for the first time,” Fern said. Everyone looked at him. “Like your bones are broken glass. The bone’s the hardest part to regrow, so that’s why it hurts so bad, and so deep.”

  Red nodded. Emma didn’t need to ask Fern if he was speaking from experience — they were merged. “So your arm regenerated overnight,” Emma said, trying to sound matter of fact. “That makes sense. I mean if you disregard how long you spent without it.” As panic edged back into Red’s eyes, Emma regretted opening her mouth.

  As usual Fern saved her ass. “It does make sense,” he said, “When you consider the pledge.” He pointed at Ivan. “The pledge healed the berserker sickness. The pledge brought Katenka back from the edge of death, too. Last night was the first time you changed since the pledge ritual, right?” He asked Red.

  “Yeah.”

  “So the pledge magic made your beast stronger, allowed the bear to regenerate the limb for you. I think.” Fern shrugged. “It’s true that’s never been possible before, but we’ve never had a cure for the wasting disease, or for berserker rage before, either. Obviously Em’s power isn’t only meant to heal the wasting disease.”

  Hushed silence followed Fern’s statement. When Emma looked around, all eyes were on her. Fern’s mental touch was wordless and apologetic.

  Suddenly Fatima spoke up, her clipped accent somehow grounding. “How many times has your beast regenerated limbs for you?” she asked Fern.

  He met her eyes and smiled faintly. “Six.”

  Across the fire, Horne said something in Spanish that was either a prayer or a curse. Leah whistled. Red’s eyes narrowed.

  Fern shrugged. “My beast has eight legs, and its skeleton’s on the outside. I got a lot of limbs to lose.”

  Red snorted. Then chuckled. Then scrubbed his left hand over his mouth, trying to straighten his face, but it was no good — maybe it was the shock, but he’d got the giggles.

  He put a hand over his eyes and held the other out, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, Fern, I’m so sorry, it ain’t funny,” he said, laughing between words. It was infectious, so Emma was caught between wanting to giggle right along with him and wondering if his sanity was about to snap. Then she caught Fern’s eye, and he grinned at her, and she couldn’t help grinning back. Red was going to be all right.

  Except then Fern’s grin fell. His mind went carefully blank.

  Emma took a step back. “Fern?”

  At the sound of Em’s voice, Red swallowed his laughter. Fern reached out and took her hand, still with that careful blankness in his mind, and now on his face. “Dunno how to say this,” he said fast, and then the rest, like ripping off a Band-Aid. “Did you know you’ve got fangs?”

  28

  Not horns. Fangs.

  That’s what Fatima had sensed when she tried to heal Emma. “Your bones are singing,” she’d said. Emma didn’t much like the tune they’d sung, in the end.

  She sat up on the rocky rise above their campsite, alone, watching the sky turn from indigo to lilac with the brightening dawn and trying to get her tongue to stop seeking out those sharp little points. They were farther back than she’d expected; third from the front on either side, not the typical canine-tooth look you saw in the movies. That was why nobody had seen them until she laughed. And the points were delicate, small, or she would’ve felt them before.

  Well, she felt them now.

  Fern was down in the camp, packing things up with the others. He was also a warm, thrumming presence in her mind and her heart, his pulse keeping hers steady and his unshakable faith in her the only thing keeping her from falling apart.

  Fangs.

  Vampires had fangs.

  Alan had fangs. Because he was a vampire. Alan had completed the ritual to awaken her powers, which involved an exchange of blood. And he was a vampire. Emma had fangs —

  And that doesn’t make you a vampire, Fern sent for the fifth time with infinite patience. You’re immune to vampirism, just like you’re immune to being changed. If you were going to become a vampire, it would’ve happened already. He flooded her with warmth and certainty through the merge, wordless and fierce. She felt like an asshole. And a fraud. An insecure, needy, whiny —

  “Hey flower.”

  Emma jumped, almost fell off the rock she was sitting on, and righted herself as Red climbed up onto the rock and sat at her right. “Why couldn’t I have got supernatural hearing instead of fangs,” she said, leaning forward and resting her elbows on her knees. “More useful. Might stop you people sneaking up on me all the time.”

  “I don’t know,” Red said, sounding subdued. “Imagine fangs’d be pretty useful in your line of work.”

  Emma looked up and met his eyes. Then her gaze strayed to his neck. He was a shapechanger, so he’d healed all traces of the injuries sustained in the ritual of the pledge, but —

  Say it plainly now, that little voice spoke up, the voice that was all her own and not necessarily friendly. Your bite. He’s healed from your bite.

  “You’re right,” she said, looking away. Her tongue tried to steal back to its incessant investigation of one fang tip, and Emma took a huge gulp of air, blew it out through her cheeks, and squared her jaw. “Is that why I have them now, do you think?”

  She saw him shrug out of the corner of her eye. “Must be.” He scuffed the ground with the toe of one boot. “Fern tells me you think you’re turning into a vamp. Which you’re not. If you were going to —”

  “I know, I know, it would’ve happened already.” When Red flinched, she could’ve kicked herself. She sighed and rested her head against his left shoulder. “I’m sorry. I’m being a shit.” Red went to say something and she shushed him. “You know, when I was lying awake this morning I thought to myself, this is it Em, you’ve got to get your shit together. No more freakouts.” She remembered all the other stuff she’d been thinking about too, and hoped to God Red really couldn’t read her mind. She straightened. “Anyway, here I am. So much for that.”

  Red leaned forward and held his rig
ht hand out in front of him. He closed his hand into a fist, and Emma noted the way the corners of his mouth pulled down as he did so — but was it pain, or something less physical putting that look on his face, that bruised look in his eye?

  “You’re not the only one had their freakout this morning,” he said, glancing at her sideways, cheeks darkening with color.

  “I woke up with some minor cosmetic dental work,” Emma said. “You got a whole new limb. I think you deserved your freakout more than I deserved mine.” He huffed a laugh and shook his head, still opening and closing his right hand, and Emma suddenly ached to comfort him somehow.

  “Whole is the right word,” he said. “I’m whole now, not disfigured anymore. But I don’t —”

  “You were never disfigured,” Emma cut in. “Different-figured, maybe. Lots of people —”

  “But I was, Em.” He’d turned to look her full in the face, and his brown eyes were fierce and impossible to look away from. “I know it’s not politically correct and maybe hard for someone young like you to swallow but I was. A person’s meant to have two arms. I had one. I got used to it and it’s been longer’n I recall since I couldn’t get around, but I’m still — I was still missing something.” He released her gaze, looking down. “Bitch of it is, now I’ve got the damn thing back, I don’t know what the hell to do with it. Like it’s not mine. I’m whole, but I was so used to being broken, Em.”

  “Stupid old man,” she said gently, managing to keep her aching heart out of her voice. “You weren’t broken.”

  “But I was,” he said again, almost to himself, like he’d expected she’d stopped listening to him. “I was. Never mind that though,” he said as he stood and dusted his hands — both of them — against the legs of his pants before holding his right hand out to her. “I think I’ve figured out what to do now I got this extra arm.”

  That he thought of his right arm as “extra” made Emma want to laugh and cry at the same time. She put her hand in his so he could help her up. “What did you have in mind?”

  He tugged her to her feet and flashed her a smile so innocent and beautiful it was almost painful to behold. “Something I’ve wished I could do for a while now,” he answered her. Then he planted both hands on her hips, bent his knees, and tossed her straight up into the air.

  Aaaand holy shit she was airborne! Swallowing a squeal, she dropped. Red caught her with both arms wrapped strong and sure around her legs and rump, and she clutched at his shoulders and looked down into his upturned face. All her terrified admonishments died in her throat as Red’s gaze traveled from her face to his own arms, holding her aloft.

  “Do it again,” she told him.

  He did. When he caught her the second time, he hefted her over his shoulder and started tickling her. By the time he’d carried her back down to their encampment, she’d managed to wrestle halfway free, and was hanging upside down with only Red’s strong hands stopping her from falling to the ground in an ungraceful heap. Her sides hurt from laughing. The bruised look in Red’s eyes had faded completely away.

  She’d even forgotten, for a few moments, about the fangs. Until Red set her down, and still laughing she threw her hair out of her eyes and looked at him and saw him looking at them. She closed her mouth abruptly; her fangs made a decisive sound as they clicked against her bottom teeth, pinching her lower lip.

  Red’s face softened, eyes still glinting with laughter. “It’s okay, you know,” he said. “You aren’t the only one changed by the power. You aren’t a freak.”

  Emma forced herself to hold his gaze. He was right. The power of the Caller of the Blood had altered everything it touched — including, apparently, her. It was only fair. It was like she’d said to Ivan — you sacrificed something for the sake of that power, and you didn’t know what it was going to be until it was done. Maybe it wasn’t always a direct result of the pledge. But it seemed like fate was at work somehow, and Emma didn’t even know if she believed in fate. She believed in the prophecy because she had to. Was the concept of fate all that different?

  Penny for your thoughts, Red said in her mind, voice like molasses, dark and bittersweet.

  She tipped her chin up and didn’t try to hide her fangs as she answered him. “You’ve gained a lot from the pledge, whether you like it or not. I’m just wondering when the other shoe’s gonna drop. That’s how the power seems to work.” Finally she had to look away from him. “This isn’t a very happy thing to think, but I’m wondering what you’ve sacrificed, and when you’ll find out, and how bad it’ll be.”

  His laugh surprised her into looking at him again. The laughter didn’t reach his eyes. “Oh, I already know,” he said in a low, quiet voice that made Emma’s hair stand up.

  “You do?”

  “Yeah. I do.” He reached out and tugged her braid, which was impossibly long now. “And it’s complicated, so don’t ask.” With that he touched her shoulder and stalked off into camp. Emma watched him go, frowning and poking at one fang with her tongue, wondering what the hell he’d meant.

  Just another question she had for him, to add to the ever growing list. Problem was, she forgot all those questions when he was looking at her, making her laugh, making her feel like she didn’t need to be anyone or anything special.

  Fern stirred in her mind, against the merge, and she turned to meet his eyes across the clearing. We’re almost ready to go, he sent, snugging his backpack straps tight. He was carrying a smaller one today. If there’s anything you need to do before we strike out…

  Emma sighed and tromped over to where Leah crouched, packing a few last things into one of the big packs.

  The blond jaguar guard looked up, saw the resigned expression on Emma’s face, and popped to her feet. “Ain’t camping fun?”

  “So much fun,” Emma replied. As she and Leah ducked out of the clearing, Emma decided that the thing she most missed about civilization wasn’t coffee, or central heating, or the Internet: it was the bathroom.

  They stopped by the river to refill canteens and dump water-purifying tablets in them, and Emma brushed her teeth, feeling like a character in a kid’s book or something — even vampires need to protect against plaque! — a thought which earned her yet more admonishments from Fern about how she wasn’t turning into a vamp. She knew it was true, as far as the truth went. But she had powers that were just as scary — and ethically corrupt — as vampire mind control, and she got those powers from tasting (drinking ) blood, and now she had fangs.

  There was maybe more than one kind of vampire.

  Of course, she shielded that thought as well as she could, given the merge.

  Eating breakfast on the move to make up for lost time, they struck out along the river’s pebbled beach, munching dehydrated bacon and cold fish from the night before. Emma kinda wished she could brush her teeth again. It was a far cry from the usual breakfast at the ranch, but she refused to let herself pursue that thought any further. It would lead to tears, and she was going to keep her shit together today, like she’d promised herself.

  Thankfully, when breakfast was done and their hands were free, Shadi fell into step beside her and without a word handed her his bow and quiver. She wrapped the leather strap around her waist and cinched it tight. The others fell back to walk behind them, and she and Shadi set the pace for the next few hours, lecturing in his soft but masculine voice, and stopping occasionally only so Emma could grab one of the little powdered electrolyte packets to add to her canteen. Around midday Red jumped them all across the river and they started into the woods and foothills to the east, and the combination of improved weather and harder terrain meant Emma was warm enough to stow her parka.

  Not long after that, they all started to feel strange.

  At first Emma thought it was just her. The woods they were hiking through had thickened, and the sun no longer penetrated the canopy, so that was surely why the temperature had dropped. She was sweating freely from effort, and suddenly the sweat chilled, sticking her the
rmal shirt to the small of her back and making her shiver. She figured she’d warm back up; they were still heading uphill. She shook herself and focused on the bow, took aim, and then all the strength ran out of her legs.

  She didn’t fall. She locked her knees and stopped, mouth going dry. Then Shadi appeared beside her. He was pale beneath his dark beard, and his mouth was a grim line. His gaze roamed the surrounding trees as he lifted the bow from her hands, and though he wasn’t looking at her, his hand found the pouch at her waist and he took a fistful of arrows without making a sound.

  Emma looked around. Fern and Red were fanned out behind her; Red met her eyes and gave a tiny shake of his head. Fern had no more idea what was happening than she did. Judging by the looks on Leah and Horne’s faces as they moved out to flank Emma and Shadi, they didn’t either. She felt Ivan’s confusion through the pledge bond, sensed something of his thoughts, and turned to see his lip curled in a snarl as he drew the semiautomatic around on its cross strap.

  Breathing out, Emma focused on him. Ivan. His gaze collided with hers. Whatever’s happening, it isn’t the serpent priests, she sent as clearly as she could. This doesn’t feel like their power at all.

  His eyes clouded with skepticism, but he kept his finger off the trigger.

  “I don’t know what you guys are feeling,” Emma whispered, “But I really want to turn back all of a sudden.”

  Fern moved to stand at her back, his mind in neutral, waiting. Fatima stepped between Emma and Shadi, her hand at the sword on her hip.

  “Wards,” Fatima said. “Deterrent only, I think. I do not sense any active presence in them.”

  Emma blinked at the warrior priestess. “Say again?”

  “One of those signs sayin’ Beware of the Dog,” Red said. “This is the magical equivalent.”