He didn’t acknowledge her. Instead, he turned back to Cara. “It was the mark.” He tapped his forearm, where he wore the familiar glyph of the coyote bloodline. “Up until then, I thought it meant we were to be mates, that I was supposed to forgive the blood and take you as my queen. I dreamed of the mated mark, you see. But when the gods didn’t give it to us, I finally understood. It’s not about forgiving at all.” His eyes glittered suddenly. “It’s revenge.”
“What blood?” Cara whispered through lips gone numb. She was trapped, helpless. Terrified. Keep him talking. As long as he was there, she wasn’t drowning. “What revenge? What did I do to you?”
“Not you. Your father.”
Carlos. The name twisted something inside her. “What? Why?” Thunder rumbled outside, vibrating the altar beneath her and letting her know that the storm was still overhead. If it was the same storm as before, she hadn’t lost much time, hadn’t traveled far. Yet she might as well have been on a different plane. Her voice broke. “He said he didn’t know your family.”
“Zane,” Lora said, shooting a look into the darkness. “We should go. The doorway is almost all the way underwater.”
“I lied about who my parents were,” he said without taking his eyes off Cara. “Carlos knew them, all right. They would’ve made it out safe if it wasn’t for him. That’s why this is revenge.”
The massacre, she thought. He was talking about the days right before the massacre, when the king cracked down on the rebels, declaring that any mage or winikin caught trying to leave would be considered guilty of treason, which was an executable offense. He hadn’t actually executed anyone, but he had sent teams of loyalists to keep the rebels in check.
Some had gotten away. Most hadn’t.
“My father wasn’t on one of the teams.” She’d asked him directly.
Zane spit into the water, which had covered the small sandy island and was edging up his boots. “He did it personally, talking them back into doing their duty and saving the world for their son.” He thumped his chest. “For me. I tried to get them to leave like we had planned, but he’d brainwashed them—the whole fucking system had brainwashed them—and they locked me in my room, telling me that everything was going to be okay.” He bared his teeth. “I got away, though. They nearly caught me, nearly killed me, but I got away… and the gods led me here, so I would know what to do when the time came.”
He shifted, and for a second she thought he was going for his dagger, that it was all over. Instead, he turned up the camping lantern full blast, so it reached the farthest reaches of the cave. And even through her terror, she gaped.
Water surrounded them on all sides, brown and rippling, and churning to dirty foam at a narrow spot where an arch of deep darkness and a flicker of lightning said there was a way out.
Cara yearned toward it. Please, gods.
The huge cavern roof was decorated with cave paintings of people and animals, hunting scenes that leaped into sharp focus and left her reeling. Directly overhead, there was a throng of painted creatures—birds, mammals, reptiles, they were all there. The brown, rust, and ocher colors were vivid and breathtaking even in her panic. But it wasn’t the paintings that had Zane’s full attention; it was the lower ring of images that ran the circumference of the cave.
Coyotes. Everywhere, coyotes.
Zane’s eyes were lit with terrifying fanaticism. “I was injured, sunstroked, desperate, and the gods brought me here. I lay in the shade, drank the water, and waited for my parents to come for me… but they never did. And when I went back to the compound, it had disappeared.” His expression flattened. “Your father helped the Nightkeepers lead my parents to their deaths… and then the magic took the only home I’d ever known. So… I left. I survived. And for years, I thought it was all over, that the massacre had severed the magic forever. But then you came for me—a coyote came for me, and I knew the gods still favored our bloodline. I just didn’t know how until a few days ago.” He was breathing heavily now, still staring at the painted coyotes. “I dreamed of this, of you.” The island was gone now, the water up past his knees, though he didn’t seem to notice or care.
Tears stung Cara’s eyes but didn’t fall. “Please,” she said softly. “Let me go. You can have whatever you want.”
His eyes went back to the paintings. “I want to become what the gods intend. And you’re going to help me.” He glanced at Lora, jerked his chin toward the exit. “Let’s go. This is between her and the cave.”
“But I thought…” Lora touched her knife with fingers that trembled slightly.
Zane shook his head and started slogging away. Over his shoulder, he said, “No. She drowns. That’s the way the magic works.”
Cara’s heart seized in her chest even as anger lashed through the fear. “There is no magic, damn it!” Her voice cracked with the force of her shout. “You’re a winikin!”
“I’m a coyote winikin,” he called back over the sound of the water. “That makes all the difference in the world.”
“It doesn’t—” She broke off—there was no point arguing with a madman—and switched her attention to Lora, who stood there with a strange look in her eyes and her hand on the hilt of her blade. “Don’t you see he’s lost it?” Cara said softly. “Let me go and we’ll fix this. We’ll fix everything; I promise.” She was pleading now, begging. Whatever it took. “Please. Don’t do this.”
“Lora.” Zane snapped his fingers. “Come on.”
“Don’t—” Cara began, but then broke off because it was no use. Lora heeled up like an obedience-trained retriever, warning that there had been more going on in the winikin’s wing than Cara had even begun to guess. Was she that blind? Had she been so wrapped up in her own problems that she’d failed to see that something was so wrong?
A sob rose up and locked her throat as Zane and Lora—her teammates… hell, her team leaders—slogged through the narrowing gap and out into the night. Then they were gone, leaving her alone with a single lantern and the water more than halfway up the face of the altar.
Cara screamed, “Help! For gods’ sake, somebody help me!” Her only answer was a flicker of lightning that made the cave paintings dance as if they were alive. She twisted against the cargo straps, unable to get any real leverage. The bonds bit into her chest and hips, drew blood from her wrists and ankles, and didn’t budge at all. Panic bit into her, raced through her, and she filled her lungs as far as she could, straining to scream, “Help me!”
The rain rattled like bullets on the scant windshield of the ATV Sven had boosted from the firing range, and slashed into his exposed skin, cutting into him so hard he was surprised he wasn’t covered in blood. It was just water, though. And even if it’d been acid burning holes in his body, he would’ve kept going, following Mac’s trail through the rainy, shitty darkness.
This really wasn’t good.
They were outside the compound, vulnerable, and nobody knew where they were or what was going on, but he couldn’t stop now. He was focused on the lightning-lit glimpses of his familiar up ahead and, like now, when Mac bolted ahead and out of sight behind a rocky outcropping, the mental link that drew him onward with: Followfollowfollowfoll—
The sudden break in the litany snapped Sven’s head up and put a nasty clutch in his gut. But then he heard a flurry of excited barks and a new glyph burst in on him: Found! Found! Foundfoundfound!
“Cara!” he bellowed, though her name was quickly swallowed by the wind. He could still hear the barking, though, along with a new sound, a deeper-throated roar that prickled a whole lot of bad down his spine.
It was the sound of water in the desert. A flash flood.
Gut knotting, he whipped around the corner, hit the brakes, and brought the four-wheeler to a slithering, slewing stop, cursing as the headlights shone on a bad situation rapidly going worse. “Son of a bitch.”
Mac was running up and down the bank of what had probably been a dry wash or slow-moving trickle an hour ago, but was
now a rushing, seething mass of muddy water. Right where the coyote was pacing in fast-forward, the water foamed slimy brown against a wall of rock and then slipped through an opening in the stone, where a cave mouth was just barely visible.
Killing the ATV, Sven bolted toward Mac, past him, splashing to the edge of the water and staggering when the ground gave beneath him like quicksand. “Cara! Are you in there?” Please, gods. Holy fucking please. “Cara!”
He didn’t get anything but Mac’s background litany of: Yes, yes, yes!
“Shut it,” he snapped. “I can’t hear anything.”
The coyote went to quivering silence, but between the pissing rain, the churning current, and the grumble that wasn’t quite thunder, he couldn’t hear dick.
Then, faintly, his name. “Sven?” The word was nearly lost beneath the din, but it was real. By the gods, it was real.
“Cara?”
“Hurry! I’m trapped, and—” Thunder drowned out the rest.
“I’m coming. Hang on!” He forged deeper into the water, forcing his feet through the shifting sand and cursing when the icy cold bit through his clothes and the current dragged like a bitch.
Mac howled from the bank, racing up and down. Followfollowfollow!
Sven lurched back around just as his familiar gathered to leap into the deadly current. “No!”
The big coyote skidded into the muck at the edge, then floundered back to solid ground, barking, yipping, whining, and sending a steady stream of, Followfollowfollow!
“You can’t follow. I need you to get help.” When that didn’t register, Sven sent it in thought-glyphs, pushing them hard through the familiar bond. Need help. Get friends. Then he pictured JT, who had unexpectedly clicked with the coyote during the xombi exterminations, playing hours of fetch and cracking a series of Lassie jokes that had gotten real old real quick, but had lightened up the horror a little. The winikin might not grasp how close they were to “Timmy fell down the well. Lassie, get help!” but he would know there was a problem, and he’d be smart enough to follow the coyote.
Hopefully.
Mac barked. Friend!
Sven pictured a crowd of people, everyone he could think of who was at Skywatch, then the Jeeps. All friends. Jeeps. Then come back. Fast! Fastfastfast! He didn’t dare send more than that, hoped that wasn’t too much. But, damn, he needed help and he needed it twenty minutes ago, and both his armband and the comm device on the ATV were dead, killed by a storm that had to be something more than weather.
Mac barked twice in answer, and lightning flashed as he wheeled and bolted away, flying back up the way they had come. Sven felt him heading away, moving fast, purpose fixed in his mind. Hurry, he thought, though the mind link was already growing faint with distance. Then he turned back to the cave, bellowing, “Cara?”
There was no answer.
Roaring her name, he forced his legs through the clinging muck and shoved his body through the churning current, slogging, gutting it out, aiming for the cave mouth. The force of the water pounded into him, dragged at him, but he held fast. Ten more steps. Eight. Seven.
Then he stepped onto emptiness as the ground disappeared beneath him. And, bellowing her name, he flung himself into the foamy churn.
The icy water closed around him, blocking out the sound of the storm. For a second the freezing liquid felt entirely alien, like he’d never surfed the big waves or dived the Great Barrier, never even fucking dog-paddled. Then the current grabbed him and yanked him into its flow, and nearly two decades spent above and below the ocean came back between one heartbeat and the next.
He instinctively read the undertow and the countercurrent that said he was headed for the rock wall. Instead of fighting it, he wrapped his arms around his head and went limp, and let it happen. He slammed into the rocky surface with bruising, slashing force and smothered an underwater groan. Fuck, that hurt! But when his head broke the surface, he struck out, swimming with the current that curved around the base of the wall, knowing that when he reached the cave mouth, the undertow was going to be a bitch.
The roar of water surrounded him, threatened to consume him, but he had to get in there; the seconds were ticking beneath his skin. Please, gods, let her be okay.
Then he was at the huge vacu-suck where the floodwaters raced into the cave. Every survival instinct he possessed said to get the fuck out of there, but instead he frog-kicked down and in. The current grabbed him, yanking him down and corkscrewing him in a dizzying spin. Blood pounding in his head, he let the current carry him, pummel him, pull him, spin him around. Then, finally, it softened, eased, let go, and he broke back into blessed air.
“Son of a bitch.” He sucked in huge lungfuls while registering that the water noise and eddies around him said he was in a big cave. “Cara?”
“Sven.” It was barely a gasp, but he heard it. He heard it!
Calling on his magic, he cast a foxfire that lit a water-filled cavern and illuminated bright, vivid cave paintings. The images moved and swirled, and he wasn’t sure if that was a trick of the light or some sort of storm magic. Because there was definitely magic in the cave; it suddenly hummed in his bones and sparkled in the air, making it seem that a zoo’s worth of animals spun and dipped. Lower, down near the waterline, coyotes danced in a circle.
For a second, his eyes locked on those coyotes and something stirred inside him. Then he tore his attention free to scan the cave. “Cara!”
There was no sign of her. There was only the water.
Gods!
He’d been going with the current, but now he struck out swimming, casting around, trying to find her. The water coming in through the cave mouth piled up against the far wall in a foamy mass, but not nearly as much as he would expect; it had to be going somewhere. Which meant there was an outlet somewhere in the chamber, submerged. Had she been swept farther downstream?
But her words echoed in his head. I’m trapped. Okay, but how? Where? He dived beneath the surface, searching for some clue, but the water was murky brown, the current chaotic, the base of the pool nothing but smooth sand.
“Cara!” He shouted her name each time he surfaced, calling her over and over again. And, finally, he thought he caught a gurgled scream. Kicking to rear himself as high out of the water as he could, he cast another foxfire, a third, lighting the cave day-bright. And he saw a place at the center of the pool where the water swirled and churned rather than flowing. There was something down there!
He floundered toward the spot, sucked in a breath, and submerged, hands outstretched. He found stone and followed it to a cargo strap, felt along the tight strap, and touched a hand. It grabbed on to him instantly, clutching in panic.
The move brought a spurt of relief. And he’d found her just in time too, because although the churning water had given her some extra chances at oxygen, she was fully submerged now, wide-eyed and scared, spitting bubbles as she screamed his name and begged for air.
Rearing up, he gulped a lungful, then ducked down, slanted his lips across hers, and gave her his breath in a kiss that wasn’t a kiss, but was full of feeling anyway. Once, twice, and again he did it, until her eyes lost a little bit of their desperation. Then, racing time, he hooked his legs on either side of the stone slab she was bound to, pulled his ceremonial knife, and started hacking at the nylon straps, which were tough and slippery. Come on, you bastards. Come on!
Rage caught up with him then. Someone had done this to her. Who? Why? He didn’t know, couldn’t deal with it now. But fury flowed through him, then coalesced to a cold, icy vow: He was going to get her out of this no matter what it took. He was going to find whoever had done this to her. And he was going to fucking kill them.
He hacked through the chest strap and loosened one wrist, and she reared up, clutching at him as she shuddered and coughed, sucking in huge, ragged breaths. Her hair was plastered to her face, so black against her pasty white skin that she looked entirely colorless until her eyes blinked open and locked on his, twi
n gleams of honeyed brown that were warm, vibrant, and totally at odds with the world around them. “Cara.” The word was a pained groan that ripped at his chest, coming from the place where he kept all the things he couldn’t say.
“Hurry,” she whispered between trembling, colorless lips. “Cut the others.” The water was up to her throat and climbing.
He fumbled with the rest of her bonds, sawing through the one at her hips and then fucking ripping the last ankle strap free on a convulsive heave that was part fury, part relief. Then he dragged her into his arms and clutched her close. “Jesus gods.” He buried his face in the crook of her neck. “I thought you were already gone.”
She burrowed in, held on. “I’m f-freezing.”
He wasn’t much better off, his body cold, his wet clothes plastered to him. But now that he had her, knew she was alive, fury kindled in his chest. “Who did this?”
She hesitated, but then turned her face away and said in a low voice, “Zane planned it, with Lora helping. I don’t know if any of the others were involved.”
“Son of a—” He broke off, knowing now wasn’t the time and anger wasn’t what she needed. “Sorry. I’m sorry.” Sorrier than she knew, because he’d been fucking watching those two and he hadn’t seen it. Rage turned his insides murderously cold, and he felt like part of Mac was inside him, telling him to find, fight, kill! Not now, though. She needed him, and for a change he was there. It was a new, humbling sensation, one that put a funny twist in his throat as he gathered her tighter against his chest. “We need to get the hell out of here. Can you swim?”
“Yes, I—”
His stomach sank as a rumbling noise started up, coming from gods only knew where, interrupting him. He scanned a full three-sixty for the cause, but didn’t find it.
“Look!” She pointed up, face blanking with new terror.
He followed her gesture and his heart stopped—seriously fucking stopped—at the sight of the cave roof dropping down toward them, running along a seam that hadn’t been visible before. Magic, machinery, it didn’t matter how it was moving, only that it was, and what it meant. Holy fucking shit.
Magic Unchained Page 14
