Forakkes stood straighter, his leathered face gone even stiffer, even less natural. “You’re a fool if you think you’ve weakened me.”
Ruger shook his head in a weary gesture. “I didn’t say weak. I said not well. All the years you’ve been working on these projects, did we ever even come close to catching up with you before now? All the loyalty your men have given you...did you ever fail them before now? All you had to do these past few days was sit tight, and instead you threw away everything you accomplished before. I’m a healer, Forakkes. Do you think you can hide from me what’s happened to you these past months? Workings to preserve yourself, failed. Workings to rejuvenate yourself—”
“Have performed perfectly!” Forakkes snapped.
Ruger said nothing, looking at the caricature of humanity before him. Then he caught the eye of the assistant—his hair cut more tightly than most, his silver jewelry less ostentatious. “If you were making the choice today, would you follow this man into defiance of your drozhar and Septs Prince?”
The man looked not at Ruger, but at Forakkes, his shoulders gone stiff. “I refuse to give credence to that question with a response.”
“You see?” Forakkes snatched a final amulet from the box—one that sat apart from the others, strung on two cords connected at intervals by complex knots: an amulet of power and complexity. “Or maybe you don’t. But you will.”
::Mari!:: Ruger threw energy to his personal shields; he checked his wards.
And he knew, with gut-deep certainty, that they wouldn’t be enough. Not to protect him from this amulet. He knew Mariska’s wouldn’t be enough.
Mariska appeared in the mouth of the tunnel, raising herself briefly to her hind legs in a threat—sending him a wordless sense of query and frustration at the sight of Forakkes, safe in the cage.
::Just be here,:: he told her, and maybe some of his desperation slipped through his awareness. Outmatched. They were healer and bodyguard, not shielding specialists or warding wizards. ::Watch my back.::
And then she was Mari again, short and strong and determined, and her hand slid into his. “You’re not alone,” she said, low enough so Forakkes would have to strain to hear it. “Never again.”
Never again. Ruger tightened his hand around hers, drinking in the strength of her.
Forakkes lifted the amulet, and smiled until his lips stretched tightly over his teeth. “And so you lose.”
Ruger didn’t wait for the first flush of corrupted energies; he dove deeply into healing energies—a fresh, clear wash of golds and soothing blues and deep greens painting his mind’s eye in a whirl of watercolor existence. He only distantly realized he shouldn’t have left the rest of him standing against the wall—just as distantly felt Mariska catch him, propping him against her shoulder while she guided him down and then settled beside him, tucking herself close. Cradling him, as much as could be said when he sat so much larger than she.
The amulet working rushed up against them, slamming into their shields—thinning them and warping them and making Mariska gasp at the solidity of the blow.
Ruger floundered in it, the healing energies turned to chaos under attack by the same working that tugged against his bear-fingers, clawing around his soul to tear away at the essence of him. Gold turned muddy, blue turned dark...green bled away.
He couldn’t heal this after it was done. There’d be nothing left of him by then. Nothing left of Mariska, and soon enough nothing left of the Sentinels at all—
::Not alone,:: Mariska told him, pushing into his turmoil. ::Take me, too.:: She cried out and twisted against him, her pain echoing threefold through Ruger. He felt it through his healer, he felt it through their connection, and he felt it in his own body—until they were no longer sitting together but crumpled together, and her moans reverberated against his skin.
He flung healing at the working, making of it a blunt barrier, nothing of finesse or direction. It gave him only enough surcease to realize that the working stabbed through such undirected force with ease, and inside him the bear roared.
::Take me, too,:: Mariska sent to him, a mere whisper. ::Be not alone.::
He didn’t understand; he couldn’t. She was no healer. She couldn’t combine her efforts with his. She couldn’t be what she wasn’t—
Idiot.
She could be what she was.
And if it wasn’t enough, then they would die together—completely and fully together.
He bought them an instant, shoving out another wave of what should have been healing. And in that instant, he reached out and wrapped his soul around her—accepting her, taking her in.
Beneath him, she gave a small sob—it might have been relief. And then the sense of her burst through him—fierce, sturdy Mariska Bear, a flood of warmth and strength. He spun it into himself, absorbing it—
Clean, fresh healing energies infused with the bear—infused with two bears, given new tooth. Bold, primal energy surging forward to meet the enemy, ignoring the stench and the rake of pain to swipe at darting power, leaping forth in anticipation of clawing destruction—roaring into the throat of devastation.
The working swirled, the currents of it disrupted into billowing chaos. Ruger herded it, surrounding it—driving it back and back and back again, until the energies turned darting and frantic and in search of outlet. In search of undoing.
Until they suddenly surged away from him, spinning tightly into a cyclonic whirl that swallowed itself from the bottom up, sucking away into nothing on the tail of a hoarse scream.
And then Ruger was alone again—
Except he wasn’t. There inside himself, Mariska’s essence overlapped with his, exhausted and quiescent, a gentle intertwining nudge. His skin tingled with it; his body gently purred with it.
But only until he finished passing out.
* * *
Mariska woke to chaos and snarls.
“Dead,” said a voice that wasn’t quite in the same room. “Torn to pieces. I think one of our bears has been here.”
“Here,” said another, pitched low and whisky-rough, mingling with the sounds of a steady tenor growl. “They are still here.”
Jet—!
Mariska forced her eyes open, astonished at the effort of it.
“She wakes,” Jet said, standing just inside the entrance with curiously passive body language and speaking into the tunnel.
“Dammit,” Heckle said. Harrison—free! “I’m coming in there!”
“Do not,” Jet told him without moving—nothing but her gaze, angled down and away from Mariska now.
Mariska saw him, then. Ciobaka. Crouching not far away with tail fully tucked—thumbless, voiceless, but his eyes full of intelligence behind gleaming white teeth and snarling lips. His message couldn’t have been more clear: I am terrified and I think I might die here but you had best not come any closer anyway or I will BITE!
“Ciobaka,” she said, and was surprised that it came out as no more than a whisper. She nudged Ruger, who lay mostly on top of her, reminding her that he was in fact a big, big man and too damned heavy when he wasn’t wrangling his own weight. She couldn’t even get a good look at him, not from this angle. “Ruger—”
Jet crouched without coming any closer, a fluid movement during which she deliberately angled her body away from Ciobaka. “His eyes moved,” she told Mariska, which was her way of offering reassurance.
Mariska gave up on subtlety and shoved. Ruger startled into full awareness, shoving away with some vehemence in his effort to scramble awake and ready. “Oof,” she said, as he righted himself to kneel with his back against the wall. “Do you want to get bitten?” But she could see him now—see his confusion as he took in his surroundings, his relief as he saw Jet, his eyes widen as his gaze landed on Ciobaka. It was enough to put a gleefully sharp edge in her voice as she added, “And I don’t mean by Ciobaka.”
He reached down to pull her upright, and hardly gently. Nor was it gentle when he hauled her in close and caught her up
in a fierce embrace, burying his face in her hair and holding her so tightly she could scarcely breathe—and at that, she never wanted to let go of him. “Mari,” he said, as if no one else in this facility had Sentinel ears. “Mari, love—”
She did the only thing she could, crushed up against him, the bear-and-man scent of him enveloping her as much as the embrace. She did bite him. Right on the meat along his shoulder, her small, strong teeth firmer than a polite scrape and gentler than the bear.
Ruger made a coughing sound; his body shook beneath her. She froze—and only belatedly realized he was laughing. Laughing. She jerked herself free of him to scowl from only inches away, as if his beautiful face wasn’t drawn with strain and her hand wasn’t damp from contact with his draining wound. A profound scowl, with eyes narrowed and mouth clamped—and one that lasted only until he pulled her back for the fiercest, most possessive kiss in the world, one that didn’t last nearly long enough and that left her gasping when he broke away.
Jet’s voice came as dry as a wolf could manage, which was plenty dry enough. “You are well, then?”
Mariska sucked in a deep breath and leaned against the wall beside Ruger, sliding down to go cross-legged. Ruger scrubbed his hands over his face and pushed off against his thighs—standing, but only by dint of the wall still at his back. “We’re alive,” he said, and looked down at Ciobaka, who still kept a wary eye on Jet.
“Ciobaka,” he said. “Brave of you, son. This is Jet. She’s a friend, and she’s wolf. Not like us, a human who takes the wolf. But a wolf who has taken the human, because of what Forakkes once did to her.”
“Ciobaka,” Jet greeted him. “When I am wolf, you may sniff me.”
Ciobaka looked at them all, his stiff tail drooping, his big scoop ears losing loft. He backed an uncertain step, then turned and slunk away.
“It’s too much for him,” Jet said, understanding better than them all. “He will be back.”
Harrison emerged from the tunnel—dirty, ragged, and his expression simmering with lingering anger. Hardly the mild amulet assistant they’d left behind. His expression cleared somewhat as he saw Ruger and Mariska; she pushed to her feet, ignoring her own staggering clumsiness. “Heckle! What about Ian? Sandy? Did you hear from Maks? Has Katie got any news?”
“We all felt the changes,” Jet said. “Too many things happening in this spot, and it stunk.” She meant literally, from the wrinkle in her nose. “Maks stayed with Katie—she is not well with this. Annorah sent help and I brought them to the other bunker. Then I followed you out.”
“The rain slowed us.” Harrison’s mouth went flat. “We don’t know about Ian or Sandy yet.” Then his eyes narrowed. “Did you call me Heckle?”
“Maybe,” Mariska said cautiously—but her attention caught on movement in the cage, just as Ciobaka raised his muzzle to lift a lip in that direction. Ruger made a wary sound in his throat, started to move, and hitched over his side, a startled grunt of pain replacing his intent. She dropped beside him, bracing him—but kept her eyes on the cage.
Forakkes sprawled on his back, one arm outstretched and the amulet just beyond his reach, the cord still tangled in his fingers. His stringy musculature had gone not just lax, but soft; his hair clung to his skull in a wispy, gentle white. The angle made it hard to see his face, but Mariska had the impression of pale skin, wrinkles on wrinkles.
The assistant had flattened himself up against the back of the cage, the amulet box clutched against his torso with the lid still up—and one hand reaching within.
“Don’t!” Mariska told him. “Ruger can counter the workings before they reach us—or didn’t you notice your boss?”
“What—” The man swallowed hard, and made himself straighten. “What did you do to him?”
Ruger snorted gently. His voice held strain; he eased himself back down to sit against the wall again. “I healed him,” he said, and looked at the hand he’d had pressed against his side. He would have surreptitiously wiped the fresh blood against his leg had Mariska not grabbed his wrist and taken a good hard look. “It’s okay,” he murmured.
“It’s not,” she said with some asperity. Jet eyed him, too, her entire dark-clad, long, lean body coming to attention, her expression knowing.
Ruger only shook his head. “It will be.”
The assistant didn’t follow the byplay—didn’t even notice it. His hand tightened around the amulet; the box shook slightly in his grasp. “What do you mean, you healed him? He’s dead!”
“Did you see him before?” Mariska asked. “Did you really call that living?”
Ruger scrubbed a weary hand over his face, and Mariska glared at the assistant—but Ruger rested that hand over hers when she would have spoken.
“You must have known he was not truly whole,” Jet said, taking a step toward the man, her curiosity as honest as ever. “Find the key and come out of there. What Ruger did before, he can do again; your amulets are useless.”
Mariska hoped he could do again. But then, she was the only one touching him, feeling the faint tremor beneath her hand as that big body slowly gave way before the insults of the past two days. She dared no more than a glance at him—seeing the strain in his jaw and around his eyes, the increasing list in his upright position. No weakness, not in front of this particular Core minion. The man had to believe what Jet said—had to believe that further attack would be pointless.
Ruger shook his head at the man—responding to both his fear and his defiance. “Forakkes was so tangled in workings it was hard to tell where he ended and they began.” And even though Mariska felt the hitch in his breath and moved to position her knee so it blocked the man’s view of that growing trickle of blood, Ruger’s voice stayed even. “When I stopped that final amulet working—”
“The Amulet of Undoing,” the man said, a reverence mixed with his bitter tone.
“—I did it with healing.”
The man shook his head. Not Sentinel, not understanding.
But Mariska did. “Ruger healed us faster than the amulet could harm. He healed the working all the way back to where it started, and the splash-over must have reached Forakkes’ amulets. It’s what we do, you know. Heal. Protect. Preserve.”
“You kill,” the man said, a wild look in his eye and all his attention on Ruger. “You took away an old man’s support workings—a master! You think I trust that I’m safe with you? You think I care if I die with you, if that’s the way it has to be?”
Mariska snorted, loud enough to draw the man’s startled intention away from Ruger suddenly drained of color, his breath coming faster, shallower. A man about to pass out, human enough after all. “Get over yourself,” she said with no little scorn. “Forakkes wouldn’t be dead if he hadn’t triggered that amulet.” She looked at the one the man held, knowing it took little more than a trained twist of will to handle a prepared amulet—and this man surely had more than that at his disposal.
Jet knew it better than any of them. “If you try to hurt us with amulets,” she said, “Ruger will stop you. And instead of returning you to your people, we will shoot you through the bars with one of your own guns.”
::Mari,:: Ruger said, and his inner voice sounded faint; his eyes flickered, as though only strength of will kept them from rolling up. ::Mari, I’m trying—::
Trying not to faint, she thought, and closed her hand on his shoulder, fingers digging in hard enough so he jerked with surprise, growling, and let her know she’d pay for this one. She caught the man’s gaze and held it, hard. “Unlock the damned door, because we’ve got other things to do than watch you decide to go out in an ill-conceived blaze of stupid!”
The man looked at her—looked at the amulets in the box, his face contorted, his decision made. He upended the whole box, amulets clanking to the ground, twisting and tangling around their knotted cords, and fell on his knees beside them, digging his hands into the bunch of them.
Oh, hell, he’s going to trigger them all—
There
was no way Ruger could fend off such a glut of workings—and then they would be dead, and no one would know what had happened here; no one from brevis would have the chance to decipher the amulets, or to formulate defenses against them.
Oh, hell.
::Mari—:: The silent words held a gasp to them, a desperation. She dug her fingers in, glancing at Harrison and the gun he held, wondering if he was fast enough, ready enough, to pull the trigger before the man triggered the amulets.
Or if the man would be able to trigger the things even if he’d been shot.
Ciobaka yawned.
It was loud and ridiculous, with a long curl of rising sound at the end. The man startled, and for that instant his attention split.
::Mari—:: Ruger said, and this time she heard the request in it, and finally she understood.
::You aren’t alone,:: she told him, responding to need—knowing that now, of all times, when he sat in the enemy’s house with his wounds bleeding and unconsciousness pushing at him, he needed someone at his back. More than that—he needed everything she could give him. As the sharp stench of triggering amulets cut the air, as the assistant clutched at the pile of amulets, his eyes squeezed closed and his lips peeled back from his teeth in fear, a noise rising in his throat as though he charged to battle—
She opened herself wide, and suddenly there he was—wrapping around her and through her and leaning on her from the inside out—surging forward into one final effort.
The assistant’s eyes rolled up in his head and he slid bonelessly against the bars, the amulet dropping from his grasp.
In the silence that followed, Harrison lowered the gun and cast Ruger a sardonic look. “Tell me that was healing.”
“He’s tired,” Ruger said shortly. His presence slowly receded from within Mariska, leaving her with only what he’d been trying to hide—the unutterable ache in his side, the gripping weariness—until that, too, withdrew back into Ruger alone. His voice faded. “He needed to...sleep. So he is.”
And then, finally, his eyes rolled back.
Kodiak Chained Page 23
