Spellbinders Collection

by Molly Cochran

  Wadded towels splatted into the trashcan with a lot more force than they needed. Brian poured another cup and met David's eyes. That was the look--the one that made David think of fire and blood and sharp steel, the Doberman look. Brian's eyes had faded from blue to ice-gray, and the thoughts showing through them were even colder.

  "I care," Brian said. "The police just don't have jurisdiction in this case."

  "What the hell you mean, jurisdiction? They aren't in Naskeag Falls? The FBI handles kidnapping! That's the fucking jurisdiction!"

  "The FBI doesn't cover where Maureen and Jo have gone. Neither does Interpol. Please move: I need to get into that closet."

  The alternative seemed to be leaving through a door without opening it first. Brian looked about as stoppable as an avalanche. David slumped into a chair, his knees suddenly unreliable.

  Jo was in danger. Jo!

  The closet spat out a mottled green knapsack covered with loops and pockets. A heavy web belt followed, clip-on canteen, and pouches. Binoculars--expensive binoculars, rubber-armored Leicas. Floppy jungle hat faded nearly white with sweat and sun. David cataloged the contents of an army surplus store as they piled up on the table. Where the hell had all that come from?

  Brian noticed David's scowl and nodded at the pile. "Maureen fetched this lot for me, cleaned out a locker down at the bus depot." The gear had seen a lot of mileage. Some of it bore patched holes that looked suspiciously small and round.

  A curved black leather sheath landed on top of the pile. Brian stood up with a grunt that was his only concession to leg and ribs. He unsheathed a heavy knife, like a short machete bent in the middle. Moving smoothly and quietly like a man performing a religious rite, he tested the edge with his thumbnail, pulled one of two smaller blades from the sheath, and used it as a sharpening steel.

  The rasp of metal on metal sent icicles down David's spine. The dull sheen of the blade spoke of hours spent honing, honing, honing. Waiting. Soldiers do that, David thought, soldiers waiting to go over the top, soldiers waiting to reach the drop zone or the beach, soldiers waiting for an enemy they know is just beyond this ridge. Waiting to kill or die.

  Those scars weren't from gang wars.

  "My God, what is that thing?"

  "It's called a kukri, the fighting knife of the Nepalese Gurkhas. I served with a special Gurkha scout unit in the British Army. Little buggers preferred these knives to their rifles. There are tales of a single Gurk with a kukri taking out a Japanese platoon, one by one, to the last man."

  David shook himself and beat thoughts back into his head. "What do you mean, even Interpol can't help us? You trying to tell me some crazy crap like they've been abducted by men from Mars?"

  "Not Mars." Brian stopped, his stare measuring David. "Do you care enough about Jo to reset your brain? To throw out a lot of stuff you know is true?"

  An eye of quiet settled in the middle of the storm. Images floated by: Jo talking, Jo skittering around the kitchen in her start-stop squirrel mode, Jo in sunlight and in moonlight, Jo in bed and Jo fuzzy-eyed and snappish and foul-mouthed in a ratty bathrobe across the breakfast table with her hair in curlers.

  "I care enough about Jo to die for her. I've asked her to marry me."

  That drew a blink and raised eyebrows. "We're not talking about pretty songs. You bloody well might get a chance to die for her." Brian seemed to think for a moment and then shrugged.

  "Get the box of matches from the stove. Take one and strike it on the box. Strike it once and then hold it. Keep your fingers well away from the head."

  David did as he was told. The head sparked but didn't light. He held it up, puzzled. There was nothing strange about that; normally he would have just struck it again.

  Suddenly the match exploded in a single burst of light and heat as powerful as a flashbulb. David blinked. Through the sparkles of the after-image, the head and half the wooden shaft had vanished. The remaining matchstick ended clean at a blackened line. There was only a faint wisp of smoke.

  "Magic exists," Brian said. "You are not hypnotized. That was not a stage trick, not an illusion. The man who took Maureen from the store uses magic like you walk and breathe."

  A suspicion crept into the corner of David's brain and whispered. Words, weapons, healing, the magic show: what does this add up to? David sat down again, very slowly, as if the Doberman had just growled and bared its fangs.

  "You've dragged them into some kind of war, haven't you?"

  Brian quieted like a cat ready to pounce. He studied the edge of the kukri.

  "Not intentionally."

  The Gurkha knife seemed huge, a bent sword. David saw his own blood on it. That thing could take a man's head off with a single stroke. He could be dead already. He might as well ask the rest of the questions.

  "Just what, exactly, do you mean by that?"

  "I mean, before I knew her, I was following some dangerous men. One of them chased Maureen into an alley. I took him out. That's where I met her."

  David shuddered at the bald, terse statements. He suddenly wasn't sure if he was willing to live with any more answers.

  "One of them . . . . What about the others?"

  "Another was the shark who took the bait. My half-brother."

  "What right did you have to risk Maureen?"

  "That first time? I didn't even know who she was. She wasn't in danger until just before I moved. Last night was desperation. She refused to call in sick. By tonight, I would have been well enough to guard her."

  "Where is she? Where the hell are Maureen and Jo?"

  "Another world, the thickness of a sheet of paper away from you. Sean would take Maureen there. How Jo went, I can only guess. She may have tried to stop Sean, or she may have followed on her own. She has the Power. David, your lover is not entirely human. Neither is Maureen. Neither am I."

  A cold knot formed in David's belly, the chill reaching out to his fingers and toes. However, things could be worse. Brian could be using that knife already. Apparently the big soldier thought David might help, or at least not get in the way.

  I suspected this. I called Jo a witch. I knew the other night was freaky.

  He swallowed his heart. "You're going after them."

  "Yes."

  "I'm coming with you. I said I'd die for Jo and I meant it. I don't want to even think about living without her."

  Brian shook his head. "No. You're not a fighter, and you don't have the blood to work with Power. Someone like Sean would take you like a grizzly snapping up a trout."

  David winced. The image was too vivid.

  He gritted his teeth. "You take me along, or I'll call the cops on you. If nothing else, I can carry your pack. You're not fully healed yet. I saw you limping. And if you have something like a shotgun, I can at least scare those bastards."

  A grim smile flitted across Brian's face. "Call the cops? Maureen wouldn't let you use the phone, and she didn't even realize what she was doing. Try to get out of your seat."

  Stand up? Simple. But nothing happened. David cussed, silently. Nothing below his waist worked. He had feeling, he still balanced upright on the chair with all the unconscious adjustments an unstable posture needs, he didn't feel heavy or have any sense of magic glue holding him to his seat, but his legs simply wouldn't make the necessary moves.

  And then his hand reached out and picked up the discarded matchstick. It turned and moved steadily toward his face, toward his right eye, and he couldn't move his head away, he couldn't turn his head, he couldn't stop his hand or drop the match or even blink his eyes.

  An animal scream forced its way out of his throat, low and quiet but rasping with pain against clenched teeth. He smelled the char on the stick, he lost focus on it, he felt it brush his eyelashes, and then it stopped. His hand finally answered the scream and whipped the splinter of wood away from his eye. It bounced off the refrigerator with a tick that echoed in the quiet kitchen.

  David collapsed across the table, his arms wrapped over his h
ead in a vain attempt at shelter. He gasped for breath and fought against the instant replays running through his head, that blackened weapon inching toward his eye as if it was held in a drill-press made of his own flesh.

  "Sean wouldn't have stopped."

  David looked up, still shaking. "I don't care. I have to go."

  That cold, gray stare weighed him. Finally, it softened back into a faded blue.

  "And guns don't work where we're going. I don't suppose you ever studied fencing or karate?"

  David laughed, a bark just short of hysteria. "No. What do you mean, guns won't work? The laws of physics take a holiday?"

  "Remember the match. The easiest way to see it, is think about a few additional laws. Say the Old Ones put a speed limit on oxidation-reduction chemistry. Without magic to help, nothing can burn much faster than a normal fire. It's kind of a 'union shop' clause in the way they run their world. They don't like paying attention to people who can't use the Power."

  Brian hauled more gear out of the closet. He assembled a takedown bow and started to string it, and groaned with pain. Forcing the tip down towards the string, his hand wavered just as the loop caught. The bow snapped loose like a striking rattlesnake. Brian clutched the side of his face and sank to the floor.

  The fiberglass tip had left a gouge across Brian's cheekbone. David wet a towel and swabbed at the scrape, then jerked his hand away in shock. The bleeding stopped, and a shiny film of healing spread across the wound.

  Witchcraft. Healing like that was enough to get you burned at the stake. How bad had the earlier injuries really been, if Brian hadn't fully recovered yet?

  Brian dragged himself upright and shook his head like a dazed fighter. Beads of blood had popped up along the stitch holes in his left arm, but it was his right shoulder he wiggled experimentally. He shook his head again, as if bothered by a swarm of flies.

  Archery. Memories tickled David's fingers, and his left forearm stung in sympathy. "I might be able to use that bow. I practiced target archery in high school, got good enough to compete on the local level."

  Brian's face froze with one lifted eyebrow. "How long since you drew a bow?"

  "Ten years, maybe. At least I know the mechanics--a sight picture, the draw, a smooth release."

  "You need muscles as well as skill, but it's worth a try. That's a hunting bow, twice the pull of a target bow even if you were in practice. String it and see if you can draw it."

  David stepped through the bow, hooked it on his opposite ankle, and bent it. It was stiff. Damned stiff. He fumbled the string's loop onto the tip. Pulling the bow to full draw damn near cut his fingers off, but he managed. His hands trembled as he held it long enough to draw a bead on the bow-sight. Then he slacked off, shoulders and biceps screaming.

  It had been a long time. Too long.

  Brian's face was still a mask. "The people I'm going to fight are stronger mages than I am. They like causing pain. I wasn't joking with that match. If I could draw my bow, I wouldn't consider bringing you along."

  David met his eyes. "Jo is over there. Do you have a better chance at saving her with me or without me?"

  Brian's smile looked more like a skull. "This isn't some damn fantasy novel. Are you seriously willing to be tortured to death? To be forced to watch while they torture Jo until she uses her powers the way they want?"

  Torture. Jo. David swallowed bile.

  "I have to. I couldn't live with myself if I didn't."

  Grim sadness washed across Brian's face, as if he saw memories in the air between them. "Bards never have done well as warriors. They die a lot. Quickly or slowly, they die a lot." He shook himself like a wet dog. "Okay, you can come with me. We're going to need that bow."

  A bow David could barely draw. "Don't expect me to hit a barn at more than fifty yards."

  Brian grinned, a savage expression with too many teeth exposed. "I'm not too damned good with one, either. What I'm worried about is more likely to be in your face, ten yards or less. You'll be facing dangerous animals, ones you won't find in any zoo, and you won't get time for more than a single shaft. Don't worry about aiming, and just let the adrenaline do the work for you."

  He rummaged around in the closet until he came up with another kukri. David caught it. It was heavy, heavy as hell. The blade looked to be a quarter of an inch thick.

  "That's not a bad weapon for a beginner. Just hack at things. The balance and curve of the blade take care of the rest. Don't even think about stabbing with it. That takes practice. A Gurk, now, he could shave you dry and never leave a scratch, or slice you in two halves before you ever saw the steel. The buggers can even throw the bloody things. Little brown brother has lived with one since he was in nappies, see, knows it better than he knows his wife. He sees it a hell of a lot more often, that's for sure."

  Brian's voice wove an atmosphere, the air of the military training camp. He had more accent, all of a sudden, and David felt like a raw recruit under the wing of an old soldier. There was a new depth to Brian, a sense of age far beyond his looks, the calmness of a veteran.

  He's doing it on purpose, David thought. He knows I'm scared. He's telling me he's been through this a thousand times before.

  Brian flexed his left arm, swung his right in a slow, exploratory arc, winced. "I'm glad you'll be carrying the bow."

  And that, thought David, is the closest you'll ever come to admitting how badly hurt you really are. The confidence rings a little hollow.

  "One suggestion," Brian added, "from a veteran. Bathroom. Don't take it as an insult, but the body has its own ways of dealing with fear. Any time you have the chance, empty your bowels and bladder before going into combat."

  David grimaced. They took turns at the plumbing, then filled canteens and empty plastic Pepsi bottles with water and tossed more dry food into Brian's pack. Brian rigged a quiver full of broad-head hunting arrows through the loops of the pack and adjusted the whole mess on David's back until it hung right and he could draw and loose without fouling on something.

  David blinked. "Hey, I didn't put on my jacket first."

  "You won't need it. I plan to put us on the edge of the forest, between Dougal's keep and Fiona's garden maze. Neither of them likes rain or winter. Weather is a matter of consensus in the Summer Country."

  Speed limits on chemical reactions. Weather by consensus. Mages with the power to control someone else's muscles. David's stomach knotted at the picture.

  Magic.

  Maureen and Jo, the match, the psychic Super-Glue: none of that really had the impact of feeling skin heal under his fingers. It had a kind of greasy heat to it, sort of like plastic straight from the molding machine. He wanted to wash his hands of the memory.

  Brian grabbed his wrist, and they stepped from the kitchen into a darkness full of soft, slimy touches and the faint warmth of breath on his cheek or the back of his neck. David’s nerves twitched at chittering noises on the edge of hearing and moist air warm and slightly foul in his nose. Brian's hand was an iron clamp pulling him through the darkness and into green light.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Sean smiled at Maureen and nodded. His approval made a good decision better. Not just better, but imperative. She draped her jacket over a branch stub and left it as a puzzle for the squirrels. She felt warm in the forest, and she no longer needed that reminder of ice and slush--would not need it ever again. After all, this was the Summer Country.

  She wasn't going back to winter. As for the gun, she had never needed that at all. Sean would protect her.

  They walked on into paradise. A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou beside me in the wilderness . . . . Who the hell needed the bread and wine?

  She clung possessively to Sean's arm, as if the warm damp earth-smells could prove more seductive than her woman-scent. Not that they were any real threat: she felt powerful, secure in her sexuality. She was a woman and he was her man.

  Something rustled and the brush parted to reveal great, yellow, slit-pupil e
yes in a flat triangle of a head plated with black scales. She glared at the giant lizard, daring it to threaten her lover, and it retreated.

  Then she noticed the man next to it, a brown-skinned, brown-clad little man who almost disappeared if she didn't stare right at him. He had the same general look as Brian and that Liam creature, but smaller, leaner, and almost primitive. Somehow, the name "kobold" seemed to fit him, even if he wasn't in a mine.

  The apparition spoke grating syllables to the dragon, and it darted its forked tongue at her, testing, tasting, as if it needed to know her smell again. It slithered off into the tangled brush.

  "Tha i an so," Sean said to the funny-looking little man, and Maureen heard him say it and also heard "She is here," at the same time.

  So Fiona had been right. This warm, green land gave people understanding of another's speech. It even told Maureen that Sean spoke Scots Gaelic with a Galway Irish accent, a feat that would have had her giggling if she could laugh at anything Sean did.

  But she could not mock Sean. Not after he had kissed her body awake to a fire of longing and brought her to this beautiful place. She floated in the golden glow of the romance novels she'd snitched from her mother back when she was a kid. She waited impatiently for Sean to draw her away into some grassy bower, longing for him to strip her clothing away in slow delicious torture until he played upon her body like a harp and entered into her to give her release from this tormented ecstasy.

  She loved Sean.

  She loved him with the unquestioning devotion of a spaniel. He was her god made manifest. Whatever she had felt for Brian faded into ghostly invisibility. She loved Sean and belonged to him, without reservation.

  The strange little man studied her. She decided to call him Rumpelstiltskin, a gnome out of fairy tales. He had too large a head on too thin a neck, gnarled muscles showing beyond short-sleeved shirt and shorts, a chest and belly dropping straight from shoulders to hips, dark hair standing out in tufts like some mis-cut field of hay. Scars ran all over him as if he had been built hastily from spare parts. It was such a funny way to make a man. Nothing like Sean's slim beauty.