Heart Quest

by Robin D. Owens

  That would be good, Ilex thought. His hopes rose a little. If the best tracker of Celta was back in the city, they’d be able to find the evil group. As far as Ilex could tell, this adult gang had left very few tracks, teleporting to dispose of their victims…but Straif had great Flair.

  He heard the message cache play Mitchella Clover D’Blackthorn’s sultry voice. “Greetyou, cuz Trif. You must come by to tell me everything that’s going on in your life. The Family is very excited. All they can talk about is your new status. I might be able to give you a few tips about dealing with the Hollys. Come for breakfast.” Her voice broke a little. “Straif is still out of town and I’m lonely.”

  That would definitely ensure Trif went to T’Blackthorn Residence for breakfast.

  It was best that they go their own ways. Sensible.

  It would have been irresponsible to stay here and make love all day.

  It would have been the best day of his life.

  Trif returned the call. “I’ll be right there. Let me dress!”

  Before she reached the bedroom again, Ilex swept by her in the narrow door between mainspace and bedroom. He enjoyed—too much—the brush of her body against his.

  “Greyku and I are going to Mitchella’s for breakfast.” She sounded breathless.

  “I heard.”

  She kissed him again, an absent touch of the lips that had everything inside him clenching. “I’ll see you later?” Though her tone was light, the golden thread between them took on a black tinge of anxiety.

  “Yes.” He couldn’t deny her. Couldn’t resist temptation.

  Her smile was bright and carefree and all the reward he’d ever need for one small assent.

  “Good.” She hurried to the waterfall and he let himself out of her apartment.

  Only as he strode down the hall to the landing pad in the lobby did he realize that she hadn’t even noticed the guardsman uniform, she’d only seen the man.

  But the uniform he lay dead in was like the one he wore today. Deep inside he might have thought that perhaps…somehow…he could have her, avoid his fate. He had to stay strong and refuse the HeartBond. She was the most important thing in the world to him. The best person who’d ever come into his life. He had to reject her to keep her safe.

  Once in his office at the guardhouse—the familiarity of which soothed his ruffled nerves—Ilex sat behind his desk and looked down at his daily list.

  He scried Danith D’Ash and learned that Calla Sorrel’s housefluff was unavailable for questioning. The little animal had been sent deep into a Healing coma, and Danith had distanced its memories and emotions. She’d tried to save the memories in a holosphere, but the emotions of the young housefluff had been of overwhelming terror and despair. Those feelings had naturally wiped whatever true memories it might have had.

  No help there.

  At that moment, a young guardswoman entered carefully holding a spellshielded holosphere. “This just arrived in the guardhouse cache for you. From your cuz, Dufleur Thyme.” The guardswoman sighed. “The image on the sphere shows her wearing a spectacular tunic, embroidered in metallic thread…I don’t suppose you know where…” She flushed.

  Ilex stared at her and she took a step back. He realized then that he’d never said more than a few words to the woman since she’d been assigned to the guardhouse a couple of months ago. He wasn’t usually so unsociable, but he’d obviously been obsessed by Trif.

  He tried a warm smile, and the guardswoman smiled back. “My cuz is an embroiderer, so she probably decorated her tunic herself. She works at Dandelion Silk.”

  The guardswoman grimaced. “Too rich for my blood. Thank you, though.” With a little salute, she walked away. The roll of her hips would once have had him riveted. Now he only vaguely appreciated her stride—like fine art. Yes, he was well and truly hooked—on Trif.

  Carefully, he dispelled the protection around the fragile holosphere. He noted that it neared the end of its life, the image was dim, and he wished he’d thought to give Dufleur a new one to record her memories. He fisted his fingers in anger. There were plenty of treasures in D’Winterberry Residence that could be sold to provide basic amenities for his cuz. Yet his mother hoarded all the possessions as if they belonged to only her, and not his father’s Family. Typical.

  When Ilex noticed his knuckles whitening, he relaxed his fingers one by one, closed his eyes, and used his soothing Flair on himself.

  After he was sure he’d regained objectivity, he tapped the ball.

  “Cuz Ilex. Here are my best memories of the events. I tranced and guided my Flair.” The little image shrugged her shoulders, pet her Fam faster. “I’m working a half day today and will be home at noon if you need to speak with me.” Another hesitation. “Love, Dufleur.”

  He swallowed. It had been a long time since anyone in his Family had told him they loved him. He rolled his shoulders, dimmed his office light, and settled into the comfortchair behind his desk. Within minutes he was in a trance himself.

  Almost lazily, he reached for the ball. And fell into Dufleur’s memories.

  She closes the door, weary but not as lonely as usual because her new Fam, Fairyfoot, trots beside her, murmuring little comments, amusing Dufleur. She has the satisfaction of knowing that she’s done exceptional work and finished a difficult project on time. She hopes for a bonus. If she gets one, she’ll be that much closer to moving away from her mother and D’Winterberry and that cold Residence.

  She turns and walks down the street, noting the slight, cold breeze. Winter is coming, and the new year. Another year with her mother. No, she isn’t going to think of that. She rubs her arms up her light jacket, using a bit of Flair to make it warmer before she leaves the narrow, curving Manyberries Road to step out onto Druida Street, where the wind will be stronger.

  Fairyfoot complains of the cold. She is a little cat, and can fit inside Dufleur’s coat. The cat wriggles and makes Dufleur laugh.

  Something glows—golden. Great, pulsing Flair emanates from it, brushing against her…calling her. She hurries to it, picks up the small bag. Heat flashes through her. She wants to drop the object, but she can’t. Raw, sexual need batters her and she stumbles, falls. She is only aware of the fine-grained leather that pulses under her fingers.

  **What is happening?** Fairyfoot asks mentally.

  Dufleur has no words.

  “Here, let me help you.” A man offers his hand, but when she puts her fingers in his, he shudders as her Flair spikes. Then it drops away and she has no control of it. She manages to get on the public carrier. Time flickers, wave after wave of heat, then cold, passes through her. She thinks her Flair must be intensifying her aura, then suppressing it. The driver assists her in getting off at her stop.

  A man and a woman come near…hasn’t she seen themaround the neighborhood? The woman touches her in the center of the forehead with a gloved finger. “Sleep!” she orders. Dufleur’s forehead burns, turns icy, and everything floats away.

  Until the screams. Someone is screaming, screaming, screaming; then it stops abruptly.

  There is wild laughter that chills her blood, the patter of footsteps in a strange rhythm. She struggles to move, but can’t. All is darkness. She strains to see. Can’t. This is WRONG! Terror washes through her. The fever from the object is gone. The little bag gone too. Shouldn’t that be a good thing? But she feels a crushing loss.

  Hideous slurping noises. Worse, the smell of raw meat, the scent of heavy incense. Garbled speech. She sucks in air to scream herself and giddiness overcomes her. She goes away.

  Chanting wakes her, words Dufleur doesn’t know. How odd is that? A man’s hands touch her bare skin, caresses her breasts, and she flinches. Horrible. Horrible. His palms are joined by others…more than two people, all those hands on her. She is like to go mad, yet she fights the drugs, gathers her Flair. She has an affinity with sharp objects like needles, perhaps she can summon a knife….

  “Cut the Fam now,” one says, female.<
br />
  **NO!** she screams, but nothing comes from her mouth and if they heard her, they ignore her.

  Fairyfoot whimpers beside her.

  Suction. Of her Flair, through Fairyfoot. No!

  Awful pain rips at her chest. Fairyfoot awakes. **What is happening?**

  Dufleur can’t answer, the pain is too much.

  **Guardsman! Guardsman Winterberry!** Fairyfoot shouts loudly, using cat Flair and Dufleur’s own. Dufleur sends more Flair to Fairyfoot, amplifies her Fam’s mental voice.

  Scrambling noises. Quick, muttered words she can’t catch. People grabbing her. Teleporting her! Cold. The pain comes back.

  Cuz Ilex is here. Fairyfoot is safe. Darkness is welcome now.

  Ilex shuddered from the memories, wiped cold sweat from his face and neck with a softleaf, then made notes of all the impressions he’d gained from Dufleur’s experience…the sense of space—a medium-sized room, warm and redolent of incense, the texture of the cloth beneath her, the movement of people in the room—the lost Calla Sorrel and her housefluff Fam on another altar beyond Dufleur’s head.

  Dufleur had been sick and drugged, her observational skills at a minimum. Still, he’d retrieved enough information to update the poppets. He set his four dolls out and sent each bit of data into the appropriate replica. When he was done, one of the replicas of the men had a faint glow about it. Finally, he could use the thing.

  Seen them around the neighborhood. That would be near his mother’s home. He’d take the poppet there. Maybe he’d get lucky and pick up a trace of the man.

  Once again, perspiration beaded his forehead at the work. He used a bespelled cloth to cleanse himself.

  Even the impressions of such an ordeal were enough to drive a person mad.

  He left his office and gave a short report to Sawyr.

  “Slow going on making the poppets. Good that we can use one,” Sawyr grunted.

  “Yes.”

  Sawyr grimaced, lifted and dropped broad shoulders. “Better you than me walking through a woman’s memories. Never did envy you that.”

  “They definitely overextended themselves, taking two, and I think my cuz was a crime of opportunity, due to the object on the street.”

  “Something glowing gold. Tied in with this bunch, you think? Perhaps they made something to skew Flair and was testing it?”

  Ilex considered. “I don’t know…there was something familiar about that portion….”

  “You go around seeing glowing objects too?” Sawyr stared at him.

  “No.” Ilex shrugged. “I think the cult does want to step up its ritual murder rate—or perhaps it’s only because Samhain—New Year’s is in a couple of days.”

  Sawyr set his brawny forearms on his desk, and leaned on them, crossed his fingers. His eyes burned with righteous fire. “We’ll get them. We’ll find them and get them before then. The newssheets Families are already sniffing around this story. If they holo it, we’ll have panic.”

  “There aren’t that many younger Nobles with irregular Flair.”

  “No, not of that age group,” Sawyr said, and cold slipped through Ilex’s veins as if his blood had turned to ice. “Children,” he said hoarsely, “children of seven at First Passage.”

  Twenty-two

  “Many children experiencing First Passage have unstable Flair, especially if it’s great Flair breaking free, and these killers do like great Flair,” Chief Sawyr said, voice rough.

  “The Nobles will go crazy. So will upper-middle-class Guildspeople who are more often having children with extraordinary Flair.”

  “And those FirstFamilies GreatLords and Ladies will descend upon the streets of Druida with flaming swords.” Sawyr pounded his fist on the desk. “I won’t have it.” He speared Ilex with a gaze. “So find them. Which reminds me, the FirstFamilies Council have called Straif T’Blackthorn back from tracking that missing botanist.” Jaw hardening, Sawyr said, “I want you—us—to get the fliggers first.”

  “T’Blackthorn is the best.”

  “I don’t want the FirstFamilies to think that only they can save the city.” Sawyr snorted. “Though they’ve made their great mistakes in the past.”

  “All of which I have been the guardsman to stand by and witness,” Ilex said.

  Sawyr barked a laugh and waggled a meaty finger at Ilex. “Don’t think that you’re not continuing your duty assigned to the FirstFamilies, ’cause you are. Always.”

  Ilex just stared at his Chief. “Until you’re no longer Chief, or I make Chief myself and am assigned my own guardhouse here in Druida.”

  Now Sawyr’s laugh rolled through the small building. “You’ll always be junior to me, boy.”

  Taking another moment to try and stare his Chief down, and failing, Ilex turned. “Ah, well, they are usually an interesting bunch.”

  When he returned to his office, he compared all the witness statements—Fams’ and Dufleur’s together. He consulted the several thick theses that Sedwy Grove had sent over. Tapping a writestick on his desk, he decided that what he really needed was the number of people in this cult.

  He didn’t want even one to escape to spread their filthy perversions. Time and again, he immersed himself in Dufleur’s memories, but couldn’t judge how many there had been in total. He’d picked up tones of five, and that was bad enough, but he was sure there were more foot-patterns than five. If he’d been there—but he hadn’t been.

  Finally, he knew he’d gone into Dufleur’s memorysphere the last time. Any more would warp the ball. He could have stood one or two more immersions, but…

  All of her impressions had confirmed several things. There were more than four cult members. They used drugs on their victims, but also on themselves—frankincense, myrrh, and something else they saved for the last, after they killed their victim by bringing the heart out of the body.

  They chose youngsters who had unsteady Flair because it was easier to drain, to integrate into their own bodies, force the corridors of the brain to expand, perhaps generate more of their own Flair.

  Not only criminal. Criminally insane.

  They ate the heart, then danced and copulated in a mockery of true spiritual ritual.

  He leaned back in his comfortchair, rested his eyes, settled into a light trance that might help him make sense of details….

  A knock came on his door. “Guardsman Winterberry?”

  “Come.”

  The young guardswoman, Acacia Bluegum, entered with his caff mug. “I made caff for the guardhouse. Here’s some for you, you’ve been working hard.”

  “Thank you.” It was as he preferred, of course. She was a guard and noted such things.

  She glanced at the memorysphere and the scattered papyruses on his desk, cleared her throat. “I understand that dipping into the memories of the opposite sex can be—difficult. I can help.” An undertone of excitement was in her voice. Because of the case?

  “Thank you, but Dufleur is my cuz. The Family connection made it easier.” Not much, but a little.

  She nodded, looked as if she wanted to linger, then faded back to the section of the guardhouse that held her desk—which she shared with three others. Automatically, his Flair followed her, and his nose sent the information that she used slightly musky, but not distasteful, lotions.

  Ilex sipped his caff and eyed his work. So much for examining the facts in a trance. The interruption had broken his state of mind. Yet he had figured one thing out.

  Fine-grained leather bag. Glowing golden. Strong enough Flair to bring a lesser Noblewoman to her knees and mess with her Flair. Engendered lust.

  He initiated his office privacy spell and scried T’Willow. A few minutes later, he was teleporting to T’Willow Residence.

  The GreatLord was much as Trif had described him—late twenties, already experienced the Third and final Passage at twenty-seven, and fully in control of his Flair, his title, and his household. He wore a fine white silkeen shirt open at the neck, with large bloused sleeves, but no
embroidery around the cuffs denoting his title. His trous were of excellent quality, but comfortably worn.

  Under Ilex’s narrow gaze, the man looked stressed and as if he was at the end of his rope.

  They stood in T’Willow’s ResidenceDen and the Lord gestured Ilex to sit down. As soon as Ilex was sure the housekeeper who’d led him to the room had moved far along the corridor, he said, “It’s wearing on a man when his HeartGift is circulating in public.”

  T’Willow stiffened. “How do you know about that?”

  “Let’s not play games,” Ilex said just as sharply, sitting in the closest chair. “You knew the minute you met her that Trif Clover was my HeartMate, and the favor you demanded for a fee was to leave your HeartGift in a busy, public place.”

  As he sat and stretched out his legs, a half smile played over T’Willow’s mouth. “And she left it in the Maypole.” He glanced at Ilex. “I would not have thought of so good a place.”

  “Thank you for not telling her about me.”

  T’Willow shrugged. “Each soul must woo their mate as they wish.” A corner of his mouth lifted. “Even if I thought your courtship was inept in the extreme, I would not interfere.”

  Ilex winced. “I’m not here about matters of the heart. I’m here because of a nasty string of murders. Killings done during a black-magic ritual. I think you experienced something of the sort through your HeartGift.

  “You must be intimately and strongly linked to that item. Those of us who make them are. They are a reflection of our very being as experienced in the fugue of our last Passage.”

  Several heartbeats of silence passed. “Yes. I am. Very linked.”

  Leaning forward, Ilex said, “I must know what you know. Anything might help me find these people.”

  T’Willow stared at his hands. “I didn’t know what was happening. It was more than a dream…I didn’t know what to think. My dreams of late…since I sent my HeartGift out into the world—” He shuddered, rubbed his head with his hands. “Distorted images, sounds.” He stood and went to a cabinet. “Brithe brandy?”