Hotter Than Hell

by Kim Harrison

  “What’s wrong with helping people?” Owen demanded. “The locals have helped me survive for months. I owe them.”

  “So do I,” Ginger said.

  “Very touching, but irrelevant,” Percy responded.

  “You are such a wuss,” Gareth said. “Come on, fighting a bunch of barbarians will be fun.”

  “No, it won’t,” Bern said sternly. “And don’t make the assumption that I’m asking for a consensus, or volunteers. This is a military operation, and I’m in command. We’re all going into this fight.”

  His soldiers immediately snapped to attention, and he nodded to them. Percy didn’t look happy, but at least this finally shut him up. Bern glanced at Ginger. She was looking at him with enough pride in her eyes to set his heart on fire. She made him feel like a hero. This wasn’t the time to kiss her all over the way he wanted to, but he did put his arm around her waist and draw her close.

  As they stood, hip to hip, he said, “Remember the hillside we crossed on the way here?” There were nods. “We’re going to set up our perimeter there. It’s time to break out the claymores, boys.”

  Ginger gave him a puzzled look, but her expression cleared before he could explain. “Oh, you’re not talking about big Scottish swords, are you?”

  “No, hon, I’m talking about shaped charges that blow up.”

  “Fire in the sky,” she said. “Just what the vision showed me.”

  This had better work, Ginger thought. She hugged herself tightly. Please, God, let it work. And don’t let anything happen to Bern—or any of the good guys—while you’re at it. Please, Lady, she added, since she was officially a priestess of the goddess.

  Well, maybe not officially anymore since soon she’d be leaving Lord Ched’s villa forever. She was standing in the woods at the source of the spring with a bundle of provisions at her feet, waiting for the rest of the team to join her. The plan was for her to wait safely out of the way while the men carried out the op. Bern had insisted she stay out of harm’s way, and she hadn’t argued. She was no warrior.

  Besides, securing their nexus was probably the most important part of this op.

  Some of the other women had taken up arms to fight alongside their men after Bern gave a rousing speech to the gathered pilgrims. This was the ancient way of the Celts, and more proof as far as Ginger was concerned that this battle was going to slow the tide of invasion. The people were eager to follow Bern into battle. Their willingness to defend their homeland was a good sign, too. Right?

  Please, Horned God and Lady of the Spring, don’t let me have started something that’s going to get a lot of people killed. Especially not Bern.

  She reminded herself that he was a competent professional soldier. He had a good strategy. He had trained subordinates. He had explosives. He was going to win the day.

  The plan for the TTP team was that after the battle was joined, and the good guys were winning, they’d withdraw and join Ginger in the woods. With their obligation to help the people fulfilled, the team could then continue their search for a working nexus that would take them home.

  Home. Away from Bern. She dashed away tears. It had to be. If she went home with a broken heart and a deep ache for the way he made her body sing, she still had the memories to appreciate. At least they’d spent as much time as they could over the last three days making love while waiting for the Saxons. And now the Saxons were here.

  Ginger paced nervously. What if it didn’t work? Was there something she could do to help?

  She hated the quiet here in the woods. Maybe she was safer here, but the sudden need to know what was going on got the better of her. She cut through the woods rather than take the path that led toward the villa.

  The perfect spring weather of the festival had been replaced by a pewter sky that threatened rain, and a wind that blew cooler than it should for this time of year. It was a grim day, fit for a battle, she supposed.

  When she reached the south edge of the woods she got a good view down the valley to the hill beyond. Half of the British fighters were spread out below the hill, waiting there instead of occupying the high ground. She caught sight of chainmail and swordblades as gray as the day and the energy—a mixture of fear and anticipation—hit her like a blow. She put herself behind a tree and waited, and watched.

  The atmosphere grew even more tense. Thunder rumbled in the distance. Soon a large band of Saxon warriors appeared on the crest of the hill. They saw the Britons waiting for them and drew to a halt. More of the invaders came up behind them, and more, until there was an army of several hundred fierce barbarians looking down upon the several dozen not-quite-so-fierce barbarians below. The Saxons formed into a long line that stretched out along the top of the hill, but since they held the high ground they didn’t seem to be in any hurry to rush the people below.

  Which was what Bern had counted on.

  A line of claymore mines had been set right where the Saxons were now standing. When the mines went off there was indeed fire bursting up toward the sky. And screaming, and blood, and flying body parts.

  What was left of the Saxon invaders turned to flee, but that could not be allowed. Bern’s team and the other half of the British force came out of hiding in the woods on the far side of the hill and drove the remainder of the Saxons down the hill onto the swords of those waiting for them.

  The reality was so much worse than her vision, but she never doubted the necessity of this battle. Ginger watched the carnage long enough to be assured that everything was going to turn out as planned. There would be a victory here today at Camlan Hill. Legend would speak of magic making the very soil of Britain gape wide to send the enemy to the fires of hell.

  Only witnessing it upset her more than she realized, because she got lost in the thick woods making her way back to the spring. By the time she found her way to the rendezvous point it had started to rain. Bern and the team were waiting for her. They’d brought horses with them.

  “You scared me half mad, woman!” Bern stopped pacing and pulled her roughly to him by the elbows. “Where have you been?”

  She was so happy to see him that she kissed him. She began to cry with relief, and was glad to have the rain to cover this excess of emotion.

  Except she knew it didn’t work when he kissed her cheeks and said, “You taste salty.”

  “And you smell sweaty,” she said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  He kept his arms around her when she would have gone for her pack. “But where do we go from here?” He glanced toward Percy.

  The subject had been under discussion for days. The problem with this area was an overabundance of sites where energy concentrated. Ginger had stayed out of it, because she didn’t want to be dismissed out of hand as a total loon. Now she had to speak up. She had the answer they needed.

  “We need to go to the Isle of Apples,” she told them.

  “Where’s that?” Bern asked.

  Gareth laughed. “So, I’m not the only one who’s seen the parallels.”

  Kaye nodded thoughtfully.

  Maybe she should have spoken up sooner.

  Percy pulled a handheld computer out of a leather pouch on his belt. He checked a map screen and then frowned at her. “I’ve worked out the search grid very carefully. There’s no reason to deviate from—”

  “Where is this Apple Island?” Bern asked.

  “Isle of Apples,” Ginger corrected. She cleared her throat, took a deep breath, and made herself publicly say, “Avalon.”

  “Oh, for crying out loud!” Percy yelled in disgust.

  She didn’t blame him. “I admit it might seem a little farfetched.”

  “A little?” He sneered “Living among these people has made you as superstitious as they are. You’ve come to accept their mythology as—”

  “It’s not one of the local myths,” Gareth spoke. “Not yet, anyway. It is one of our myths. Following it might lead us home.”

  “Gambling on what might happen is not a scientific or
logical basis for finding the correct nexus,” Percy argued.

  Bern rubbed his jaw and chuckled. “Might doesn’t always make right. I just remembered where that came from. But where is Avalon? Hasn’t that always been a mystery?”

  “It doesn’t exist. You’re not going along with this, are you, Colonel?” Percy demanded. He pointed accusingly at Ginger. “Why? Because she’s good in bed?”

  Ginger was rather pleased that several team members stepped forward, but Bern got to Percy first, and punched him in the jaw. Percy hit the wet ground, and was wise enough to stay down. He sat in the mud, rubbed his jaw, and kept his mouth shut.

  “So, where do we go?” Bern asked her.

  “Tradition points to Glastonbury,” she answered.

  “There’s a nexus on top of that big hill that’s there?” he asked.

  She shook her head, and glanced at Percy. “Not on top of the tor, right?” He grimaced, but nodded. “There’s a sacred spring called Chalice Well at the foot of Glastonbury Tor. I think that’s where we have to go.”

  “Let’s do it. Mount up,” Bern ordered the team. “We need to get out of here before the locals come looking for us so they can throw a feast in our honor.”

  As the men moved to mount their animals, he snatched Ginger around the waist and put her up on the horse in front of him. She snuggled back against him, and he wrapped his cape around both of them. In this warm, intimate position he leaned forward to whisper, “Being like this with you almost makes me like riding a horse.”

  She tilted her head against his shoulder, determined to draw every bit of nearness to him she could in the time they had left. “Then let’s enjoy the ride.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Percy said. He double-checked his equipment as the water of the Glastonbury spring bubbled up at his feet. Then he gave Ginger a sour look. “She’s right.”

  “The energy reading is right?” Kaye asked.

  “It’s off the scale,” Percy answered.

  “Enough to take all of us home?” Owen asked.

  “Jump in and find out,” Percy invited. He glanced around the green and lovely glade. “Before the priestesses we chased off come back.”

  “With an angry mob,” Kaye added.

  If at all possible, TTP operatives were supposed to appear and vanish without any witnesses around. Scaring the locals with the sound and light show that accompanied time travel was considered not only impolite, but possibly dangerous to the primary timeline TTP visits wove in and out of. And the problem with places like sacred springs as nexus points was that they tended to be occupied with priests and pilgrims and such like. So, Bern had had his people approach this one with swords drawn and chase everyone away. Percy was right about their not having much time for goodbyes.

  “Form up into teams,” he said. He took Ginger’s hand before she could join the people she’d traveled with into the past. He drew her away from the spring and tilted her chin up with his fingers. “You are so beautiful,” he told her.

  “In a pale, freckled sort of way,” she answered. She tried to sound light, but her voice came out tight and strained.

  “I’ll miss you, Dr. Virginia White.” Words couldn’t begin to describe what having to separate was doing to him.

  “Have I thanked you for rescuing me yet?” she asked. She gave him a brief, hard embrace. “It’s been a pleasure knowing you, Colonel Andrew Bern.”

  He kissed her then. It was fierce and quick, and not enough. He ran the back of his hand across her cheek. “Hey, we made history.”

  “Or something like it.”

  He nodded, and his throat was too tight for him to manage to say more than, “Go.”

  She gave him a sad smile, and went over to join Kaye and Owen who were already standing in the spring’s shallow pool. They each placed their left thumbs over the inside of their right wrists. Ginger’s gaze didn’t leave his.

  “On my mark,” Kaye said. “Activate.”

  Everyone pressed down hard on the retrieval implant.

  The column of light that sprang from the water blinded him. The roar of the shock wave was deafening. Bern refused to look away. The last thing he saw was Ginger’s face as she whispered, “Goodbye.”

  Ginger looked up from the photo before her on the desk, and sighed. A copper bowl filled with water sat on the desk, but she wasn’t interested in looking into it. Being a psychic wasn’t as much fun for her as it used to be. It had been six months since she’d gotten back to her own time. Six months and three days to be precise, not that she was counting. She’d done the debriefing and written up her report, and been sent back to her regular life until such time as the TTP deemed her special skills necessary again. For now her regular life consisted of working with law enforcement on cold-case files, and being alone.

  She sighed again, and stood up. It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate being back. She loved her house and garden. She loved central heating and modern medicine and interactive holographic entertainment and regular meals of anything she wanted. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed shopping for shoes until she’d entered her first mall. She loved being home. It was just that—

  She missed Bern.

  Her body ached for him when she was alone in her bed at night, but the notion of taking another lover was anathema. Even trying a holo lover hadn’t worked for her.

  She got up and began to pace around her office. She was well aware that Bern had returned to the present three days before, and even more aware that it didn’t matter. Maybe there was some way that she could introduce herself to him, but how fair would it be to him when she knew their past and he didn’t? There was no way for them to pick up where they’d left off. There was a good chance he wouldn’t even be interested in her under normal circumstances. Maybe she wouldn’t be interested in him.

  She laughed hollowly, still conscious of the ecstasy he brought her when his body joined with hers. “Yeah, right, sure I’m going to forget that.”

  Then again, she really wanted the man, why shouldn’t she fight for what she wanted? She should find a way to introduce herself and see what—

  “There is someone at the door,” the house’s security system announced. It was an old house with a very basic system, so it wasn’t about to be more informative than that. So, unless the water in the scrying bowl suddenly showed her who it was—which it wasn’t likely to do—she had to answer the door herself. Entertaining a visitor, even someone looking to get their future read without an appointment, was better than pacing around feeling sorry for herself.

  The man standing at the door was the last person she expected to be there. And the one person in all of space and time she wanted to see.

  “Bern!”

  He kissed her before she could say anything else. The fire that had been between them from the first moment sparked to flames. She clung to him with all her might, her body molded against his. If he’d taken her there on the front porch she wouldn’t have minded. Instead he swung her around into the house, and kicked the door closed behind them. They fell together onto the entryway carpet and clothes were quickly shed and pushed aside.

  He was thrusting inside her, hard and strong and fast, before she managed to breathlessly say, “You remembered me!” Then she came for the first time and forgot about words for a long time afterwards.

  “Of course I remembered,” he said later, when they were lying together in a sweaty tangled heap. “You’re unforgettable.”

  She stroked his cheek. “Oh, that’s sweet…wait a minute…that means you’re psychic.” He nodded. “I thought Percy was your team psychic.”

  “He was, on the civilian side. The military side always tries to have someone who’ll remember the op on a TTP team.”

  “Really? I didn’t know that.”

  “That’s because that information is shared on a need-to-know basis. This seems like a good time for you to need to know.”

  “Now I understand why Kaye kept talking about your gut feelings.
I should have guessed he meant your psychic intuition.”

  “You should have guessed when we went for each other like we were in heat instantly right after we met. That kind of lust only comes when like meets like.”

  “So I’ve heard. Hey, the lust had me pretty distracted. That and starring in orgies and fighting the Saxons and that whole Matter of Britain thing we had going.”

  He sighed. “Matter of Britain, my ass.”

  She stroked it. “It’s a very nice ass. I have a nice big bed it might fit in upstairs,” she told him.

  He helped her to her feet, even though she groaned in protest when he stopped touching her breasts. “I’d be delighted to spend as much time as possible in your nice big bed.”

  “Good.”

  “But first,” he added, “I did come here to ask if you’d like to go on a date this evening. I’ve got tickets for a revival of an old musical I think you’ll enjoy.”

  Curiosity nibbled away some of her lust. “What would that be?”

  He grinned. “Spamalot.”

  She hooted, and they held each other tight, shaking with laughter. What other production could possibly be more perfect for their first date?

  LIFE IS THE TEACHER

  Carrie Vaughn

  EMMA SLID UNDER THE SURFACE OF THE WATER and stayed there. She lay in the tub, on her back, and stared up at a world made soft, blurred with faint ripples. An unreal world viewed through a distorted filter. For minutes—four, six, ten—she stayed under water and didn’t drown, because she didn’t breathe. Would never breathe again.

  The world looked different through these undead eyes. Thicker, somehow. And also, strangely, clearer.

  Survival seemed like such a curious thing once you’d already been killed.

  This was her life now. She didn’t have to stay here. She could end it any time she wanted just by opening the curtains at dawn. But she didn’t.

  Sitting up, she pushed back her soaking hair and rained water all around her with the noise of a rushing stream. Outside the blood-warm bath, her skin chilled in the air. She felt every little thing, every little current—from the vent, from a draft from the window, coolness eddying along the floor, striking the walls. She shivered. Put the fingers of one hand on the wrist of the other and felt no pulse.