Bane echoed Deanna’s stretch, and shifted to human where he lay, tanned and brown-haired, his currently under-dressed state showing off all the muscle that came from spending so much time running the forest on four feet. “Imagine that. An elvenmage who wants to eat.”
“We did bring a ton of food,” Deanna said. “I don’t eat all that much, and I bet at least half your meals while we’re camping will be stuff you hunt. So I guess Kev gets to make sure we don’t have to carry it all home.”
“It’s a big responsibility,” Kevin said solemnly. “But I’ll try to live up to it.”
They settled near the green nylon dome tent to each fill a plate from the wide range of foods that Kevin had prepared and packed. Nothing was going to go bad inside coolers that Kevin and Cynthia had worked on together—Kevin with his affinity for heat and light, Cynthia with hers for all four elements and all the natural world. Those coolers were every bit as good at preserving food as the fridge at home, which certainly opened up the options on what to bring.
Kevin held a hand over Bane’s cold roast chicken and channelled a little of the sun’s heat to it, warming it to the kind of temperature his werewolf coven-mate preferred. Bane gave him a quick smile of thanks, and bit into a strip of meat. Deanna preferred potato salad and fresh vegetables, which was typical for a dryad; vegetarianism came easily to them, though it wasn’t a necessity. Kevin himself constructed a pair of sandwiches with a little of everything on them; a rapid metabolism forced elves to be aware of what they ate and keep meals balanced between what would digest quickly and what would keep them going for a while, and for a mage like him, it was all the more delicate a juggling act.
The prices of power didn’t mean he couldn’t use it for fun, though. As the sunlight faded, he wove an image in the air, a glowing butterfly with wings of emerald and amber, then another of ruby and amethyst, and more, creating them one at a time and keeping the earlier ones dancing lazily in the twilight as he crafted each new one. Finally, though, he had to stop, feeling his concentration beginning to stretch too thin; he let the ones already in action keep flitting around at random, brilliant in the dim light.
Deanna smiled, her pleasure warm and familiar against his inner senses. “That’s beautiful, Kev,” she said softly.
“That’s, what, nine?” Bane said. “That’s a new record for you.”
Kevin nodded, still carefully keeping most of his attention on the illusory butterflies. “My control with little stuff is getting better all the time.”
“You’re one hell of a mage already, phoenix. It would be scary to think how good you’re going to be in a decade or three, if I didn’t know you’ll use it well.”
Kevin glanced at him and smiled, aware that Bane could see him perfectly well in the eerie illumination of the butterfly light though he couldn’t say the same in return. “Thanks to my very forgiving and endlessly supportive coven.” He reinforced a sapphire and silver butterfly that was starting to fade, brought it back to full strength.
Deanna giggled. “With great power…” she began the quote.
She didn’t get a chance to finish; Kevin sent the butterflies at her in a multi-hued cloud, all at once. Deanna laughed and ducked. “Attack of the killer butterflies!”
Kevin let go of the butterflies, and they melted into nothingness, leaving them in twilight that might just as well have been midnight to elven eyes. Being an elf, though, he could see his companions as thermal images, Deanna a bit cooler which was normal for a dryad. With the extra effort of invoking mage-sight, he could have seen them in yet another way, as well as the bright glittery cords of energy that bound a coven together, but it hardly seemed worth it right now. “Well, I guess I’m about done for the day. I never did get much reading done today, I’m going to just curl up in the tent with my book. You nocturnal types can do what you like.”
Bane chuckled. “I’m off for a run, then.”
“Summer evenings are wonderful,” Deanna said, “except for the mosquitoes. I suppose I could get someone to rub repellent in all over for me, but there’s not much point if I’m going to be all by myself. I’ll just come inside.”
“Don’t wait up,” Bane said, and shifted back to furform—Kevin saw the heat-image flare briefly and then settle into an altered outline. He nuzzled both coven-mates affectionately before trotting off, probably to see if any of his pack or other potential hunting companions were out and about yet.
Kevin created enough light, in the form of a hovering glowing golden sphere, that he could see to help Deanna clean up, although there really wasn’t much that needed cleaning up. No wildlife would brave both Kevin’s wards and Bane’s scent. Then they retired to the tent. Since it was intended for six, and had held their coven of five more than once, there was plenty of room for the two of them to get comfortable; Kevin sent the sphere to melt into the supporting ribs, causing them to glow with gold-tinted light. He’d done it so often that it didn’t take much power to set up or sustain anymore.
There wasn’t really any need to talk. They’d known each other practically all their lives, had been together through wonderful times and real-life nightmares. It was enough just to relax and enjoy the company and the peace.
*
Rebecca drove a bit farther along the highway, and then turned left onto a dirt road that must be just a nightmare in the winter. It wound its way through the trees and up and down slopes and once over a small bridge with a wide stream underneath.
Finally, she pulled over in a spot where there was a grassy area right next to the road.
“Moira and Avryl have the tent and all,” Rebecca said, pulling back the side door of the van. “All we need to bring is my sleeping bag and the cooler.”
Jesse hefted the cooler, which wasn’t really all that heavy, and he was stronger than people tended to assume when they saw him, no more than medium height and less than medium build. “No problem.”
Rebecca slung the sleeping bag on one shoulder, locked the van, and led him into the forest.
He would have expected her lightweight, loose pants to be more of a problem in this than his jeans were, but somehow she moved through the brushy stuff without difficulty, while trees and bushes tried to trip, slap, and otherwise abuse him. Rebecca was sympathetic and did her best to help.
They stepped out into a small clearing in the middle of the trees. He could see a blue and white dome-shaped tent set up at the far side; closer, on a spread blanket, were two more women around Rebecca’s age. One was very slender and probably very tall, with shoulder-length brassy-blonde hair and very white skin and the kind of high pronounced cheekbones that a modelling-wannabe would cheerfully commit murder for, looking quite out of place in a soft-looking long dress of multiple swirled shades of blue. The other was much more softly curved, with longer tawny-brown hair neatly confined in a long braid, rounder features, her eyes with a faintly Asian slant, and she was wearing khaki shorts and a well-worn white T-shirt with a faded picture of flowers on it.
“This is Jesse,” Rebecca said. “He’s having some bad luck right now. Jesse, the blonde is Moira, and the brunette is Avryl. Have a seat, make yourself comfy.”
Jesse shrugged to himself and joined the women on the blanket.
As it turned out, it was past time for lunch but they’d been waiting for Rebecca, and Moira had a cooler that held an astonishing amount of food. There was also lots of orange juice and vodka, with Moira usually making the drinks, and no one asked his age. Avryl had a small compact stereo and apparently there was at least one radio station that could be picked up around here.
Compared to the parties he was used to, this was pretty tame… but the vodka was better than nothing at all, and the company was friendly and easy on the eyes. To say nothing of being his best chance not only of a place to sleep that wasn’t under a tree and more to eat than a chocolate bar, but also of finding a way to get back to the city. At least with nothing but vodka, he was unlikely to have another blackout that would leave
him up in the Northwest Territories or something.
By the time the sun began to edge down below the trees, Jesse was definitely feeling a lot more relaxed. Moira had started a small campfire in an area she and Avryl cleared of grass and then ringed with stones; Jesse didn’t see how she started it, only that it didn’t seem to take her nearly as long or be nearly as difficult as he’d thought campfires usually were.
Avryl, giggling, told them about something she’d heard about, that if everyone joined hands and concentrated on gazing into the fire, then they’d all see the answer to their greatest question. By that point, Jesse didn’t much care whether it made sense, and would have gone along with weirder things to keep from disrupting the mood. He found himself across from Rebecca, with Moira and Avryl on either side.
Something about this felt wrong, though, as he joined hands with Moira and Avryl. There was something about it that felt vaguely familiar, and for some reason that created enough nervousness to reach through the haziness. Why was he so foggy, anyway? He hadn’t had that much to drink all that quickly…
Before he could figure it out, Avryl began to speak in a kind of sing-song rhythm. “Just look at the fire, slow your breathing down, in, now out, in, and out… look at the fire, don’t look away, let everything else just go away, relax and be open to whatever’s going to happen, don’t fight it… just breathe, in, out, and look at the fire…”
Automatically, Jesse obeyed, ignoring the sense that something was just not right about this situation. The flames seemed to twist into odd shapes that he could almost recognize, but they were always gone as soon as he focused, and he could never quite get a clear look.
With no warning at all, pain slashed across him, pain that was beyond anything he’d ever imagined. Avryl and Moira both tightened their grasp on him, kept him from pulling away, as every nerve in his body came screaming awake, and yet it ran deeper still, on some level that he couldn’t even really identify, let alone name.
On the heels of the pain came the pleasure, the most incredible high he’d ever felt. Yet the agony was still there, twined around and into the high, a brutal reminder of mortality even while the ecstasy tried to convince him otherwise. Trapped between the two, all thought stopped, and the universe became an eternity of waiting for an end, yearning for it and fearing it at the same time.
Abruptly, Avryl and Moira let go, and the high vanished, leaving only the pain that made him want to scream except that too many muscles were locked tight, made him curl in on himself moaning.
“I wouldn’t worry about getting home,” Rebecca said. “That’s the least of your problems right now. But then, I hardly think it’s going to make the world a lesser place, to no longer have someone like you in it, now is it?”
He heard them move, heard them simply walk away. Somehow, the blanket that had been under him wasn’t there anymore, he couldn’t hear the fire anymore, it was just him and the grass and the trees around him, and the overwhelming pain.
He heard something bark nearby, and hoped vaguely that it was someone’s dog, not a wolf or something looking for an easy meal.
“Oh gods,” someone whispered; cool light fingers brushed his cheek. “Oh, Rebecca, what have you done this time?”
The pain went away, but it took the rest of the world with it.
*
Kevin woke sharply, heart pounding, with images in his mind of glass breaking overhead. It took him a moment to sort out that it wasn’t his own dream; his coven-mate Flynn was still asleep, and dreaming, and was reaching towards him in fear. He felt Flynn jolt into consciousness, with no lessening of the sense of dread.
Kev! Shield Bane! Heavy!
Confused, but willing to trust the seer, Kevin scanned the area for Bane, got the mental echoes of creeping up carefully on a trio of sleeping male mallards, tension and anticipation. That was enough for him to pour sunlight energy into a bubble around Bane, one that would keep any kind of outside magic from reaching him.
The ducks sensed it and exploded into a flurry of escaping feathers and alarm quacks; so did Bane, who threw a wordless, irritated question at him.
Before Kevin could explain, pure raw energy slammed into the shields with dizzying force. Bane yelped, more in surprise than fear—not much frightened Bane—and crouched where he was, instinct telling him to get back to his coven-mates to defend them against whatever was attacking, reason telling him that if he moved it would be harder for Kevin to protect him.
Kevin threw more of the power he’d absorbed from the sunlight into the shields to reinforce them. Without Flynn’s warning, his normal shields and the ones built into the tent would all have shattered like an egg under a hammer, but this one held, deflecting the attack away and scattering it harmlessly. Just in case, he poured more power into the shields woven into the framework of the tent. A second blow against Bane, the third targeted the tent…
“What on earth…” Deanna began sleepily, aware of the fluctuations in ambient energy levels even if she couldn’t track them directly, and then her tone hardened. “Rebecca?”
Carefully, Kevin searched outwards, holding the shields steady; this was a lot harder than multiple butterflies, and could be a lot more devastating if he dropped any of the balls he was juggling. Anger surged—that was Rebecca, all right. Why couldn’t she just leave them alone? Why did she have to wreck their peaceful camping trip? He pulled up whatever power he had left, shaped a window in the shields around him and Deanna just for an instant as soon as the fourth blow had been rebounded, and furiously flung everything he had back in the direction from which the attack had come, targeting it on Moira’s very visible energy signature and Rebecca’s unmistakable presence.
He didn’t think it actually reached them; something else absorbed it before that. But the blows stopped, and right now, that was good enough.
He reached to Flynn, hoping the seer would have a better idea what was going on.
In the forest, Flynn said. Get moving before he dies! I’ll find one of the healers so you can use me as an anchor. Find him!
Kevin winced. Running around a forest in what was, to him, utter darkness punctuated by heat images really wasn’t going to be a lot of fun. Well, Deanna would help. Dia, Bane, not sure if you caught that, he said, mentally instead of out loud, so he could send it to both. As the only telepath in the coven, he tended to find himself the centre of communication. Flynn says there’s someone who’s going to die if we don’t find him.
Stay there until I get back to you, Bane commanded. I don’t want you wandering around a night-time forest without me if Rebecca’s in the area.
Hurry, then.
Already on my way.
Kevin called just enough light along the ribs of the tent that he could see to find his shorts and running shoes; Deanna had already rolled to her feet, not needing the light so much, and was ready to go. By the time Bane ran out of the trees, they were out of the tent and Kevin had an approximate fix on which direction. If it weren’t that he would have to create a gate to get Flynn and one of their healer friends there as quickly as possible, he’d have let dryad and werewolf go alone. Arguably, he could let them go, then gate himself to them, then gate the healer in, but two gates without even much moonlight would leave him too exhausted to walk. And creating light while in the trees would only cause disorienting moving shadows and interfere with Bane and Deanna.
So, instead, he gave his coven-mates what information he could about the direction of the lingering traces of power, and trusted them to keep him from walking into a tree. He wasn’t expecting it to be all that far; there’d be too much power loss over long range.
It certainly felt like an awfully long way to go.
Here! Bane barked sharply, mentally and aloud both.
“Clearing, about eight feet ahead,” Deanna murmured.
They finally stepped out of the trees, and with intense relief Kevin called a floating sphere of light to hover in the air and give them all a reasonable view of their surro
undings.
The clearing was small, and mostly empty. There were lingering traces of illusion, still strong enough that Kevin could see what it had been. Why had Moira created the illusion of a campsite? The only things real were the remains of a fire, which still shimmered with mage power—created by, extinguished by, and he thought manipulated by an elvenmage—and an impression under the one person still present that suggested a blanket woven by a mage out of light and then left to dissolve when no longer useful.
Deanna crouched beside the black-clad figure that lay on the grass, curled into a tight fetal ball, breath coming in rapid ragged sobs of pain.
“Oh gods,” she whispered, reaching out to run her fingers down his cheek. “Oh, Rebecca, what have you done this time?” She looked up at Kevin, and he didn’t need to read her mind to know what she wanted him to do. No one should have to experience that much pain. Gently, Kevin wrapped his mind around the stranger’s and thought sleep at him. His breathing slowed and evened out somewhat as he lost consciousness.
Ready, Flynn?
Yes, came the prompt reply.
Reaching to Flynn, using him as an anchor to spin a doorway of light and energy linking here and there, was one of the most tiring things he’d done yet tonight. Pixie-slight Gisela, her long honey-brown hair dripping wet and a pale summer dress clinging to her damply, darted through on bare feet. Flynn, his ever-present cards in one hand, followed her, and the gate imploded, leaving them in twilight. Not that Kevin really needed to see the redheaded seer, whose mother’s Scottish blood showed in every line of his body.
Gisela dropped instantly to her knees next to the stranger, laying a hand on his cheek—about the only skin accessible with his arms and hands clenched tight against his chest. Her eyes closed as she concentrated on what healer senses could tell her about what was going on in his body right now.
Kevin studied him as best he could while waiting. Young, slender, probably no taller than Flynn. Black hair that didn’t look like it had been cut or even washed lately, pulled back in a rough tail with strands escaping to frame his face. Dark skin, maybe Native, with one silver crescent stud bright through his ear. Features slightly delicate, very sensual… attractive, even streaked with drying tears and dirt, but not strong enough to be handsome, Kevin mused.
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