Laura Anne Gilman

by Heart of Briar

  “Janny.”

  She had promised Martin she would do what he asked. Martin didn’t lie to her. Martin didn’t cheat on her. He wasn’t human, she couldn’t trust him—but he had held to his part of the bargain. Now it was time for her to do the same.

  “All right.” She let him help her up, felt him wrapping something around her arm, then draping his jacket over her shoulders. Martin smelled of green water and moss, she thought, finally nailing it; stagnant water and a smoky tang that she couldn’t quite identify. He smelled...safe.

  “Hold on,” he said, and her eyes closed, telling her what he was doing, so when she opened them again she was not surprised to find his horse-form next to her, waiting.

  Don’t get on my back. Don’t trust me. I kill.

  She reached up with her uninjured arm, gripped his mane—solid, unlike Tyler’s ever-shifting form—and hauled herself onto his warm, broad back.

  “Let’s do this.”

  * * *

  Martin should have reported in by now. AJ scratched at the back of his neck irritably, aware that his nerves were dangerously close to cracking: events were making him twitchy, and he needed to get out and run for a while.

  “Not much chance of that,” he said out loud, knowing that even if anyone in the warehouse was close enough to hear him talking to himself, they would prudently ignore it. He would be bitter, or angry, if there was any point. There wasn’t. His body could stretch and go for miles on end without tiring, especially if it were a full moon, but his brain was needed here.

  His brain, and his physical presence. AJ didn’t kid himself that anyone else could hold this group together and keep them focused. His deputies dealt with the details, but he had his eye on the big picture.

  A year ago, when he’d first scented something wrong, he’d started trying to roust the others. He knew the stench of their kind, even if the rest of his pack had somehow forgotten; old enough to remember the last time those arrogant bastards had come sniffing around and the chaos they had caused, and he hadn’t been able to rest until he confirmed it.

  Too many preters, showing up at times and places that broke with tradition. Here, and in Europe, Africa, South America... He hadn’t known about the humans disappearing then, hadn’t gotten that far, but he knew enough to worry.

  Something was up. Something bad.

  It wasn’t disbelief he faced, trying to get others worried, so much as indifference. The preters came, the preters left, they made incursions and messed with the humans, but for the most part they’d always left the supernaturals alone. Either because they had nothing the preters wanted, or they simply didn’t have enough time here, and humans were easier...

  But this time was different. Something had changed, and that meant that everything might change. And they would be caught unaware.

  Three-hundred-and-seven supers, from eight different species including his own, had responded to his call. Three hundred and seven, out of seven million. He’d lost eleven of them since then: nine to the turncoats, while two had simply disappeared.

  No, twelve lost now. Toba was dead. And Martin was six hours past check-in.

  AJ was painfully aware of the weight of the motley crew behind him, someone using a low-humming power tool on one of the chop cars that had come in overnight—reselling parts paid for the warehouse, and food, and supplies—others rustling about, waiting for orders.

  AJ had never even wanted to lead his pack, much less save the world. He resented the fact that he was here, he resented the fact that so few had listened to him, and he resented even more the humans who—blithely ignorant, insanely oblivious—were somehow making this intrusion possible.

  It had been nearly a hundred-and-twenty years since the last time a preter had been scented here. He’d been younger, living in the here-and-now of the pack and the hunt. The idea of hunting down preters was a game, a challenge to be leaped at.

  And they had hunted the intruders down, driven them back, thought they’d won.

  Then AJ had seen the humans the preters abandoned in their retreat, tossed aside like unwanted dolls. Shell-shocked, uncomprehending, unable to ever return to what their lives had been, their families unable to understand, and him unable to explain. The game had ended for him then.

  Preters made incursions, every chance they got. Humans made up prettier stories, made movies about dwarves and bluebirds and princes riding to the rescue. Supernaturals, for all that they skirted the truth, had no such escape from reality. Preters damaged everything they touched.

  And now Martin, a kelpie, a creature that acknowledged no pack, no clan, no bonds other than its own whim, who had chosen to answer the call for reasons AJ had never dared ask, was off with one of those too-delicate humans, a human they needed, sent off by AJ himself, and they were missing.

  And he was stuck here, in this damned warehouse, supervising.

  “Meredith!” he shouted, and the sound of scurrying feet on cement floor answered him.

  “Boss?” The only other lupin on his team sounded breathless, anticipating the chance to do something. He envied her.

  “Go find Martin and his human.”

  Her muzzle twitched, and she sketched out a fast salute. “Gone.”

  It was all he could do. One super and one human couldn’t matter, not with so many other lives at risk.

  Chapter 12

  They hit the portal without warning, Stjerne yanking him through; but the sensation of air leaving his lungs, the moisture sucked from his body, was almost an afterthought this time. Everything hurt. Things he didn’t even know he had hurt. Too much sensation to catalog, overloaded beyond his ability to manage, he curled in on himself emotionally and retreated, even as his body was shoved forward—

  —and then a cool, gray emptiness enveloped him, soothing the burns and easing his fevered not-thinking.

  “Wake up, love. Get up.”

  Feathers. Scales. Teeth. A woman’s voice, holding him, her hands soft even as he thrashed. Had she been the feathered, toothed, scaled one? Or had he? He couldn’t tell, he couldn’t remember, and not even Stjerne’s voice was enough to bring him back.

  “What happened?” A voice, crackled like old paint and just as thin, came from somewhere in front of them. Too close, too strange, too cold, and those soft hands were gone, leaving only cold mist and confusion. He froze, not wanting that voice’s attention on him.

  “Get out of my way.” Stjerne, fierce as a storm, and he shrank into himself a little more. As bad as the unknown voice felt, she was worse. If he did not move, if he did not breathe, they would not notice him. Maybe.

  “What happened? You took him over.” The voice crackled some more, and the slip-slide of a serpent’s hiss entered the words. One of the guards who patrolled the walls. “Stjerne, you fool. This was not approved. Your impatience has cost you before...when will you learn?”

  “I am the vanguard. You do not command me, watchdog.”

  “No, I do not. But there are those who do. And they will hear of this.”

  There was a slithering noise, then the clank of metal and a heavy thud. He managed to open his eyes, coming back to his body enough to discover he was on his hands and knees in a grassy hollow, cool gray stone at his back and a small creek in front of him. The taint of marsh water came to him, and he wrinkled his nose: it was familiar but off-putting somehow.

  “Get up.” Stjerne’s voice was still cold and angry, but he could not resist her, even now. He got up, heated pins in his knees, a rippling mass of flame between his shoulder blades, every inch of skin between feeling as though it had been scalded, and his insides...like the worst case of runs he’d ever experienced, cramping his gut and nearly sending him back to the dirt again.

  “Up!”

  She commanded, and he managed. There was something in front of him, thick and motionless, and he was not able to step over it, falling hands outstretched. Soft, muscled, and scaled, and he jerked back in shock. It did not move, despite his weight.
<
br />   The owner of the crackling, disapproving voice. Dead? Had Stjerne killed it? Killed it, but not him. He was still alive.

  Sensations of scales and wings, muscles tearing and bones cracking, overwhelmed him again, and he tried to retreat, emotionally and physically.

  “Up!”

  Her voice cracked like a whip, and he rose, drawn by ice-cold strings.

  “I will not let you fail. You are mine.” The strings dug deeper into his abused body, pulling him back to her, allowing no hiding space, and he was too drained to protest, even if he dared. “They will not allow me another, not after this, and I will not be left behind, lessened in status....”

  “What did you do to me?”

  That was his voice: thin as a wisp, shaky and soft.

  She didn’t ask what he meant. “I protected what was mine. You came to me; she has no further claim on you. Now get up!”

  She? The one with the soft hands and the whispering voice. He had...hurt her. His body spasmed again, and he almost fell, but the strings kept him upright.

  “Come with me.”

  The memory of those hands and voice were overlaid by the agony of his body, combining until he could not tell one from another.

  Sticky-sharp pain, scraping him out from the inside. He could not bear the thought of being placed in the chair again. Stjerne made the pain go away. All he had to do was let her in. Do what she asked. Not resist. He made his body move, followed her.

  Behind him, there was a whisper of noise in the trees above, the echo of a disapproving whisper, and the skin that did not burn with pain crackled with uneasy anticipation.

  But nothing came after them, to stop their leaving.

  * * *

  Jan stared at the staticky oval in front of them, seeing where Martin was right; it was already starting to fade. Martin had called it a portal. A portal was a door. Okay, it was a door between worlds, but even so, how hard could it be? Tyler had done it—three times now, maybe more. So could she.

  Her previous experiences didn’t help: the last time she had climbed onto the kelpie’s back she had been blindfolded and had passed out soon after, and the bansidhe-driven flight had faded into a merciful blur. Even the warnings in her head, the ones that should have been screaming, were muted to where she could ignore them. Shock, maybe. Or more magic.

  “Hold tight,” she heard Martin say, although she knew that his horse-form could not shape words. Warned, and remembering how fast he could run, she twined her fingers tightly into the coarse mane, leaning forward until her cheek rested against his arching neck, and her legs tightened against his flanks. He would not let her fall, she knew that...but there might be things that would try to tear her away. Turncoats, certainly, and...

  Her imagination failed her; she could not conceive of what might wait for them. Are you insane? The voice in her head finally managed to scream. Seriously, are you insane?

  Before she could change her mind, refuse, try to climb down, her muscles froze, kelpie magic keeping her still. She felt a wave of betrayal sweep her, then Martin’s body tensed, bunched and leaped forward, and her body instinctively stretched and moved with his.

  In half a heartbeat, no time left to second-guess, they entered the narrowing haze.

  In the second half of that heartbeat, the air was sucked from her throat, her lungs nearly collapsing, worse than any asthma attack she’d ever had, and Jan tried to cry out in pain, but the void took that, too. Things pulled at her, tiny barbs setting into her skin, trying to yank her off the kelpie’s back, but she held on despite the pain, clinging to his mane. She turned her cheek, seeking comfort from his physical presence, and discovered that if she let her mouth and nose rest against him, she could breathe. Not well, not easily, but there was enough air to survive.

  To calm herself, Jan tried to count his strides, but although she could feel his body moving under her, there was no sensation of forward movement, the only sound her own raspy breathing, and even that seemed muffled, as though the void despised even the hint of life. His muscles bunched and released, again and again, but she had a sudden horrid thought that they were trapped in amber, forever held like some Victorian-era toy, moving without motion for some massive child’s entertainment.

  And then the tempo changed, and Jan was rocked forward as Martin came to an actual stop, her face hitting his neck hard enough to make her teeth rattle and her nose feel as though it had been thrown out of alignment.

  “If you broke my nose I’m going to kill you,” she said, and then realized that she had enough air to speak. Rising slightly from her crouch against his neck, she drew in a cautious breath, then another, deeper. The air tasted strange, but she was so thankful to feel her chest ease, she didn’t question it.

  A shudder ran along the kelpie’s back, and Jan took that as her cue to slide off, her fingers once again sore and cramped from holding on so tightly. When her feet touched ground, her knees buckled, even as she felt the familiar eyes-shutting sensation that meant he was changing form again. Sharp static zinged off him, burning her skin, making her jerk away, half turning and half falling. Humans and magic didn’t mix well apparently.

  Turning away didn’t help; she was still caught in that odd blindness until he was finished. Her eyes opened, and she looked out.

  “Oh. Um, wow?”

  The city was gone. She had expected that—you didn’t go through a rabbit hole and expect to end up where you started—but it was still...startling. She blinked and stood up slowly, taking in her new surroundings.

  They were standing on grass the color of emeralds, almost too bright to be real, and when she bent to touch it, it was plush as a puppy’s fur. The grass filled a narrow patch of clearing, with a small brook a few paces below, and trees all around. But these were no trees that Jan had ever seen before, tall and smooth-trunked, the bark a pale green, with leaves of dark red triangles, restless even though there was no breeze. Jan let her gaze move up and noted, almost casually, that the sky above was...not blue or gray, but something in-between, shot through with an occasional iridescent rainbow. Like an oil slick on water, she decided, staring at the hazy movements. It was hypnotic, really, like—

  “Get down.” And Martin’s hand grabbed her shoulder and pulled her down, gentler but no less urgent than his movement back in her apartment, even as she noticed that something other than the rainbows was moving in the sky.

  “Oh. Holy...”

  “Shhhh.”

  She shushed, watching the serpent wind its way down through the trees. It sparkled like a diamond under the odd light, twining around the trunk of a tree in a smooth, sinuous movement, its great flat head occasionally lifting to survey the territory. She had the sudden awareness of how a rabbit felt, hiding from a hawk, and had a sudden and intense wish for her inhaler, to ease the tightness in her chest. But she didn’t dare reach in her pocket for it.

  Oh, god. Had she put it back in her pocket? Or was it lying, abandoned, on the pavement in some alley, for an asthmatic homeless person to find? She managed to slide her hand forward enough to feel her right pocket. The familiar, comforting shape was not there.

  Above her, Martin lay still as the grass, except for the occasional shudder that went through him, and into her. “Shhhh,” he murmured again, his hands on her shoulder, his torso crossing hers, as though to hold her down. She wasn’t going, anyway; not so long as that serpent was making its way down the tree, like a king surveying his domain. The air smelled of smoke and seawater, and she stifled the urge to sneeze, fighting off mild panic.

  Finally the last of the serpent’s massive body slithered onto the ground and then disappeared. She had a moment of panic that it was racing toward them, hidden in the grass. But then Martin let out an exhale and released her, sitting back on his haunches with the air of an all-clear.

  She sat up more slowly, her hand patting her left pocket, just in case. Nothing. “What was that?”

  “Snake.”

  “That was just a snake?”
Her voice broke on the last word, squeaking slightly.

  “No, that was Snake. The Snake.”

  “As in archetypal, Garden of Eden, source of all evil, Snake?”

  He looked at her curiously and shook his head. “No, just the Granddaddy Snake. The one that holds the sky together.”

  “Oh.” All the breath left her again. “That Snake. Would it have...hurt us?”

  “Oh, definitely.” He reached for her hand, and she let him take it. “Jan, listen. Everything here, anything here...assume it will hurt you. Because odds are, it will. We don’t belong here any more than they belong in our world.”

  She nodded, then shook her head. “You’ve never been here before, either. How do you know any of this?”

  “How do you know fire burns?”

  “Usually, you touch it once and learn.”

  He gave her a wide-eyed look that she couldn’t tell was real or not. “We’re born knowing. Safer that way.”

  “I lost my inhaler,” she blurted, as though that was the most important thing in the world just then.

  He stared at her, and then that too-long face and too-dark eyes eased into a smile that was classic Martin: a little shy, a little sly, and unexpectedly hot. His hand reached out and unfolded, and there, in his palm, was her inhaler.

  “I know you need it,” was all he said.

  She took it from him, her fingertips brushing his palm, and he shuddered, a full-body quiver, as if he was cold—or trying to restrain himself from reacting.

  He wasn’t used to being touched, for all that he was constantly touching her. That...was sad, even though it made sense.

  She had no sooner shoved the inhaler safely back into her jeans pocket when he got to his feet, not offering her a hand up this time. “Come on. They’re already ahead of us. We have to— Oh.”

  She turned quickly, staying low to the ground, to see what had caught his attention and warranted that tone of voice, half worried and half disgusted.

  “Oh. Oh, god...” A vaguely human head stared up at her from the grass, its face covered in delicate scales like a lizard’s, its eyes round and open to the sky, staring in a way that left no doubt that it was dead—even if the body hadn’t been a few feet away, still leaking a deep black blood from what had once been its neck.