Sentinels: Jaguar Night

by Doranna Durgin

  Dolan shrugged. “Nothing left here to gain, Drozhar. We’ve secured this house and we’ll find every last scrap of information about the sceleratus vis—can’t you hear the search?” Meghan could. Drawers pulled out, furniture moved, suitcases upended…“And when we leave you here, tied and gagged, we’ll make sure your people know just what you’ve been up to and where they can find you.” He grinned at Gausto, a sudden and surprising grin…a fierce grin. “Unless you think you can take me?”

  Meghan winced inside. Oh, God, Dolan, maybe that wasn’t such a great idea.

  Because she saw Gausto’s face, the expression of a man backed into just the corner he’d wanted. And when he affected thoughtful surprise, she knew what was coming next. “Why, yes,” he told Dolan. “Yes, I think we can.”

  We.

  “In fact,” Gausto said, “I’ve been waiting quite a long time for this.”

  “Wards, please, Meghan.” Gausto said it casually, but he was quick enough to add, “For myself, if you would.”

  Dolan instantly understood. He’d had the suspicion earlier, and now he knew for sure. Gausto intended to use Meghan against the Sentinels, against Dolan himself. It didn’t matter that Meghan’s skills were raw and unversed; the Core’s entire existence was based on borrowed energies. Gausto knew well enough how to channel whatever she could give him. Anything but the wards…those had to be Meghan’s doing.

  And she did. Hands tight around the edge of the cot, with only a flicker of reaction, she used the ability Dolan had so recently woken within her. She was pale, his Meghan, her hair completely escaped from her ponytail, her toned, slender body straight and tense. A single blotch of blood stained her snug ribbed tank top; her jeans were torn on one leg and completely missing on the other. Ill-used, wounded…she’d died rather than reveal the information she’d just so freely imparted.

  And now she raised a swift protective warding around the man who’d killed her and then brought her back. It was as much demonstration as strategy, and Dolan forced away the ongoing snarl of fury within himself at the implications.

  Gausto had complete control of her. And now he had Meghan’s warding ability…if not her knowledge of its use. For Dolan could see it well enough—she’d raised wards on one level only, those meant to keep out probes and incantations and offenses perpetrated by the Core.

  But Dolan was a physical creature. As a Sentinel in action, he was all power and muscle and quick, flickering movement. It must have shown in his eyes, in his internal switch to stalking mode.

  “Complete wards, Meghan,” Gausto said through his teeth, reaching into his pocket. Wards that, like the book’s, would prevent Dolan from physically touching him—would repel him with damaging force. But nothing happened, and he snapped, “Meghan!”

  Dolan wasn’t about to take any chances—not with the stink of blood magic everywhere, and not with Gausto’s hand dipping into his coat. Three long, swift strides and his fingers closed over Gausto’s arm, his stun gun jammed up against the man’s neck. “Stupid,” he said. “Ask her, why don’t you, if she can do that? Ask her what kind of power that takes, when you’ve left her access to nothing.”

  Gausto’s mouth twisted, a sneering defiance; his arm tensed against Dolan’s hold, still straining for his pocket. “Whatever you do to me, she’s still mine. Do you think the Sentinels will suffer her to live?”

  No. He didn’t.

  If Carter had had any clue that Gausto lurked in this cool stone cellar, he’d have sent Dolan to search the tiny third-floor rooms instead. For Gausto was the drozhar to the local sept, inviolable…strictly hands-off.

  Yeah. Whatever. Dolan abruptly yanked the man upward, tearing that fine suit, shoving Gausto back, back—up against the wall, scattering the instrument tray, kicking over a metal bucket of bloody water and a giant livestock dosing syringe, crashing past a pair of old wooden sawhorses dusty from lack of use. Gausto scrabbled backward, trying to maintain his footing, his eyes widening. The wall stopped them, cemented stone as old as the house; Dolan slammed Gausto back against it and for good measure did it again. “What happens,” he said, teeth gritted, “if you die? What happens then, Gausto? She’ll be free, won’t she?”

  “They’ll kill you,” Gausto gasped, barely finding the air.

  “Who? Your people? You’re an embarrassment. You’ve crossed lines no one wanted crossed. My people? Whatever the price, I’ll pay it.” And he would have taken the jaguar, right then and there, his prey already against the wall, the stun gun no longer adequate.

  “Meghan!” Gausto shouted. “Complete wards! Whatever it takes! Do it!”

  Dolan had time only for a grim little smile, a surge of hope at what Gausto had so unwittingly done—and then physical wards sprang to life, knocking him back to land hard. He rolled, he twisted—he came to his feet again.

  From above, Carter’s sharp demand filtered downstairs. “Treviño! What the hell is going on down there?”

  He’d have to come down and find out for himself. Dolan had no time for response, tangled up in determination to free Meghan, tangled up in the faint awareness that she was back, that she’d done just as she’d been told and reached out for power—and through that connection with the earth, was now reaching out to others as well. That she had rediscovered something of herself and needed time—

  I’ll get you time.

  Because Gausto couldn’t realize what he’d done, not yet, and so Dolan flipped the stun gun back into a better hold and bared his teeth as Gausto’s comical triumph gave way to disbelief, and he charged.

  Whatever it takes. She’d obeyed without second thought, and now…now she existed in a flood of energy. She saw the astonishing dark bands that tied her to Gausto, ignored them for now. Drawing mercilessly on the earth’s power, daring burnout, she flung up a quick physical ward—nothing as strong as what she’d done for the book, nothing that would hold out past an assault or two.

  Dolan can tell that—surely Dolan can tell—

  She reached out to him, too, brushing past a tumult of emotions so strong she didn’t dare linger near. And while her mind raced, while she tried to think ahead and beyond, she found herself reaching across meaningless distance to her beloved made family, Jenny with her constrained nature and Anica with her unconstrained nature, to the brief taste of Luka and the gestalt of Encontrados as a whole. A startled whisper of response brushed back against her—of awareness she hadn’t expected. Of hope and sudden determination. It fed her, awakening those parts of her that she thought had died with her and not come back.

  She let it spread to Dolan, saw the look on his face—saw understanding and intent. Heard his grim, faint I’ll get you time.

  How—? But she cut herself short. Didn’t matter how. She had to be ready—she had to be one step ahead of Gausto. When the wards went down he’d demand them back, demand better ones—

  And she’d have them ready. She’d have them ready on her own terms.

  A raw cry of pain jerked her back from ward view to the horror of physical reality. To her body, still sitting quietly on a cot—and to Dolan, latched on to Gausto so tightly the wards couldn’t throw him away, crying out defiance of pain and power and jamming the stun gun against Gausto’s side, taxing the wards.

  Giving me time.

  The flickering blue light of the jaguar sliced the air, hovering, invoked by surging powers and extreme effort. Gausto shouted nonsense, trapped against the wall but untouched, power playing all around him, and Dolan cried out again, fierce and agonized all at once, not backing off for an instant.

  Until three men rushed into the cellar and yanked him away.

  Even dazed, the wards stripping his bones from the inside out, Dolan understood. Carter. The team. They couldn’t stop him from trying to rise from the wet floor, to slip the hands on his shoulders, his shirt, his arms, the arm looped around his waist. Ruger. He’d never break that hold. “You can’t—you’ve got to let me—”

  “Treviño!” Carter snap
ped. “Stand down! Stand down!”

  He snapped his head back, hard—hit someone’s face, no doubt—but in spite of the muffled cry, the hold on him only tightened. And in his struggle he caught a glimpse of Gausto, coming forward off the wall ruffled and flushed, his temper eroded, the wards diminished but holding steady around him. And he held up his clenched fist and by God, Dolan knew what was coming next and yet he couldn’t have imagined. A flash of heat rushed through his body; fiery pain slapped him and he arched up in surprise, another cry ripped from a throat going raw. Blood filled his mouth, trickled from his nose and the hands stopped holding him back and instead held him down, Carter in the dim background shouting his name and Ruger rumbling, “What the fu—” and then it stopped, because Gausto, panting audibly, hadn’t yet drawn on the power Meghan could offer, but had used his own energy instead.

  As Dolan sagged back, the Sentinels eased him down to the hard concrete floor and Ruger was immediately upon him, hands checking him, healer’s senses intruding. Dolan rolled to his side and spat blood, ignoring the spatter from his nose and already clawing his way back to his knees.

  “Holy crap,” muttered the man whose name he’d never learned, the tiger. From behind them, from the doorway, Lyn Maines skidded to a stop with a horrified noise, and Carter motioned her back, crouching beside Dolan with a hand on his shoulder. And when Dolan lifted his head, his eyes were filmed with red, sticky bloodied tears—but he saw Gausto’s intent well enough.

  “Meghan, attend me!” Gausto barely glanced her way, all of his attention on the bemused Sentinels before him, the ones who had no possible defense from the sceleratus vis. “Feed me what I need.”

  “No,” Dolan said, his voice raspy from blood in his throat, from strained vocal cords. “Carter, don’t let him—”

  But Gausto had gathered himself—and then quite abruptly stopped, looking over at Meghan with startled realization—understanding that Meghan, too, was gathering power. “You’re—”

  Make it count. Make it all count. Dolan lurched forward, out of no-longer-grasping hands, clawing to his feet—heading right back for Gausto. Give her time…

  His stun gun was gone, lost in the scramble; he didn’t need it. In a single staggering, stumbling leap he threw himself at the man, latched on, thought he was ready for the lash of the wards but shouted out again anyway, clutching on with every bit of willpower he possessed. Gausto shoved at him, snarling imprecations, his grasp on the sceleratus vis shattered and—

  Give her time…

  Dolan held on. Flashing power, searing pain, violent surge of rejection and there was Carter, coming in beside him. Dolan snarled wordlessly, warning him not to interfere again—but Carter only grinned back, brandished his stun gun and piled on, driving Gausto back against the wall again—untouched, and still trapped. Gausto struggled against them, his face inches from Dolan’s, uncertainty flickering through the victory.

  And the wards flickered.

  “Meghan!” Gausto shouted, barely intelligible over the electric zzzt of the stun gun, the wounded cry of the wards…the noise of two men persevering beyond pain. “You can do better than this! Stronger! As strong as it can be!”

  The wards snapped back into place, strong and thick, and Dolan only had time to realize he knew the look of them before they flung him away, he and Carter both landing in a heap, a fall broken by Ruger’s sturdy form and Ruger’s anticipation of the inevitable.

  For a moment, Dolan only lay there. For a moment, he thought that’s all he’d be able to do. The initial attack at the homestead, the combined effects of the sceleratus vis, the Liber Nex wards…profound, aching weariness filled his body. And yet…and yet…

  A familiar feeling whispered up against him, caressing; his fatigue eased. He rolled to his side, found Meghan, blinked until his vision cleared. “Is that you?” he asked, words that barely made themselves audible. Is it you?

  And she gave the tightest of smiles, defiance wrapped up in silence, still sitting at the edge of the cot in her bloodstained shirt, the tensed muscles in her bare, bruised leg the only thing to give away her struggle.

  Carter eyed them both, recognizing the undercurrent of something, but Ruger interrupted, pulling Carter to his feet and leaving Dolan another moment to himself. “I’ve lost score,” Ruger said. “Who’s ahead now?”

  “The correct question,” Gausto said, still breathing heavily from the onslaught but now smoothing his suit coat, adjusting his tie, smoothing back his already slick hair, “is ‘who dies now?’” He pulled the vial from his coat, the one Dolan recognized from hard experience. “The answer, of course, is all of you.”

  Carter recognized the vial’s significance as well. “Damn.”

  Gausto brandished the thing. “Now that my resources are…expanded…did you really think I’d let you walk away from here with information about the sceleratus vis? Once I know what you’ve done with the book—”

  “The book?” Ruger gave Carter a puzzled glance. “We don’t have the damned book.”

  Gausto glared at Dolan, who mustered a halfhearted shrug. “I lied. Sue me.”

  “Then you’ll live somewhat longer than the others, if not much. It won’t take long to get the truth from you.” And he lifted the vial in a completely unnecessary dramatic gesture, focusing on it with a glower. “Support me, Meghan.”

  And Dolan thought he heard a whisper of response, a coyote’s child leaping on her prey, jaws snapping shut. You asked for it.

  Power surged through the room; Ruger and Carter barely had time to exchange alarmed expressions at the magnitude of it before Gausto loosed it at them—

  And cried out in astonishment, recoiling from the vial—stiffening, quivering and slowly slumping to the floor, his expression dazed with incomprehension.

  Hit with sudden understanding, Dolan laughed, short and hard—it was too much, and doubled him over in a cough. Carter grabbed his shoulder, shook it. “Straighten up, Treviño—what the hell—?”

  Dolan cleared his throat, spat old blood and laughed again. “She did it. She did just what he asked. The strongest possible wards. Nothing gets in…nothing gets out.”

  Carter looked over at Meghan, brows raised. “Damn,” he said. “You are your mother’s daughter.”

  “He could always tell her to drop the wards,” Ruger suggested, sounding very much like Briar Rabbit. Go ahead, Gausto. Drop the wards. Do it…

  But Dolan was watching Meghan, listening to the bare whisper of her indirect thought, filtered through the earth to him. “I’m not so sure…” He looked at Gausto, who dragged himself up the wall to stand again, if unsteadily. “Go ahead, Drozhar. Ask her. Ask her if she can. Better yet, ask her why she can’t.”

  Gausto’s jaw worked, resisting the directive—but not for long. “Explain, Meghan.”

  Her voice, freed, rang clearly in the cellar. “You asshole. You told me to make it as strong as possible, and I did. That means the aeternus. Those wards are unbreakable. I tied them to your life.”

  “You—” Gausto struggled with her words, couldn’t seem to understand them. “You—”

  “You’ll never touch anyone else again. Any power you use will bounce back on you. You lose, you freak—”

  “Silence!” he shouted. “You are the ones to lose! I’m walking out of here—with her—and you can do nothing to stop me.”

  And Meghan instantly complied—but now Dolan could see the spark in her eye, the defiance. He caught that spark, held it…made it to his hands and knees, never releasing her gaze from his. Fight it, Meghan. Fight it now!

  Success.

  She’d taken what she’d learned in these scant days, taken the time Dolan had given her to prepare, and she’d woven the very wards Gausto demanded of her. And even if he still compelled her…he’d also given her access to the earth’s power. To Dolan through that power…to her friends.

  She reached for it, that pure connection to the land. Down through flagstones to the earth beneath, through the
earth to Encontrados. Reached for the roiling purity of the power that welcomed her—recklessly, desperately opened herself to it. Hunting just enough to burn away the dark ugly bands tying her to Gausto…to free herself.

  And it burned. It rolled through her like a tsunami, scouring and flooding and it burned—

  Meghan screamed, a sound that cut through her from the inside out as her eyes rolled back and her body stiffened and jerked, and then she lost everything but the power and the burn and the power and the flood and the pure white incandescent flash that blinded her inside and out and left her lost and drifting.

  Meg.

  Wave upon wave of it, bright burning power…

  Meghan, love. I’m here.

  And the faintest flicker of sanity—

  Meghan. Meg. I’m here. Come to me.

  And the faintest flicker of self—

  Meg. Come back to me.

  Dolan?

  Here, Meghan.

  I can’t—

  You can. Come back to me, Meg.

  Dolan? The bright haze thinned, dimmed to the reddish haze of wards…pulsing, alive…free.

  Still here. A brighter spot in that haze, steady and comfortable. Here, Meg. To me. I’ll take you back.

  And suddenly she was there, beside that warm presence, and she was looking at the inside of her eyelids to boot, her back against the cot and her body still clenched and trembling, but Dolan’s arm around her shoulders and his hand stroking back her incorrigible hair. She pried her eyelids open and found him close, half on the cot and half kneeling beside it, his face streaked with dried blood and his eyes haunted, and he, too, trembled from what they’d been through. “Dolan,” she whispered, and he nodded, a barely discernible movement, his gaze still fastened on hers. She smiled, a mere exhausted twitch at the corners of her mouth. “Don’t…call me Meg.”

  And he laughed, and he kissed her good and hard, and held her so close she could barely breathe—and that’s just the way she wanted it.

  Chapter 24

  Dolan rested his head back against the low adobe wall that arched around the natural landscaping of Gausto’s rented headquarters—former headquarters—and tightened his arm around Meghan’s shoulders. Her head rested against his collarbone, where—with a little help from Ruger—she slept. Recovering from the day.