~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter Five
Jess stared into the fizz of her glass while Jaime finished the inanities involved with pouring drinks for four people. It was all right, she thought, to play with bubbles when she had little else to accomplish. But now, Carey had been found. And he needed her. Jess left the bubbles alone.
“When you first got here, you didn’t know our language,” Eric said, ignoring his own drink. “But you learned it so fast. How’d you do that?”
Jess watched Dayna draw squiggles on the bar with the condensation ring from her glass. Not listening, she concluded. “The words were not new,” she said. “Just the meanings.”
“Except for a few.” He smiled, inner amusement. “Blanket. I guess that’s not surprising, given the rest of your story.”
Dayna seemed to suddenly realize what she was doing, and reached for a paper napkin to wipe up the water lines.
“Tell us what happened, Jess,” Jaime said abruptly. “Now that we’re ready to listen—and that we have some decisions to make.”
So Jess told them, using the words she hadn’t been able to find on that first morning at Dayna’s small house. She painted for them her unique view of the uneventful morning’s ride, of the sudden ambush as they’d entered the patch of woods that came after the grassy scrub and before the deep, dry river bed. With her inner eye on the memory, her body unconsciously following the dip and shove of her narration, she missed the grim look that traveled between Jaime and Eric as she told of knocking two riders to their death. When she told of her own fall, she faltered, and her dark eyes refocused on Jaime’s kitchen, and she gave them a puzzled little look. “Maybe Arlen...?”
“You think it was one of his spells,” Eric said thoughtfully, reaching an absent hand to capture Dayna’s—which had moved to clean up the condensation and little spills from all their glasses. She gave an annoyed sigh and sat still, obviously against inclination.
Jess shrugged. “What else besides a spell could change me like this?”
“Are you really listening to yourselves talk?” Dayna asked.
“We’re listening,” Jaime assured her. “Maybe it’s about time.”
Jess brought them all back to the subject uppermost on her mind. “Carey.”
“Yeah. Right. Carey.” Eric frowned gently. “What about this guy Derrick, Jess?”
“He aimed the flying stick at Carey. We were almost upon him when we fell.”
Jaime repeated, “Flying stick.”
“Arrow,” Dayna said without thinking; her own words seem to catch her by surprise. “Derrick had a bow and a full quiver in his room.”
Eric grinned indulgently at her. “Pretty helpful for an unbeliever.”
Dayna waved him away with a flip of her hand. “I saw them just hours ago, that’s all.”
Jaime ignored her. “Right. He was chasing you then, and he’s got Carey now. And you want him back.”
“Damn straight,” Jess said emphatically, creating a moment of astonishment in Eric before he burst out laughing.
“Got it from Mark,” Jaime said through her own smile. Then she grew serious again. “Jess, the easiest thing to do is report Derrick to the police.”
“No!” Jess cried in refusal.
“Sweetie, I know you had a bad time with them once. It was a misunderstanding. But the cops are the ones used to handling this kind of thing.”
“Jaime,” Eric said slowly, “What will they do, once they free Carey from Derrick?”
“They’ll ask questions, that’s what,” Dayna said with assurance. “They’ll want ID. They’ll want things to make sense.”
“They will believe him no more than you believed me,” Jess said, just as assured. “And what will they do then?”
After a moment in which no one offered an answer, Jaime asked, “So then what? What other options do we have? You want to walk in there and take him, ourselves?”
“It doesn’t have to be such a big deal,” Eric said. “Dayna’s still got the key—all we have to do is go in when Derrick the creep is gone. You and I can help him out if Carey’s still all drugged up, and Jess can convince him we’re okay. And if it doesn’t work, we can still call in the big players.”
“If Carey happens to think Jess is a horse, he won’t exactly recognize her,” Dayna pointed out acerbically.
“Carey will know me,” Jess said confidently.
~~~~~
Which is how they came to be lurking outside the hotel after dark. Mark was in the office, and had already told them there was no answer at Room 24. They milled uncertainly at the end of the building until Dayna broke away and marched up to the door, more frightened of the anticipation than the action. The others, startled into hesitation, belatedly followed her into the dim unit.
Jess’s eyes adjusted quickly to the low illumination, the only source of which came from the bathroom light at the back of the room. She found Carey even before the last of them had made it past the threshold, leaving the door open behind them. “Carey,” Jess said urgently, kneeling by the ropes that tied his wrist. Jaime slid in beside her and went to work on the knots right away.
His eyes flew open, clear and piercing hazel. They showed no sign of drugs as they rested on Jess without comprehension. Only when he searched the features of those hovering around him and found Dayna did his expression clear. “You were here earlier.”
“Yes, and I nearly got caught,” Dayna said dryly, flipping the covers back to discover his feet were tied together as well.
“But you came back.”
“With reinforcements,” Eric said from the foot of the bed, taking an instant away from his vigil of the parking lot to look at Carey. “Eric, Dayna, and Jaime. We’re Jess’s friends.”
“Jess?” Carey asked, wiggling his wrist around in impatience as Jaime swore and dug in her pocket for a pen knife. “You’d better hurry. If he meant to be gone long, he’d have drugged me.”
“Great,” Dayna muttered. “Hand me that knife.”
Jaime finally sawed through the tough rope around Carey’s wrist. She folded her little pocketknife and tossed it; it landed with a thump between Carey’s knees. He tried to rise far enough to reach it, grunted with failure, and fell back.
“Take it easy,” Jaime said. “Looks like you’ve been this way far too long.”
“Jess?” he asked again, eyeing Dayna as she hacked away at the ankle bonds with the inadequate little knife.
“Me,” Jess said, touching his arm, wanting to lay her head on his shoulder like she had so many times before, knowing he wouldn’t understand that gesture from this human form. “Lady,” she added softly.
His head snapped around; he trapped her with that gaze and examined every feature, every facet of the woman who was now Jess. Or of the Lady who was now woman. “Lady,” he said, accepting the fact as easily and simply as that. “Good job, Lady.” Then he closed his eyes and shook his head. “That crazy wizard,” he said wearily. “He didn’t warn me half again as much as he should have. And you had no warning at all.”
The ropes at his ankles gave way and Dayna chafed some circulation back into the joints through his high, worn boots. “Talk about it later,” she said shortly. “Let’s get out of here.”
Jaime pushed him upright from behind and Eric moved around to discover he was too tall to offer a shoulder to the unsteady captive. Instead he grabbed the back of Carey’s belt and let Jaime move in to offer the shoulder. Jess jigged, trying to hold back for them, and Dayna did nearly the same from behind, trying not to run them over.
So it was Jess who, just out of the doorway, ran squarely into Derrick and his slick looking companion.
“Lady, run!” Carey blurted.
It had the effect of all his Words. Jess obeyed without a second thought, evading both grasping pairs of arms with her quickness, long lean legs putting instant distance between them—running hard, full out, not concerned for the darkness and the unfamiliar ground. Noisy hard-soled pursuit
spurred her on, and she raced over pavement to the long uncut grass behind the hotel. Small town turned instantly to dairy country and she ran along a barely visible wire fence line, pulling away from her pursuer with every stride. It was breathing space, and it gave her the room for thought—for the realization that hers were the only running-away feet. Jaime, Dayna, Eric—Carey—all were still at Room 24.
Thought took away attention and the dark line of a drainage ditch escaped her notice. She sprawled hard, skipping across the dew-slick grass like a stone across water, finally spinning to a stop against the solidity of a deep-sunk wood fencepost. There she gasped, hearing her pursuer come on, his steps now awkward and irregular with fatigue. And something else: the faint zzzt zzzt of an electric fence just above her.
She found the line, a ribbon of wire-woven plastic that ran inside the top tensile wire strand. She recognized it immediately as the same kind of ribbon that discouraged Jaime’s horses from leaning on her board fence. And when her eyes fell on the wheel-like bulk that hooked on the tensile wire, she knew it was an insulated reel attached to the end of the ribbon.
She rose and snatched at the reel in the same movement, pulled it back down the way she’d come and stripped the ribbon loose of its guiding insulators. Then she fell back into the wet grass and waited, listening to the extra loud zzzt of the line grounding out beside her, hissing in time to her own pulse. She made herself very small, very flat in the tall grass, and, when Derrick’s companion stumbled to a stop in front of her, cursing her and searching for her, she made herself lie absolutely still. When he took another step she sprang to her feet, ignoring his first startled exclamation and the second, more heartfelt cry when the initial pulse of electricity hit him.
She looped the line around him once, twice, and had just enough left to hook the reel back to the tensile fence.
Out of his reach.
The curses increased in intensity as he was jolted again, and again, and he realized his predicament. Jess backed away, warily eyeing his jerking silhouette against the starlit country sky. Then she turned and loped back toward the hotel.
In her innermost self, Jess was a prey animal, elegantly suited for running away. She forced every return step against her instincts and all too soon found herself on pavement again, tossing her head in protest against the inner struggle. She moved up to hide against the hotel brick as she stared at the open door of Room 24.
Light flooded out of the room, clearly outlining Derrick’s form just inside the door. Way in the back, crowded into the ante-room to the bathroom, were her three friends—and Carey. Derrick’s sideways stance and alert posture left no doubt that his attention was trained inward as much as out, and in his hand he held...
He held Jess didn’t know what. But he held it like a threat.
Jess slid along the building. Room 16. Room 17. And then she realized she didn’t have to be alone, and her next step was a pivot that turned into a sprint.
“Mark!” she cried, bursting through the door to the office unit.
He jumped off the stool behind counter, as startled by her ragged appearance as by her sudden loud entrance. “Geeze, Jess, you knocked ten years off my life! Don’t tell me it’s gone wrong.”
“All wrong,” she said, still panting. “Derrick—and another. He still has them! Hurry!”
“No kidding,” Mark muttered, following on Jess’s heels as she flung herself back out the door. She looked back once to see that he was still there, and took his hand as they jogged down along the bricks together.
The light from the room streamed out onto the walk, Derrick’s shadow clearly cast within.
“Jess!” Mark hissed. “You didn’t say he had a gun!” But he waved away her puzzled look, murmuring, “Never mind. This isn’t going to be so easy. This second guy—is he here, too?”
“Fence,” Jess said, pointing toward the pasture, her hands flashing to indicate the tangling as newly learned language deserted her.
He took her arm and drew her back, motioning imperiously with his head when she resisted. Together, quietly, they moved away into the anonymity of the night.
“Now, look,” Mark said, his hand still closed around her upper arm, more reassuring than commanding now. “We haven’t got much time, if you’ve just got the other guy tangled up in fence. We’re going to pretend I’m him, okay? I’m the other guy, and I’ve caught you, but I need you to fight like hell—and be noisy about it! I want Derrick’s eyes on you. Got it?”
“Be noisy,” Jess nodded.
“Scream and shriek and curse—all the lung power you’ve got. When we get there I’m going to turn you loose on him while I go for the gun. Ready?”
It wasn’t hard to fight him. It was harder to fight him and not successfully break free. Mark’s grip grew tighter as she nearly slipped away, and he shoved her along ahead of him, ducking his head. Jess was brilliantly vociferous, letting loose one equine curse after another—attention getters, every one. In the doorway, Derrick’s jaw relaxed into a wide grin.
“Atta boy, Ernie,” he said. “She’s a prize.”
Almost close enough to smell him. Close enough so he was beginning to frown, to peer more attentively at the ducking man behind her.
Mark gave her a sudden shove and she pinballed wildly into Derrick’s solid form. He automatically reached out to steady and contain her, slow to realize she was no longer trying to get away—
—That she had gone for his face with her teeth, unaware, for the moment, that she lacked the formidable incisors and jaw strength she expected to have.
She merely tore flesh instead of crushing bone.
Derrick yelped; he batted her away and flung her against the door frame, closing in on her dazed form to haul her up and cock his arm back.
“Think twice.”
It was Carey’s voice and Carey’s shaky but resolute arm drawing the bowstring behind a notched arrow.
“Think hard.” Mark this time, holding the gun like it was an old friend.
Carey glanced at the gun, frowned uncertainly at it, and maintained the tension of the bow string. “Step inside,” he said. “Just one step. Then back into the corner behind the table.” The head of the arrow followed Derrick’s resentful compliance. “Lady, push that table in against him.”
Jess responded without second thought, meeting Derrick’s gaze with her own anger. She stood back and flicked her head in a wrathful gesture, one Carey seemed to be able to interpret and attribute to his own version of Lady, for he smiled a grim smile.
“Let’s get out of here!” Dayna burst out, inching along the wall opposite Derrick.
“Let’s go,” Jaime agreed. She brushed by Eric, picked up Dayna along the way, and grabbed Jess as she passed by. Eric followed, careful to stay out of the path of both arrow and bullet. Then Carey, the arrow still trained on Derrick—and lastly Mark, who slammed the door closed behind him and joined the tail end of the group that hustled for Jaime’s pick up.
They moved as a single unit until Carey stumbled and sank to the pavement, his meager supply of energy depleted. Jess was at his side in an instant, her eyes full of worry; Eric looped back and hauled him up, ignoring the warning—be careful—on Jess’s face. She dogged him to the truck, where Jaime flung up the cap door and down the tailgate, then went for the driver’s door. Dayna dove for the passenger side as Eric slid Carey into the pickup bed and folded his own length to fit; Jess pushed in behind them and waited for Mark. Instead, Mark slammed the tailgate up and peeled off for the office unit.
“Mark!” Jaime called, tension riding her voice. “You’re not going—”
“I’m on the desk tonight, Jay,” Mark called, still backpedaling for the hotel. “Besides, now that you’ve got Jess’s guy clear, I take it you have no objection if the police suddenly get interested in that room?”
“Mark, be careful. This isn’t a game!”
“I know that,” he said, the scowl clear in his voice. Then it brightened. “Besides, I’ve got t
he gun!”
Jaime growled something unintelligible and gunned the pickup to life. As they pulled out of the parking lot, sacrificing rubber, Jess imagined she saw a running man outlined against the fence line. Then the view swung with their turn onto the four-lane, and Jaime floored the accelerator to take them away.
And Carey, still panting, barely aware, sat here in the truck beside her.
Hardly daring to believe, Jess put her hand on his leg, a leg so familiar to her side but never to such things as fingers. In some strange way it brought upon her all the depths of despair from the uncontrolled changes in her life, and in this moment that should have been joyous, she found herself crying again.
~~~~~
It was a sober, wrung-out crew that pulled into the giant U of Jaime’s driveway and disembarked onto the gravel. Carey managed to stay on his feet as they escorted him into the kitchen. He slumped into one of the table chairs and stretched his feet out while Jaime went straight to the bathroom to relieve her aching eyes of her contacts. When she came back in glasses, still in that perceiving-the-world-anew mode that came with the eye wear, she looked around at the group and couldn’t help the bubble of laughter that escaped. “Will you look at us? We look like we’ve been on a 20-mile hike under full gear—and we only left this kitchen an hour and a half ago!”
“I, for one, think we did pretty damn good,” Eric announced. “And I’d like something to drink.”
“Drink, or drink?” Jaime inquired, thinking that her kitchen was fast becoming the ritual place for group drink-and-thinks.
“In-between. A cooler would be nice,” he allowed.
“I’ll have a screwdriver. A double,” Dayna muttered, then shook her head at Jaime’s inquiring look. “No, a cooler is fine.”
“Coolers all ’round, then,” Jaime announced. “Except for Carey, I think. Food is what he needs—how about some scrambled eggs, Carey? And a glass of milk?”
Bemused, Carey nodded.
Jaime reached for the eggs and pointed Eric at the refrigerator. “You’re the barkeep,” she told him, and turned on the stove. Carey, she noticed, had grown more alert, and watched every move anyone made. “Would you believe,” she asked no one in particular, “That I’ve got a show in two days?”
The Changespell Saga Page 9
