by Mindy Klasky
For the first time, Brule didn’t take exception to David using the salamander queen’s given name. Instead, he used it himself, to emphasize his reply. “Apolline plans to do more than break your Collar. She will distribute the links among all the nests.”
Connor moved faster than David could stop him. His fingers were dark against the salamander’s throat, and his snarl raised the hairs on the back of David’s neck. It took David leaning his full weight into the shifter before he could force the other imperials apart.
“Curb your dog, Warder,” Brule spat.
David interposed his body between the two grown men. Trying to give the shifter time to regain control of his senses, he said, “If you show a wolf his dinner, don’t be surprised when he bites.”
Brule managed to look unimpressed, but he took a full step back as he shot his cuffs. “I’ll match you, adage for adage: When the foundation catches fire, the whole house is lost. I called you here as a courtesy, because I thought it was better for the Empire if you knew what was being planned. My people—most of them, at least—aren’t looking for a war. I thought you two were smart enough to avoid one as well.”
“You tell us that your people,” Connor sneered over the word, “intend to destroy what belongs to my pack. You’re the one setting the match to the foundation.”
“Don’t play with fire, pup. You’ll be burned every time.”
But David wasn’t distracted by personal fear for the Collar’s welfare. He wasn’t hogtied by his own pack having stolen the karstag. He was an outsider—and so he was fully capable of stepping back, literally and physically.
And from his new vantage point, he could see the true importance of Brule summoning them to the cemetery. He was speaking with Apolline nowhere in sight, with her closest spies out of earshot. Brule was offering a confidence, even if it came with posturing and threats.
“When?” David asked, his voice sharp enough to interrupt Connor’s growled retort. Once he had the attention of both men, he repeated: “When is Apolline meeting with the nests?”
Brule turned toward David, as if to indicate that the Washington alpha wasn’t worth his attention. “A week from tomorrow. Midnight.”
“Where?” David pushed.
Brule nodded slowly, seeming to appreciate David’s getting to the heart of the matter. “Underground. On the Mall. In the old garage beneath the Air and Space Museum.”
David could picture the gaping entrance, a steep ramp blocked by bollards. The garage had been shut down decades ago, shuttered for security concerns years before the Twin Towers fell a few hundred miles to the north. After forty years of neglect, the garage should be dark and damp—perfect for salamanders plotting an ambush.
“Next Sunday,” David confirmed, fighting against a shudder. “Midnight.”
“She’ll have the Collar,” Brule said. “At least until it’s reduced to a pile of links.”
Before Connor could react—to the promise or the threat—Brule turned on his heel. He raised a hand, snapping once, and the sound echoed like a stick breaking on a forest footpath. The four salamanders David had seen glided to his side, along with another two who’d been hidden in shadows beneath nearby clumps of trees. All seven disappeared down the hill, well-trained soldiers swallowed up by acres of cemetery.
“What the hell?” Connor said, shaking his entire body as if he were just coming out of a trance.
“What the hell, indeed,” David said. He glanced up at the eternal flame on the Kennedy gravesite. The fire was back to its usual pale self.
“Do you trust him?” Connor asked.
“Not one iota.”
“Do you think Apolline sent him?”
David mused. “That isn’t her style—announcing her plans ahead of time. I think Mr. Brule is going rogue.”
“Why would he do that?”
David shook his head. “I don’t know. But we have one week to figure it out. And to decide exactly how to take advantage.”
22
That night, walking the perimeter of the farm with Spot, David was still contemplating Brule’s actions.
It had taken resources to figure out where David lived and to send a minion to drag him out to Arlington. As a warder, David had made sure the farm’s address couldn’t be found easily. He wasn’t in online phone books, and casual searching would send a computer user in circles. But there were expensive resources David couldn’t control, and legal databases he couldn’t corrupt. There were people who knew the location, people who might be charmed by Brule, or coerced.
So, Brule’s sending his salamander chauffeur had been a show of strength. At the same time, the action was a gift, reminding David that his home was vulnerable. All the more reason to complete his evening survey of the boundaries—especially with a new imperial, the sprite Bourne Morrissey, living nearby.
Snapping his fingers to get Spot’s attention, David led the way down to the lake. At first glance, everything was normal, exactly the way he’d last seen it. Sumac turned crimson on the edges of the forest. Late afternoon sun glinted on the weathered grey of the dock. An upended canoe leaned against the boathouse, near the two kayaks sitting on their rack. Looking across the water, he could make out the gigantic osprey nest in the old oak tree. The chicks had flown weeks ago. The parents would be migrating soon.
David sat on the edge of the dock, hanging his feet over the side. Spot settled beside him with a heartfelt sigh, strategically placing his head at the perfect angle to be scratched behind his ears. A pair of jays squawked somewhere close by, and a fish jumped in the lake.
No. Not a fish.
The concentric rings were too large, moving too fast for any fish in the lake. Pulse quickening, David peered across the water, automatically tightening his fingers around Spot’s collar.
A face swam into view beneath his feet.
Pale blue hair swirled in the green-brown water. Wide eyes, all pupil, blinked below the surface. Lavender lips opened and sucked in water, then pursed and exhaled to create a fresh set of ripples.
Beneath the lake’s surface, David could make out limbs—arms and legs that ended in clusters of flexible digits, something between fingers and tentacles. As he watched, minnows swarmed from the shallows, diving and weaving among the underwater fronds.
The creature’s body was lean and lithe, moving in the underwater currents like the tail of a kite high in the sky. The silver torso twisted and rolled, sinking beyond the range of David’s vision before it floated back to the surface.
Spot whined, a high-pitched greeting punctuated by the beat of his tail against the dock. David barely voiced the word, “Stay,” before the creature rippled into a vertical position. Its head broke the lake’s surface, and water streamed over sapphire hair.
“Montroseson,” came the liquid voice, and David barely recognized the timbre.
“Bourne,” he said, astonished to see the sprite so transformed.
“Your lake,” she said. “It’s a good home. A welcoming one.”
“I’m glad you find it so.” David responded with a touch of the stiffness that always came from interacting with a new imperial. By and large, the races got along well—salamanders and a few other bad actors excepted. They all had a common interest in keeping their existence hidden from mundane eyes. Nevertheless, a little respect could go a long way toward keeping the peace when tensions did arise.
The sprite acknowledged David’s courtesy, flipping backward and rolling through the sunlit water. When she came back to the surface, she blinked hard. “I’ve taken some liberties, Warder. I’ve sung to the stream at the eastern edge of the lake. I’ve balanced the flow a little more to the liking of the sunfish.”
“I’m grateful,” David said, his tone matching his words.
“And I’ve murmured to the duckweed on the southern shore, encouraging it to spread thinner on the surface. It had grown a little…exuberant with the summer heat. Understandable, with the shallows as silty as they are.” As if illustr
ating her gardening, Bourne rippled her arms through the water.
“Excellent,” David said, although he had no idea about the appropriate balance of duckweed, or silt for that matter. But speaking about water made him think about his last conversation with Connor, of their plans to follow Brule’s lead to the abandoned parking lot under the mall.
“There’s a stream that flows out of here, isn’t there? On the western edge?”
“West by south-west,” Bourne agreed, after trailing one fringed arm along the surface for a moment.
“And where does it lead?”
“Eventually? To the Wild Sea. It flows from Four Streams Meet, by way of the Bitter Water. It leaves your lake to reach the Falling Water.”
The cascade sounded like a recitation of clans, a family lineage that would be at home in any mundane family Bible. The sprite’s words rolled like their own river, rising and falling over the liquid syllables, as if meaning was conveyed by her very tone. The confidence behind the flowing song told David his blossoming idea was a good one.
“Can you trace water in your human form?”
The sprite undulated beneath the surface, swaying as if she were tempted to swim away. “Yes?” she finally answered, but only after another ducking, another sheeting of water from her hair. Even then, the response sounded more like a question than an affirmative response.
But that was enough for David. He began with some background: “A wolf shifter and I are meeting some salamanders.”
He wasn’t prepared for her response. One moment Bourne was rolling beneath the dock, entwining her tendrils around the wooden uprights like a woman caressing a lover. The next, her legs slapped the water, the sound echoing like a shot across the lake’s surface. Spot barked at the disturbance, one sharp complaint followed by a flurry of angry snarls that tightened David’s gut. He slashed a hand command for silence, but the lab continued to growl deep in his throat.
David peered into the gloom, suddenly aware of how much time he’d spent watching the sprite twist and turn in the water. Twilight came earlier in autumn. The sun had dipped to the tops of the trees. He’d be returning home in the dark, and he hadn’t left a light on in the house.
“Easy,” he muttered to Spot, settling a heavy hand on the dog’s velvet neck. As he repeated the word, he wasn’t certain if he was trying to calm the animal or himself.
He also wasn’t sure if he should wait on the dock for Bourne to return. Maybe the sprite had taken fright at the mention of the salamanders or at the notion that David might be allying himself with the ancient enemies of water. Maybe she’d even decided to leave the lake, to follow the Bitter Water or the Falling Water, to seek out a better, safer home.
So much for building a new alliance.
Sighing in disgust at his ham-handed efforts, David pushed himself to his feet. Just as he turned his back on the lake, a loud splash echoed off the line of trees. He whirled back to the end of the dock in time to see a woman settle on the wooden edge.
It was Bourne, in human form. She was naked, every line of her body lean and hard. Water flowed from her close-cropped hair, streaming over a torso that was scarred with tight, white flesh. Her feet were planted on the dock, toes curving as if she anchored herself on a sheer mountain face. Her hands closed around a giant chunk of driftwood, a length of oak that might once have been a tree trunk.
The sprite’s forearms clenched, and she hefted her club to her right shoulder. “Take me to the fire demons now.”
As venom dripped from Bourne’s words, David studied the mottling on her chest. She’d been burned before, badly enough to leave those scars.
“Not now,” he said, forcing his voice to stay calm across the two syllables.
“Soon.”
“Next Sunday,” David said. “Eight days from now.”
“Soon,” Bourne repeated, her fingers tightening on the tree trunk.
“We go to make peace with them,” David insisted, bracing himself as the sprite hissed disapproval. The spluttering sounded like rainwater falling on a bonfire. “Peace,” David repeated, “because they have things we need.” No reason to explain about the Collar now, or why he’d given up his Torch.
It took a moment for the sprite to process the words, then whistle and hiss and settle back on the soles of her feet. David couldn’t believe this fierce imperial was the same broken creature he’d rescued on the path in the woods. For the first time, he began to understand what his father had seen in the sprite, why George had invited Bourne to come to the farm.
“Need,” Bourne finally said, repeating his last word. She didn’t sound happy, but she relaxed her grip on her club by a fraction.
“It would be nice to have an ally. Someone we can trust.”
“Trust…” The sprite lingered on the syllable, as if she were tasting it and discovering exactly what it meant. She shifted her weight, settling more firmly on the soles of her feet. She swung the tree trunk off her shoulder, planting it on the grey dock with a resonant thud. “You can trust me,” she said, her voice creaking as if she had not used it for centuries.
“You can’t fly off the handle,” David warned.
“You can trust me, Montroseson,” the sprite repeated. And this time, she extended her hand. Her fingers were long and supple, as if the bones glided loosely beneath her flesh.
But when David shook, he felt the strength there. He felt a warning, not to him, and not to Connor, but to the fire creatures who were clearly the sprite’s mortal enemies. His gaze shifted to the massive chunk of driftwood that still dripped onto the dock.
David was supposed to be an ambassador in this entire venture. His job was to support his friend—support the shifters and get his own Torch back. But he had to admit that he felt a little more certain of his success with Bourne Morrissey at his side—especially as he watched the creature dive off the end of the dock, twisting in mid-air and transforming to her native shape the instant she hit the water.
23
In theory, David should have enjoyed what was left of his weekend, basking in the opportunity to avoid Norville Pitt for another thirty-six hours. Instead, he continued to worry about the upcoming parley with the salamanders—now only one week away. Sitting in his study, working through the detritus of bank accounts and bills and all the details of life in the mundane world, he kept straying back to the mess Connor had gotten him into.
He still missed his Torch, although he’d recovered from the worst of his disorientation. Until the emblem was gone, he hadn’t realized how often he reached for it, how frequently he let his thumb brush against it in his pocket.
Of course, his loss wasn’t only physical. Even with essential equilibrium restored, there were times when he felt like he was pushing through fog or swimming in cloudy water, victim of the silt Bourne had mentioned the night before.
On Sunday afternoon, determined to tear himself free from his languor, David headed outside. The sky was marbled, grey clouds scudding across a slate blue that hinted of rain. Ignoring the gusts of wind presaging a cold front, David strode to the massive oak tree that spread behind the house.
Splitting wood, that’s what he needed. The satisfying heft of the maul in his hand. The thunk of the blade as it cut through a round of wood. The tension up his arms and across his back as he wrested the iron blade free. The twist as he swept the split logs to the side.
He burned through two cords of wood every winter, more when the weather was extreme. Every forecaster he’d heard was predicting a colder winter than usual, wetter, with a chance of record lows.
All the more reason to finish breaking down the maple that had fallen in an April storm. Back in the spring, he’d used a chain saw to carve the trunk into massive rounds. They’d been drying beneath the oak tree, taking on a grey hue as they aged. It was high time to get the wood split and stacked beneath a protective awning for winter.
Fingers moving automatically, he pulled on a pair of protective goggles. His wedge-shaped maul felt comf
ortable in his hand.
He gave himself over to the comfortable rhythm, thudding the maul into the edge of a round, sweeping the sheered-off wood from the block, shifting the round, bracing himself for another vigorous stroke.
Splitting wood had always been one of his chores at the farm. George hated the task, and David had always been stronger than his brothers, better at physical exertion. Hours spent at the woodpile had made him a better warder too, had kept him competing against older students, in swordplay especially.
Swordplay.
A memory swooped in from nowhere. He’d promised to help Kyle Hopp at the Academy’s gym. Swearing, David checked the time. It was too late to shower away wood chips and sweat. Why bother, anyway? He was just going to work up a lather in the practice ring.
As he reached for the familiar setting, he wondered what the hell he was going to teach the young cadet.
After arriving, he saw that the answer was Everything.
Kyle crouched in a corner of the gym. He held a sword that was too short and too light, a practice blade far more suited to a first-year student than any young man in the senior class. His fingers twisted awkwardly around the grip; it was all David could do to keep from reaching out to rotate the weapon ninety degrees.
The kid’s loose T-shirt hung to his knees, almost obscuring baggy flannel pants emblazoned with the emblem of Washington’s football team. He looked like he’d stolen his big brother’s pajamas.
Sweat streamed down Kyle’s face, and his chest heaved as he fought for breath. At a glance, David saw he’d been sparring against the Terminator, an animatronic opponent used by students to test their basic skills. A blinding computer display above the mechanical device shouted out the bad news: twenty-seven minutes of active swordwork, with zero fatal blows, zero hits on an extremity, zero parries, and thirteen kills.
The last statistic showed the machine’s success. Not Kyle’s.
David cleared his throat, and the kid whirled around, automatically crouching as if he expected to submit to the fourteenth kill of the day.
