Unbinding

by Eileen Wilks

  He wasn’t seriously angry, though. The amount and shade of red-orange winding through his thoughts suggested aggravation, not rage, and the patterns his colors formed spoke of an orderly mind. “If it makes you feel any better, Special Agent,” she said, “Nathan does have law enforcement experience.”

  Ackleford snorted. “Yeah, as some kind of legal hit man for his queen.”

  “Here on Earth, actually. He was a deputy when I met him.”

  Ackleford gave Nathan a level look. “Where?”

  “Texas. The Bureau has a dossier on me,” he added helpfully. “They pulled it together when State was figuring out how to get me a visa. I imagine you can have a look at it, if you ask.”

  “Huh. I’m betting it’s not complete.”

  “Not very, no.”

  Ackleford scowled and reached inside his suit jacket. “Mind if I smoke?” he asked Isen.

  “Not as long as you do so outside.”

  Ackleford sighed and withdrew his empty hand.

  The door at the front of the house slammed. A moment later a beautiful man stomped into the room. “I’m here. I don’t know why, but apparently this is more important than my doing delightful things with and to Cynna—who falls asleep pretty damn early these days, so I hope this won’t take too long.”

  “Cullen,” Isen rumbled, “complain about your sex life later. You’re needed.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with my sex life, except that it keeps getting postponed.” But the grumbling was more pro forma than heartfelt, and Cullen’s eyes took quick note of the others at the table as he joined them.

  A couple more people had arrived right after Ackleford. Altogether, there were six people present—seven if you counted Dell, who’d fed again after they got back to Clanhome and was impersonating an oversize house cat, sleeping off her meal in front of the fireplace. Isen sat at the head of the table, flanked by Benedict and Arjenie, with Nettie Two Horses next to Arjenie. Nettie was a physician, a healer, and a shaman of the Diné. The People, that meant, that being how those called Navajo traditionally named themselves. Nettie had been out of the hospital about a month after being shot by someone taken over by Dyffaya. Kai had been told that Nettie’s hair used to be very long, but they’d had to shave part of her head at the hospital, so she’d chopped it all off. What remained was a feathery pixie-cut.

  And now, of course, there was Cullen Seabourne. “Does anyone have any idea why I’m here?” he asked plaintively.

  “Ruben Brooks gave me permission to assemble what I’d call a hunting pack,” Nathan said. “The Special Agent here would likely call us a task force. Your Rho wants you to be part of it.”

  Cullen glanced at Isen. “That’s all right, then.”

  “I’m pleased you think so,” Isen said dryly. “I’m concerned that this Dyffaya might wish revenge on Nokolai in general. Even if he doesn’t, he wants to harm Lily. We can’t allow that.”

  “I get that.” Cullen looked at Nathan. “But I’m not sure why you need me. You know ten times more about magic than I do.”

  Nathan made the tch sound that could mean anything from disgust to amusement. “I know things you don’t, true, but you can likely perform ten times as many spells as I could. Think about it. When I lived in the sidhe realms, I was a hellhound. How many spells do you suppose a hellhound learns?”

  “Ah . . . not many?”

  “No. Plus I lack the Sight. If chaos erupts nearby, you’ll see it. That could be more than a bit handy. Now, what I want to do first is get each of us caught up on what the others know. We’ll start with what you discovered when you checked out those who’d been bitten by the butterflies.”

  “That took for-freaking-ever.” Cullen pulled out a chair and sat. “I checked the toddler first, but didn’t find anything. Then I sorted them roughly by number of bites, starting with those who’d been bitten the most. The first guy I checked did have a trace of noninherent magic, just barely enough for me to see without my magnify spell. I confirmed that it was worked magic—a spell—that was tied to his blood, and that’s about all I can tell you about it, other than the color, which didn’t make sense. It vanished while I was studying it. None of the others had any trace of externally imposed magic.”

  “What color was it?” Arjenie asked.

  “Purple. That color is usually associated with those of the Blood, and specifically with whatever magic is their heritage—the Change for us, illusion and body magic for elves, all things rock-related for gnomes. Which is why it doesn’t make sense.”

  “Why not?” Kai asked.”

  “I’m oversimplifying now,” Cullen warned. “But generally speaking, while spells often retain some of the color of the caster’s innate magic, that’s intermingled with the colors of the elements and other sources a spell draws on. This was worked magic, yet it was uniformly the color of one type of innate magic.”

  Nathan nodded. “Likely that’s the color of magic generated by chaos energy.”

  “Maybe.” Cullen spread his hands. “Only that still doesn’t make sense. It was worked magic. It should’ve taken on some color from its components or the elements.”

  “Hmm. We’ll come back to that later, but likely there weren’t any components. Do you have any ideas about why the purple magic vanished?”

  “Most likely, the spell simply expired. There wasn’t much power left in it by the time I spotted it. But it’s possible the caster yanked it. Maybe he didn’t want to leave something for us to study. Maybe he’d gotten what he wanted with that one woman and didn’t need the others who’d been bitten.”

  “That poor woman,” Arjenie said. “I just don’t see what he wanted with her.”

  “That’s the question, isn’t it?” Nathan said. “Something he couldn’t get from the little girl, it seems, since he sent her back. Your turn, Special Agent. What happened today ended with one person missing. What can you tell us about her?”

  Ackleford looked sour, but opened one of the folders he’d brought. “Britta Valenzuela went to Fagioli with Henry Lester, who didn’t initially respond to my question about people being missing due to him being an idiot. Valenzuela and Lester work at Littleman-Hughes, a legal firm a couple blocks from Fagioli that specializes in maritime law. She’s a paralegal. He’s fresh from law school. They’ve been on two previous dates. She’s wearing an orange shirt and brown slacks.”

  He went on to tell them about Britta Valenzuela. She was twenty-eight, five-six, weight around one-thirty. She drove a ten-year-old Fiat that spent a lot of time in the shop and lived in a tiny studio apartment in Clairemont with two cats. Her father had died when she was eleven; her mother never remarried. Her mother said she was a good girl. Her older sister said, “Britta likes men and they like her right back.”

  No arrests. Two speeding violations. Catholic, but didn’t attend mass regularly. Two previous jobs: one at a fast food place when she was in high school, followed by a stint as a receptionist at a posh salon while pursuing paralegal training. She’d graduated with decent grades, gone to work for Littleman-Hughes, and had been there ever since. Well-liked by most of her coworkers and received good evaluations from her boss. Her neighbors didn’t know much about her except for one old woman, who broke down in tears when she learned Britta was missing. Britta had been doing the old woman’s grocery shopping for the past year. Every Saturday, Britta would get Mrs. Cruz’s list before heading to the store for her own groceries.

  Britta’s mom was right, Kai thought, rubbing the back of her neck even though that wasn’t what ached. Britta was a good girl . . . or had been. No way of knowing if she was still alive. She glanced at Ackleford and wondered if she understood his scowls and sourness better now. He’d been dealing with this kind of ache for a lot of years, hadn’t he? Not that anything in his voice, his words, or his expression gave a hint of anything more profound than irritation. But she saw th
e deep, sad blue at the base of his thoughts as he spoke about Britta Valenzuela. He kept it shoved down, but it was there.

  “. . . Mrs. Valenzuela would like to know what the hell happened to her daughter,” Ackleford finished. “So would I. You have any goddamned ideas about that?”

  Nathan looked at Cullen. “You didn’t find any traces of death magic.”

  Cullen shook his head. “None. And I ran the test three times.”

  Ackleford said, “People are killed all the damn time without creating death magic.”

  “There’s no body,” Kai pointed out.

  Nathan leaned back in his chair. “And that suggests she was transported elsewhere. We can’t say if she’s still alive, but that toddler came back unharmed.”

  “Hell.” Cullen grimaced. “Teleportation? You’re the expert on what sidhe can do, and if you’re right about this Dyffaya being behind it, he started out an elf. But teleportation? That ought to be impossible for anyone, elf or not! Unless he used spiritual power, which breaks the rules, but you told me earlier you don’t think he’s got much of that right now, but—”

  “Wait a minute,” Ackleford said. “I want to hear about that. It’s this spiritual power shit that lets him possess people, right?”

  “He doesn’t possess people in the sense that demons do,” Nathan said, “but I understand what you mean. We’ll come back to that later, since the answer’s not clearly a yes or no. About Britta’s apparent transportation—”

  Cullen broke in. “Don’t tell me this Dyffaya used a gate. I know what a gate looks like, and I didn’t see one.”

  Arjenie frowned at Cullen. “But you said the power flash was gone too quickly for you to see what happened.”

  “Gates leaves traces,” Cullen insisted. “This didn’t. Maybe where Nathan comes from gods teleport random people every other Thursday, but I’m not buying that it happened here. Aside from the fact that it ought to be impossible, it would take a godawful amount of power. He needed a boost from a version of his death magic before, so where’s that power coming from now? And for what? What could he get out of it?”

  “That we don’t know,” Nathan said. “Yet. As to the business of traveling without a gate—that’s unusual, but hardly unheard of. I do it, and I take Kai and Dell with me. Well, technically Kai takes Dell with her, but I do the moving.”

  Benedict frowned. “How?”

  Nathan’s eyebrows lifted. “How do you Change?”

  Cullen leaned forward impatiently. “It’s an innate skill, right, we get it. Are you saying this god transported the toddler and the woman the same way you’d travel between realms?’

  “I think it’s possible. Likely, even.”

  “Even though he wasn’t here to grab them? Can you grab someone from a realm you aren’t in?”

  “No, but under some circumstances my Queen can.”

  Cullen sat back in his chair. “Remind me not to piss off your Queen. All right. It’s reasonable to assume that if the Queen of Winter can do it, a god might be able to pull it off, too. But from what I understand, Dyffaya isn’t in a realm, and living people can’t go where he is. Not physically. So where’s Britta?”

  “Wait a minute,” Ackleford said. “If he’s not in a realm, where is he?”

  Nathan rubbed his nose. “He’s in his godhead.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “It’s a locus.”

  “Which is what?”

  “Well . . . not exactly a place. Not exactly not a place, either.” Nathan shrugged. “Maybe you can think of it like in the movie Tron.”

  Ackleford scowled. “This nonplace is like cyberspace?”

  “Only made with spiritual energy instead of computers.”

  “I hate this magic shit.”

  Everyone was silent a moment, perhaps in sympathy with the sentiment. Then Isen spoke. “You’re saying you think Dyffaya took this woman into his godhead, which is not a physical place. Wouldn’t that mean her body was destroyed?”

  “Hmm.” Nathan rubbed his nose. “I can’t say I’ve ever studied on this, but I know of at least one immaterial locus that can support a physical intrusion. The toddler—”

  “What locus is that?” Cullen asked quickly.

  “I won’t speak of it. As I was saying, the toddler didn’t die, so I’m thinking the godhead will sustain physicality, at least for a time.”

  “Why would he do such a thing?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “And where,” Cullen put in, “did he get the power?”

  Nathan thought that over for a few heartbeats, then nodded. “That I do know. Best tell you, I think. You’ve got the shields to safeguard such knowledge. However . . .” He glanced around apologetically. “I’ll need to speak with Cullen privately. I can’t justify telling the whole lot of you. I’ll be asking for his pledge not to reveal it to anyone.”

  “Cynna,” Cullen said promptly. “You’d think I would enjoy keeping some juicy bit of magical knowledge from her, given how much she keeps from me, but . . .” he shrugged. “Somehow it doesn’t appeal.”

  “I’m sorry,” Nathan said. “You cannot share it with your Cynna.”

  Cullen’s frown looked more uneasy than upset. “How important is it that I know this?”

  “Important enough that I risk my Queen’s anger telling you.”

  Cullen looked at the bearded Puck at the head of the table.

  Nathan did, too. “Isen, this type of information transfer is considered a loan among my people. This means Cullen will have the use of what I tell him, but it isn’t his to share, not as gift or in trade or sale, and he must safeguard it zealously. Yet I know he has to obey you. I’d like your word that you won’t ask or require him to reveal what I tell him.”

  Kai’s eyebrows lifted. She’d been told that lupi took vows as seriously as any elf. Apparently Nathan accepted that.

  Isen thought it over a moment. “I’d need a caveat that he must be free to tell me if he judges that I truly need to know.”

  “Need can mean many things, especially for a people at war.”

  “Then let us say, ‘only in profound need,’ and to underline that, I will agree that my clan incurs a debt burden to your Queen if Cullen shares this information with me, with that burden being proportionate to the extremity of the need.”

  Nathan nodded. “That’s well thought of. You understand debt burdens?”

  “We have an example of such an obligation in our history.”

  “Very well. I must ask for one more condition. I hope it’s not offensive, but it’s one any sidhe negotiating at this level would require. Cullen must drop his shields when giving his vow so Kai can confirm his intent.”

  Isen’s eyebrows lifted. “That is unnecessary, but I choose not to take offense. Whether or not Cullen is offended is up to him.”

  “Are we agreed, then?”

  “You have my word not to ask or require Cullen to reveal what you tell him under a vow of secrecy, if that vow has the exception as stated.”

  “Agreed,” Nathan said, and stood. “We’ll go outside, I think.”

  NINE

  KAI, Nathan, and Cullen went out back for the big reveal. Nathan led them to the middle of the upper deck, where he stopped, glanced around absently, then moved slightly to his left. Kai knew what that meant. Nathan had taught her a spell to do what he did instinctively: find true north, a necessity for casting a circle.

  “The two of you stand still for a moment, please.” He then walked around them, humming. He circled them three times, nodded once, and stepped inside the circle he’d set. He gave Cullen a quick, amused look. “That’s to keep anyone from accidentally overhearing us.”

  The sorcerer was staring at what, to Kai’s eyes, was empty air. “That is a very handy type of ward. How does it work? What would you ta
ke to teach me how to do that? I’ve got a couple spells—original ones, so you won’t know them—that are pretty useful. You might want to consider a trade.”

  “We can discuss such things later. Please drop your shields.”

  Cullen grimaced, but an instant later Kai saw his colors for the first time. The orange was no surprise. Cullen Seabourne was confident enough for five normal men. The mossy green lacing it seemed to be common to his people; she’d never seen that exact shade in the thoughts of anyone who wasn’t lupi. The annoyed red-orange wasn’t unexpected, either. But those purple threads were.

  Surely that couldn’t be what it looked like? Lupi were of the Blood, after all, so she expected to see purple in their thoughts. But not that shade of purple.

  Nathan spoke formally. “The promise I need from you, Cullen Seabourne, is that you will zealously guard and protect from revelation the information I am about to give you; that you will not reveal or attempt to reveal it to anyone save your Rho; that you will only reveal it to your Rho if you are convinced the need to do so is profound; and that such revelation will place your clan under debt burden to the Queen of Winter, with that burden inversely proportional to the level of need.”

  Cullen’s scowl didn’t abate as he repeated, word for word, the promise Nathan asked, ending with, “I so swear.” His colors held no trace of the pus green of a deliberate lie. In fact, the purple threads flared briefly—a clear sign of deeply felt conviction. And those threads sure as hell looked like the same amethyst she often saw in Nathan’s thoughts, or in others of the Wild Sidhe. Or in those descended from one of the Wild Sidhe. Such descendants were rare, and how one could have ended up on Earth . . .

  She looked from Cullen to Nathan, drawing more strongly on her Gift as she compared their colors. Well. Now she knew why Cullen was the only Gifted lupus. Did he know? “He considers himself fully bound by his vow,” she told Nathan.