Stella giggled in spite of herself. “To give you the short-short version, Miranda took her second stab at Weaving, to bring down the barrier between you and Deven.”
“Did Deven know she was going to do that?”
“He helped, sweetie. The three of them, well, apparently they used the world’s oldest magic to fuel the work. It was actually a really sound plan, except they didn’t know how strong the barrier you made was.”
“I made.”
“Yes. In the last week things have been…” She had to stop and take a deep breath, and when she looked at him again, her eyes were bright. “Bad things happened. You kind of…”
“Went batshit crazy,” came a voice.
Nico turned toward the door in surprise to see the Prime standing there, looking very different from before. Nico remembered the last time he’d seen Deven, that night David had brought him home and they’d bathed and dressed the elder Prime together. David had shaved off the facial hair, but that was it. After that, Deven had apparently taken over for himself. His hair was black again. He looked ten times healthier, and there were metal loops in his eyebrow and another in his nose. When he spoke Nico caught a flash of silver in his mouth.
“Miranda held the balance as well as she could, but it overwhelmed her. It almost killed us all, but then, you happened.”
Nico stared at him. “I happened how?”
“You woke from a coma and fixed the whole thing like you were untying a shoelace. I don’t know if you were working alone, or had help, but regardless, you not only restored our Signet bond, you—”
Nico drew an astonished breath when he followed the line of the bond from where it had been half-dead and starving for energy. It flowed like water from one of them to the next…and the next…and the next.
He shook his head, hard; it was too much to comprehend, too much to accept. “That’s not possible. No one is that powerful. Not even me.”
“Like I said,” Deven replied, “I think you had Help.”
Nico heard the capital H. “Oh.”
“The upshot is, we’re a bit of a quad now, in more ways than one.”
His mind had gone from blurry and empty-feeling to far too full. He had no recollection whatsoever of doing any of that, but it felt like it had happened. And when he touched the lines of the Web where magic had been worked, he could feel his own energy signature, and Miranda’s. He didn’t sense anyone else, but there was clearly something else at work within the threads; as he’d said, no single being could work at that magnitude, that quickly, and that perfectly, and live to tell of it.
“Are the others okay?” he finally asked, blinking out of the vision.
Deven smiled. “Very.”
It occurred to the Elf that the sex dreams he’d been having before he woke had probably really happened.
Nico thought back to those flashes, and felt himself blushing furiously. He’d been there, then—asleep, mostly, but there, while…
Apparently the entire world had changed profoundly in the last few days and he’d missed all of it.
“Stella,” Deven said, “Would you mind giving us a moment alone?”
The Witch looked from one of them to the other and nodded. “Of course. I’ll be in my room if you need me, Nico.”
“Thank you.” He caught her hand and squeezed it as she climbed off the bed and left the room, closing the door quietly behind her. She gave him a strange parting look that might have been worry, or fear, though at what, he wasn’t sure.
Deven came over and sat down on the edge of the bed, regarding him in silence for a while. Nico didn’t know what to do with himself under that stare. He settled for looking himself over—something seemed off about his body, but he couldn’t pinpoint what it was, not even well enough to ask about it.
“Your hair,” Deven told him.
Suddenly Nico understood: his head felt too light, there was no weight on his shoulders, no constant movement on his neck. For centuries he’d moved through every day unconsciously drawing it out of the way; all Elves did. Now, when he shook his head nothing moved. It wasn’t falling into his face. He reached up, hands trembling, and touched what was left. It was perhaps two inches long.
“Who did this to me?” he asked.
“I evened it out. It was ragged and torn out in places.” The Prime crossed his arms, seeming to weigh several unpleasant options before choosing one. “You remember nothing about the last ten days?”
“No. My memories are washed out like a drawing left in the rain. I know something terrible has happened, but that’s it. The last thing I remember is…” It came to him, and relieved, he finished, “leaving the concert hall with Stella and Kai after Miranda’s performance. We were to meet the others at the car, but something…yes, it was the police; they came and snatched the Queen. What did they want?”
“To charge her with murder,” Deven answered almost flippantly. “That’s all dealt with now. I wish I could say you’ll never get those memories back, but traumatic amnesia is a mercurial bastard. You might get flashes, whole days, impressions, all of it, or nothing at all, and it might take years or minutes. I’ve seen it before, and the ones who got through it with the least damage were those who already knew about the events they’d experienced and were prepared for what they might see. So I’m going to tell you, flat out, most of what happened. You don’t need all of it now.”
“All right,” Nico said around the knot in his throat that was rapidly sinking into his stomach. “Simple is best—just give me what’s important.”
This was already one of the longest conversations they’d ever had, and it made Nico nervous. After a minute or so of choosing his words, Deven spoke, and every sentence made Nico’s heart grow colder and colder, wanting not to believe, but unable to deny a word.
“The night of the concert Morningstar took you. They had you for a day, and in that time they tortured you so unbearably you snapped. It was some of the worst I’ve ever seen.”
“Coming from you,” Nico murmured, trailing off.
Deven nodded. “I’ve seen bloodier, more violent. I’ve seen psychological torture that didn’t leave a mark. But this was beyond that—it wasn’t just torture, but defilement. David says they vivisected you. They were trying to learn things about you. Pain tolerances, primarily. They cut you open and did exploratory surgery…and you were awake for all of it.”
Nico felt suddenly nauseated — the memories still did not come, but he could feel their echo, and hear the echo of his own screams…for hours…cold metal, and the stench of his own blood, and that man…standing over, his giddy enjoyment obscene and humiliating.
“I feel it,” he said hoarsely, putting his hands over his eyes though it did nothing to help. “Just…keep going. How did I get away?”
“Miranda and I rescued you, sort of. You had already broken out, but we had to knock you unconscious to get you home. You…you killed the men who hurt you, except for the Prophet—he got away unscathed. By the time we reached you, you were completely out of your mind. The next few days were terrifying. You stayed, but you were a different creature entirely. Full of hate and anger you’d turn on anyone…and did.”
The peculiar inflection of the last word startled Nico. He swallowed hard. “Who did I kill, Deven?”
The Prime took a deep breath. “Lesela.”
He shook his head, again denying, though the truth was raw in his mind. He remembered a familiar energy that wanted only to heal, and that compassion had enraged him so much…
“David and I fought,” Nico whispered, head in his hands. “And then I killed her…I killed her…she only wanted to help me, and…no, no…no.”
He heard something strange and new in Deven’s voice: the need to reach out, himself, and try to heal what could not be healed. Deven had never reached for him before, never wanted to get that close.
“There’s more…but only one thing you really need to know for now. It’s
not something you did, but you need to know.”
He was shaking already, limbs drawing in, curling up on himself like a contracted muscle. Maybe that was why he’d been in pain when he woke.
Deven pushed the words out as if saying them quickly would get them into the air where they could evaporate and do no more harm…but words never went away, any more than actions did. Even those never written on paper were written in the Web to be read for all time.
“Kai sent a message to Lesela asking her for help. She expected him to follow it home, but he didn’t, and she grew worried. She had the other Weavers Gate her here, thinking he had stayed to watch over you…but he wasn’t here. He never made it home. We’re pretty sure…we think Morningstar has him. David’s theory is that what they did to you was to figure out if a regular Elf could survive whatever they have planned—they needed to practice on someone they couldn’t kill. But we don’t know. David’s been searching the whole region for any sign of him but so far there’s nothing. He’s just gone.”
Nico had been turned into a vampire in the most painful way imaginable. He’d been rejected by the person whose soul was joined to his. He’d spent a year and a half drained and depressed, nearly suicidal, knowing he could never return to Avilon again.
Now this.
If he had snapped, that was why. No one thing was too great for him to bear, but all together, these months were a burden so heavy he could not stand beneath it. He was a tree whose roots had been carved away one by one until there was nothing to hold him up.
Now there was nothing left to snap. It was all broken.
He closed his eyes and lay back down, curling the rest of the way into a ball the way his body seemed to crave, folding his arms over his head, uselessly warding off blows that had already come.
There was a long moment of silence.
Then, he heard, softly, “Oh no you don’t.”
He felt weight shift on the bed, and a hand came to rest on the nape of his neck—bare now, exposed. Nico sensed energy shifting as well, moving in a slow and gentle wave from Prime to Consort…the way it was supposed to work…
It was working, he realized, feeling it in a way he hadn’t when he was just looking at the Web. After all these months and so much sadness, amid all this destruction and despair, the thing he had longed for—nearly died without—had found him.
The palm of Deven’s hand began to heat up. Healing power. He’d said he couldn’t heal minds or hearts, though…
A chuckle. “With you it’s a little different. I can’t fix it, but I can give you some room to breathe.”
Nico managed a nod, but his thoughts were in a whirl as the current of energy reached him, lapping silently at the boundaries of his soul, asking without words for consent. Again, he nodded. The tide came in.
It wasn’t dramatic, and as Deven had said, it didn’t fix anything. But that wasn’t his responsibility.
“Yes it is,” Deven said in a whisper touched deeply with sorrow. He lifted his hand, but didn’t take it away; it lay back down on Nico’s head and stroked the remains of his hair. “I did this to you, after you gave everything for me. I cannot begin to atone for the last two years, Nico. I expect nothing from you. All I ask is that you let me help when I can, now that I can. Just don’t shut down. You’ve seen what happens then.”
“I don’t know if I can survive this,” Nico said in a hoarse, hollow voice.
“Of course you can. I know you don’t see it now…but you, my love, are stronger than I could hope to be. And you’re not alone. As long as you don’t shut us out, you’ll have all the help you need.”
My love. He called me ‘my love.’ He called me…
Unexpectedly—but perhaps not—tears overcame the Weaver, and then he fell into helpless sobs, face buried in the pillow while the combined misery of the last few days, even the parts he couldn’t remember, flooded his heart.
And sure enough, through the storm and all around him, he felt love from all sides, holding him up, offering their strength in any way he needed it. We are here, it said in three voices. We are your family…together we are Four…and we are unstoppable.
He cried himself to sleep with Deven sitting at his side, just being there, touching him without any sort of demand; and by the time Nico slipped back into oblivion, he was almost, almost smiling.
Chapter Seventeen
“Tell me something true.”
Deven looked at her over the rim of his coffee cup, pondered a moment, and said, “I used to be a backup dancer for Michael Jackson.”
“What in the what now?” Miranda wasn’t sure whether it made perfect sense or he was screwing with her, and she made sure it showed on her face.
He grinned. “No, really.” He took a sip, wrinkled his nose, and dumped more sugar into the cup. “Periodically I take time off from life as an assassin and murder pimp and seek out training that I feel would add to my skill set. I’ve studied almost every form of martial arts on the globe, and branched out from there into other forms of movement.” Another grin. “You’ll love this one—the most recent was tribal fusion. Belly dance.”
She laughed. “Well, that explains your abs. You realize you have to prove that with a demonstration. Stage outfit required.”
Deven laughed too. “Maybe sometime. Being a vampire is a huge advantage for a dancer—so is being in a body that stopped developing at seventeen.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. You don’t move like any seventeen year old I’ve ever met.”
“I take that as a compliment. Have you seen teenage boys lately? They’re hairy dumb elephants.”
Miranda giggled and took another bite of the chocolate croissant she’d ordered with her latte. It felt wrong to be having fun given what was happening at home, but David had all but thrown them out of the house so he, Nico, and Stella could work on the search for Kai without Miranda and Deven hovering around fretting.
Everyone was a bundle of raw nerves. One day had turned into two, then three, and there was no trace of Morningstar, or the Bard, whatsoever. They’d tried magic, technology, both together; they’d used the seeking spell Stella and David had bastardized to find Nico and coupled that with the twin connection between the brothers. There was no hint of Kai’s presence anywhere in Austin, or Texas, at all.
It was a strange counterpoint to everything else going on. After a preliminary group discussion about their new reality, things seemed to be working remarkably well; the consensus had been to play it by ear for a bit and then have another meeting when everyone had given serious thought to their own boundaries and needs—and after they’d found Kai.
Miranda was fairly sure she wouldn’t be back to the Suite tonight, though ostensibly this was just a shopping excursion. Deven’s old wardrobe had been blown to shit with the Haven, and since coming to Austin he’d been dressing in Normal Guy Drag; he’d asked her to come with him to town to start rectifying that, giving them time to decompress and the others time to work.
She sincerely hoped David would be able to persuade Nico to have company for the day. She didn’t want the Elf sleeping alone when so many horrible memories were so close to the surface.
“Your turn,” Deven said, shaking her out of the dervish whirl of her thoughts and reminding her that they’d agreed to talk about anything but their Elf crisis. “Tell me something true.”
Miranda thought about it for a minute. “I doubt I have anything as interesting as the stories you could tell.”
“Not the point.”
“Yeah, I know. Um…okay, I’ve got it. I once had sex in a Burger King bathroom.”
He gave her a long blink. “Like in the song?”
“Yeah. My first ex in college was…well…basically awful in the sack. Toward the end I started suggesting weird places just to keep from falling asleep. Burger King, the roof of a parking garage, Mt. Bonnell…typical stuff.”
“That bad, was he?”
She nodded, and ad
ded around a bite of croissant, “Near as I could tell he thought a clitoris was like the B-button on a video game controller and he was Super Mario in one of the swimming levels.”
Miranda had the immensely gratifying experience of seeing the Prime of the Western United States inhale his coffee and then laugh himself silly. It didn’t take her long to lose it too, and for a minute they relaxed and gleefully annoyed the other patrons of Slim Shaky’s Espresso Bar.
“I suppose David was quite an education, then,” Deven noted once they’d fallen quiet again. “Whatever his faults, our boy can shag like a champion.”
“No kidding. I’m pretty sure he’s got at least a Master’s Degree in the subject.” She frowned. “Is it weird for us to talk about this?”
“Why would it be?”
“I don’t know. I guess I’m still used to ‘normal’ relationships, whatever those are.”
Deven gave her a conspiratorial grin and indicated a nearby couple with a tilt of his head. “Look at Mr. and Mrs. White Bread over there — when they get home she’s going to strap him to a bed frame in their refurbished basement, put on a vinyl cat suit, and spank him with a pancake turner until he can’t sit down tomorrow. And that fellow over there, the one in the owlish glasses and the extremely sober button-down? Not only is he into gay porn, he writes it—Harry Potter fan fiction. An accountant by day, Bottom!Remus77 by night.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “Are you making that up, or do you actually know?”
“Yes. The point is, even people who claim to have normal relationships have their kinks and twists. There are four of us, yes, but compared to a lot of people polyamory is weak tea.”
“Are you sure you don’t have any fetishes you’re hiding? Getting off to chanting monk CDs, maybe?”
Another long blink. “My God…how did you know?”
At her widened eyes, he laughed again.
After a moment of companionable silence, she told him, “One more time…tell me something true.”
He smiled and took her hand, eyes sparkling. “I adore you.”
Shadowstorm (The Shadow World Book 6) Page 32
