Magic Below Paris Complete Series Boxed Set (Books 1 - 8): Trading Into Shadow, Trading Into Darkness, Trading Close to Light, Trading By Firelight, Trading by Shroomlight, plus 3 more

by C. M. Simpson

  Chaos erupted around them as soldiers came in from the front door and dragged the non-family members out of the medical center. From the sounds of battle outside, the youngsters weren’t making it easy not to harm them.

  She ignored the trouble as much as she was able, working to keep Abner’s legs pinned. Neela struggled to reach her husband, but Roeglin held her fast.

  “Let go of him!”

  “What are you doing?”

  “It’s a trap!”

  “Marsh!”

  Marsh pulled the dagger from her belt, and Neela shrieked and fought like a hoshkat to get free of Roeglin’s grasp.

  “Give her a minute,” the mage urged, and Marsh sensed compulsion lacing his words. It didn’t affect her, though, and she used the knife to split Abner’s shirt and reveal the parasite nestled beneath it.

  Neela recoiled in horror. “What is that?”

  “That,” Roeglin told her grimly, “is what we’re trying to save him from.”

  8

  De-Bugging

  “What’s going to happen now?” Neela sobbed.

  She watched as Abner was lifted and slung over Terrence’s shoulder.

  “Now we’re going to try to free his mind,” Roeglin told her.

  “How are you going to do that?”

  “Like this.” Aisha’s voice had the woman turning around. Before she could ask the child what she meant, Aisha’s eyes turned frosty-white and mist formed beneath the child’s fingers.

  The scenes that followed had Neela weeping with horror, although she refused to look away.

  Roeglin groaned, but he didn’t interrupt the child as she showed Izmay and Henri working together to remove the parasite from Gerry’s back. In the background, Marsh and Aisha knelt beside the guard’s head.

  The door to the medical center opened, and the other Arcadians were escorted back in. Some of them sported bruises from their contact with the guards, and some still struggled, but they all stopped dead still at the scene Aisha was drawing from memory.

  Gerry lay on the floor of the assassin’s cottage, the parasite exposed as Henri and Izmay worked.

  “What in the Bitch’s name is that?” one of the men demanded.

  “It’s a brain bug,” Gustav told him.

  “A what?” the man asked, but one of his companions interrupted before Gustav could answer.

  “Wait! Are you telling me Abner had one of those things on him?”

  “Yes,” Gustav confirmed.

  “And that man?”

  “He was one of the guards escorting the people we rescued from the raiders to Ariella’s Grotto.” She paused, remembering. “They didn’t want to stay here.”

  “And where is he now?” Lissa whispered, edging closer to wrap an arm around her mother’s waist.

  “We took him back to Ariella’s Grotto to complete his recovery,” Marsh informed her. “The attack happened on the journey, and we couldn’t turn back. He’ll return when he’s better.”

  “But he did survive?” Neela pressed.

  “Yes, and we’ll do our best to make sure your husband survives, too. I’m sorry we couldn’t warn you beforehand.”

  “And…are the rest of us okay?” Lissa tried looking over her shoulder to inspect her back.

  Idron stroked his hand down the length of her spine. “There’s nothing there,” he assured her.

  “I scanned the rest of you,” Marsh informed them. “Only Abner carried a puppet bug.”

  “’Puppet bug?’ I thought it was a brain bug.”

  “Same difference,” Marsh replied. “We believe they can control their hosts.”

  “And after?”

  “After what?”

  “After you remove them?”

  Aisha’s memory showed Henri crushing the bug inside the bowl.

  “They can’t control anything when they’re dead,” Marsh informed them.

  “Well, why didn’t you just pull it off him?” Neela demanded. “Why knock him out?”

  “Because they send tentacles into their host, and if we don’t remove those, the host dies.”

  “Oh.” Neela looked fearfully at the door through which her husband had been taken.

  “We’re going to do our best to make sure that doesn’t happen,” Marsh tried to reassure them.

  Terrence returned. “We’re ready,” he said, looking from Marsh and Roeglin to Aisha. He glanced at the waiting family. “Why don’t you go with Gustav to the mess? This is going to take a while.”

  “I’d rather wait,” Neela told him stiffly and looked around the room.

  “There’s a waiting room through there,” Terrence told her, gesturing at the door opposite. “Gustav, can you make sure they get something to eat?”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Gustav replied and ushered the Arcadians across the foyer to the waiting room.

  Marsh nodded to him and walked over to Terrence. “How bad is it?”

  He shrugged. “We won’t know until you get started.” He paused, giving her a worried look. “Will you be okay?”

  “I don’t see why not. Why do you ask?”

  “Because you’ve already had a long day,” Terrence told her, “and I don’t need you falling over in the middle of this.”

  “It’s not like we can delay it,” Marsh told him. “The sooner that thing is off his back, the better. We don’t even know if it can hear us from in there, or if it will kill him out of spite, or…”

  She gave him a helpless look and sighed, pushing past him to take one of the seats that had been placed at Abner’s head. Aisha let go of her hand and scrambled into the other, batting away the healer who tried to help her.

  “I can do this,” she declared, settling into place.

  Terrence clapped Marsh on the shoulder. “We’re ready when you are,” he told her.

  “Yeah,” Henri muttered. “Ready when you are.”

  Marsh looked up at the sound of his voice, her eyes widening in surprise. He saw the look and laughed, indicating Izmay, who was sitting across from him.

  “What? You think they’d get anyone else to do this when we’re the only ones who’ve done it before?”

  What he said made sense, and Marsh was relieved.

  “Thanks,” she told him.

  “Yeah. Lucky us,” he snapped back and lifted his knife. “Whenever you’re ready.”

  Izmay glared at him across Abner’s body, and Marsh smiled. It was good to know that some things didn’t change.

  Roeglin took the empty chair beside her.

  She regarded him in surprise.

  “Thought you could do with some help,” he explained, then added, “I have done this before, remember?”

  Marsh nodded. She remembered. There’d been a bug in Briar’s Ridge the first time they’d passed through. It seemed so long ago, and so much had happened in between that she’d almost forgotten it.

  Mordan nudged open the door and wove her way through the healers, Perdemor and Scruffknuckle by her side.

  “Scruffy!” Aisha exclaimed, slipping off the chair to wrap her arms around the dog’s neck.

  He gave a snuffling groan and settled to the floor. Perdemor flopped down alongside him.

  “They’re coming?” Marsh asked, and Aisha’s eyes flashed green.

  “Oui,” she confirmed. “Dan says they’re ready.”

  Marsh wondered why the kat thought they were necessary, and Mordan replied, The cubs must learn to hunt, and this kind of prey is rare.

  “And?” Marsh pressed, thinking there had to be more to it than that.

  There was.

  This one smells…stronger, the kat told her. We will need the help, and they need the experience.

  “Which is why we have come,” Obasi announced from the doorway.

  “I don’t…” Marsh had been about to say she didn’t know if it was safe to have so many inexperienced hunters when Obasi held up his hand.

  “The kat asked me to come.” He eyed Mordan speculatively. “She
said I could have only one hunt mate.”

  “Hunt mate.” It sounded like a term the cat would use, and Mordan wasn’t objecting. Marsh caught Terrence’s questioning look and nodded.

  “That’s all of us,” she told the healer and hoped she was right.

  Mordan sank down under the table, making a soft chirruping noise. Scruffknuckle bounded to his feet and scrabbled under the bed, dragging Aisha with him when she didn’t let go of his collar. Perdemor followed in a more dignified fashion and settled at Roeglin’s and Marsh’s feet. Obasi took Aisha’s chair.

  “This is Daikari,” he said when Terrence brought another for the man with him. “He is another of our healers.”

  “I didn’t know you were a mind mage as well,” Terrence said, and Daikari ducked his head.

  “It is not my strongest magic.”

  For a minute, Marsh wondered why he was here, but then Obasi explained.

  “After we heard what Aisha did, we thought it might be useful to see if it is something we can teach to other mind mages with healing magic.”

  “Next time, you will take one of us with you,” Terrence told them, and Obasi and Roeglin exchanged glances.

  “We will discuss it,” Roeglin agreed, “but not now.”

  He indicated the man on the bed before them. “We need to start before he starts to wake.”

  “Do we know how long that will be?” Marsh asked, only to be interrupted by a small voice from under the bed.

  “I can make him sleep.”

  “Bien. You do that, Aisha, but not for too long, okay? You don’t want Terrence to be worried.”

  “’Kay.”

  Are we ready? Roeglin asked, and Marsh had the briefest sensation of being led into another mind where the others were gathered.

  She nodded, glad to feel Mordan slide along the link between them and brush against her leg.

  “Do you understand what it will be like?” Roeglin asked, and Obasi and Daikari nodded.

  “I showed Daikari what we faced in Gerry’s mind,” Obasi explained. “We know what to expect, but do not know how that will translate into reality.”

  “Bien ça. Let’s go.”

  She felt Roeglin and Obasi focus on the sleeping mind before them, but it was Aisha who opened the door.

  Be careful, the child warned, slipping through ahead of them.

  She didn’t go alone, though. The two kats and Scruffknuckle surged after her. Marsh hurried to catch up…

  …and stepped into a maelstrom.

  Perdemor stood over Aisha’s huddled form as Mordan took the fight to the tendrils lashing out at the child from the wall. Scruffknuckle snapped at any that came near, bounding around his child and Perdemor in a blur of fangs and fur.

  “Perdy, move!” Marsh shouted, and the kit jumped clear as she threw a bubble around the child.

  “No, no, no!” Aisha cried. “I need to…”

  “Okay,” Marsh agreed, and asked the shadows to protect the girl but let her move—to armor her as they armored Marsh.

  The darkness shrouding the girl shifted, and Aisha stood up. She looked down at the shadows, and her face lit up with a smile. It was a fleeting thing, though, since Mordan was already biting through tentacles as she leapt through the space that was Abner's mind.

  Obasi brought Henri and Izmay in close enough that they would know when to start to cut.

  Putain a merde! Henri swore. This is even worse than the last time.

  So, cut carefully, and make it fast, Marsh told him.

  Henri rolled his eyes. As if we’d do anything else.

  Marsh did not dignify that with a reply, and the two warriors faded out to focus on the body of the parasite on Henri’s back. She got the impression of Izmay trying to find a space between the creature and the man and of Henri sliding his blade into the gap on the other side.

  The tentacles became twisted red vines, their lengths covered in wickedly curving spines. Mordan slid under three and leapt over another, lashing out with her claws as she passed. The vines froze and then doubled back on themselves, their sharp tips all pointed at the hoshkat’s side.

  Roeglin slammed a shield between them, and Mordan bounded out of the way.

  Henri grunted. “This sucker is tougher than the last one.”

  “Not. Going. To. Do. It. An. Ounce. Of…good!” Izmay declared, grasping a tentacle where it met the creature’s carapace.

  Marsh looked around them, noting the red patches left behind by the tentacles’ emergence and the oozing clear liquid touched by yellow, and she frowned. Aisha followed her gaze and nodded.

  “I’ve got this,” she declared. “Basi, Daikari, we do this now.”

  Marsh wondered who’d put the child in charge, but Obasi and Daikari merely dipped their chins in agreement and began to lift from the floor. Scruffknuckle barked in alarm when Aisha did the same.

  “Scruffy! Down!” Aisha commanded, lifting out of range of his teeth.

  The pup danced uncertainly below her and then spotted a vine spearing toward her. He gave a growling bark and leapt toward it, crushing it between his teeth and tearing it clear before going after another. Perdemor raced alongside him, slashing and biting as he went.

  On the other side of the space that was Abner’s mind, Mordan had become a one-kat demolition team. Roeglin fought beside her, protecting the kat’s flank just as she protected his. Marsh was suddenly alone, with Aisha rising above her.

  The intelligence guiding the tentacles saw it too, and she found herself the center of an attack from several directions at once. Roeglin shouted a warning, and Mordan roared. Marsh pulled shadows from the corners of Abner’s mind, shielding herself with some and forming a spinning disk from others. This she directed to cut through the tentacles coming toward her the fastest.

  As it spun along the direction she thought for it, she created a shadow blade and sliced through another of the savage vines.

  “Marsh!” Aisha called. “Give me lightning!”

  “What?”

  “Give me lightning on all the vines.”

  “Don’t you dare!” Roeglin shouted.

  “Just the vines!” Aisha instructed. “All of them.”

  Marsh hesitated, and the child sent her a picture through the link between them. “Like dis!”

  It was never a good sign when Aisha resorted to baby talk, but Marsh had seen what she wanted and did it. She did not need the child’s next command.

  “Lightning now, Marsh!”

  She definitely did not need the compulsion that came with it.

  As her hands moved of their own accord, and her mind called the lightning without her bidding. Marsh swore that when this was over, she and Aisha were going to talk.

  9

  Medical Procedures

  “Only the parasite!” Aisha commanded as the lightning began to fall. “Only the parasite!”

  There was panic in the child’s voice, but there was command, too, and Marsh found herself repeating the little girl’s words.

  “Only the parasite,” she told the lightning, pushing all thought of what had happened the last time she had called lightning in someone’s mind.

  That time Roeglin had almost died, and she and he had had headaches for days afterward. This time there were more minds at stake. She and Aisha were going to have words about mental etiquette when they got out of this.

  If they got out of this.

  If Aisha heard that threat, she didn’t respond. She was already busy implementing the other part of her plan. Marsh slowed the flow of lightning, but the tendrils kept coming. There were decidedly fewer than there had been before, but they didn’t let up.

  “Call it again, Marsh.” This time the voice belonged to Roeglin, although she could feel Obasi’s agreement in the link they all shared.

  Focusing on the energy, Marsh called the lightning once more. “The vines, the parasite, the tentacles,” she told it. “Destroy them all.”

  Above her, a tendril lashed out, attempting
to wrap around Aisha.

  “No!” Marsh cried, and the lightning surged. “All the tentacles,” she told it. “All the parasite!”

  “All of it?” Obasi’s alarm seemed unwarranted, but the lightning surged again, leaping away from her and lancing down on the tentacles before disappearing through the holes it had made.

  “Just the parasite,” Marsh told it, willing it to obey as it disappeared from sight.

  She frowned, still feeling its presence, but not entirely sure where it had gone.

  Henri’s startled yelp was all the answer she needed. It was followed by the clatter of a dropped blade and Izmay’s savage curse.

  “By the Deep’s dirty ass! Marsh!”

  “Well,” Henri said a moment later, “I guess we don’t need to worry about the bug anymore.”

  “Call it off, Marsh,” Izmay instructed. “I’m pretty sure you can tell the lightning to go home now.”

  “Dismiss the lightning, Marsh.” Roeglin’s instruction was accompanied by the mildest of compulsions.

  It looked like Aisha wasn’t the only one who needed a good talking to about mind-to-mind etiquette.

  “Dismiss the lightning,” he repeated, his voice strained. “Please!”

  This time there was no compulsion to his words. Marsh called to the lightning, “Thank you for your service. You have saved us. Return to your home and rest. Return and rest.”

  The lightning fizzed and then faded, creeping back to the corners of Abner’s mind she had called it from. Above her head, Aisha glowed with green and white light, just as Obasi and Daikari did. The three of them spun slowly, radiating streamers of healing magic.

  Terrence’s voice intruded.

  “We can take it from here,” the chief healer informed them, “but we need you out before you all collapse.”

  It was sound advice, and Marsh looked at Aisha. She was relieved to see that the light surrounding the child was already fading. As she watched, Aisha began to descend.

  This time, she didn’t fall until she’d almost reached Marsh’s arms. Marsh stepped forward and caught her, worrying that there was no one to do the same for Obasi and Daikari.