She was starving. She had been all lean tension when he'd first met her. Now she'd blow away in a light breeze. It wasn't just missing meals and sleep. Her body had burned itself to power her magic.
She really weighed too little to be slowing him down this much. He'd carried backpacks weighing more--carried them all day long, twenty, thirty miles through the Malay jungle or over the sodden moors of the Falklands. This tiredness was Fiona's gift, her theft of his Power. He couldn't draw on it to aid his legs, his back, his shoulders.
Where had Maureen found the strength to do what she had done today? If Dougal weren’t dead already, Brian would have killed the bastard three times over.
She slept on. He walked on. His legs and back complained on. Every few paces, he stole a glance back at the hedgerow and the ridge of Fiona's roof, half expecting to find his sister strolling casually along behind them. Those vines and Maureen's binding wouldn't hold forever, and his sister could give new meaning to the word "vindictive."
It would have been simpler to just kill her. Maureen said no. She'd spared Fiona, because of the baby his sister carried and because Maureen wasn't crazy any more. She'd spared Fiona because she didn't want to kill again.
"I love you, Maureen."
She stirred and settled into a different curve around his shoulders. She was still alive. He was still alive. She might even love him. Those had to count for something.
Not that he deserved it. After all his mistakes, she'd still escaped, she'd found him, she'd broken the spell that held him--set him free and defeated Fiona on her own ground. What it had cost Maureen to break that spell, to rise from butchering Dougal in his own bed to seducing a man, he'd never really know. How does a woman overcome something like Buddy Johnson?
"You remind me of the Gurkhas, love," he whispered. "You're like them, small and tough and indomitable and dangerous way out of proportion to your size. If we get out of this alive, I'll take you to Nepal sometime. We'll stay with Lobsang Norgay in a dirty stone hut and drink buttered tea spiked with Jamaica rum. He was my old corporal, saved my ass a dozen times. He wanted me to marry his daughter. He'll like you."
She made a quiet noise in her sleep. It might have been agreement. He wondered if Lobsang would see her magic: those mountain shamans were used to some truly strange things.
A sudden chill caught at his heart. She'd walled off Fiona's Power. That was how they'd finally won. But Fiona's Power bound Sean to the forest, blocked him off from Power.
With Fiona bound, Sean was free. Sean had his Power back. Sean knew Maureen wanted his head.
The forest edge waited, a hundred yards or so ahead. It didn't look as inviting, now. It looked dark and sinister, like an alley in a bad neighborhood at midnight.
Brian guessed he had just about enough Power to goose a grasshopper. Maureen might as well be in a coma. She was as fit for a magical duel as she was to run a marathon.
He had to sneak Maureen through that bloody forest without running into Sean, get her up to whatever was left of Dougal's castle. The people there would help her. They'd have to. They owed Maureen their asses.
Ancient strategic principle propounded by Sun Tzu: when your enemy is strong and you are weak, avoid battle.
Brilliant observation, Mr. Sun. Now let's see if I can implement it.
He climbed the stile over the stone fence and entered the forest. They were off Fiona's land. A chill ran down his spine as he carried Maureen into the shadows.
* * *
Sean clenched his fist around the feeling of Power and chuckled quietly. Fiona had released him. Fiona had forgiven him. He was strong again.
His fingers caressed the tree next to him, feeling the life pulsing underneath the bark as he had not been able to feel for the last endless week. The tree spoke to him again. The forest felt alive again. He touched Power again.
The tree nipped at his hand, trying to catch his fingers between the ridges of its bark. Ah, yes. That would be Maureen's sister. There's a lot of hostility in that family.
He threw back his head and laughed. The noise ricocheted out into the forest and died. The forest wasn't in a mood for laughter. The forest told him Dougal was dead. The forest waited for its new mistress. The forest waited to digest its latest meal, wondering what price it would pay.
It was time to leave this forest.
That other redheaded bitch would be coming down from her hill, looking for him. She did not love him. She had destroyed Dougal. This land would obey her. Better to face her on his own terms.
No more skulking around the woods, no more slow painful rebuilding of his lung and liver using the traces of Power that trickled past Fiona's walls. He stood up and stretched, lazily, completely, like one of Fiona's cats.
There were debts to be collected. People owed him blood.
He picked up the knife and pack--Brian's knife and Brian's pack. How generous of Little Brother to provide both food and weapon. Now Sean had to return them with proper thanks.
He relaxed his mouth into his slow, mocking smile. Fiona had a short attention span. A little nudge here, a touch of irritation there, the suggestion of some new novelty to be investigated, and he could move against Brian.
He glanced across the forest glade. Maureen's sister still sat there, briar wrapped around her wrist. When he killed Maureen, he'd own this forest. The sister wasn't going anywhere. She could wait. She was last on his list of chores, payback for the lingering ache in his side and the shortness of breath. Brian first, then Maureen, then tidy up the forest.
He drew Brian's knife and chopped a gouge out of the nearest tree, baring the sweet white sapwood underneath. A small payment on the older bitch's account. If he cut a tree, she bled. If she hadn't reminded him of where she lived, he wouldn't have found the need to blaze a trail.
He moved slowly through the forest, lazily, slashing vines and carving deep into the bark of trees, feasting on the tingle of inflicted pain that ran up his arms with each cut. What was her name? Jo? Jo owed him. This could be fun.
A twig snapped ahead of him, toward Fiona's, and Sean froze. If Dougal was dead, his pets might do almost anything. That rotting dragon hadn't been the worst thing in the forest, not by a long sight. At least it was rational and curious, as well as hungry. Most of the other beasts were just hungry.
Something moved between the trees, and Sean crouched behind a bush to watch. The shape resolved into a man, a big man, a man carrying something heavy.
Brian.
Brian walked free, through the woods, carrying a woman across his shoulders. Sean caught a flash of red hair from the draped body.
Brian and Maureen. They came from Fiona's cottage.
Fear washed through Sean, followed by rage. His twin was dead. That's why he was free. Brian and Maureen coming from Fiona's cottage meant Fiona was dead.
Caution chilled his rage before he could move. Brian was dangerous. Maureen was dangerous. Attacking them together called for an ambush to crush them without any chance of defense.
Sean loosed a tendril of Power, the merest wisp of fog testing his enemies. It would just be more of the forest's uneasy watchfulness, to Brian or Maureen.
Fierce joy flashed through his veins. He sensed nothing. Brian carried no defenses. Maureen felt as if she was barely even there.
Was she injured? Was that why Brian carried her? Had their battle with Fiona left both of them so weakened? Sean smiled to himself, allowing the faintest beginning of a plan to warm his heart.
He pushed gently at Maureen and felt her stir. She slept. She seemed unhurt but exhausted, and he sensed absolutely no reserves of Power. Either she was the greatest actress since Hepburn, or she was helpless.
How about Brian? Sean's touch found weariness and hope. The Pendragon was still strong, too strong for any kind of physical fight. But magic? Sean felt nothing. His brother, too, seemed helpless against Power.
Sean's eyes narrowed, and his grin widened. His heart raced with anticipation. He slipped from bush
to tree-trunk to rock, curving in behind Brian and creeping closer, thirty feet, twenty, ten.
A twig cracked under Sean's foot, and Brian spun around. The Pendragon dumped Maureen like a sack of grain, drawing his knife.
Sean shook his head, in mock sadness. This was all too easy: no artistry, no drama. He loosed a stun-spell and felt it break across his brother. Brian toppled like a felled tree, all in one stiff piece, and a fierce joy flashed through Sean's blood. It felt like an orgasm without foreplay.
"Fiona won't save you this time, my brother. Nothing will save you. I'm not even going to waste my time gloating."
He lifted his knife and stepped forward and smashed to the ground. Sean spat curses and rolled over against the tight cords binding his right ankle.
Vines! He slashed at them, felt them twang like bowstrings, and jerked away, only to find brambles crawling up his left arm. Fire woke in his ankle, and he saw blood blossoming through the cloth of his pants. He hacked again and again, chopping to right and left, but the ground crawled underneath him and thorns tore at his flesh.
"Fiona!"
The forest swallowed his shout. The forest tangled him. The forest threw vines and brambles around him to drag him down, to drown him, to suck his blood as it had sucked blood and soul from the others. Now both legs and his left arm burned in agony, as if tendrils ate the flesh from his bones. Sean thrashed in panic, triumph turned to terror.
His thoughts raced. Dougal had set this forest as a guard. With Dougal dead, it was an unchained monster. Sean called on fire to cleanse the land but felt his Power draining away with his blood.
"Fiona!"
But his sister was dead. She couldn't save him. Sean hacked frantically, sweat flying from his arm. For every vine he cut, three took root in his flesh and sent acid along his nerves. Brambles looped around his throat and bit him, forming sucker roots that pierced into his veins and drank. His brain fuzzed.
One thought still loomed through the fog. Kill. Kill before I die. Brian lay a few feet in front of him. Maureen lay to one side. Both were helpless. Sean hefted the knife.
Brian.
Sean pulled all his hatred, all his fading Power together, and aimed the knife. His hand drew back for the throw. Something jerked at his wrist, and the knife dropped. He forced his head around. Green briars spiraled up his wrist.
"FIIIOONNNAAA!"
His scream died off in a strangled gargle, and he sank under the waves of pain. His thoughts splintered into sparkling atoms and fled like a cloud.
Darkness took them.
* * *
Maureen pushed herself up, groggily. Trees. Brian. Noise. Stench. Pain. Hunger.
She squatted on hands and knees. She sorted out her senses.
The noises stopped. The stink didn't. Rotting meat. She'd smelled that before. The forest. She shook her head, trying to focus. Blood dripped from a bundle of vines and briars a few feet from where Brian lay. The bundle twitched once, then twice, then settled as if whatever hid inside it had lost all tension.
"What? Happened?"
Single words seemed to be her limit. Her head pounded, and her left hand throbbed in time with the beat. She focused on the hand. A red line crossed it, a half-healed wound. It wasn't still bleeding, she noted with relief. She might have gotten around to worrying about that, some time.
Brian stirred. His head rolled from side to side. He sat up, jerkily, as if parts of him rejoined the whole like pieces of a puzzle. He shook his head again, a groggy owl staring around. He peered at Maureen.
"I could have sworn you were asleep."
She stared at him. "What happened?"
He waved at the bloody bundle. "Sean attacked us. You killed him."
She shook her head. "I didn't do anything."
"Bugger that. I bleeding well didn't. That leaves you."
"Bullshit. Last thing I did was faint into your arms like Scarlett O'Hara. I dreamed I was strangling Sean. Jo and David held him down. Then I woke up with a bump on my head. Whatever happened to him, I didn't do it."
Brian stood up, moving slowly. He shook his hands and feet as if they tingled from returning circulation. He knelt and poked at the wrapped form that must have been Sean, using the tip of his knife.
"Dead." He looked up at her and studied her face, as if he was reading the mixture of fierce joy and loathing she felt. He shook his head. "You seem to think Sean was your worst enemy. That poor sod may have been a nasty piece of work, but he was really just a puppet. Fiona's the one who made him, and you had to leave her alive behind our backs. Alive and very angry."
Maureen stared at the bloody vines and refused to worry about Fiona. She was tomorrow's problem. "Is that what Dougal did to David?"
"No. This just killed him, fast. David may even still be alive."
"Show me."
He offered her a hand and pulled her up. Maureen leaned on him again, tucking herself under his arm. He felt hard and warm and reassuring, support she could rely on. It felt like leaning on Father Oak, only with a heartbeat.
The dragon still stank like the devil's own cesspool. Crows and ravens and vultures perched all through the trees, too gorged to fly. The birds barely even followed the two of them with their black sated eyes.
Brian stopped. "My God!"
Jo sat there, next to another bundle of vines. She didn't move. Maureen traced the greenbriar looped around her sister's wrist and saw the fine rootlets bonded to her skin. Her eyes were open but blank. A faint breath stirred her chest, and then another.
Maureen remembered a vegetable in a nursing home, fed by a tube. Psych. class field trip. Catatonic withdrawal. Lights on, nobody home.
She vomited. She barely had enough strength to keep the vile mess off her clothes. A part of her body snarled at the silly waste of food.
Brian held her. Brian spoke soothing noises. Finally, the noises made words. "Jo found him. She forced herself into the bond, to track him through the land. They're both alive."
She forced a whisper. "How do we get them out?"
"I don't know if we can. I don't know if anybody ever has broken this kind of bonding. Their bodies are here, but their thoughts are scattered throughout the forest. They've become the forest."
The flash of insight felt just like a cartoon lightbulb. "Jo and David killed Sean. They saved us. We've got to save them."
Brian shook his head. "Maureen, you may be the most powerful witch in the Summer Country, but you're damn near dead. You have to rest. You have to eat, and sleep, and rebuild your Power before you're ready to try anything like this."
"No." She knew, with cold hard certainty, that Jo and David couldn't wait. She felt it. They'd die. "You said I own these lands? I take over from Dougal because I killed him? All that feudal shit of force majeure?"
"Yes."
"Then I'm going to be a feudal lord." She found some strength, somewhere, and staggered over to the nearest tree. She stared at the trunk, too exhausted for emotion, thinking about the spells she'd worked.
The Power didn't come, this time. The words didn't force themselves on her. She didn't have the strength.
The bark of the beech was smooth under her hands. She'd asked a beech for directions, earlier today. She hoped it wasn't this one. If she'd just walked right by Jo and David . . .
"Give them back to me. You've got Sean. You've got your blood. In their place, I swear to act for the good of this forest. Give them back." Nothing happened.
"I don't have the strength or time to argue with you. I am the ruler of this land. I command you to give them back."
Still nothing. This world seemed to require threats.
"If you don't send Jo and David back into their bodies, I swear I will burn every last tree and bush and clump of moss in this forest. I will burn this land as bare as the knob of rock where Dougal set his tower. It may take me the rest of my life to do it, but I will do it, as surely as the sun rises in the morning.
"Ask Dougal MacKenzie's ashes whether I am pati
ent enough to do it. Ask Sean's blood whether I have the foresight. Ask Fiona's hearthstone and threshold whether I have the will. Give them back."
Her vision throbbed again, pulsing with her heartbeat. The cut on her hand had reopened and left a thin red smear on the gray bark of the beech. It looked like a brush-stroke of Japanese calligraphy, signing a contract.
The forest stirred around them. Something tapped Maureen on the ankle. She glanced down, slowly, without the strength for more than idle curiosity.
One of the briars looped its way around her leg. The tip turned black, curled, and dissolved into powder. A second branched off and quested upward.
Maureen watched a slow-motion video of Fiona's battle with the hedge. It was happening to someone else. She wondered how it would come out.
Chapter Thirty
{The price has been paid. The pact is signed in blood.}
Ghostly bindings unraveled. Misty fragments of Jo's soul floated free and reached out to each other, gathering.
She had been vast. That echoing voice seemed to trap her, compress her, and stuff her back into her skull. The claustrophobia of her own body was unbearable.
Images flickered back into her eyes, a scuffed patch of dirt and roots replacing the pattern of life for miles around. Rot offended her nose, and the harsh croak of ravens buried the song of leaves rejoicing in the sun. The caress of the earth and sky, the water and the rock, died away to the scant range of her own skin. She plunged from riches into poverty.
Worst of all, she'd lost a bond to David deep enough to make all-night sex seem like a picture-postcard from Detroit. Now that was gone.
A dull hatred simmered in her, residue of the land's fear of fire. It left her looking for the thief who had stolen bliss. She tried to move, to punch something in frustration, even just to vent her anger in a burst of pungent swearing. Nothing worked. Her body rebelled, demanding toll for the days of abuse she'd heaped upon it.
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