The Ruby Blade

by Amy Cissell

  “Did you find a car?” I asked, as always, master of the graceful segue.

  “Hrmph,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “Yes. I found a car. I didn’t even have to hotwire it. The keys were still in it, and it had a full tank of gas.”

  “That’s amazing! How’d you stumble across such a piece of luck?”

  “Petrina is a very handy partner in crime,” Florence said. “Between her night vision and her speed, we were able to look at a lot of cars in a short period.”

  “And then what’d you do with the rest of the time?” I waggled my eyebrows at her suggestively.

  “Go to bed, Eleanor. It’s a long day tomorrow.”

  I laughed and left the room.

  I stood at the intersection of Canal Street and City Park Avenue at just past ten the next morning. Emma had dropped Florence and me off at the gate site and then driven the car west leaving it outside of the immediate blast zone. We weren’t sure if it’d be enough to protect the car, but it was good to have a closer option in case it did work. Easier on Raj to not have to transport three people to wherever in Texas he ended up. She was going to shift and run back to us. She was pretty sure she’d be back well before noon. If she made it, I was going to be even more impressed with her wolfiness than I already was. Definitely Alpha material.

  A dozen Fae were waiting for us, and I decided that I would have a word with them before we got started.

  “Hello!” I waved, trying for friendly as opposed to regal. They all bowed low. Okay, then. I guess we’ll go with regal. I just hoped that no one produced an actual banner.

  “You may approach.”

  As one, they stood and walked—nay, marched—towards me. “Your Highness.” They didn’t quite click their heels together, but I bet they wanted to.

  “I am not anticipating trouble,” I said. “However, I have been attacked at almost every gate opening. My wish is that while I and my compatriot,” I motioned towards Florence, “are busy that you serve as protectors against all comers. We are expecting a young wolf shifter to join us soon, so please do not attack her.” I gave them a description of Emma in both wolf and human form.

  “Also, and this is important, I would like you to stay until we are gone after the gate opens to protect us from any human interference. Please do not kill the humans, but I was shot by the human police in Savannah while my Fae guards watched and would rather not repeat the experience.”

  They bowed again, made various agreeable noises, and rose.

  “One moment,” I smiled. “I would have your verbal agreement to everything I’ve just proposed.”

  “Of course, Your Highness,” said one. “I agree to protect you and your mage and your wolf against all others, including humans until you leave this place.””

  “Against all others who seek to harm us,” I clarified. He looked a bit miffed but altered his words and the other eleven repeated it.

  “Your actions are much appreciated and will bring honor to you and your families,” I said formally. I’d been right to address them instead of just leaving them to whatever instructions Arduinna had given them.

  I walked back to Florence, and then we got started on the weir. By the time we finished weaving the magical weir, I was exhausted and sweating. I hadn’t had to work this hard since the early days of accessing my magic. I hoped that the gate energy would break the rusty chains that were binding me. This was not pleasant. I withdrew from the net leaving Florence holding the metaphysical reins and then stood and stretched. I didn’t need a watch to know we were less than fifteen minutes from show time.

  I looked around the periphery and counted the Fae guards. All twelve were accounted for. I saw movement out of the corner of my eye and when I spun to look, saw that Emma was back with us, but still in wolf form, her white fur glistening in the midday sun. She was too far away for me to make out her eyes, but they looked darker than the light blue they were in human form. She’d actually made it back. She was fast—possibly even faster than Isaac.

  A surge of gate energy returned my attention to the matter at hand. There’d be plenty of time later to contemplate how badass Emma was going to be if she ever decided to finish pulling up her big girl Alpha-panties.

  I walked the five or so feet forward to the gate and prepared to let the energy take me. Just before my awareness of the here and now left, I saw him. Finn was also on the periphery, opposite Emma. Before I could figure out what he was doing or shout a warning, the gate energy surged.

  Interlude - Isaac

  ISAAC PACED THE small cage, trying not to give into the moon madness that threatened him. He’d missed at least three full moons, maybe four, and knew he was losing track of the days. Michelle seldom visited anymore. He wasn’t as interesting when he was holding on tight to the right side of sanity. She wanted to watch him rave.

  No matter how many times he’d tried to reach out to Raj again, he never made a connection. He was beginning to think he’d hallucinated it during the frenzy of pain he’d experienced when Eleanor was burning.

  He could still feel her, but her presence was further away now. Every once in a while, he’d get a sharper burst of emotion, but she was fading. He could tell she was hungry, cold, and uncomfortable, but it didn’t feel like she was in pain—at least not like before.

  He tried to count up the days in his head since the last gate had opened, but he couldn’t keep track. He wasn’t sleeping on a regular schedule. In the beginning, he’d hardly slept at all, and later he knew Michelle would have him woken up the minute anyone suspected he was in a deep sleep, usually in one of the most uncomfortable ways whoever was watching him could imagine. The days ran differently here, too. Earlier, when his connection to Eleanor was still strong, sometimes a week would pass during the course of his day, and then time would leapfrog again. He wasn’t sure if the difference was real or perception or hallucination, but in the end, it didn’t matter.

  He was jumpy, paranoid, and hallucinating the voice of his second least favorite vampire.

  He paced—or at least tried to pace. The chains held him to a much smaller area than even the cage provided. When that became too tedious and threatened to crush his precarious sanity, he settled himself into the nest of ruined blankets—the burned ones had never been replaced—and tried to meditate with his eyes open. He didn’t want anyone to think he was falling asleep and douse him with ice water, or shoot him with silver bb’s, or use him as target practice for flaming lawn darts.

  Meditating didn’t come easy for him, even in the best of times, but when he was colder than he preferred to be, in constant pain, hungry, and a bit moon mad, trying to do it with his eyes open made it damn near impossible.

  He closed his eyes and concentrated on his breathing. He heard footsteps approaching his cage and held up one hand with the middle finger pointed up. There was a low chuckle, and the footsteps retreated.

  Isaac tried to reach through his bond to Eleanor. That was another thing that wasn’t easy. It hadn’t come naturally to either of them, and all their practice had done was make them able to ignore the other person’s feelings when needed so as not to throw off their reactions under stress. It’d also greatly enhanced their lovemaking, but that wasn’t something Isaac wanted to dwell on now—especially not with an ever-present audience.

  His breathing slowed even more, and his consciousness hurtled down a long, dizzying tunnel, reminiscent of Alice’s fall into Wonderland. He crashed into Eleanor’s consciousness hard enough to make them both dizzy—and dizziness isn’t one of those feelings you want to share through a bond—before he could collect himself enough to pull far enough back that he was virtually unnoticeable.

  Although he couldn’t see what she was seeing, he was still getting the sensory input passed along. It must be about gate time. She was walking with purpose, and the energy that was coursing through her felt different and more intense. Everything was tamped down, and something was off.

  Oh. Isaac thought. Whet
her or not I was hallucinating Raj, I somehow got the truth of what happened. She’s been bound. Again.

  “You should stay out of her head, wolf,” Raj’s voice said. “You know this is a precarious time, made all the more difficult because she is not at full strength.”

  “She’s hungry,” Isaac said.

  Isaac wasn’t sure, but he got the impression that Raj had rolled his eyes.

  “Not the issue. Yes, she’s hungry. She’s tired. She’s uncomfortable because she doesn’t have full access to her powers, but you’re not seeing the big picture, and I’m not going to tell you because I don’t know who’s listening or even if Eleanor can pick up any of this conversation, and she cannot know yet. She suspects, but is working hard to remain uncertain so she doesn’t inadvertently betray us too soon.”

  “She can’t know what?” Isaac asked.

  Raj’s mental sigh reverberated through Isaac’s mind. “I just finished saying I couldn’t tell you. Do you think I’m going to reveal the details of what you shouldn’t know? I’ve never been overly impressed with your mental acuity, but I wouldn’t have thought you unintelligent.”

  “I am not at my best,” Isaac admitted. “I’m exhausted and in pain, and I’m trying to keep that all from her.”

  “How’s that working?” Raj sounded genuinely curious.

  “Better and better. Our connection is fading. Perhaps our binding wasn’t as permanent as I believed.”

  “It goes against my better judgment to tell you this, but it’s more likely that the lessening of your bond has more to do with the blocking of her powers than the bond itself. If she were to regain full strength, your mating bond will probably reassert itself as well. I don’t know a lot about the shifter mating rituals, but I’d guess they only truly work for magical folks, and since her magic is hampered, so is your connection.”

  Isaac mulled those words over. “That does make sense.”

  “Of course it does,” Raj said, an air of smug satisfaction drifting through their telepathic conversation. “She’s almost ready to open the gate. You should go.”

  “One question,” Isaac said. “No, two.”

  “Make them quick.”

  “How come I’ve been unable to converse with you since the last time?”

  “I can only speak with you when you’re on this plane,” Raj said.

  “I’m not on this plane now, nor was I before.”

  “Your consciousness was. You’re so wrapped up in Eleanor that when you felt her pain before, and today when you connected on purpose, you connected so deeply that I could sense your mind on this plane. Now hurry with your second question.”

  “Last time you said you and Eleanor hadn’t…”

  “Made the beast with two backs? Shagged? Fucked?” Raj’s voice was mocking.

  “Yes, that.” Isaac ground his teeth but forced himself to go on. “But I felt you. Or her, I guess. I felt her pleasure.”

  “That was merely the pleasure she derived from feeding me. I won’t deny that there has been some high school hanky-panky, but that’s as far as it’s gone.”

  “Do you swear?” Isaac said.

  “That’s a third question, and I only promised to answer one.”

  “Ass!”

  “Is that an offer?” Raj’s voice caressed him, and Isaac’s skin warmed. Before he could respond, his skin literally heated up when a fucking lawn dart that had been doused in something flammable and set alight, implanted itself in his thigh.

  Isaac roared to his feet. “I wasn’t sleeping!”

  “I had to be sure,” the guard smirked. “I’m only following orders.”

  Isaac dropped back to the floor into a cross-legged position. He knew that it was unlikely he’d manage to reconnect with Eleanor’s mind again, and even if he could, the vampire was right. This wasn’t the best time. He was just so infuriating. And he was there…with her. There to help, and comfort, and… Isaac cut off that line of thought before it could get much further. There was no point in making himself any crazier than he already was.

  He closed his eyes and leaned back, hissing as the silver from the bars started to burn his skin. A grim smile stretched across his face. He would make that vampire pay for every unauthorized touch, and it would be magnificent.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I FELT MY limbs snap into the standard X and knew I was hovering a few feet off the ground. I screamed as the magic started pouring through me and met resistance for the first time. The chains binding me were keeping the gate magic from flowing through me and opening the passage. Instead, the flood of magic was met with a dam. The dam was hastily built and poorly constructed, but it was enough to stop the flow, at least temporarily. While the waves of magic battered against the bindings, I was helpless to redirect anything. I couldn’t absorb the magic, nor could I send it out to fill the hole that needed the magic to give it form. I could feel the time slipping by and realized for the first time the gate openings really were a limited time opportunity. If I couldn’t get the magic to the right place in the right shape, the doorway would close without the proper structure and would start sucking all the energy it could back into Underhill. It would become like a miniature black hole, destroying this plane and the other. I panicked.

  I followed the paths of magic through my body and met with the same resistance. I could feel the bonds weakening, crumbling before the onslaught, but it wasn’t fast enough. I needed to figure out a way to hasten the process along. I mentally felt along the chains, looking for a place that was weaker than the rest. I was about to give up and just do my best to shield the others from the inevitable collapse when I felt it. There was a link in the chain that cracked. If I could break that link, the chain would begin to fall apart. I called to the gate magic and tried to direct it all to the weak link. Instead of a torrent, the magic became a concentrated stream aimed at that one spot. With all the energy directed at one source, it didn’t take long to break the link and rip apart the chain. Once the chain snapped, the magic gushed through me, filling me, and washing away the rest of the chains. Just before the gateway closed, the magic started flowing back out of me and created the form that the space needed. I could feel the chains disintegrating in the assault and for the first time in weeks felt whole. I reached to my dragon self and knew that I could change again. As the flow of magic began to slow and my feet hit the ground, I remember why I shouldn’t change.

  Finn was out there, watching. He needed to believe that I was still damaged. I needed Medb to be complacent, to think that she’d won. And I needed Finn to believe I was vulnerable. I hoped he wouldn’t attack. It would be foolish. I was surrounded by a dozen Fae, one werewolf, a mage, and me. Even if I was weak and the mage wanted to keep him alive, I’d left no such instructions with my Fae guard. To them, he was a half-breed traitor. If he revealed himself, there was no reason for them to take him alive. I suddenly hoped he would attack. It might be worth revealing that my chains were broken just to watch him fall.

  I turned until I found him, still standing unobtrusively a few hundred yards away. I grinned and knew I looked feral. My hair was still wild, and I was glowing as I always did after a magical infusion. Finn bowed and stepped back. I turned my back on him, knowing it would piss him off, and then felt my legs wobble a little. I decided to overdo it and collapsed to the ground. Florence and Emma rushed forward, and the honor guard tightened the periphery.

  “Are you okay?” Florence asked.

  “That was the hardest it’s ever been. Every other time, it’s felt natural. This time, with the bindings in place, I almost couldn’t do it. I don’t know if I can open another gate with the bindings intact.”

  Florence glanced down at me. I know she wanted to ask the question of the hour, but I stared into her eyes and begged her not to ask the question. She got the hint and said with a completely straight face—Florence would be amazing on the pro poker circuit, “I was afraid it would be like that. We’ll see what we can do to prepare better f
or the next gate.”

  “Oh, no!” Emma said. “You’re still bound?”

  Dammit. I couldn’t let her know, not until we’d broken the bond between her and Finn. “The ones who orchestrated this are knowledgeable about Fae magic, and my enemies know how to make ink that binds forever.” I sounded more bitter than I’d meant to but decided that was a good thing. If Raj had truly betrayed me, I don’t think they would’ve snapped under the onslaught of magic today. I wasn’t even sure that a full coven could’ve broken them. These seemed better constructed than last time—well, except for the altered ink quality that is.

  “We need to get out of here,” I said before Emma could ask any more questions. “I’m going to be out in less than ten minutes.”

  “So soon?” Florence asked.

  “It’s a lot harder to do this when I’m not operating at full capacity,” I snapped. She looked mildly abashed, then grinned.

  “Let’s go, then.” She stood up and gestured towards me. “She’s all yours, Emma.”

  “A moment, if you please?” Marie stepped out into the full sunlight. She was using her creepy voice, and I couldn’t stop the shudder from wracking my body.

  She walked up to me, touched my head with her hand, and turned to where Finn was hiding. “I am satisfied with the state of her bindings,” she announced. “You know this voice can only speak truth, do you not?”

  I couldn’t see Finn anymore, nor could I hear any answer he gave. She nodded, though, apparently satisfied.

  “We will meet again, Eleanor,” she said. Then she turned and walked away, head high and shoulders back, as she strode through the noon-day sun and into an open crypt. I gaped. I’d known she was older than Raj and more powerful, but she walked in the sun without flinching. I was so glad she liked me—or at least didn’t hate me.

  I started to wobble, and the world grayed out in my peripheral vision. “Emma,” I warned.

  Emma picked me up and slung me over her shoulders in an extremely undignified firefighter’s carry. I couldn’t believe she was human-shaped again and started to comment on that when I decided her Alpha characteristics were another thing Finn didn’t need to know about. It didn’t matter, anyway. Before I could make any comment, I felt myself fading from consciousness.