Black Wolf (51 page)

He took a deep
breath, and sang cold and ice and winter.

Somewhere not
far away, but far enough away to keep the singer out of immediate
danger, he heard a second voice raised, calling summer and warmth.
Doggedly, he fought it, and slowly the water-cobra stilled,
hardening into ice.

"Jess?"

"Yeah?" the
wolf answered instantly, alertly.

"There is no
way in hell I can beat a fully-trained mage. You have to get Kevin,
he and I together should be able to. I'll keep him from noticing
you aren't here, just don't take forever, okay?"

Rather helpful
that Jess was only in the magesilks wolves liked to wear; without
even a pause to reply, he shifted, and faded neatly into the forest
on four feet.

An amusing
thought flitted across his mind, the scene when Jesse appeared,
quite possibly with Sundark already in circle, to haul Kevin away
for a mage-battle—of water, not fire.

Then the
water-serpent thawed again, dipped low to threaten him, and forced
his attention back to the battle itself.

It couldn't
actually hurt him—what could it do, pull him in and try to drown
him? He kept fighting it anyway, pretending Jess was still behind
him, struggling to freeze the serpent into rigid ice.

The other
voice quavered, fell briefly silent; the snake hardened promptly,
and the other voice returned with a different song. Shaine reached
frantically for the power of the lake beside him, and flung it into
a shield as the huge ice statue fell—directly over him. Shards of
ice exploded in all directions with alarming force; instinctively,
Shaine crouched, lost the thread of the song, but his shield held
and none of the ice touched him.

Round one's
over.

He searched
outwards for the signature of the mage facing him; if he or she
were from his family, from the colony he'd grown up in, he should
be able to recognize it.

Familiar, oh
yes, it took no effort to identify.

Oh, hell. That
was Lew... how could he fight his own cousin, once his dearest
friend?

No matter who
it was, he had no right to attack Jess, and no matter who, Shaine
was going to be in the middle.

Lew waited,
granting him the next move. Between equals, it was a courtesy; at
the moment, it felt like condescension.

Shaine
gathered together what power he could, and wove it together with
his determination. He began to sing again, pouring into it all the
darkness he could, all the pain and fear and despair he could call
up from his memory. The song forced it on Lew, made him live it,
more vivid than the most realistic nightmare, drove it into his
senses and memory mercilessly.

It must have
been sheer shock that won him the long few moments before Lew
fought back; that wasn't exactly a conventional weapon for a
mage-battle, even between merenai. He felt the shiver of power as
Lew attempted to protect himself from it; he lashed out harder,
caught him off-balance and Lew lost the half-formed shield.

Lew's voice
twined into his, reflecting it back at him, locking them both in
same reality. Shaine winced, but he'd lived through it already, so
it couldn't affect him as it did Lew; he twisted the song, gave him
huddling with Jess in the cold, gave him hunger, gave him kneeling
in front of a stranger unbuckling his belt.

He sensed
power near him, not shadow-shifting and fluid but brilliant heat.
He fell silent, breathing hard.

"Where and
what?" Kevin asked.

"Jess?"

"The others
won't let him out of the house. Where and what?"

"Full-trained
mereni-mage, out in the lake, not far away—maybe out on the island.
He has to be after Jess, thinks Jess is still here."

"Great.
Nothing like fighting blindly."

"Tell you
what. I'll defend, you attack. There are things you can't shield
from."

"Can you draw
enough of an attack to give me a focus without letting on I'm
here?"

"I bet there's
one coming any second now, as soon as he gets over what I just
dumped on him."

Shaine counted
heartbeats, waiting, praying that he could counter anything Lew
might send at him. He reached twelve when he heard Lew singing
again—a gentle song, one of home and the waters and playing in the
waves, chasing fish and dozing in the shallows under the warm sun,
an invitation and welcome...

Nails digging
into his palms hard enough for the pain to distract him, Shaine
took a deep breath and answered the song with one of his own. It
was shaky at best, all it did was deflect the power in the calling
away from him and Kevin, but maybe Kevin could get that focus and
attack quickly enough.

"Damn," Kevin
muttered to himself. "All that water's really going to mess with
anything I use. Let's try this."

Lew's song
broke, with a sharp cry.

Silence,
straining to find some indication of the result.

It came—the
wind picked up, whipped viciously around them; lightning danced
across the sky, and thunder crashed at a deafening volume.

"Great, now
he's getting mad," Shaine said.

"He's not the
only one who can get mad."

"The storm
will give him more power to call on—and if you hadn't noticed,
you've got less sunlight to play with."

Kevin flashed
him a feral grin. "He's not the only one with an extra power-source
to call on. Mine's sitting in the living room in a circle right
now. And even though they're inside, the windows are open in that
room and the wind is going to feed Cynthi. And won't the storm help
you, too?"

"True." A
half-trained mereni-mage and a full-trained elvenmage with his
coven behind him, against one full-trained mereni-mage. Why did the
odds still feel like they were in Lew's favour, despite that? "I
suggest you hit him with something before he starts calling the
lightning down on us."

"Hmm." Kevin
frowned thoughtfully, expression briefly distant—consulting with
others, maybe? He spread his feet for balance, shook his head to
get his hair out of his eyes, and stretched skywards.

Lightning
flashed again, but Shaine felt a surge of power. Much of it was the
rapid multi-tonal staccato of fire, but there were other threads
twined together to create the whole, the slow drumlike pulse of
earth, the high crystalline chiming of air, and a fainter rippling
cascade of water, others he couldn't identify.

"Come on,"
Kevin murmured. "Try that again."

This time the
lightning hit the lake right in front of them, disturbingly close.
Shaine threw up an arm to shield his eyes; Kevin didn't move.

Another flash,
again close. Shaine glanced at Kevin, had to squint to see past the
ball of bright-coloured light balanced between and slightly above
his palms. Gathering the light from the lightning? That was some
trick of timing, Shaine had to admit.

"I'm going to
be pretty open for a minute," Kevin warned.

"Right." Which
meant watching doubly closely for the next attack to come.

It wasn't
lightning. It was another song.

This one
called his name, begged him to come home, back to the waters and
his own kind, he hadn't done anything wrong, he could still return.
No more loneliness, no more pain, no more hiding...

He knew he had
to counter it, but he faltered, felt the power in it coil around
him like a loving caress.

Come back and
dance the waves with Lew, as once they'd loved to do... all he had
to do was leave behind the land-bound world, come into the lake,
and Lew would welcome him, they could go home...

Water splashed
around his ankles; he looked down, startled, he hadn't meant to
move. Water on his cheeks, too, but that water was salt. There was
too much strength in that song, Lew truly believed it, truly meant
it and wanted his lost cousin to come.

Shaine wrapped
both arms around himself, fighting his own anguish. He couldn't go,
he didn't belong there anymore, in some ways he never had. And he
couldn't leave Jess...

Jess. That was
something to hold on to.

Somehow, he
found his voice, and called on all the depths of his feelings for
the black wolf. The seductive luring lost strength, and he backed
away, up onto dry land, to stand beside Kevin.

Pure power
exploded; Shaine closed his eyes and turned his head until light
levels returned to normal.

Silence.

"Is
he...?"

"He's alive,"
Kevin said gently. "I just gave him one hell of a case of backlash
shock, from what Flynn can get, but otherwise he's okay." He
smiled. "Major advantage of being able to channel more power than
most mages: I can pull overload tricks."

"That's...
good." He couldn't bring himself to want Lew really hurt.

"Come on,
let's go back."

With the
threat over, adrenaline began to fade.

By the west
gate, overlooking the lake, Shaine halted. He couldn't seem to make
the tears stop. That was crazy, he was a mereni-mage, he was
supposed to have some control over water...

He looked for
the blood in the lake, but there was only water, the clouds
breaking up and allowing patches of blue sky to glimmer through and
be reflected.

"I can't ever
go home," he whispered.

"Then find a
new home," Kevin said softly. "Come on. You're backlashed too.
That's enough to mess with anyone's emotions."

I can't go
home. Oh, god, I want so much to go home...

49

Jess deftly
avoided running into someone, without dropping the tray he was
carrying. Her apology he acknowledged with a quick smile, as he
stepped around her to deliver the plates on the tray.

"One hot
chicken sandwich, one lasagne. Give me a yell if you need anything
else."

The female elf
and male human thanked him, and Jess spun away to another
table.

At the bar
waiting for drinks from Tomas, he was joined by Nick, who passed on
his own order.

"Not bad for a
Saturday," the witch laughed. "Feel like coming over for a couple
of hours after we get off?"

Jess
hesitated. "Shaine..."

"Will wake up
when he wakes up, and whether you're sitting with him worrying or
not isn't going to make a difference. Liam thinks the sleep's best
for him."

"Well... okay.
You've got Dungeons and Dragons in mind?"

"Mmhmm. I
think Eva has evil new ideas for us. She was reading the Monster
Manual and chortling to herself."

"Sounds
fun."

"It'd be
interesting to see what you'd come up with in a campaign."

"Hey, slow
down, I haven't been playing that long. Wait until I'm sure I've
got a grip on the rules, would you?"

"No
hurry."

Tomas set the
required drinks on the bar, left them to take the ones each needed
while he went to deal with someone else.

"Back to
work," Jess sighed, flashing Nick a smile.

The kitchen
closed at eleven, so although Tomas would keep the bar open until
one, Jess and Nick and Sonja were free to leave at midnight.

They stopped
on the porch to decide what they were doing.

"Stop and grab
munchies?" Sonja suggested.

"Good idea,"
Nick said. "I bet Liam ate all the popcorn again. Don't know what
we're going to do with that boy."

"Love me?"
Liam said innocently, from behind them.

He looked
distinctly satisfied that he made all three jump and whip around;
grinning, he got up off the bench. Evaline bounced to her feet,
tail waving and ears forward—laughing.

"Gotcha," Liam
chortled.

"What are you
doing
?" Sonja demanded.

"Waiting to
surprise you. It worked, too. Munchies would be a good idea, but
no, I did not eat all the popcorn. Just most of it."

Nick rolled
his eyes. "So let's move already, time is passing that we could be
using to get our hands on that bloody Ice Diamond talisman."

They turned
towards the all-night convenience store, some two blocks away, four
discussing strategies, Evaline frisking around them laughing to
herself visibly.

Jess paused,
losing track of Liam's idea, checking the breeze for scents.
Something was tickling the back of his mind with danger... He
caught the scent clearly, finally, and something inside came awake,
demanding that he do something about it.

He stopped
where he stood, and tried to identify which direction. He didn't
know what that scent was, but it was maddening...

"Jess,
what..." Sonja began in confusion.

"I don't know.
Something smells wrong. Not a predator, I know that smell.
Eva?"

Evaline left
off her playing, came to hover close to her coven-mates, but she
expressed her confusion, she smelled nothing out of place.