Black Wolf (59 page)

"I definitely
can relate." He tossed Jaisan black magesilk pants and a silvery
top, one of the few non-black ones Kevin had eventually coaxed him
into accepting. "Sorry, no blue, we'll have to catch Kev later." He
got dressed, too, in black and dark purple, and found all black to
take Aindry. He knew he'd gained a bit of weight since coming to
Haven where he had regular healthy meals, and running with the
wolves had made sure it was mostly as muscle; magesilks were
generally designed loose anyway, since magesilk didn't stretch, but
they weren't meant to be as loose as his were on Jaisan. Jaisan had
a sling, made out of black magesilk, that supported his right arm
against his body once he was up and about. At Jess' questioning
look, he shrugged.

"It hurts less
if I don't move that arm much."

"Then don't
move it."

"That's what
the sling's for. But it hurts much less than yesterday."

Jess felt the
wounds on his lower back pulling tight as he moved; it wasn't a
limp exactly, because neither leg entirely cared for taking his
full weight. Stairs were an uncomfortable thought, and he planned
not to tackle them again until bedtime once he was down them.

They crossed
the hall, traded glances and grins, and Jaisan circled around to
the far side of the bed. As a pounce went, it lacked quite a lot,
but it was still enough to make the springs groan in protest and
wake Aindry with a startled yelp. A heartbeat later, all three got
tangled into fierce hugs and a few tears. Jess buried his face in
Aindry's bare shoulder, wary of the ugly bruise darkening her jaw,
struggling still to accept the fact that they were
here
and
real and alive.

"Leave it to
you," Aindry said, "to end up living in a house like this."

Jess groaned.
"Sure, for as long as I manage to keep living, and if present
trends continue, that ain't going to be long."

"We're a
mess," she admitted. "Doesn't matter. We get a fair fight, finally.
What more can we ask?"

"No fight at
all," Jaisan grumbled halfheartedly. "Get up. Get dressed. I want
cookies, but they're down there and we're up here getting each
other all wet."

"You have lots
and lots of people to meet, too," Jess told them.

Jaisan sighed.
"Just forgive us if we get shy, okay?"

"Believe me,
if they can put up with my behaviour, they can handle
anything
."

57

This was
becoming entirely ridiculous, to say nothing of frustrating.

The demon that
had sworn to give him the power of lightning had never returned.
Worse still, Sikial had been driven so incoherent by whatever it
had seen that Patrick gave up trying to make any sense of its
ravings and sent it back to the demon plane.

Which left him
badly weakened, since it was through Sikial that he drew power. For
days now, he'd been forced to rely entirely on his own wits and his
own power. What use was a hysterical demon? He'd tried recalling it
once, a week ago, only to be treated to more of the same; he'd
banished it within minutes.

Maybe if he
called Sikial back, the demon would finally have recovered its
wits? His patience was rapidly running out.

He sat
cross-legged in the middle of the motel bed, closed his eyes, and
centred himself. Since Sikial was on the demon plane, not the human
one, it would require the full invocation to make himself
heard.

His pet demon
materialized looking distinctly nervous, its eyes darting
everywhere, but it didn't panic as it had before. Who ever heard of
a demon panicking?

"Are you
prepared to behave more appropriately than you were last time?"
Patrick demanded.

"Yes, master,"
Sikial said eagerly. "Will obey, master. Have been searching for a
gift for you, master, to offer you if you decided to call me
back."

Oh? This
sounded much more like what he wanted to hear. "A gift?"

"Yes, master.
The ones you sent the constructs after, all three are in the same
place. You could go, you could have all three."

Patrick
frowned. A pleasant thought, but he didn't like the odds of such a
battle. "I assume you have a solution to make quite sure I
win?"

"Yes, master.
Three of the more powerful demons than I, they wish very much to
help. I am to tell you for them that if you call them for that
purpose, they will swear not ever to do anything to harm you, and
will give you the power of lightning that you hunger for."

"They want the
mage too?"

"No, master.
The wolf. If they can have the wolf, they will help you to get the
other two. They offer an ability they believe will be of use in
that, a more enhanced version of elvenmage telepathy than any demon
you have yet dealt with has been able to give. You can already see
more deeply than others. This will allow you to build on that to
twist internal perceptions."

Hm. A tempting
offer. Sikial seemed too intimidated to be pulling any demonic
tricks, and the proposed oath seemed sound. To see those three
suffer and die, especially that Lioren mage, and to have the
lightning as well...

"Why do they
care so much about the wolf?" he asked.

Sikial
writhed, but reluctantly confessed, "He has demon blood, master. He
is a threat to all demons. Him and his brother and sister."

A part-demon
werewolf? That was interesting. "How does that make them a
threat?"

"They kill
demons, master. Like other wolves kill predators. The brother and
sister killed the demon you demanded the lightning from."

Ah, so that
was why it didn't return: it had challenged greater prey than it
had any right to, when it should be thinking about fulfilling its
bargain with him.

Which meant it
had intended to kill that little black wolf and possibly either the
Lioren or the annoying human, if it had succeeded with the brother
and sister. He made a mental note to discover later whether Sikial
had been aware of the identities of its targets, because it
certainly knew Patrick wanted his own revenge on them.

It did
explain, as well, why Sikial had gone hysterical: it wasn't a great
demon, and was prone to strong reactions, and something like
watching a couple of wolves kill a demon stronger than it would
certainly affect it.

Simply to get
his hands on that mage, and teach him a lesson about taking for
granted the power fate had given him, that would be enough, without
the extra gift to make it even sweeter. And surely the demons were
overreacting to the danger posed. Three wolves couldn't be
everywhere, and couldn't be much of a threat against a truly
powerful demon.

"Where?" he
asked Sikial.

"All in Haven,
master. The greater ones would have me ask you to wait until the
moon is past full."

That was only
three nights away, he could spend that much time plotting and
daydreaming of the pleasures to come.

Right in
Haven... he hadn't set foot in any of the villages in a decade or
more, since leaving Falias. There shouldn't be any problems,
though, no one would get involved in something that wasn't their
immediate concern. It would be simply him against the Lioren mage,
and he could have the human afterwards. Watching the wolf die, with
his sister and brother, killed by a trio of demons, would be
enough; at least the damned wolf would actually
die
this
time.

No matter
which way he turned it in his mind, he saw no real possibility of
losing.

"I believe
I'll leave in the morning," he mused aloud. "And stay closer to
Haven, but in the city so I can build up my power. From there, with
you to focus, I should be able to gate directly to Haven when I
choose... That will work. I'll need to gather more power between
now and then. One tonight, here, and I'm sure I can find another
once I'm closer to Haven."

"Not the dark
moon, master," Sikial murmured.

"I need a lot
of power in a hurry," Patrick said bluntly. "I'll feed you every
night for the next three nights, if I can have it."

Sikial licked
its lips. "Fair bargain, master." It knelt, bowed low enough to
touch the floor with its forehead.

"Good."

Patrick smiled
to himself. He'd take no chances, this time. He'd go with all the
power he could gather, with the aid of three powerful demons...

Perhaps life
had not taken such a terrible turn after all.

58

This, Gisela
thought despondently, had to be what Damocles felt like with a
sword hanging over his head by a single hair. How had he gotten
into that predicament anyway? Maybe Nick would know; she'd ask him
when he got here.

Caitryn, lying
furform on the floor beside the bed, shifted position and sighed
heavily; she'd been hovering close to Gisela lately, the healer
wasn't sure why, but she'd accepted the offer of company, or
perhaps the request for it, and her parents didn't mind Caitryn
being around.

Coven Winter
would be there soon. Liam said he needed to talk to her about
something important. He'd sounded too emotionless; he'd been
covering something, she was sure of it. That didn't help her gloom.
The two of them had done all that could be done to heal the
demon-wolves, and the healing circle that had been built into the
wall along with the wards helped speed the process... but it wasn't
enough, she was sure of that. The injuries put them at too much of
a disadvantage. Despite that, no one had the slightest doubt that
as soon as the next demon appeared—and it was only a matter of
time—the trio would abandon the safety of the walls to tackle it.
Aindry was still limping and Gisela doubted her bite was at
anything close to full strength; it took little exertion to make
Jaisan's breath shorten in pain and his left foreleg still couldn't
take his full weight. Jess was in the best condition, but the
demon-damage Rebecca had re-opened on his lower back hampered him
still, and his injured arm remained weak. They might beat a minor
demon or two, together, but the odds of further injuries were much
too high for anyone's peace of mind.

Worse, Sam
reported, from sources unknown, that the three powerful demons that
had been responsible for Unity were actively moving to take
advantage of the situation and finish this personally. Despite
Aindry's clinical evaluation that they had a fair chance this time,
whether or not they all survived it, Gisela wasn't the only one who
expected to have to mourn all three.

All the more
with Aindry's fierce vow still lingering in her mind:
Even if I
have to die, I'll damned well take them down with me for what
they've done.

The way the
three of them clung together, and Sam with them, looked to her like
desperation: trying to steal every moment they could before they
could be torn apart again, this time more permanently.

And she was a
healer, and she had to watch all her friends hurting and afraid,
and she couldn't
do
anything!

Finally, she
heard the van pull in; the door was atypically locked, so she got
up to open it, waited for whoever was downstairs to send them
up.

Evaline was
furform, too; it was a frequent lupine reaction to stress, and for
the last... gods, it was only the space from early Tuesday to mid
Thursday, it felt like so much longer... since Sam had found Jaisan
and Aindry and those silver daggers that gave her such a strange
feeling, they'd rarely seen any of the five "true" wolves
human-form. The pale wolf greeted Caitryn, was greeted submissively
and despondently, and curled up with her head resting on Caitryn's
chestnut flank.

Liam and Nick
had their hands linked, tightly, and for once she wasn't at all
certain that it was healer steadying witch.

"I had an idea
how we might be able to help the demon-wolves," Nick said quietly,
after only the briefest of greetings. "Only the solution is as bad
as the problem, and I devoutly wish I'd never thought of it."

"Nick," Liam
said reprovingly. "Stop." He looked at Gisela. "Do you remember
Clarissa Albertine?"

Gisela
thought. "Giovanna's maternal grandmother. Didn't she come up with
the general ideas that Giovanna proved later?"

"Yes. She also
did the highly improbable. The situation is irrelevant, but she
brought together nine people, mostly highly-gifted, including a
full coven and a few solitaries, and with her as the focus they
completely healed one of her children who would otherwise have
died." She saw his hand clench hard in Nick's. "She destroyed her
gifts doing it, but she did it."

No wonder Nick
was so upset at thinking of it.

"You're
thinking we could do it," she said, as calmly as she could, but she
heard her voice tremble. "All of us together, with you and I as the
focus, could heal them the rest of the way."

Liam nodded,
his expression impassive. "We've got very little chance of coming
out of it in one piece, given the amount of power we're talking.
The wolves aren't going to be much use in a circle like that, so
we're talking twelve to heal three—we're also talking extremely
concentrated power in that dozen."