Black Wolf (60 page)

"But right
now," she concluded for him, "it looks like we've got a choice
between a near-certainty of one or more dead demon-wolves, and a
near-certainty of two burned-out healers who'd still be alive."
Might wish they were dead, but that was another matter.

Silently, Liam
nodded again.

"They won't
let us if they know. The wolves, I mean."

"Then we don't
tell them what the price is likely to be. We can think up some kind
of reasonable excuse until it's over."

"Nobody else
will buy it. What if someone decides to stop us? Dia, especially?"
She tried not to think of a silver ring and a promise of truth
always.

"If we aren't
trying to keep Liam from doing this, who will interfere?" Sonja
asked quietly. She was past fighting tears, Gisela thought,
resigned to hurting and being unable to do anything about it.

Evaline whined
plaintive agreement, and Caitryn licked her face
sympathetically.

"At the
house?" Gisela said. "The shields will help. Now, before I have
time to really think about this. Sundark will all be there, they
should be done circle by now. We just need Dandelion, and they
shouldn't be hard to find." Trivial matters like school and jobs
had been impossible to concentrate on for the last few days, and
would be until this was resolved; Sam's shop hadn't been open since
Saturday, the retired librarian had returned temporarily, and
Gisela wondered how the Brewery was doing. None of them were having
any luck keeping their minds on anything else.

Nick reached
for the phone on her desk, dialled a number, waited, hung up, tried
a second.

"Hiya," he
said to whoever answered. "We've got a plan to give the
demon-wolves an extra edge. We'll stop and pick you up on our way
to the house, okay?" A brief pause, then, "We're leaving now."

Gisela called
a brief farewell to her parents on the way out.

Coven
Dandelion was waiting outside Naomi and Lori's apartment—Bryan was,
unsurprisingly, furform. It was a bit crowded, three wolves and
Gwyn, three humans, two dryads, and an elf, but they fit.

Gwyn. "Wait,"
Gisela said suddenly. "Don't go to the house yet, Sonja. Stop and
get Malta and Alfari."

"For what?"
Lori asked.

The healers
explained, while Sonja backed out of the driveway and turned
towards their own house.

"I don't like
this," Naomi said unhappily, stroking Gwyn.

"Who does?"
Nick asked harshly.

Malta and
Alfari greeted each other and Gwyn, and each in turn found a lap to
settle down in—Malta in Nick's, Alfari in Lori's. Gisela had her
doubts about whether Sam's special friends were actually real
animals; there were times—like now—they certainly didn't act
it.

"Nick?"

"Mmhmm?"

"What was the
story with the sword of Damocles?"

"I'm not sure,
I don't think I've ever seen the whole thing."

"Bryan says,"
Lori relayed, "that he was a philosopher invited to have dinner
with the king. He found the sword over his chair when he got there,
and recognized it as a symbol of the insecurity of the
powerful."

"Oh." Like the
insecurities of demons...

They hedged a
lot while explaining all over again, to everyone else involved.
More than one person recognized the danger, Gisela saw expressions
turn troubled... but no one challenged.

Trusting them
to know what they were doing, and acknowledging it as their choice
to make. Even Deanna, treating her not as a little sister but as an
adult. That might have felt good, without so much else to think
about.

The
Kore-Tremaynes were uneasy, especially Jess after the number of
times she'd told him about the limits of healing—but then, Aindry
and Jaisan usually looked like they wanted to run and hide in a
corner. Nick was the one who thought fast enough to spin a
reasonable-sounding explanation.

Aindry held up
both hands. "Please. I have no idea what half of that means, but I
see no reason not to believe you."

They shoved
furniture out of the way in the living room to create enough open
space for a large circle, one that would have ten plus three cats
and a dog forming the outer ring, five the inner. The other wolves
could only settle themselves outside, unable to offer anything
beyond moral support this time; Gisela figured they'd have
preferred to be in a single pile, for whatever mutual comfort that
might offer, but instead, playing along with the pretense that this
was nothing to worry about, they spaced themselves around,
protective and alert.

This might not
burn out their gifts completely, there was a chance they might get
through this with just heavy backlash...

Didn't matter.
They were healers. They had to do this, at any cost.

She took a
deep breath, and looked at Liam. He nodded and said, "Let's do it,
gang."

Lori took the
lead, until the circle had been established, shallowly at first;
even that much additional power abruptly flowing into her and
through her took a moment to get used to. It was something like
when they'd been searching for Jess, but not quite, since the
intent and therefore the process differed. The mage paused, perhaps
to let the solitaries adapt, then started one of the trance-paths
to take them deeper.

It made her
head feel strange, but she thought it would be a pleasant sensation
if one were familiar with it. Especially in a close intimate group
like a coven.

The amount of
power waiting for her to use it was dizzying, pulsing through her
like the blood in her veins, but it was the blood of the circle as
a whole, all of them joined into a single being for the moment.
Somewhat to her surprise, a part of it was dark and wild, barely
restrained by the rest; she'd forgotten that the demon-wolves would
be fully in the link as well. Parts were tense... to her inner
senses, it was like sunlight through dark water, the water trapped
and stagnant. That was Shaine, still suffering from the psychic
damage of re-awakened gifts and a fight, though he was recovering
rapidly. Gently, she reached to him, willed the waters to run
freely again, willed the channels that carried them to be as they
should. She was aware of Liam mirroring her, adding his own will to
hers.

There, Shaine
was healed, and that made the power of the circle flow brighter,
cleaner. Tensions remained, but they weren't the kind she could
fix, and gradually they were being washed away, lost in the
whole.

She had the
power of the circle behind her, three mages and three witches and
four others; she had Liam's mind touching hers, not exactly joined,
but matching her—or was she matching him? She couldn't tell. Didn't
matter; it was time to seriously get to work.

Liam was
holding her hand and Aindry's, she his and Jesse's, Jaisan beyond;
they started with Jaisan, for no better reason than that. Together,
they reached to him, deep inside, channelling the energy to the
right place. His body knew how it should be; the power wanted to
make him that way again; she and Liam were only catalysts and
transformers, hardly needing to think, vastly unlike normal healing
that took such concentration.

There, Jaisan
was done. The power surged, struggling to get loose like a live
thing; she and Liam leashed it, directed it towards Aindry. She was
beginning to feel raw inside, she'd never had to deal with so much
power before, the nearest was when she and Kevin had pulled Jess
back when his heart stopped, and even that had left her sore for
days.

But past the
increasing discomfort, there lay such a fierce exhilaration, lost
in the interplay of shadow and brightness, in music that resonated
with her very soul and called to her to come farther within, in the
sensual caress of the lover she had yet to choose/of sunlight and
wind/the warmth of her parents cuddling her.

Something
jolted; she drew herself out of the sensations enough to become
aware that the torn and displaced connective tissues of Aindry's
wrenched hip was going to take some amount of attention to repair
properly. Delicately, she worked at the damage, Liam in perfect
counterpoint. The power smoothed away the last of it; briefly
unfocused, it attempted again to escape. In Gisela's mind, it was
alive, a phoenix, a wolf, a dolphin, a great cat, everything wild
that should always live free. She wavered, Liam faltered...

Someone else
reached down the faint link inside her, through the bit of
brilliant passionate fire that she treasured next to the dark wild
bit that was Jess, seized the power and caged it; almost, she cried
out in protest, but the abrupt lessening of the pressure gave her
space to recognize Kevin, understand what he'd done, and she
blessed him silently for it.

Only Jess
left. She asked wordlessly for the power back, and carefully Kevin
released it to her. Liam helped her catch it, and they directed it
at Jess.

Gaia, but that
was starting to really hurt... Nerves were coming alive with every
sensation at once, heat/cold/pressure/pain. She made herself keep
breathing, keep her attention on Jess.

They had not
even a heartbeat after Jess was healed before the power lunged for
freedom. The healers grabbed for it desperately, but healers simply
didn't have the capacity, and they were both hurting; it slipped by
them and away...

Kevin caught
it, held it alone briefly, until Lori jumped in, then Shaine, and
together the mages contained it.

Which was
great... but Gisela abruptly understood what had made Clarissa burn
out. It wasn't the channelling, she was sure she and Liam had only
backlash shock to contend with at the moment.

What burned
her out was getting out of the gestalt she and her circle had
built.

Something
nudged its way into her lap, and her hand found soft fur. That was
Alfari... from Liam she picked up the echoes of a smaller shape,
Malta was with him. She felt the entire circle shiver, as the same
comprehension reached them, one by one: they still had a chance to
get their healers out of this intact.

How could they
possibly?

Instructions,
from Samantha, telling Kevin to catch Gisela, Nick and Sonja Liam,
Deanna to start grounding, and everyone else to
not
move
.

Alfari's
thunderous purring gave her something to anchor herself; she knew
Kevin wasn't trying to hurt her, but the bright heat of his mind
coiling around hers, like a cat around her kittens, was a pain she
had miserably little doubt was only the beginning.

Gradually, the
pressure faded.

"Take it
down," she heard Lori say. "Carefully."

Something
shattered, made her flinch, but she was only her again, hugging
Alfari.

"Got it," Lori
said.

Gisela's
shoulders were grabbed roughly; she blinked dazedly at Jess—and he
was furious, something she couldn't recall ever seeing.

"You fucking
knew that would happen! What the
hell
were you
thinking?"

"Yell later,
Jess," Kevin said. "We have to get some food into these two before
they go into shock."

Deanna hugged
her gently, and Gisela leaned against her, shivering violently.
Alfari hardly moved.

She gagged on
the glass of too-sweet fruit punch Bane handed her, but obediently
swallowed it; she'd told others often enough what to do.

Just as
obediently, she chewed and swallowed whatever she was given, but
the taste didn't register; she only hoped fuzzily that it had a lot
of carbohydrates, she'd need them.

"My room,
Kev," Deanna said.

Warm arms
around her, scooping her up like a child; Alfari slipped off, and
the pain spiked.

"'Fari..."

"Here." That
was Sam, settling Alfari back into her arms. "Let her stay with
her, and Malta with Liam. They can help."

"Considering
that I'd swear Hob and Gwyn were helping me ground, I'm not
surprised," Deanna said.

Motion,
careful hands helping her lie down with Alfari curled against
her.

"Just you wait
until you wake up," Jess growled at her softly, and kissed her
lightly. "Get some sleep, crazy healer."

She smiled
without opening her eyes. "It worked..."

Her last
thought, before the world blurred out, was,
hey, it isn't Jess
in awful shape this time...

59

Sam
reluctantly tore herself away from the pile of black fur—Jess and
Jaisan—and black-and-garnet magesilk—Aindry—in the corner of the
breezeway linking two parts of the house. That it had been
transformed, over the past year, into a deliberately cosy hideout
mattered less to her poor half-feral wolves right now than the fact
that it was quiet and out of the way.

She had
something to do, although it hurt to sacrifice even an instant when
she might soon lose them all again. Flynn was certain the
demon-mage who had already made attempts on Jesse's life was in the
area, though none of them could get a more precise fix; Sam's own
sources said that the demons that had killed Unity were in a panic,
with the three Kore-Tremaynes reunited, and they'd arrange an
opening to attack personally before long, probably via that same
demon-mage. The tension in the house was almost unbearable, but the
possible consequences of the end of that tension...