Black Wolf (63 page)

"The string of
unlikely coincidences," Lori pointed out, "that have kept Jess
alive, intact, and in Haven has been rather long. It obviously has
a positive aspect."

"True.
Demon-luck is unquestionably real, although I think it's probably
been strained to the limit keeping you three alive and getting you
back together, and yes, usually it's a positive force. I don't know
of any other situation involving a concentration of demon-wolves in
one area on a sustained basis, so I don't know whether it's
possible to overload it into negativity."

To Jesse's
considerable surprise, Shaine moved so he was kneeling in front of
Jaisan and reached out to close a hand around his. "Look at me," he
said softly.

Shakily,
Jaisan raised his head and met Shaine's eyes. Both of Jess'
siblings were particularly wary of Shaine, though they were doing
their best.

"Demon-luck
might have played a part in it, but that is not what killed
everyone. The warped mereni paranoia that makes them believe they
have to protect themselves at any cost from any discovery, and the
insecurity of a bunch of demons over anyone who can interfere with
their fun, they killed Unity. You and the rest of your kind did
not.
It was not your fucking fault,
understand?"

Unable to look
away, Jaisan nodded meekly.

"Saying it was
your fault is like Jess saying it was his fault that bastard beat
him, or like a woman who got raped saying it was her fault for
being in the wrong place. You can only be so careful of
possibilities before you stop living and start just existing scared
of everything, like the other merenai, and then it isn't worth it.
You and the rest reached for what you wanted and you lost. It
happens. You go on with your life with what's left. Sunday night
we'll finish this, and then we can all get on with living in the
present and leave the past where it belongs. Okay?"

"Okay."

Shaine
released him and went back to his corner, sliding down the wall to
cross his arms on his raised knees.

"So that's the
current plan," Kevin said briskly. "Full moon, I call a challenge
on this demon-mage after moonrise, he calls his demon pals so you
can kill them, then Lori and Shaine and I thump him, and we all
call it a night and go back inside for cookies. Sound good?"

"Sounds good,"
Aindry confirmed.

"Good. Then
we're going to get back to mage talk and some experimenting, which
is probably going to be extremely boring for anyone not directly
involved. Especially 'cause we have a lot to do and not much time
and can't slow down much to explain. You three go figure out useful
approaches for killing demons or something, okay?"

"We can take a
hint," Jess said, getting up; his siblings followed his lead.
"Don't overdo it."

"We won't,"
Lori assured him.

Jess ushered
Aindry and Jaisan out ahead of him, musing about how he should be
past being surprised by Shaine but couldn't seem to get there.

"Where did
that come from?" Kevin asked quietly, behind Jess.

Shaine
laughed, but it didn't sound like amusement. "Someone who's still
trying to practice what he preaches. Can we get back to work today
some time?"

With much more
to think about—which he hardly needed—Jess went after his
siblings.

61

If I get wired
any more tightly I'm going to start howling... Please, let
something happen soon!

Jess fidgeted
restlessly, his silver name-dagger cool in his hands; he could
imagine it begging for demon blood. Just like the sunset over the
lake had turned the water to blood...

My imagination
is in overdrive. I swear, though, we'll wash the blood away. By
sunrise the water will be clean, and everyone can rest peacefully.
Us included, I just hope it's in this world.

Sitting with
him close to the wall, Jaisan and Aindry were just as anxious. He
was sure they must look more than a bit fey, a dark trio in
magesilks black and silver and each their own proper colour, his
rich purple, Jaisan's vivid blue, Aindry's deep red. Kevin had
grumbled, while making silks for Jaisan and Aindry, that at least
they were willing to wear more colour than Jess was, otherwise
they'd look like they stepped out of a bad ninja movie.

In sharp
contrast, Kevin and Lori looked about as unmagical as possible. The
former was leaning calmly against one of a stand of birches with
his arms crossed; who ever imagined a mage in jeans and a ragged,
ex-red T-shirt? Lori, in equally prosaic green cargo pants and a
creamy-coloured tank-top, a strand of quartz beads in countless
shades circling her throat, had seated herself with her back
against the same tree, arms draped casually across her raised
knees. They certainly didn't look like they had just in some
inexplicable magical way called challenge on an opponent they could
lose against despite all precautions.

Inside the
walls, where he wouldn't be sensed or seen, Shaine waited, ready to
step in as soon as he was needed. Which would, if things went as
planned, be immediately after the Kore-Tremaynes kicked three
demons' tails up into their throats.

We should
never have asked them to do this, Kev and Lori and Shaine are going
to get killed over us. Enough people have died over the demon-wolf
line, haven't they? We should've run away, Jais and Aindry and I,
and at least then it would be only us dying.

Shut up, Jess,
you aren't helping. And running away is hardly any more
intelligent, haven't you learned that by now?

"Heads up,"
Kevin murmured. "Someone just swept the area to see who's here. I
didn't get a clear look, but..."

But who else
could it be?

A long pause,
then Lori said, "There he is. Watch your eyes."

This wasn't a
gate like Kevin and Lori made them, shaping them quietly out of the
available light on each side; this gate exploded violently into
existence, the glare from the noon-white light throwing shapes into
sharp relief. Jess shielded his eyes with his arm, waited for it to
fade back to comfortable darkness. Even then, sunspots danced in
front of him.

Sure, blind us
and hope it helps.

He could smell
the demon-mage, and see him vaguely while his eyes struggled to
clear themselves.

"Afraid to
challenge me alone?" the demon-mage asked Kevin mockingly.

Kevin
shrugged. "Against you alone, no problem, but you never face anyone
alone, do you?"

Lori stood up,
brushed grass off her pants, and gave the demon-mage a disdainful
half-bow. "Lori Aurelian."

The demon-mage
frowned—confused, Jess thought, because as he understood it, the
Aurelian bloodline rarely turned up mages, more often pure
telepaths or telekinetics. "I have no argument with any
Aurelian."

He must not
have looked close enough to see how strong Lori is, and she's too
smart to waste power or give away unnecessary info by doing a
proper signature thing.

"This Aurelian
has a serious problem with you, for a long list of reasons,
beginning with the fact that my father is a Lioren, Kevin is my
favourite cousin, and I'm getting a tad sick of you threatening him
and our friends."

As soon as she
said 'Lioren,' the demon-mage's expression turned to anger.
"Another fucking Lioren," he spat. "Fine. And you two have the
nerve to formally challenge me?"

"A very
particular kind of challenge," Kevin said. "We have three wolves.
You call three demons, and we can see which of them is still
standing at the end."

"That could be
amusing. But it won't help. I let you off, before, Lioren. I won't
this time, you or your cousin."

Let him off?
He and Shaine kicked your ass, last time! Look which side ran
away!

Kevin
shrugged. "That's fine, because I'm getting extremely tired of you
messing with my friends. Why don't we take care of that afterwards?
I'm sure among your demon, um, allies, there must be three who
would like fresh wolf blood."

Dinner for
three, come and get it...

The demon-mage
looked at Kevin thoughtfully, mood changing again. "You think a lot
like I do. You know what you want and you do what you have to in
order to get it."

"I am nothing
like you," Kevin said, his voice so level Jess thought he was
trying to control his temper. "I fight to protect the people who
matter to me. You fight because you're too insecure not to keep
trying to prove how strong you are."

The other mage
spat a curse. "You know nothing about me. You're just like the
rest, so sure you're above everyone else and can do what you want.
Arrogant self-centred uppity damned mages..."

"Arrogant I've
been called before, but the rest is new."

"You can't
even be bothered to take this seriously! That's outright
insulting!"

"Really?
Awesome, I was afraid I was out of practice, it's been a while. Are
you waiting for something in particular? Summer solstice, total
lunar eclipse, the magnetic poles to shift...?"

"If you're in
such a hurry to watch your pet wolves die..." The demon-mage backed
away a few steps, held out both hands in front of him, palm-up and
slightly cupped. The moon was just rising over the house, spilling
silver light over them.

Hunt by silver
light, born and die to fight...

If you want
any of this wolf's wild blood, you can damned well try and take
it!

The demon-mage
began to speak, unfamiliar words that seemed to be mostly
consonants, and the moonlight pooled in his hands, coalescing into
a ball that grew steadily brighter, until Jess had to look away.
Kevin and Lori didn't, but then, to them it was probably preferable
to semi-blindness with only the moonlight.

The demon-mage
clapped his hands together sharply, and the light vanished.

Replaced by a
trio of shadows too dark for the clean moonlight to disperse.

Aindry rose
smoothly, drew her now-shining dagger and left the sheath there.
The twins echoed it, and all three paced out to face the demons
that had killed Unity.

Well, okay, so
the merenai were a rather large part of it. But who cares? The
merenai haven't hunted us all this time either.

The demon-mage
gestured towards the Kore-Tremaynes. "Those three. Kill them."

They shaped
themselves from utter blackness into vaguely dragonish things all
huge bat-wings and three long scaly necks and too many dagger-like
claws, the colour of all the filth Jesse had ever seen. And
big
, their shoulders were easily above Jesse's head.

How the
fuck do we fight those?
he thought numbly, then,
The way we
were taught. Go for the central nervous system or the heart, keep
moving and don't let it hit you, and pray to Cassandra.

The scent of
the demons stirred something that lay somewhere deep within, waking
a cold rage—and something more, a peculiar doubled awareness, of
himself and of Jaisan at the same time. Even as he circled left, he
was conscious of Jaisan circling to the right, an echo within his
own body of the sensations his twin experienced. He had to look
sideways to know that Aindry was still between them, gaze locked on
the centre demon.

Funny, I don't
remember anything like this from lessons. I wonder if Jais gets it
too.

The nearest
demon struck at him with all three heads; he evaded them, with
little room to spare, and lunged at it. The razor-sharp knife left
a long bloody stripe down one side of its chest, unfortunately only
shallow. Enough to sting. He dodged a swipe from a massive paw,
wincing at the thought of what those claws could do to his
body.

He felt the
shock as Jaisan drove his dagger home, felt it hit bone and glance
off. That demon shrieked and the ground quivered.

Anyone in
Haven still asleep isn't now! I bet that made the house shake!

Jesse took
advantage of the distraction, plunged his own hilt-deep into the
left-side neck and twisted it, wishing the demon would stop
screaming like that right in his ear. The dagger touched bone, and
he thrust it in that direction, sidestepping so the teeth of
another head missed him. Between two of the vertebrae, demons had
to follow some rules of biology, and he twisted again, forcing them
apart; that head effectively died. Limp and useless, anyway, and
better yet, it interfered with attacks from the foreclaws on that
side.

One flailing
wing caught him squarely, flung him a dozen feet away. He scrambled
to his feet, struggling for breath, lack of oxygen and the
adrenaline—and that godawful
screaming!
—combined were making
the world spin alarmingly. Through moonlight-coloured fog, he saw
the demon coming at him, hissing in rage, saw the two heads dipping
towards him...

Frantically,
he twisted away, and willed himself wolf.

It didn't take
the few seconds it normally did; a detached part of his mind took
note of that as another adaptation to fighting demons. He scrambled
to his feet, less his dagger now, but at least the doubled strike
missed him.