Ethereal Entanglements (13 page)

Drew swore again. “Enion, come here and bite my arm.”

“Do it?” Enion snaked his head closer, looking to Claire.

She took a deep breath and nodded. It hurt to watch her dragon scrape open in Drew’s arm. Even though he’d braced for it, Drew squealed. Claire held the crystal under the wound and watched the blood ooze out. His flesh healed while she coated the crystal.

“I’m sorry.”

Drew leaned against the wall, acting more drained by this than an already healed wound should cause. “Just make it count.”

Claire shuffled back to the room on her knees and, gripping the bloody crystal in both dirty hands, leaned into the ley line. She expected at least a tingle. “Nothing’s happening.”

“Nothing at all?” Drew asked.

“No, it’s just…gross.” The blood mixed with the dirt in her hands, making a disgusting, sludgy mess.

“Get in there and help her already,” Ki said, clutching at the archway of the previous room down the tunnel.

“I don’t know how without frying myself.”

“Goodness gracious, what kind of a possessed man are you?”

“I’ve been like this for two days! Excuse me if my ghost and I don’t know how to do everything yet.”

“Oh, you poor things. You’re both just babies climbing Wy’east.” Ki sighed and hurried closer, shooing Drew toward Claire. “Hold her. Reach for the line, but not with your hand. Let her touch it. Claire, focus on what you’re doing and why.
Koosak lum
, let it be a good thing.”

Claire closed her eyes. Drew slipped in behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. She let him move her while she focused on her desire to be free to survive without the Palace. In this moment, she wondered if she could be completely free of the Palace and still have her dagger and her dragon. If cutting herself off from the palace meant losing Enion, she didn’t want to do it.

Enion gripped her hands with a claw. Drew rested his forehead on her back and his muscles tensed around her. He leaned forward, pushing her hands into the room again. When she touched the energy, he whimpered. Then she felt it.

Fire surrounded her hands, burning with heat more intense than anything she’d ever felt before. Enion groaned in pain. She watched in wide-eyed horror as the crystal grew hundreds of needle-sharp spikes, piercing her fingers and hands in every direction. Someone made shrill, reedy noises and she realized it came from her as she hyperventilated.

“Don’t drop it,” Drew said through gritted teeth, his voice high and anguished.

“Courage,” Claire tried to say, but she made only unintelligible squeaks. “Strength of will. Tenacity.” She squeezed her eyes shut harder, refusing to watch as the ley line stripped the flesh from her hands, then the meat from her bones. Intense agony shot through her arms to her chest. Everything burned. Her heart and soul shredded and still she held on.

Drew slumped against her and everything stopped. Claire didn’t want to open her eyes, but she forced herself to anyway. Enion lay on the floor in the room, his limp claw still wrapped around her clean,
intact
hands. Pulling her palms apart, she found no sign of the crystal. She eased her hands out of the claw and turned them over, looking for some scar or other sign of what had happened. The skin seemed smoother than before and the bloody dirt was gone, but she noticed no other change.

“That was…” Ki sighed where he’d collapsed to the ground. “Please tell me you’re not a supervillain.”

Claire shifted and Drew fell to the side. Though she thought she should be exhausted, she felt energized. She brushed her fingertips across Drew’s reddened face. “I’m not a supervillain.”

“Thank goodness. Supervillains spend too much time talking about destiny and how incredible they are. Very boring.” Ki struggled to sit up. “Don’t ever let anyone push you around, Claire. You have more than enough
tumekum
to conquer them. Whoever they are.”

“Thanks, I think. What language is that?” She prodded Drew, who stirred with a groan. Beyond him, Enion lay slumped in the ley line room. The crystal thing had shut off her ability to see magic and she groped for her bond with her sprite, not sure if she’d find it or not. Everything seemed disconnected, though, like she floated in a pool.

Ki waved his hand. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Did we win?” Drew saw her and smiled. He took her help to sit up.

“I think so.” Claire crawled to Enion’s side and patted his face. “C’mon, dragon. Time to wake up and get out of here.”

Enion blinked his eyes open. “Win!” He trilled with wordless happiness. “I feel clean. Cleaner than clean. Really clean. A lot.”

Claire looked down at her spotless hands and grinned. Since she could understand him, she assumed their bond remained intact. “Yeah. Now that you say it, I do too. Like, inside and out, if that makes sense.” Despite everything about this day, she also felt a peculiar glow of joy simmering inside.

“Home?” Enion shrank with a flash of silver and draped himself around her neck.

“Yeah. Let’s go home. Drew? Can you take us?”

He grinned. “I have juice to burn. But I need a minute. My brain is cooked.”

Claire hopped to her feet and felt the urge to run, skip, jump, laugh, and dance, all at the same time. Giggles spilled out of her. She rushed to the far doorway and peered into the dark tunnel beyond, wondering how far she could run and still come back before Drew recovered enough to take them home.

When she stepped out of the ley line room, mist bubbled out of the ground. Silvery fog wrapped around her and she figured Drew needed less time to recover than he thought. She waited, looking forward to jogging through the woods. The fog failed to obscure her vision.

She turned back and saw Drew shaking his head to clear it. He hadn’t stood yet. “Drew, you’re leaking or something.”

“I’m not doing anything. I’ve still got scrambled eggs in my head.”

The gray fog formed shapes. Claire waved her hand through one, disturbing the mist. The moment she pulled her hand away, the figure reshaped itself. Her giddiness faded, replaced by concern. She drew her dagger and sliced through the nearest of the dozen figures, cutting it in half. Tendrils snaked out of both halves and reached for each other, pulling them together again.

Claire backed toward Drew. “Uh, this is probably not good.”

Shapes solidified, becoming people. The style of their clothing reminded her of brothels and saloons in old western movies. An Asian woman in a low-cut dress with her long hair in a bun held by chopsticks reached for Claire.

By instinct, Claire leaned to the side. The ghost’s fingers swiped through her shoulder, filling it with ice. Rancid, bleeding terror washed over Claire. She fought it down as hard as she could and stabbed with her dagger, shoving it into the unresisting ghost’s side and ripping it out. The ghost looked down at the wound. It touched its side and seemed confused.

Every ghost Claire had ever seen before dissipated when stabbed with a Knight’s blade. She slashed the blade again, this time catching the ghost’s arm and cutting a gash across it. The wound bled faded green mist.

Her dagger didn’t work like it should and this ghost could harm her. She had no idea what to do.

Terror gripped her. She panicked and fled past Drew and Ki, charging for escape. Turning to check if the ghost followed her, she saw Ki helping Drew to his feet. Drew still seemed disoriented. Ghosts poured out of the ley line room. She should have paused to help Drew. Why didn’t she pause to help Drew?

“What’s going on?” Ki shouted.

She slowed. Her breath caught at what she saw behind her. A throng of mist people shambled up the tunnel like zombies with fog obscuring their feet. Wasn’t the Palace supposed to prevent this? Ki ducked under Drew’s shoulder and helped him follow Claire at a near-jog. The ghost in the lead swiped at the pair, missing by inches.

Claire felt an echo of those fingers in her shoulder again. “Ghosts,” she breathed.

Drew seemed to be regaining his wits. He straightened with every step. “Isn’t stabbing ghosts kind of your job?”

“I stabbed it and it didn’t go away!” Claire reached the ladder and surged up it. She didn’t know what to do. Would the ghosts chase her through this hole? She hesitated, battling the urge to throw the trapdoor shut. That should be an easy choice. Obviously, Drew and Ki needed to escape too. Wrestling with her fear, she took a step away from the door.

“Oh. Great,” Drew groaned, barely on the edge of her hearing. “Knight-resistant ghosts. What’ll they think of next?”

“I doubt it’ll be ghost-resistant people,” Ki said. “But…do you see that?”

“Yeah. I don’t know.” Drew paused. “Maybe this’ll help.”

Fog billowed out of the hole. Hands reached out at Claire, grasping at the air. Claire squeaked with a fresh surge of panic and fled. She needed Justin. He’d know what to do. He always knew what to do, and when he didn’t, he knew how to improvise. Her skills included flailing, flailing, and more flailing. Also, she could ride a dragon.

“Enion,” Claire said, panting for air. “Get us out of here.” She hit the front door of the bar, forgetting she had her dagger out, and smashed through the glass. Jagged shards ripped holes in her clothes without slicing through her armor. Her momentum carried her into a man on the sidewalk.

“Are you okay?” He stumbled and caught her.

Blood smeared on his suit, but Claire had no idea where it came from. Her mind-numbing panic seemed to be receding, but everything looked strange. A gray filter colored the world drab and dark. Cars passing on the road moved in slow motion. The man in front of her moved his mouth, and she heard only confusing noises.

The fog spilled through the glass, reaching for her. She shoved the man, needing to get away before the ghosts caught her. When she checked behind her again, she tripped on the curb and fell into a woman. They tumbled together into the street. Brakes squealed. Horns honked. The fog swooped in on Claire with a thud and a flash of pain, cutting her off from the world. She screamed.

Chapter 19

Justin

Knocking on the door interrupted lunch before it could begin. Justin set plates filled with veggie sticks, strips of leftover turkey, lumps of mashed potato, and raisins in front of Missy and Lisa then answered the door. Avery stood on the front stoop for the second day in a row. Light rain dripped off the lapel of his trenchcoat.

Not sure what to expect, but unwilling to walk out in only socks, Justin stood in the doorway. With the mudroom between them and the rest of the house, the girls would only hear muffled voices. “What is it?”

Avery raised an eyebrow. “I came to take you down to the station.”

Justin waited for a punchline. None came. “Why? I said I’m staying out of Portland.”

“We agreed that if I went to the Palace, you’d come to the station.”

Rolling his eyes, Justin invited Avery into the mudroom and shut the door. “I didn’t agree to that at all. I have no reason to come with you. I ran into Charlie yesterday, and he’s delighted to have more help to the north.”

Avery swiped a hand through his short hair and flung water aside. “And do you honestly believe Claire will work with me when I need a second?”

“Of course she will.” Justin crossed his arms and considered everything Claire had been through at Avery’s hands, from a beating to his sprite chasing her down and almost killing her. When Avery gave him a skeptical look, he huffed. “Fine, maybe not. Give her a little time and she will. Until then, you can ask…” He tried to remember who else was around the region and came up blank. “Who’s in Pasco these days? Or Salem?”

“No one.” Avery looked away. “You weren’t the first Knight I tried to use. I picked the ones farther away first because I couldn’t figure out where you lived. I was tainted for a long time.”

Justin blanched as he realized what Avery meant. He opened his mouth, ready to unleash a torrent of disgust. Before a single word came out, he forced himself to remember what it had been like. With Kurt guiding him, whispering in his ear, he could easily have wound up luring other Knights in and doing whatever he thought it took to get the job done.

“I…” Justin paused and couldn’t decide what to say. Avery didn’t need him to disapprove of whatever he’d done—he already knew. The subject needed no further comment than the look on Justin’s face, which he now forced away with a sigh. “I’m not ready to deal with Tariel right now.”

“We’ll figure something out.” Avery shrugged. “Let’s deal with you first, then I’ll talk to some people and see what I can come up with for the horse. Come down to the station. Play up your lunatic knight schtick and show genuine shame. I know a judge, I know the district attorney, and I know the cop you hit. We’ll fix this and have you back in time for dinner tonight. You can write a formal apology on the way, since you’re coming in my car.”

Like yesterday, Justin could either acknowledge or deny that fear made him hesitate. This time, he worried about his wife and her reaction to finding the girls at her parents’ house instead of with him. He trusted Avery to keep the process as painless as possible, but Avery didn’t have to come home to Marie.

“Stop stalling,” Avery spat. “Put your shoes on and let’s go. I did the one thing I didn’t want to do. Now it’s your turn.” He tossed the door open and stormed out.

Justin pushed the door shut and considered leaving Avery to stew in his car for a while. If he waited long enough, Avery might get fed up and leave. Or he might storm in, grab Justin by the ear, and drag him to the car. He could also come in and shout at Justin in front of the girls.

Growling to himself, he stepped into his work boots and tied the laces. He had to decide whether to bring his sword and armor. Normally, the choice made itself—he couldn’t be the knight of Portland without the trappings of a knight. This time, he could present himself as unworthy and in need of atonement to take up his mantle again. But just in case they ran into something on the way there or back, he’d bring it all and leave it in the car.

Missy and Lisa looked up when he returned to the kitchen. Lisa stared pointedly at his boots. Missy looked up at him with big, blue eyes full of trust.