Flights of Angels (Exit Unicorns Series) (63 page)

Despite himself, Casey felt a chill snake down his backbone.

“Now, do ye know what I mean by a dark presence?” Finola asked, pouring the same steaming concoction she had given Pamela into a mug for him.

“No, I’m afraid I’ve left my ‘Field Guide to Demons and Malevolent Fairies,’ at home,” Casey said sarcastically.

“Yer a wee bit skeptical for a man who’s seen a ghost or two in his own time,” she retorted dryly.

Casey cast a sharp glance at Pamela, but she shook her head. Which begged the question of how this woman knew he’d any familiarity with ghosts.

“Drink yer tea,” Finola said, handing him a red pottery mug that had stars and moons etched into its round-bellied frame.

“What’s in it?” Casey asked, sniffing suspiciously.

“Eye of newt, wing of bat. What else?” she said, and Casey smiled despite himself.

He sipped it cautiously, but tasted only the green of fresh herbs with a hint of exoticism lent by a bit of cinnamon.

“Why does it have to be Pamela? Why can’t I do it?” he asked, though he feared he knew the answer well enough.

“Because he loves her, so her hold on him is greater than anyone else’s. It’s a slim chance this will work, but she’s the only one with odds in her favor.”

He merely nodded, uncomfortably aware that his face had noticeably tightened at the mention of Jamie’s love for Pamela. The fact that it was the bald truth did little to alleviate the anger that roiled low in his belly over the idea of that love.

He took another sip of the tea, tasting something dark and earthy now below the herbs and the cinnamon. He wouldn’t put it past the woman to drug the both of them witless. Ah well, in for a penny in for a focking pound, he thought, and took a large swallow.

Casey turned his attention to his wife, watching her in the low firelight, and was struck by how even now, when fear gripped his innards as hard as a clenched fist, she took the breath from him with her beauty. To see her stand there limned in fire, with the old woman rubbing the ointment in broad strokes across the orchid white skin, her hair held up by her own hands, a curving shadow under each full breast… he shifted uncomfortably on the stool, but found he could not look away. Even after five years of marriage and countless nights spent in heat, in abandonment, in love he still was entranced by her and could understand why the man they were here to summon had never been able to let this woman go, and so had left instead.

“Don’t turn yer thoughts from it, it’s why yer here, man—the hold your body has on hers. It’s love, but it’s the physical aspect too. Yer bound to her by a million threads, but this one is one of the strongest. ‘Tis at the center of the web and binds the two of you fast when other things have failed. Ye know it well enough. Ye’ve used it on her more than the once and she, in her own turn, has used it on you.”

Casey looked up, chagrin written as clearly as the shape of flames on his face. “That transparent, am I?”

He saw his wife and the old woman exchange a glance of female knowing as old as the hills. Women, they always bloody knew where they had you, and most times it was in a position of distinct disadvantage.

Pamela bent down and kissed his forehead, leaving the acrid scent of herbs in her wake as she got into the bed. She settled on her back, the declicate rose-hue of her skin in sharp contrast with the dark blanket that now covered her from her shoulders down.

Casey could feel the misgivings begin to build again. What the hell sort of dark forces might they be playing with here? He could be a starkly pragmatic man, but in matters such as this, where one was jumping into the murky world of spirits and astral travel… well, he, like any true Irishman, had his doubts about the wisdom of such a venture. Might they not stir up something they could not control, something angry and dark and—he wrenched his thoughts away from that particular direction, training his attention on his wife once again.

She writhed slightly, the fire glistening along the curve of shoulder and neck, and moaned softly. Casey knew that particular sound all too well, and felt a hot surge of blood rise in him. But for whom was her body rising like that?

“Don’t take it personal. It’s the drugs. Ye need to get in the bed with her.” The old woman raised an eyebrow at him. “Ye’ll need to take yer own clothing off as well.”

It was Casey’s turn to raise an eyebrow.

“Ye need to be skin to skin with her. It means a bit of the drugs will seep into yer own system, but I suspect yer not as susceptible to them as she is, so it’s not a danger.

He cleared his throat and the old woman gave him a sardonic green eye, as if to say ‘I’ve seen plenty of naked men in my life, laddie,’ but she turned and he quickly shed his clothes, shivering despite the heat of the fire.

He slid into the bed, glancing over his shoulder to be certain the old woman was still turned away.

Pamela’s body was like fire against his own, pungent with the herbs, slippery with the ointment. He couldn’t be near her this way and not get hard, not have the blood in his body rush toward her, seeking entry.

She turned in his arms, restless, eyes open, pupils dilated until her eyes were almost black.

She touched his face delicately, and looked at him as a blind woman might—through him rather than at him—and said in a soft voice, “Jamie?” For one mad moment, he thought the man was behind him.

“Relax, close yer eyes an’ empty yer mind as well as ye can,” said the old woman, her voice much softer than its normal tone, almost hypnotic in its rhythm.

She began to hum, something very old that stirred at the base of Casey’s spine, but which was oddly soothing at the same time. He closed his eyes as bid, and relaxed into the warmth of his wife’s body.

The cottage around him seemed to slide away, though his mind sought to maintain the root of it, to ground some bit of himself in the here and now—the feel of the bed beneath him, the warmth of the fire against his back in contrast to the sudden and terrible cold of his wife’s body. But all he could see was a heavy grey mist that threatened to swallow him whole, to take his wife from the security of his arms. She felt less substantial already, as though she were becoming part of that mist.

He peered through the fog, willing it to clear from his eyes, and suddenly there in the dark was a cold pair of green eyes, cutting as a shard of ice, staring back at him. Not his wife’s eyes, but a gaze with which he was all too familiar. He had no sense anymore of what might be real and what not and so it seemed only natural to reach out toward the hand that lay upon the blanket, long fingered and shaded a delicate blue.

He took the hand, freezing and stiff, into his own and did not know if he held Pamela’s hand or Jamie’s. It looked like Jamie’s and yet how could it be? Jamie was thousands of miles away and there was an aura of being neither there nor here, but rather suspended in some twilit space that had no connection to life or the world with which he was familiar.

The hand clutched his, and he knew with certainty it was not his wife he touched. He jerked back, though the feeling of the hand clasping his was fading already. But he knew, for a second, he had felt the other man, the cold of him, the longing that bound the three of them in this eternal triangle. He had felt it too, the love that his wife and Jamie shared between them, and found himself a part of it, enmeshed in threads too sticky to ever disentangle. And he knew that the old woman was right, only Pamela could find Jamie, only Pamela could reach him, when he was beyond the reach of all else.

The white tiger had been stalking him for days
. Jamie knew if he did not find shelter soon, it was going to stop sliding in and out of the blue shadows of the forest and claim him for its own.

He was exhausted and had been walking for so long that he’d lost any sense of time other than what was given him by the position of the sun and the stars. He did not know what day of the week it was, nor even the month. It was only winter, endless, white and cruel winter. Even the sounds had their own season, all the noise about him in shades of white and silver: the crunch of his own footsteps, the howl of the wind as it slapped his face relentlessly, the soft slither of the tiger always just far enough behind to scent his blood, caged within the fragile skin of a human being. He was slowing badly. It was only a matter of time. The night before… or had it been morning… he had found himself paralyzed and fascinated by bolts of ruby light glistening in the snow until he realized it was blood that patterned the white with jewel-like pinwheels. He had no comprehension of how long he stood there, but only knew the light was much dimmer than when he had stopped. And now the tiger was getting close enough that Jamie could smell its hunger and feel the echo of its pulse in his own veins, its footfall with each step of his own, each exhalation of its lungs with the crystallized outpouring of his breath, the yearning in its very cells for the repletion of another’s blood.

He could not remember the last time he had eaten, and though the hunger cramps had left him some days ago, he knew this to be a bad sign. He was sure it was lack of food that was making him see the odd streaks of color that flashed in front of his eyes now and again. The only thing he had drunk was handfuls of snow. Nor did he know the last time he had seen another human being. Was it weeks ago, a month? Had it been in the camp, and for that matter, he didn’t have a recollection of leaving the camp. Had he been released? Had he escaped? These holes in his memory were very troubling but he turned away the thoughts as too tiresome.

He staggered on for some time more, but the landscape seemed to barely change and he wondered if he was simply moving in ever-increasing circles. As the sun started its rapid fall toward night, he simply could not put one foot in front of another anymore and fell to his knees in the snow, his blood seemingly replaced by lead. He longed with a violence that was drowning out his survival instinct, to lie down in the snow and go to sleep.

He fell down into the snow and barely found the strength to roll over on his back and prevent suffocation. Just a minute, or maybe two, and then he’d get up and keep moving. He lay there with eyes open and watched the skein of day unravel into the full of night. First came flowing grey-blue to tint the trees and then ribbons of lavender, shot through with reds and purples until finally the ink of night absorbed all colors and the stars came out blazing through the cold air, one by one. It seemed an entirely separate world from the pain and hardship of the one below. Against that indigo background he could see trails and roads built upon the air, bridges by which to ascend the night and walk off into universes both terrible and beautiful. There were delicate oceans of frost, breathed out, breathed in, on which flew translucent ships, with sails rimed by the fine-grained salt of stars. How he longed for the ease of such a universe, to set sail in a celestial sea. He could feel his eyes closing, and the sweet lethargy of sleep wrapping its arms about him.

It was the tiger’s roar that woke him. Jamie started, heart pounding, scrabbling to his feet, snow falling down his collar and into his boots. Dear God he was so cold, aching in every joint and cell. Dazed with sleep, he cast around, not knowing in which direction to move. The tiger had sounded very close. He couldn’t see anything now, adrenaline clouded his vision, blurred the periphery of sight, his ragged breathing fogging the air with crystals. Then directly to the west a shape on the horizon caught his eye, a house, perhaps fifty yards away. He shook his head, confused, certain it hadn’t been there when he had fallen down. It was a structure certainly, but still looked like a thing of dreams or wishful thinking, built as though it had sprung from the pages of a Russian fairytale, onion domes capping low towers, with great hoods of snow adorning them, and steps leading up to a broad, railed porch that was almost buried in ice. But in the midst of all this, he saw a glint of gold and knew it was a latch. Please God let it be unlocked. He stumbled toward it, panic giving his legs strength to move.

Somehow he managed to run, and knew if the tiger was going to strike, now was the time it would happen. His back was braced for attack even as he made the stairs, scrabbling up them, half crawling through the masses of snow and ice. He was certain he felt the tiger’s breath hot on his neck, could taste the blood-craving upon its tongue, but he knew to look around would be fatal. He grasped the door latch and heaved himself up. The door gave all at once and he fell into the entry, kicking the door shut behind him as he went down.

He lay there for a moment, half worried the big cat had somehow leaped in behind him. But there was only silence, not even a snuffling or scratching outside the door. He sat up slowly, the world spinning around him. He braced his back against the door and looked around, which was, other than a hint of drifts and an echo of shored ice, an exercise in futility. For it was night and the light, even here in this ice castle with its cupolas of snow and frescoes of sparkling frost, was of the blue variant, thick with shadow, and laced with deception.

He sat for a long time, fatigue so heavy that he knew he could not move, even if it meant to light a fire and save his own life. And so sleep, like the oldest of friends came to lay its cape of oblivion gently down.