Imperative: A Quinn Larson Quest (13 page)

“Get ready,” I whispered. Olan came back into my line of sight, this time he carried a stick in his talons.

I parted my hands and spun the webs toward the remaining Sidhe, I caught all but one, and they toppled like bowling pins.

“Run,” I shouted and grabbed Cate’s arm. Olan dropped the stick toward the head of the remaining Sidhe. Cate was now leading me, as I watched to make sure we weren’t being pursued. I blindly put one foot after the other as I watched the branch spin away from the strawberry blond head of the standing Sidhe. His arm swung and the branch followed like it was in his hand.

I stumbled and felt Cate fall with me. The branch hurtled toward us, spinning as it came. Olan flew at the branch, I think he was trying to force it down, but he couldn’t get purchase. I heard the air buffeting that preceded the impact, and then I felt pain. It started in my shoulder and burned its way up to fill my head with stars. I could hardly breathe with the shock. Over the agony I felt Cate pulling at me, and in the haze that filled my vision, I saw the Sidhe coming.

He picked up speed and was running in a few steps. He would be here before I could clear my mind enough to fight back. I tried to push Cate away. If I was a goner, I wanted to save her. She wouldn’t move. Then something crossed my sight, streaking toward the Sidhe. Olan pulled up at the last minute and raked his talons across the Sidhe’s cheeks. He stopped and rubbed his hands against the wounds. I saw the blood drip through and his healing spell close the wound almost as quickly as Olan had caused it.

“Please get up, Quinn.” Cate’s voice in my ear was strained and I realized she was trying to lift me all by herself. “I can’t carry you and we need to go now.”

“Can you calm the pain? I can barely stand; if you can do something for the pain I’ll be fine. I will run.”

“I don’t have any strength left. I’m sorry.”

“You always were bad at conserving your strength.” I laughed, and then drew in a breath at the agony that tore through me. “Let me lean on you so I can stand.”

She knelt and I put my arm on her shoulder. Then she grunted and stood. “Okay, you run and I’ll be right behind you. Go to my place. The doors will let you in.”

“Okay, just run.” The Sidhe would need a few minutes to recharge after healing himself. I didn’t think spending that time arguing would be a good idea.

She stopped and threw a spell behind us and then gave me a little push. “I thought you didn’t have any strength left?”

“Shut up, Quinn. You know healing takes five times the energy that casting does.”

We made it past the three drug dealers. I couldn’t run, but if I held my arm close to my body, I could walk fast. I noticed the dealers started looking around to see who was chasing us. As if there was a signal, they faded off in different directions. Damn, if the Sidhe was going to chase us I was counting on the presence of humans to discourage him from attacking again.

Olan swooped past me and circled as if trying to land on my shoulder. My stomach rebelled at the thought of even his tiny weight. “Don’t you dare,” I gritted through my teeth.

Cate snickered. “It was a honey spell. I dumped two gallons of sticky mess on his head. He may have healed the wounds, but by now he’s covered in bits of bark and leaves and anything else he stumbled into.”

“Almost tempted to go back to see the mess,” I said. My energy was fading away, we needed to get home to my house, and I needed to rest. “But let’s keep going.”

I was moving so slowly, it took almost half an hour to get to my front door and then Cate had to go and set a chair just inside the front door. I collapsed into it and heard a groan spill from my lips.

She went to the kitchen to brew willow bark tea. I left the chair and stumbled into the living room and sat in my big leather chair. I tried to think what we could do next, and all that entered my mind was pain,
I’m in pain
.

“Here.” Cate handed me a mug. “Drink it in one swallow.

I looked in the mug, the liquid was thick. I’d never seen willow bark tea so strong. “It’s barely liquid.”

“You can moan all you want. You decide whether to drink the tea and feel better or not drink it and wait for your shoulder to heal all by itself.”

“Okay. Did you put any honey in there?”

“Yes, lots.” She stood in front of me with her hands on her hips, waiting for me to do something.

I took a deep breath then exhaled, tipped the mug to my lips, opening my throat and hoping nothing hit my tongue. I could smell the bitterness of the liquid. It hit my stomach and I felt warmth rise first in my stomach then in my bones. “You put something else in there.”

“Yep, you’ll feel sleepy in a minute.”

My eyelids drooped and the last thing I saw was her stepping forward with her hands reaching for my shoulder.

The sun was shining in my eyes when I opened them again. I couldn’t see Cate anywhere, but I was still in my chair, and my shoulder didn’t hurt. Well, not quite as much. The pain was now at the level of a twinge. I rotated my shoulder and was surprised it worked.

She came into the kitchen pulling her hair into a ponytail and yawning. “Yes, please. I feel fine. Before you put the coffee on, do you have any food? If not, we should go out for breakfast. We need to get a good meal in us or we’ll collapse at the first sign of resistance.”

I opened the cupboards and took down a tin of steel-cut oatmeal. “This will do it. I’ll make the coffee, will you make the oatmeal?”

Cate took the tin from me and poured water in a pot. I measured out the coffee and put the espresso maker on the stove. I could tell the oatmeal would be heavy so I checked the fridge. “Here’s some cream. And I think there’s some dried fruit in that container.”

Between us we got breakfast on the table without any injuries, but I realized she was right. Just getting food on the table had made me tired and more than a little dizzy.

“I’ve never used up so much of myself. How long will it take us to get back to normal?” I asked.

“I’m not sure. And, even if I did know, what if I said a week? We can’t wait. I think if we just eat every few hours, we can keep our energy high enough to do what needs to be done.”

I marked a luck rune on the table. If we ran out of energy, then we might as well give up now. There was no point in annoying the Sidhe if we couldn’t bring the point home.

“What did you put in that tea? It healed my shoulder like a miracle.”

“It wasn’t the tea. I just put you to sleep so I could examine your shoulder.” She held her coffee cup up to me in salute. “I’m impressed you managed to get home. Your shoulder was dislocated. No permanent damage but it must have been a lot of pain. I popped it back in while you were asleep.”

“You don’t know Olan. He can be as much hindrance as help.” I felt mean saying that, he’d saved my life after all. “I mean he has his own agenda, like everyone.”

“Well, your bed is very comfortable.” She blushed and I thought about making my big move, wasn’t now the right time? She’d just called me a hero after all. Before I could say anything, she spoke again. “What if we looked at this from a different point of view? We have been trying to stop Fionuir, right?”

“No, I mean what if the fairies started having babies again? It would at least buy us some time. If Fionuir has to change the spell on the amulet, we might be able to get it away from her.”

“But they aren’t.” She was right we needed a way to get the amulet, but the fairies were stuck.

She rolled her eyes at me and started tidying up the kitchen. “Are you sure you didn’t get hit in the head? Look, what I’m saying is, what if I found a way to at least temporarily get the fairies fertile again?”

“I didn’t think that was possible.”

“It occurred to me when I made your willow bark. What if I combined a few things then distilled the spell down to strengthen it?”

It felt like this was one of those things that in retrospect seem like a good idea at the time. “And what if you go overboard and we find ourselves knee deep in baby fairies. Do you have any idea how much trouble a baby fairy can be?”

“I would be very careful.” She twisted her lips in thought. “I could test it on something. I could make the potion for something short lived and then adjust it if we find it’s too strong or too weak. What about on fruit flies?”

Cate went back to the bedroom and came out pulling on her coat. “I’ll have to do this at home, all my stuff is there and you don’t have what I need downstairs.”

“Just make sure you don’t let your apprentice help. Remember when we helped Vollont with that snow spell.”

She laughed. “Yes, we were digging the house out from the blizzard for a week. I think that’s why he had such a remote house; a blizzard in July would raise more than eyebrows in any town in California.”

Cate called me when she got home to let me know she’d seen Olan flying over the house as she left. And that I didn’t have to worry about the bird any more. I tried to reassure her that I wasn’t worried but she just laughed.

I cleaned up the breakfast dishes and tossed the coffee grinds on the garden. I went downstairs and checked to see if Princess was still okay, she was, and then scribed a seeking circle inside my power circle. If Cate was going to find a fertility spell, the least I could do was try to find some information.

I put three stones and a wren feather in the seeking circle. Then I sat outside it before closing my larger power circle. I took a deep breath and tried to empty my mind. Unfortunately a vision of Cate in my bed filled the space as quickly as I emptied it. I tried again. Deep breath, think of leaves falling, exhale blow the leaves away. There was Cate covered in leaves. Okay that was not going to work.

I hated to work under the influence of a spell but I wasn’t going to get Cate out of my mind without help. I pulled down a jar of mint leaves and a box of ground cricket. Placing a pinch of the cricket powder in a mint leaf I placed between my teeth. I thought the word calm and bit down. The weight of everything I’d experienced in the last three days drifted off my shoulders. Then the worries about what could happen floated after them. My mind cleared and I was ready to seek.

I held my list of spirits and looked at the section on procreation. I didn’t spend a lot of time with procreative spirits. Most were both birth and death type, like The Morrigan. They were a bit crazy. I figured I could ask one about how the fairies normally make sure they get a baby when they want one. Like most Real Folk the fairies didn’t have to produce kids if they didn’t want to. The trick was to make sure you got the baby when you did want it.

There were two spirits who seemed to be in charge of fairy, kobol and troll procreation. One I knew from the past, and we didn’t have a good parting. The other I’d heard of but never met.

“Ezeral. Please come to my circle. I offer you a stone or a feather for news.” I decided to try the unknown spirit first.

Five minutes later, nothing had happened. “Ezeral, I beseech you, it is vital we speak.”

A small dust devil started building in the center of the circle. I saw the feather lift and then spin away. The three stones rolled over twice before settling in place.”

“The feather is useless to me. I need more than a wren to feed my needs.” The voice echoed from deep in the earth, as though my cellar were a well.