Sword and Shadow (20 page)

Saje Williams

best to ignore it. This was not the time nor the place to be distracted by that sort of thing, regardless of how good it felt. They had a job to do.

Of course, that job now involved specifically defying TAU’s standing orders, but she could live with that.

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Chapter Twenty-four

“Glad someone besides Raven can do that mumbo-jumbo,” Val drawled, glancing over her shoulder as Morrigan dismissed the invisibility shield around the ship and the vessel seemed to spring fully formed from the cold blue sea.

Val had been bitching about the vampire all the way to the ship. Not that it had done her any good; Morrigan didn’t act the least bit sympathetic. Val didn’t care. She felt as though Raven was trying to get her out of harm’s way―even though they did need to inform the ship’s captain and their allies aboard about their potential passengers―and that aggravated the hell out of her. She didn’t need protecting. And besides, she didn’t really anticipate the Captain taking this latest development any too well. “Are you coming with me?” she asked with a pointed glance over her shoulder.

Morrigan shook her head. “I’ll drop you aboard, but I need to get back to the hybrids and our friend, the valkyrie—Raven wants me to keep an eye on them.”

“Perfect,” Val muttered, though she shouldn’t have expected anything different. She was a full agent and if her job at this point involved telling uncomfortable truths to people who didn’t want to hear them, that was just part of the deal. “So can you transport me to the ship?”

“Not a problem,” Morrigan answered. She did something mystical and suddenly Val was standing on the gently swaying deck. She fought back a moment of disorientation and looked around. A few crewmen were glaring at her, not even having the grace to be startled by her sudden appearance. For folks who were almost comically superstitious when she and Raven had first come aboard, they’d grown pretty damned www.samhainpublishing.com 175

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accustomed to magic. They still didn’t much care for having women aboard, though.

Bryon leaped off the foredeck, staggering a few steps as his feet struck the main deck and pulled up short a short distance away from her, realizing that hugging her wouldn’t have been appropriate. “Val! I’ve missed you!”

She returned his infectious grin. “It’s good to see you too, Bryon.” She shifted her gaze and watched Goban slide down the ladder from the forecastle. He turned to face her, eyes filled with something she couldn’t define, and definitely didn’t like.

“Where’s Morrigan?” he asked her gruffly, scanning the deck for any sign of the woman.

“She has other things to do,” Val replied cryptically, not wanting to give him any more information than she had to. He’d learn what was going on soon enough, when she informed the captain. The ex-merc had changed while they were in the alien ship. She’d liked him before, but now she could barely stand to turn her back on him. It gave her chills every time she did.

What was worse is the fact she could no longer read him even a little.

At first, he was nearly an open book—even considering her moderate telepathic skills, he’d worn his thoughts as if they were printed on his forehead.

Not now, though. Now it was like he lived behind a ten foot thick wall of ice that had sprang into being while they had walked the curving corridors of the crashed starship together. Something lurked behind those eyes that she wasn’t even sure she wanted to see. If not for the fact that her life might depend on it, she wouldn’t even bother to try. But try she did.

And fail. What was worst was that she was still uncertain whether it was her limited talents in that area or something more insidious that kept her from succeeding.

“I need to talk to the captain,” she told them. Bryon nodded vigorously while Goban narrowed his eyes in response.

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Ignoring the ex-merc’s reaction, she glanced up at the forecastle, where she could see the captain lounging against the rail, scanning the horizon with a spyglass. He’d probably welcome the news in one respect at least. They’d soon be underway.

She walked over to the ladder, placed her hands on the top rung, and started to pull herself up, but stopped as she felt something hard and cold jab into her back even through the padding provided by her parka-like jacket.

“Don’t make any sudden moves,” Goban murmured in her ear, his breath washing over her as he leaned close. “We don’t want to alarm anyone. And don’t look at me!” he added tersely. “I know what you can do. Close your eyes and turn around. If I see even a hint of white I’m going to put a bullet in you.”

She heard Bryon’s quick intake of breath and knew the young man had seen what Goban was doing. Unfortunately, despite the fact she liked the younger man well enough, and trusted him, he’d be of no use to her in this. The best he could offer would be a momentary distraction, and that would most likely get him killed. She had to act decisively and quickly.

She heard steel rasp against leather. Bryon had drawn his sword.

This was about to get very ugly. “Put the weapon down,” she heard him say. “Do it or I’ll run you through.”

“Brave pup, isn’t he?” Goban grunted at her. “Put the sword down, Bryon—in fact, I want you to throw it overboard. If you don’t, I’ll put a hole through her large enough to stick your arm through.”

“Do I look stupid?” the man-child asked. “You shoot her and you’re a dead man. If I don’t get you, Raven or Morrigan will tear you limb from limb.”

“Not if they’re not here,” Goban said. “Do it!” He jammed the muzzle into her back with enough force that she grunted involuntarily.

There was a moment of silence and then she heard the sound of boots scuffing against the deck. A distant splash reached her ears and she didn’t know whether to sigh in relief or groan in dismay. It all depended on what Goban did now.

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Light exploded in her head and, an instant later, she heard two thunderous shots ring out. She clawed herself away from the yawning edge of unconsciousness just in time to hear something large hit the water below. She struggled to rise and realized she’d gone to her knees from the blow to the back of her head.

“Captain! Prepare to set sail!” Goban yelled. “We’re going home.” Val gasped as thick fingers tangled in her hair and warm steel caressed her cheek. “I really hate to do this to someone as beautiful as you,” he said,

“but I can’t have you causing problems on the way home. I don’t have time to drug you right now, so…”

The impact of the next blow sent her crashing to the deck and spiraling down a long vortex into darkness.

Raven emerged from the forest the next evening to find the encampment suffused by a somber mood. Nearly a hundred pairs of eyes followed him as he strode toward Morrigan, who stood alone near the fire pit, her gaze flat and cold as she watched him approach. There was no sign of the valkyrie and he wasn’t sure whether to take that as a good or bad sign.

“Before you say anything, Raven, I want you to listen. Val went back to the ship today. I came back here to keep tabs on the valkyrie. But by the time I arrived, she’d gone. Tuck couldn’t tell me where. She said she’d be back.”

He shrugged, fighting back a growing sense of unease. “Okay. But that doesn’t―”

“Let me finish,” she interrupted. “When Val was on the ship, Goban stuck a gun in her back. I still don’t know why. Bryon tried to stop him.

Goban gut-shot him and threw him overboard. He managed to make it to shore, amazingly enough, and came looking for me. He staggered around until one of the patrols found him and brought him to the camp.”

“What? Where is he now?” Raven’s mouth was suddenly filled with a coppery taste he recognized as fear. No, not fear. Pure, unadulterated terror. Goban had taken Val and shot Bryon? But why?

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“He’s in the tent, Raven. It doesn’t look good for him. I’m not a healer.

A bullet through the breadbasket tears shit up, and he’s in a lot of pain.

I’m hoping you have some medical skills to go with your magic, because, if you don’t, the kid’s going to die. And it’s not going to be a pleasant death to watch. Or listen to, for that matter.”

“We have that much in common, Morrigan. I’m not a healer, either.

Whether by accident or design, Goban managed to take the only one of us who might have a chance to save him, even if it meant opening up a

’gate to Starhaven and taking him there—rules or no rules.” Raven said.

“So he tried to protect Val?”

“That’s what he managed to tell me before he passed out. I believe him. He’s pretty torn up about it. Thinks he should’ve done more.” She stank of suppressed rage. She took betrayal about as well as he did, he thought.

Raven took a deep breath. “I can’t heal him, Morrigan, but I can save him.”

It took her a moment to realize what he was saying. “Are you sure you want to do that?”

“I don’t see I have much of a choice. I owe him at least that much. I’m not going to stand here and listen to him scream through his last hours of life. He doesn’t deserve that.
Goban
may, but Bryon doesn’t.”

She nodded. “You’d better do it quickly, then. He’s a lot tougher than I would’ve imagined. He’s unconscious, but I’m not sure how much longer that’ll last. The next time he wakes up will probably be the last.”

Both of them had seen stomach wounds, he thought, and both of them had some idea of what kind of agony Bryon had to be going through. He’d probably lapsed into unconsciousness as a defense mechanism, but it wasn’t one they could depend on sustaining him for any length of time.

He brushed past her and ducked into the tent. Bryon lay there amidst a pile of bloody bedding, his breath coming in short, ragged gasps. His eyes flicked open as Raven entered. “I’m sorry,” he said, panting the words.

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“Don’t apologize,” Raven told him, settling down next to him. “You have nothing to apologize for. I want to know—are you going to just give up?”

“I’m dying,” Bryon groaned. “I know it. I’m not giving up. If I could fight it, I would.”

“What if I offered you a choice?”

Raven waited a long moment for the boy to gather enough strength to speak. “What choice?” he said finally.

“I can save you. More or less. I’m offering you the chance to become like me. To avenge what was done to you, if you want it.”

Bryon spasmed and blood flowed from between his lips as he tried to speak. “I want it. What do I need to do?”

Raven reached down and gashed open his wrist with his forefinger.

“Drink this.” He held his wrist to the boy’s mouth and gritted his teeth as Bryon latched onto the wound, drinking the blood hungrily.

It had been a long time since he’d done this. The weird thing was that he’d never done it like this before. Usually he transmitted the infection through his bite, draining the victim far enough that the virus could overcome the victim’s immune system.

There was only one other time he could recall when he’d done this to save someone who was dying anyway, and that hadn’t even been his choice at the time. Someone else had made the choice for him.

The image of his friend Ben’s son, shaking with fury, pulling a gun and shooting him, came unbidden to his mind. The kid had showered his dying sister with Raven’s blood and just that had been enough to infect her. It had been a desperate move on his part, and Raven had long since forgiven him for it.

After a few minutes Bryon went limp, falling back onto the bedding with a long moan. “I can’t take anymore.”

“You’ve taken enough,” Raven told him. “I want you to listen very carefully now. In three nights you’ll wake up and you’ll be ravenous.

You’ll need to feed almost immediately. I’ll try to bring an animal of some kind to you.” He thought about it. The only predator he knew for sure was native to Japan was a fox, though he seemed to remember 180

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something about a miniature wolf of some kind—the ancestor of the Shiba Inu he’d owned as a kid.

Either way he’d find something, and he’d be damned if he’d short change Bryon by bringing him a deer or something lame like that. “If you drink from the animal I bring, you’ll absorb some of its nature and, possibly, forge a bond between yourself and its kind.”

Bryon didn’t say anything. He was moments away from death now and didn’t really have the energy to respond. As Raven watched he closed his eyes and took his last few breaths. They came quick and shallow, sounding more like an animal than a human.

When his breath came no more, Raven clambered back out of the tent and walked back over to Morrigan, who was deep in conversation with Tuck and Claw. The wolverine had apparently accepted these new arrangements and had turned out to be a pretty decent fellow underneath all the bluster. He looked around for the hybrid wolves, but they were nowhere in sight.

“He’s gone,” he told Morrigan. “It’s done. Three nights from now, he’ll rise. I’ll take care of feeding him the first time. In the meantime, we need to figure out how we’re going to get the hell off these islands and back to so-called civilization.”

“We’ve been talking about that,” she said. “Tuck tells me that they have some rudimentary ship-building skills. Between what they know and our magic, we should be able to construct a serviceable craft in a matter of a week or so.”

Raven nodded. “Good. Where are the wolves?”

“When they heard about Val, they took off. Apparently they’d forged some kind of bond with her—don’t ask me what or how. I don’t know. All I know is that they were pissed when they heard what happened. I’m sure they’ll be back.”

“Yeah. Me, too.” He shifted his gaze to Tuck. “I hope you guys are ready for a war,” he told him. “A real one this time. I don’t know why Goban took Val, but he isn’t going to be able to keep her.”

“Count me and my people in,” Tuck answered. “Lady Morrigan and our valkyrie worked out a deal. We work for her now.”

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Raven would’ve loved to been a fly on the wall for
that
conversation.