WarriorsandLovers (19 page)

He straightened his legs.

Hopewood took a single step out of the bathroom and tripped
on Nieko’s boots. He crashed forward, falling onto the knife, flinging his arms
out as he fell. The black box clattered to the floor.

But before the blade pierced him, Hopewood pushed back up,
bracing himself on his locked elbows. The knife did little more than prick his
skin.

“You can’t kill me,” he gasped. “Not with a human weapon.”

“Watch me,” Nieko ground out, and wrapped his arms around
Hopewood, hugging him tight.

He rolled and his body weight drove the blade straight and
true into Hopewood’s chest. Blood-speckled spray hit Nieko’s face.

He fought against the consuming weakness, knowing the
contact with the knife was killing him. He tried to lift himself away from the
rubber-covered steel protruding from Hopewood’s chest but he lacked the
strength. Even breathing was becoming too hard. With a final fierce effort, he
groped around until his hand rested on Hopewood’s black box. He lifted it as
high as he could and smashed it onto the floor.

Immediately his twitching, tearing muscles relaxed, but it
was too late.

As his consciousness faded, the last thing Nieko was aware
of was silence as the harsh rasp of Hopewood’s breath stopped.

Warmth and light beat against the surface of Nieko’s skin.
So there was an afterlife. Who knew? A heavy weight seemed to hold his eyelids
closed. He fought against it. If this was heaven, he wanted a look.

At last he managed to crack his eyes open. He promptly
closed them again. He thought he might have been rewarded for his
self-sacrifice but if the less than angelic face he saw was any indication he’d
been sent to somewhere far less like paradise.

“I wondered if you were going to stay asleep forever,” a
gruff voice said.

Nieko moaned. He knew that voice.

“Leave him alone,” another voice murmured. He knew
that
voice too. Eora. Had his efforts been futile after all? But why would she be in
hell? She hadn’t done anything wrong.

He felt a warm hand wrap around his cold one. “You leave
Nieko alone,” she repeated. “He’s a hero. He can take all the time he wants to
recover.”

Hero? Recover? Nieko thought for a moment. If Eora thought
he needed to recover then he couldn’t be dead. His eyes snapped open. Eora
stood by his side. Next to her stood Tybor. The room he was in was white, as
were the sheets that covered him.

“Where am I?’ he muttered.

“You’re in the infirmary,” Eora answered. “The doctor said
you’ll be perfectly fine as soon as you’ve had some rest.”

“I’m back home?” he asked, afraid to believe it. “I’m not
dead?”

“Not even close,” Tybor said.

What about Hopewood? Is he…? Did I…?”

“He’s dead,” Tybor said flatly. “You succeeded where Huon
and I failed.”

Another question ate at Nieko but his throat closed on the
words and he had to force them out. Grief, surprising him with its intensity,
washed over him. “How did…? What happened to Elijah after…?”

“Shh,” Eora whispered. “We’ll tell you all about it when
you’re feeling stronger. For now you need to sleep.” The soporific signals she
radiated worked like a drug. He found himself drifting back into oblivion.

His dreams were filled with images of Eora and Elijah,
suffering at the hands of Hopewood, writhing in pain. He saw Hopewood fire the
gun, saw Elijah fall. Saw the blood pool around him. Yet through it all, he
felt Elijah’s presence. Not as strong as when he was alive, but there, like an
echo, a slow drumbeat under the constant throb of blood through his veins.

When he woke again, the lights had been dimmed, signaling
the end of the artificial daylight that was all the Dvalinn had. Perhaps
Hopewood’s death would allow the Dvalinn to return to the surface. Maybe one
day he would see that as worth the loss of Elijah, but not yet. Maybe, for him,
never.

“You’re awake again?” Eora’s voice came out of the darkness.
He looked toward the corner, where she sat in a chair. She stood, stretched and
came nearer to him, turning up the lights when she reached his side.

“How do you feel?”

He tried to speak but his voice came out in a dry croak.
Eora picked up the glass of water by his bedside and offered him a drink. “I… Okay,
I guess. How are you?”

“I’m fine,” she said. “I had a bit of a concussion but it
went away.”

“How long have I been out of it?” he asked her.

“Five days,” she replied. “Using the knife nearly killed
you. It
would
have killed anyone who wasn’t as strong.”

“I had to do it,” Nieko murmured. “I couldn’t let him hurt
you any more.”

“Why, Nieko?” She picked up his hand and held it tight. “Why
were you prepared to die to save me?”

He’d faced death to save her. He could do this. “Because I
love you.” He held himself still, waiting for her to break away, but she
tightened her hold on his hand.

“What did you say?”

“I said I love you.” He took a deep breath. “Elijah knew. It
was what he was going to tell you that last morning.”

He waited but she said nothing. As the moment stretched on,
he knew he’d lost her. She’d never understand, never accept.

“I’m sorry, Eora. You can ignore it. Forget I ever said
anything. We can be friends like we’ve always been.”

At last she spoke. Her words pierced his heart. “We can’t be
friends like before.”

He finally plucked up the courage to look her in the eyes. He
blinked. His vision couldn’t have recovered from the trauma, because instead of
anger or disgust, he saw softness and something else—something that made his
heart pound.

She dropped her head until her forehead rested on his.
“You’ve been my constant companion for as long as I can remember. A part of my
life, a part of me.” Her breath, sweet and honeyed, washed over him. “When I
saw you sacrifice yourself, when I thought I’d lost you, I knew I was never
going to be right again. I love you, Nieko.”

Her lips met his, shaped them, and he licked his way into
her mouth. His heart pounded and his mental barriers collapsed into sand and
blew away. There was no longer any need to disguise the extent of his love. Her
love reflected back, warm and golden.

But in the midst of his happiness, a shadow loomed.

“What about Elijah?” he whispered. Even through the joy, it
hurt to say his name. His feelings were confused, grief and jealousy swirled
into a jagged, cutting pain. Would Eora have still love him if Elijah had lived?

The smile on Eora’s face shocked him. Did she really not
care?

“I guess I love Elijah too, because I don’t want to be
without him.” She bit her lip but she looked nervous, not sad.

Nieko stared at her. He didn’t know what she saw in his face
because she stood and began to pace. “You don’t mind, do you?” she asked. “I
thought…well if you love me you might understand I love Elijah too.”

She spun back to him. “We can make this work. Tybor, Huon
and Judie do it. Why shouldn’t we? After this incident the whole Dvalinn
council is going to have to reassess what they teach about Dvalinn lore.”

Maybe Nieko’s brain had been damaged, because he could not
make sense of anything she said. “Make what work? What are you talking about?”

“You, me and Elijah. Living together. What else would I be
talking about?”

“But Elijah’s dead.”

“No he’s not. He’s in a hospital bed down the corridor. As
soon as he knows you’re awake again, he’s going to be demanding to come and see
you. He’s not a good patient. He lost a lot of blood. The doctors had trouble
finding a transfusion match, so he’s too weak to be up and about yet.”

“Elijah’s alive.” Nieko said it quietly, afraid if he spoke
too loudly he would wake up and find the whole conversation had been a dream.

“Wait! You thought Hopewood killed Elijah?” Eora shook her
head. “Elijah said he tried to stop you taking the knife from him because he
knew the damage it would do to you. He said you wrestled him for it. How could
you not know he was alive?”

Nieko remembered how hard it had been to take the knife.
He’d thought it was because of the effect of the weapon. How could he have
missed that Elijah had been holding on to it? He had to check again. “Elijah
isn’t dead? He’s here? With us?”

“Right here.” The raspy voice came from the doorway. Nieko
pushed himself to his elbows and watched the man in the wheelchair roll into
his room.

“Elijah?”

“Of course it’s me. I felt you wake and had the nurse bring
me most of the way.” Elijah pushed himself closer. “She didn’t want to but I
threatened to walk on my own if she didn’t.”

He held out his hand and took Nieko’s.

“I don’t understand,” Nieko said. “Someone needs to tell me
what the hell happened.”

“Eora’s the only one who knows it all,” Elijah replied. “She
got us both out of the warehouse.”

“I didn’t do it alone,” Eora protested. “I had help.” She
perched on the end of Nieko’s bed, one foot tucked under her, the other
dangling down. Elijah rolled up closer and rested his head against her knee.

“Okay,” Eora said. “If we start from when I was immobilized
by the electricity. Elijah was shot.”

Nieko winced but Elijah grinned at him. “I got better. I
should be perfectly okay in another couple of days.”

“Are you going to listen or not?” Eora said. “So, Hopewood
kicked me in the head. I was unconscious for a while. When I came to, Nieko was
outside the bathroom door.”

“Which everyone assures me was some feat,” Elijah added. “No
one is quite sure how you managed to fight against the incapacitation of the
electric field, but you did it.”

“I don’t think I could have if the box had been mains-powered,”
Nieko offered. “The battery-operated box didn’t seem to be as effective.”

“It felt pretty effective to me,” Eora said, running a hand
over Nieko’s bare shoulder. His skin quivered in reaction. “It hurt, Elijah. I
can’t begin to describe the cramping pain to you, but Nieko ignored it. When
Hopewood came out of the bathroom, he stabbed him.”

“Yeah, about that,” Elijah interjected. “I thought you
Dvalinn couldn’t touch human weapons.”

“We can’t,” Nieko said. “I couldn’t hold the knife properly.
I had to prop it against my chest and use my body to drive it in.”

“What Nieko did took unbelievable strength. It nearly killed
him.” Eora blinked rapidly. “I thought it had killed him.”

“That’s not important,” Nieko said gruffly. “Let’s get on to
what happened next.”

Eora shifted her weight on the bed. Elijah reached out a
hand and stroked her arm. Nieko would have liked to do the same but his limbs
felt too heavy to move.

“I regained consciousness and realized the electric field
was gone,” Eora continued, “so I dragged myself onto my knees and crawled to
Nieko.”

“You’ll notice you were her first concern,” Elijah said, but
his lips curved into a gentle smile.

“Well…I knew Nieko couldn’t be dead because he was still there.”
She looked at Elijah. “Even you know Dvalinn bodies disintegrate at the moment
of death. If Nieko had any chance of living I had to get him away from the
knife and from Hopewood as soon as I could.”

“Hopewood was dead, wasn’t he?” Nieko asked. If that bastard
had survived he was going back to finish him off no matter what it took.

“Calm down,” Elijah said. “He’s as dead as dead gets.”

“Unlike you,” Eora said, nudging him. “Once I dragged you
clear of Hopewood and rolled you onto your side so you could breathe, I went to
check Elijah.” Her smile faded. “I really thought Elijah was gone.” She took a
deep breath and turned to Nieko. “He wasn’t in good shape. There was blood
everywhere. He had a nasty hole below his right shoulder but he was breathing.
I knew I had to get
you
back to the Underworld if you were to have any
chance of survival. Without direct contact with the Earth you’d have died when
you were so weak.”

“I know,” Nieko replied. “I thought I
was
dead.”

“But I couldn’t leave Elijah. I don’t know enough about the
surface world to be able to tell what might have happened to him. Hopewood might
have had more men somewhere who would have finished Elijah off. I didn’t have a
clue how to get him the help he needed.”

“How did you get from there to us all being here?” Nieko
asked. “You must have known what to do.”

“I panicked,” Eora admitted. “I stood in the room and lost
myself in the fear.”

“Which as it turned out was exactly the right thing to do,’
said another voice from the doorway. Huon strolled into the room, followed by
the burly figure of Tybor. Judie slipped in and stood between them.

“Tybor and I had already decided you guys might need a bit
of backup,” Huon continued. “We didn’t feel confident you could pull it off
without help, so we were hanging around the vicinity of Stonehenge. When Eora
sent out her alarm signal, we located it and teleported in.”

“Alarm signal. That sounds so much better than
hit the
panic button
,” Eora said.

“So, okay. We had Eora, Tybor and Huon. Still doesn’t
explain how you got Elijah and me back here,” Nieko said. “We were both
unconscious. Elijah’s human half would have made the teleport even harder. Way
too much for the three of you to manage.”

“Once we got to you to Stonehenge, the natural power of the
ley lines supplemented our power, so that part of it was actually easy,” Eora
said.

“Getting back to Stonehenge was the trick,” Tybor added, and
to Nieko’s total surprise, the habitually grim look on Tybor’s face lifted and
he, Huon and Eora broke out into laughter. If it hadn’t been totally ludicrous,
Nieko would have said Tybor giggled!

“We, um, commandeered a car…” Huon said. The three of them
bent over, chortling and gasping.

“You should have seen it, Nieko,” Eora sputtered.

“Last time we were on the surface, Tybor and I spent a lot
of time in a car,” Huon said, wiping at the tears streaming down his cheeks. “I
don’t remember because I was mostly unconscious, but Tybor felt he’d seen
enough to have a shot at driving,”

“And I can’t go back to the surface at all,” Judie said, “so
I was no help, but I wish I’d seen it.”

“It’s funny now,” Tybor said sobering up, “but it was fairly
tense at the time. First we had to…ah…acquire a vehicle.”

“You stole a car?” Elijah gasped.

“We didn’t have much choice,” Tybor continued. “We couldn’t
buy one. None of us knew how to hire one, even if we’d had the foresight to
bring human money, which we didn’t. Anyway, it turns out cars start by using
power from a battery. The same susceptibility to electricity Hopewood used
against us as a weapon can be used by us in non-aggressive situations to direct
the flow of power.”

“I knew cars use power to start,” Eora said, tapping her
chest. “I told you all that time studying human behaviors and artifacts wasn’t
wasted.”

“Yes, you knew,” Tybor agreed. “It took me a while to figure
out how to do it. The whole time Huon and Eora were keeping watch to make sure
no one was coming to investigate what was going on, but eventually we got the
car running. We carried you and Elijah to the car and shoved you into the backseat.
You probably have a few bruises but we didn’t have time to be gentle. A bump or
two was nothing compared to what you faced if we didn’t get you out of there.”