Kinked

FOURTEEN

Three wolves rushed Quentin. He braced himself as one leaped for him, and he slashed at it with the sword. His blade passed through the shadow as if it were empty air. Black teeth flashed, and his forearm caught fire as slashes appeared on his skin.

He shouted, “They can bite!”

He shrugged out of his pack and let it fall to the ground. Aryal was cursing. Pressure clamped his left ankle and denim tore. One of the shadows had latched onto his boot. He tried to shake it off, but there was no physical body to dislodge. Narrowly he managed to dodge another two shadows that jumped at him. Goddammit, there were too many of them and they had no bodies for him to hit.

Aryal’s Power surged.

He managed to glance over at the harpy. She had torn off her backpack too and dropped her sword. Two shadows had fastened onto her, one on her arm and the other on her thigh, and the upsurge in her Power blasted them backward. Both wounds were bleeding profusely, and she looked furious. She shouted, “Ever fight a Djinn before? Like that.”

At first her words made no sense to him. These couldn’t be Djinn? He had never actually had occasion to fight a Djinn, although he had met a few in the past. They were creatures of air and fire, beings of pure spirit, and their Power was unmistakable. These felt nothing like Djinn, but …

Aryal whirled and threw out her arm in a roundhouse punch at one of the shadow wolves that lunged at her, her Power concentrated in her arm. Her fist passed through the shadow, but she seemed to knock it off its course. It fell to the ground and crouched low.

Then Quentin understood. These might not be Djinn, but they still appeared to be spirits that could affect the physical world. Power used as an offensive weapon could affect them. He flung out his hand, whispering a repel spell, and it knocked one of his shadow attackers back.

But while it did so, three others leaped at him. He ducked one, repelled another and the third bit deeply into his bicep. It hurt like a son of a bitch. He could feel blood flowing out of the wound.

Fire flared in his right thigh just over the knee. Beyond the shadow that had bitten him, another paced. The ones he had knocked back were gathering too. There were too many of them. He and Aryal were in real trouble—or at least he was. Aryal could take wing and fly out of the fight.

He gathered his Power for the strongest repel spell he could throw. If he could only knock them all back, he might be able to sprint fast enough to get away.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Aryal had shapeshifted into the harpy. Her Power surged again as she kicked two of the shadows back. She shouted, “Get your ass over here if you want a lift. Let’s shoot for the top of a building and regroup.”

He didn’t have time to smile. He blew out the hardest gust of Power he could and knocked back the ones that were closest to him, but there were too many shadow wolves between him and Aryal.

He heard her say, “Never mind, I’ll get you.”

She crouched to spring, just as a new shadow wolf poured out of the alley behind her. It was bigger than all of the others, and moved with more power and speed. As it leaped, Quentin shouted a sharp warning.

He was too late. Huge black teeth fastened high on the carpal joint of one of her wings. Bone snapped, the sound sickeningly audible. Aryal gave a high, wild shriek of anguish and rage. She tried to whirl, to shake the shadow off of her, but it held on. Blood fountained as it ripped through her flesh. Two more shadows attacked, one tearing at her heel and the other ripping through her thigh muscle. She staggered and collapsed.

Quentin roared and lunged, flinging a repel spell at the shadow wolf that was still latched onto her wing. It tumbled away, even as she rolled over onto her hands and knees. Head lowered, she tried to get to her feet, while her savaged wing lay in an awkward sprawl. She couldn’t get her injured leg to support her weight.

Shadow wolves poured into the space between them before he could reach her, too many for him to knock away. Fiery pain exploded in one of his calves as a wolf sank its teeth into him. He twisted to fling a repel spell at it.

By the time he had turned around, shadow wolves had torn Aryal’s other wing, and the largest one held her pinned with its teeth at the back of her neck.

A woman wearing jeans and a tank top walked out of the alley. She was human, of average height, rounded at breasts and hips, and she looked to be perhaps in her late thirties, with dark hair and eyes, and a Slavic face with high cheekbones.

She also carried more Power than Quentin had ever felt before in a human, and more than most of any of the magic users he had met of the other Elder Races.

She gestured with one hand. All the shadow wolves halted their attack, except the largest one that kept his hold on Aryal’s neck.

The woman said in accented English, “Now is a good time for you to surrender.”

They were outnumbered, and he knew he was outclassed magically, but Quentin still gathered up his Power. He couldn’t throw a repel spell at the shadow wolf that held Aryal pinned, or its teeth might very well snap her neck. He could sure as fuck throw something offensive at the woman though.

The woman looked at him. “If you cast another spell at me or my wolves, you will kill your partner. Release your Power.”

And there it was, everything he had once thought that he wanted to achieve.

All it would take is one more spell, and Aryal would die by someone else’s hands.

A hot, furious feeling shook through him.

No. NO.

He released his Power. “Tell your creature to let her go.”

“Not yet. I have to make a decision first.” The woman crossed her arms and sighed heavily. “I know who she is. And I can guess who you are. You have presented me with a pretty problem. I do not have anything against the Wyr from America—yet.”

“I know who you are too,” Aryal whispered hoarsely. Her hair hung down over her face, and she had dug her talons into the cracks between the cobblestones. “Galya Andreyev. Only I thought you never left Russia.”

The woman frowned and said, “It is really unfortunate that you have recognized me. Now you have increased my problem, and that is not at all pretty.”

The woman made a throwing motion with her hand, and flung out a dark web filled with stars. Instinct took over and Quentin lunged sideways, attempting desperately to avoid it. But as fast as he was, he couldn’t move fast enough, because the web wasn’t any more physical than the shadow wolves had been. It settled over his head to cover him completely. He tried to throw off the spell, but it sank underneath his skin before he could cast a counter-measure.

He thought he caught a glimpse of a night sky as he tumbled headlong into darkness.

Something dripped.

The sound was making him crazy. He needed to get up to turn off the faucet. He rolled over on the remarkably hard, cold bed, and woke up.

He was alone, and he lay on the floor of a prison cell. No weapons, no backpack.

The cell was dry and very plain, just the ceiling and floor, three stone walls, and a fourth wall made of metal bars that radiated some kind of dull-feeling magic. In one corner of the cell, a shallow hollow in the floor with a hole constituted a primitive latrine. Faint light spilled in from somewhere, throwing deep shadows, but his feline sight did very well in deep shadows and even in full darkness. Instinct told him he had not been unconscious for very long. He thought that the light could be the last of the day’s sunshine.

He looked outside of his cell. He could see two cells across from him. One was empty, and the other one held a long, still length with gray-to-black wings spilled over the floor. Aryal. There was red too, a great deal of it, and he could smell the coppery tint of both her blood and his.

Water still dripped somewhere nearby, and there were voices.

“That was a harpy,” an Elven male said. “And I don’t know what the man was, but he wasn’t human.”

“That was Quentin,” a light, female Elven voice said. Relief flooded Quentin as he recognized Linwe’s voice. “At least I think it was. He’s part Elf. And if that was Quentin, I bet the harpy was the sentinel Aryal. She looked bad.”

“I wonder when they’ll wake up,” said a third Elf, another male. That was Caerreth, the bookish male.

“I’m awake,” Quentin said hoarsely. He rolled onto his stomach with difficulty and sat up. “Linwe?”

“Yes, it’s me,” said Linwe. “Oh thank the gods. I mean, not that you’re here locked up too, but that you’re you and awake. It’s good to hear your voice. Are you all right?”

He inspected himself. The worst wounds were the bites on his biceps and his thigh, and as he probed at them, he discovered they hadn’t yet closed. He frowned. Given his Wyr abilities, they should have closed over by now. “I think so,” he said. “I’ve got a few wounds, but they aren’t too bad. You?”

“I’m okay—there’s three of us, and we’re okay. We’re really hungry though.”

“There were four in your party,” he said. He eased off his T-shirt and tore it into strips. Then he used the strips to bind his wounded thigh tightly and, with considerable more clumsiness, the bite on his upper arm. “What happened to the fourth?”

There was a small silence. Then Linwe said bleakly, “She didn’t make it.”

Linwe said “she,” which meant it would have been Cemalla. Damn. He closed his eyes. He was getting tired of hearing about Elves dying. He said, “I’m sorry. How long have you been here—and do you know where here is?”

One of the male Elves answered him. “We’re in the prison underneath the palace in Numenlaur. We’ve been here for almost two weeks.”

Elves could survive a long time without food and almost as long without water, but if they hadn’t had any liquid or nourishment in all that time, they had to be feeling poorly. He asked, “How long has it been since you’ve eaten or drank anything?”

“The witch who imprisoned us has been bringing us wayfarer bread and water every three days,” Linwe said. “But the last time was three days ago, and she didn’t leave any food or water when she brought you and the harpy in. We’re wondering if that means she’s decided to stop feeding us.”

“I met the witch,” he growled.

“Of course you did.” She sounded dispirited and listless. “I’m not thinking very clearly.”

“Don’t worry about it, Linwe. If I were you, I wouldn’t be thinking clearly either.”

Getting food and water every few days was barely sustainable. The thought of them imprisoned for almost two weeks, getting hungrier and thirstier as they listened to that water drip, infuriated him.

He pushed himself to his feet and walked over to the bars. He wasn’t familiar with the exact spell that had been smelted into the metal, but it would be something to contain dangerous prisoners with a possible proficiency in magic. Every Elder Races prison had something of the same, some sort of way to dampen a prisoner’s magic.

He tried touching the metal, and whatever magic it held stayed inert, so he grasped two bars and looked at the crumpled figure across the way. Aryal hadn’t moved yet, although if she had been hit with the same spell as he had, she should be awake by now.

“Hey,” he said quietly to her. The sight of her ruined wings made him feel slightly crazed. He remembered the sound of her bone snapping. “Time to wake up, sunshine.”

She didn’t move or give any sign that she heard him. His throat tightened. She might be unconscious. The witch wouldn’t have locked her up if she had been dead.

Or at least she wouldn’t have been dead at the time she was locked up. If his wounds were still open, so were hers. She had been quietly bleeding all this time. Was the dampening magic on the bars interfering with their Wyr abilities to heal?

“Say something, Aryal,” he said.

Goddamn it. Come on.

She said in quiet, broken voice, “I’m not healing.”

After that, she didn’t speak again for a long time.

“I’m not healing either,” he told her.

She didn’t respond.

He started to pace. It made the wound in his thigh ache worse than before, but he ignored it. From down the hall, Linwe said, “That’s how Cemalla died. She got injured pretty badly when the witch’s wolf shadows attacked us. Her wounds wouldn’t clot. She bled out a couple of days after we were brought here.”

Caerreth, the bookish Elf, said, “I could have saved her if my magic had been working.”

“You’re a healer?” Quentin asked.

“I’m not very advanced yet,” he said. “But none of us sustained any injuries that would have required complicated healing spells or surgeries.”

Quentin was no healer, but he thought Aryal’s wings might call for some complicated healing or surgeries. He resisted the urge to smash his fist into the wall, as any possible damage he might do to his fist might not heal. He muttered, “We need to get the hell away from these damn bars.”

Caerreth said somewhat pedantically, “Yes, we do, but in regards to healing, we’ve had a long time to think about things, and we don’t think that the dampening spell in the bars down here had anything to do with Cemalla bleeding out. After all, healing is a natural physical process, not a magical one. We think it has something to do with the wolf shadows themselves.”

The younger Elf made a good point. It sounded like they had used their imprisonment to try to think things through.

“Have you seen anything like them before?” Quentin asked.

“No, so we don’t know anything for sure.” Caerreth sounded like Linwe did, very tired. “All we have is supposition. Have you seen anything like them before?”

“No. Do you think their bites are poison?” Quentin didn’t feel poisoned. He just felt in pain. He stalked back and forth, pacing laps.

“The wounds haven’t acted as though they were poisoned,” said Caerreth. “I think it has more to do with the nature of the creatures themselves.”

“I thought they were spirits, or ghosts,” Quentin said. He completed another lap and spun. How much blood had Aryal lost? Was she close to bleeding out?

“If they are,” Caerreth said, “and they can still affect the physical world, what if the wounds they inflict are spiritual in nature?”

Quentin thought about that as he prowled every inch of his cage. Spiritual, the way that Caerreth meant it, didn’t mean feelings or emotions, or some kind of religious experience. Instead it meant of the soul, or the incorporeal, as opposed to the physical. Magic had the same distinction, as it was spiritual in nature—incorporeal—but still had the Power to impact the physical world.

“If you’re right,” he said, “then magical healing might work.”

“Which we can’t do in here,” said Caerreth. He sounded as dispirited and listless as Linwe had.

Quentin wasn’t dispirited or listless. He burned with rage and determination.

He said, “That’s all the more reason why we have to get out of here. But then we already knew that.”

With that, he turned all the considerable force of his attention onto one thing: escape.

To test the dampening spell in the prison bars, he ran through a series of practice spells that were akin to a musician playing scales. The dampening spell activated, and he could feel it acting in counterpart to his. It was more sophisticated than anything he had encountered before. He cast a stronger spell and felt the dampener adjust to the shift, an equal weight of null to his magic.

The one dampening spell that he knew was more simple and oppressive, pressing the null as a dead weight throughout the air of the prison or cage, so that the magic user could not even summon Power to cast a spell in the first place.

That kind of dampener needed to be recast periodically because it expended Power all of the time. The spell on these bars would have been much more difficult to cast, but it would last much longer, perhaps indefinitely, only becoming active when needed and providing only enough Power necessary to block each surge of Power.

He studied the construction of his cell. He was not surprised to find that it was as well constructed as the dampening spell had been. Perhaps he could dig furrows between the stones if he had a sharp implement and years of time to do it. But even then, he didn’t think he would achieve much more than a couple of deep holes in the thick walls.

Now to try his ace in the hole. Holding his breath, he attempted the minimal shapeshift that would bring out his panther’s retractable claws.

He had heard a lot of argument over the years about whether the Wyr’s ability to shapeshift should be classified as magic or as a natural attribute. The real answer was that it was both, but it was also a kind of magic that was fundamentally different from other magic structures. Sometimes spells that were cast in counter to other magics didn’t affect the Wyr’s shapeshift ability at all.

Sometimes … luck did swing his way.

The claws on his right hand appeared, more slowly than he could flick them into existence outside of the cell, but they were there. He concentrated on his left hand, and five more retractable claws materialized. He stretched the fingers on both hands out and looked at them in satisfaction.

It was like nature just wanted him to have all these lock picks readily at hand, so to speak, and available. And Quentin had explored all kinds of training for his natural talents.

He walked over to the bars and set to work, arms through the bars and wrists bent so that he could get at the lock from inside the cell.

Sometimes magical locks required the matching magical key to unlock them. He hoped that wasn’t the case for these cells. After all, the dampening spell and the excellent construction of the cells were barriers enough if the prisoner were stripped of any possible tools. He held his breath and prayed that the builders of the prison were as logical about the construction of the lock as they had been about everything else, as he used the two curved claws of his forefingers to probe for the hidden tumblers inside the lock. When he felt the slight resistance that indicated he had engaged them, he twisted carefully.

The lock clicked open. He pushed open the door to his cell and walked out.

The prison block was a simple one. It appeared to be U-shaped, with an iron-reinforced oak door at the bottom of the U. The Elves were held in cells just around the corner from the door, on the other leg from where he and Aryal were held. They were talking, their voices slow and tired, and didn’t appear to notice the slight sound his cell door made as it swung open. He caught a glimpse of still bodies in some of the other cells neighboring his and Aryal’s, but he turned his attention away from the sight. There was nothing he could do for any of them.

Listening warily for any sounds outside the cell block, he moved quickly over to Aryal’s cell, picked the lock and eased the door open. He rushed to her prone figure and kneeled at her head.

She lay on her stomach and showed no reaction to his sudden presence. He stroked her black hair to one side and felt for a pulse. Relief blew through him as he found one. It was thready and too rapid, but it was there.

“Hey, sunshine,” he said softly. “You in there? Feel free to get snarky and cuss me out anytime now.”

She didn’t say anything. Maybe she was unconscious.

Gods, she was a wreck. He was appalled at the state she was in. Those magnificent wings of hers were sprawled awkwardly on either side of her body, torn and broken. That last shadow wolf had known exactly what to do when it attacked her. It had very clearly intended to ground her, and that was what it had achieved.

If she hadn’t hesitated to take off, she might have gotten clean away. She had waited for him, and when he couldn’t get to her, she had said she would come for him.

A burning knot sank into his chest, like the same emotion that gripped him in the tragic nursery, only this time it was even hotter, more painful. Avian Wyr typically did not survive well if they lost the ability to fly.

This couldn’t cripple her. That was all there was to it.

First, though, he had to make sure it didn’t kill her.

Carefully he moved her. He didn’t try to turn her onto her stomach, because that would shift her wings too much. Instead he lifted her up until he could hold her, putting her head on his shoulder. She lay against his torso in a dead weight.

He tilted his head sideways and looked into the harpy’s wild face. Her eyes were half-open. Did that mean she was still conscious?

“I’m going to give this to you straight up, sunshine,” he whispered into her ear. “You look like hell. Our wounds aren’t closing over. We need to get out of this cell block and away from the dampening spell in here. Then maybe we can see about getting some magical healing. But to do that, you either need to be ambulatory or you need to be portable, and right now you’re neither.”

He looked down at her again. Was that a flicker in her half-closed eyes?

“You have to shapeshift,” he told her. “That might slow down your bleeding some, since—since so many of your wounds are on your wings. And if you can’t walk, at least I’ll be able to carry you.”

“My wings are bad,” she whispered.

The burning in his chest grew more intense. He steeled himself against it. “Yeah,” he said. “Your wings are bad. You’ll probably need surgery. Maybe even a couple of surgeries. The sooner we finish here and get home, the sooner we can get to that and you can take to the air again. But you’ve got to move first.”

There was no self-pity on that feral, beautiful face. There was no emotion at all. “The thing is, Quentin,” she said in a perfectly rational-sounding voice, “I don’t know that I can do that.”

If she was too injured to shapeshift, if she had lost too much blood, she might really be dying.

“No,” he said. He shook his head. “No. I do not accept that.”

“Gods forbid something might happen that you don’t accept,” she said dryly. Her eyes closed.

“Stop it!” He shook her, not caring if it hurt or not. Hell, if it hurt, it might be just the jolt she needed. Her eyes flared open again, and she glared at him. Anger was good. It was awesome. He smiled at her. “I’m going to pinch you until you shapeshift.”

One corner of her mouth twitched. “You really are a bastard, aren’t you?”

“You say that like it’s news. Or even a bad thing.” He found a place under her arm where she wasn’t injured, and he pinched her hard.

A spark lit her dull gaze. “Ouch.”

“Come on, sunshine,” he growled. “I’m not leaving without you, and I haven’t got all day. And if I have to drag you by the foot, you’re going to be a hell of a lot more uncomfortable than you are right now. Shift!”

Her breathing quickened, and her face twisted. He could feel the struggle in her body as she strained. His heart started to pound as he waited. A low, shaking moan came from her lips.

He shouted in her face, “COME ON!”

She bared her teeth and screamed back at him, an infuriated harpy’s shriek. And her wings slowly disappeared from sight. The alien quality of her features smoothed into the more human-looking Aryal. Her features were too pale and damp with sweat, and the area around her eyes was hollow with dark shadows.

Relief made him almost giddy. Who the hell could have ever guessed that he would come to care about what happened to this prickly pain in the ass he held in his arms? “There you are,” he said. He hugged her. “Good job.”

She glared at him and pinched him back, hard. “You suck.”

He barked out a short laugh, hugged her tighter and pressed a kiss to her temple for good measure. One of her arms crept around his waist, and she held him back.

A cautious-sounding Linwe said, “Is everything okay over there?”

“Everything’s okay,” Quentin said firmly. He looked into Aryal’s bitter gaze, and though he answered Linwe, he spoke directly to Aryal. “Or it will be.”

It had to be okay. He wouldn’t let it be anything else.