Kinked: Number 6 in series (Elder Races) Read online

  Quentin noticed her behavior, and his attitude sharpened. She liked that he didn’t nag her with pointless and distracting questions, but that he simply adapted his behavior to match hers. They were learning how to respond to each other like a fighting unit.

  “I want to go up to the palace,” she said. She wanted to go to high ground and study the scene. If someone—or something—was in the city with them, sooner or later they would give themselves away.

  He said, “Let’s go.”

  They had followed a small side street that led to several houses set against the backdrop of a hillside. The hill was terraced and beautifully landscaped with a profusion of flowering trees and bushes that perfumed the air. Many of the flowers were strange to her, which made the scene seem even more otherworldly.

  To reach the palace, they had to turn back to the main street. As she turned, something black flashed at the corner of her eye.

  Something too black for the rest of the lengthening evening shadows. Something that moved independently of any breeze.

  She spun toward it, staring. And saw nothing. She looked up at the sky and at the rooftops of buildings. Nothing moved from above. Easing her newfound sword out of its sheath, she strode over to where she had seen the shadow, at the corner of a waist-high, fieldstone wall that bordered one of the houses.

  She looked both ways, along the wall. There was no quick-moving black streak. No scent. Everything about the scene appeared just as it should, except now she wasn’t buying it.

  Quentin said, “I’m starting to feel like I’m color-blind or tone-deaf.” He sounded amused, yet when she glanced at him, she saw that his body was taut and his eyes never stopped moving. He had drawn his sword too, and while the point was casually lowered, he had clearly stepped up to high alert. He asked telepathically, What did you see?

  Same thing as last night, she said. She stood on the balls of her feet, ready to move fast if needed. She tilted her chin back and forth, stretching her neck, and shook her arms to loosen the tension that had built up in her shoulder muscles.

  Quentin strode toward the open archway in the stone fence.

  Thirty feet beyond him, something black streaked between two buildings. He whirled toward it before Aryal had a chance to call out. He said, “I saw that one. But I don’t know what I saw.”

  “I don’t either,” she said, walking rapidly to the area between the two buildings. The cobblestones were worn, the ground uneven. It was the opening to an alley that ran parallel to the main road, and it led to another side street. “I don’t think it’s physical. There’s no scent. There aren’t any tracks.”

  He joined her, looking down the alley. “If it isn’t physical, what is it?” he asked quietly. “Some kind of ghost or spirit?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  The cobblestones were pebbled with the different colors of stone, and the warm brown-gold of the buildings was deepening with the growing shadows. Sunshine still shone directly on the other side street at the opposite end of the alley, topped with the white and blue of a cloud-dotted sky.

  A black streak ran across the mouth of the alley, left to right.

  Aryal and Quentin raced toward it. They plunged onto the street, looking in the direction it had gone. It had vanished from the sun-drenched scene.

  She wiped her hot forehead as she turned to look at the surrounding area. This little street led to a park with stone benches and shade trees surrounding a shallow reflective pool. She glanced at Quentin, who was scratching the back of his head. He was scowling and he looked as frustrated as she felt. Then she looked back at the alley they had just exited.

  Two black shapes were in the alley, moving toward them.

  She smacked Quentin’s arm with the back of her hand. He jerked around.

  The shapes were long and waist high, and they moved like shadows, except they were unattached to any corporeal body. Her mind kept insisting it could make sense of their shapes if she stared long enough at them. She caught a glimpse of legs, a narrow muzzle.

  “Now I can sense them,” Quentin said. “Faintly, anyway.”

  “They look like some kind of animal,” she said. The shadows crept closer, black in the darkening alley. She cocked her head. “Are they stalking us?”

  “It does look that way.” Quentin narrowed his eyes. “I wonder what they can do if they catch us.”

  Movement flickered at the corner of her eye. She looked down the street, in the direction of the park. More shadows approached them, pouring across the ground with intent. Recognition struck. She said, “They look like wolves. Very big wolves. Some of the Wyr wolves can get that big.”

  “Aryal,” Quentin said.

  When she looked at him, he pointed in the opposite direction. Even more shadows crept closer. There were twelve shadows altogether, and they were acting in coordination with one another, moving just like they would if they were a real pack. And now they had her and Quentin surrounded.

  She turned and put her back to Quentin’s so that they both faced outward. “We don’t know that they can do anything,” she pointed out. “Weird shit sometimes happens in the magic of Other lands. They really might be animal ghosts.”

  “Let’s try to break through their circle and get to the main street,” he said.

  She didn’t bother to argue with that idea, mostly because she was curious to see what the shadows would do.

  Together they turned and sprinted toward the shadow wolves that stood between them and the main street.

  The wolves attacked.

  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.<
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  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.”

  Gettin
g 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.