Alaskan Fury (50 page)

The man strained a slender arm
through the bars, reaching for her, and Imelda thought that he meant to heal
her then, but when their fingers touched, he tightened his grip and dragged her
the rest of the way to his cage.  Immediately, he started ripping away her
shirt.

What is he doing?
she
thought, finding herself on her back, staring up at his face through the bars
as he worked.

Then he was crawling forward,
jamming himself into an uncomfortable-looking position in the cage, his head
lowered to get a good look at her torso.

He’s a medic,
Imelda
thought, laughing inside. 
A fey medic.
  She wanted to tell the poor
fool he wasn’t going to be able to heal her with a little dab of clotting
powder, but she couldn’t find the strength.  She closed her eyes and tried to
remember what her Padre had told her. 

Follow your heart, little one,
and not even the seat of the Holy Matron will hold dominion over you.
 
Suddenly, she saw a new way that his prophecy could be taken. 

The Holy Matron had no dominion
over her if she was dead.

Angry with him for not
telling
her that, Imelda tried to laugh, but she knew her throat made no sound.  Her
Padre had told her to follow her heart…even if it meant to her death.  He had
Seen
that she was going to die for it, and he hadn’t
told
her.  Damn him.

But, she realized, would she have
still done what she did if he had known it would lead to her—

A pinprick of searing, white-hot,
crystalline agony suddenly bloomed in her chest, in the hole just beneath the left
lung.  Imelda cried out, despite herself, and writhed as the fire began to
spread outwards in a concentric sphere, pushing deeper into her body, up her
chest, down her stomach.  A final torture, then?  A prisoner finding vengeance
on his executioner?

When she opened her eyes, she saw
her blood on his forehead.  Blood-magic. 
Seiðr
.  The most effective
pain could be delivered through seiðr.

Imelda moaned and tried to pull
away from whatever the man was doing to her.

“Shhh, be still.”  She felt hands
holding her down, keeping her in place.

The pain spread, so utterly
agonizing that it felt like she was being turned inside-out.  She felt every
muscle, every
cell
, as if it were being yanked through a sieve, pureed,
and then reconstructed.

…
Reconstructed?

Imelda froze and looked down at
herself.

The hole in her chest was
gone
.

Then the wave was traveling up
her body, up her neck, into her chin.  Imelda whimpered, knowing that, if it
felt
like what was happening was
actually
happening, her brain was about to
become mush.

“You’ll be fine,” the man said. 
But his cerulean eyes were filled with understanding.

Then Imelda’s thoughts simply
dissolved.  She began having odd sparking sensations in the backs of her eyes,
and her vision went dim, then too bright, then cut out entirely.  Her heart
stuttered, came to a stop, then started again.  She lost all feeling in her
body, lost her hearing, lost her control of her lungs.

Then, like the compound’s
electronics re-engaging after a power outage, the sensations began coming back
to her.  She felt her heartbeat, first, then her fingertips, then her toes. 
When she opened her eyes, she was surprised she could see.  And
well
. 
Her vision seemed clearer, sharper, less foggy.  Her joints no longer hurt. 
Her sore throat, the remnants of a stress-induced cold, was gone.

When she sat up, however, Imelda
was dizzy.  She almost blacked out, just levering herself off of the ground. 
She grabbed the edges of the cage and clung there, her head pounding.

“You’ve lost blood,” the slender
man in the cage offered.  “You’ll be weak for awhile.”  He had wiped her blood
away from his brow and was watching her nervously. 

He just healed me. 
Completely. 
Even her
scars
were gone.  What kind of creature could
heal
scars
?  Imelda blinked at him, then looked up at the information
tag that hung above his cage.  Aside from the line marked Collection
Location—Kahiltna River—all of the fields were empty.  That he was completely
conscious, however, and bore no marks of blood-collection, meant that he had
been marked as very low priority by Zenaida.

The man in the cage had returned
to his fetal ball and was giving her a wary look.  And, judging by the wide-eyed
stares he was getting from those prisoners close enough to see what had transpired,
he had just given his secret away.  And if
they
knew,
Zenaida
would know, as soon as she resumed her inquisitions.

“Why?” Imelda whispered, clinging
to his cage.

The man shrugged.

Imelda looked over to where she
had dropped the keys in her fall by the stairs.  Then she looked back at the
creature.  She wasn’t going to make it out of here today, but that didn’t mean
he had to die down here with her, as well…

Very carefully, keeping her skull
lowered toward the floor, her head throbbing, she crawled to the base of the
stairs, fisted her hands around the keys, and crawled back.  As she started
fumbling with the lock on his front door, the man’s eyes widened and his arms
slid from around his knees in what looked like shock.

Imelda found the right key,
inserted it into the lock, and twisted it.

The door sprang open with a
metallic click and she yanked it wide.

“Go on,” Imelda said, as the slender
man just stared at her.  Then, when she gestured impatiently, he timidly slid
forward, towards the exit.  Upstairs, Zenaida was still screaming, but the
Fury’s cries were quieting.  Imelda leaned against the cage as she once again
fought blacking out, knowing she was not going to make it up the stairs.

Knowing also that, while she
wasn’t bleeding to death now, she would be again, just as soon as Zenaida found
her.

The man slid out of the
contraption slowly, then uncurled cautiously, glancing between her and the
stairs, looking like a deer about to bolt.

“Go on!” Imelda snapped, waving
her arm at him.  “Do you
hear
that?  Zenaida’s recovering. 
Get
! 
Before she comes back.”  When he continued to hesitate, she reached out and
shoved him.  “
Go
, dammit!”

The exertion was too much for
her, however, and the edges of her vision clamped down around her and Imelda
collapsed forward, hitting the ground hard with her cheek and chest, heart
struggling to keep up.

She felt a hand around her wrist,
felt him pull her arm over his shoulder.  Stumbling under her weight, he
started up the stairs.

“No,” Imelda managed, struggling
weakly to get him to release her and
run
.  “You’ll never make it.”

“Let me be the judge of that,” he
said, his body like soft, silky fire against her skin.  “And stop struggling,”
he said firmly, but gently.  “You’re slowing us down.”

Grudgingly, Imelda relented.

The man toddered up the stairs
with her in tow, obviously straining against her weight.  Then, at the head of
the stairs, he hesitated, looking out the open door into the hallway, and the
maze beyond.

“Go left,” Imelda whispered,
barely able to see through the dizziness of blood-loss.  “There’s a back door. 
Leads to the cemetery.”

He took it, unquestioning.  A few
paces later, they were at a door, which he opened.  Immediately, the unholy
shrieking intensified through the open portal, and she could hear it bouncing
upon the cold, leafless birch trees outside.

Don’t let anyone be out here,
Imelda prayed, knowing that it was a popular place for her brethren to come and
smoke on the back porch before going to bed.  She knew she didn’t have the
strength to draw her gun, if someone were to step in front of them.  They could
simply grab her, as this fey man had done, and haul her off wherever they pleased. 
Which made her wonder…  What
was
he doing?  Not once, but twice in one
night, she had entrusted her life to a demon.  The first had tasted her blood
and left her to die.  This one was…what?

Then the door was open and they
were stepping through it, cold air hitting her naked skin in a sudden blast. 
“Wait,” Imelda whimpered, as her own blood tried to freeze over her in a wave
of goosebumps.  “I need a coat.”

The man, who was still as naked
as his birthday, his bare feet seemingly impervious to the frozen porch, hesitated,
then glanced up at the rack beside the door and yanked down a huge black
longcoat that was much too big for her, then settled it around her shoulders.

God,
Imelda thought, as
she heard the pitch of the Fury’s screaming suddenly increase as they passed
through the open door,
please don’t let Zenaida see us.

Then they were crossing a snowy
yard, headed toward the trees.  All around them, the eerie scream continued to
echo, and just as they were entering the birch forest, they cleared the edge of
the building and Imelda saw the heart-stopping glow of an angel’s wings
lighting the surrounding snow, setting the trees aglow.  They were sheets of
radiance curled around Zenaida on the ground, as she screamed in a fetal
position on the tarmac.  The Fury was surrounded by a milling ring of every
soul in the Order.

“Go,” Imelda growled, stumbling
to a halt and pulling herself from the demon’s arms.  “I can make it from
here.  Just go.”  She slumped to the ground, gesturing for him to run.

She couldn’t make it, she knew,
but at least the man would be able to escape without her to slow him down.

The demon hesitated, looking down
at her with uncertain cerulean eyes.  Then he was bending, heaving Imelda over
his
back
, and suddenly he was standing again, raising her well off of
the ground and
bouncing
to settle her in place.  The sudden motion made
Imelda’s vision narrow again, and she must have blacked out, because when she
came to, she was slung across the back of a
horse
.

Since when,
she thought,
dizzy and confused,
did the Order have a stables?

By the time Zenaida was finally
able to pull her wings from the filthy snow, she had gathered a group of
awestruck onlookers.  Fighting tears of humiliation, she ignored them,
trembling as she got to her feet.  Somehow, the Spaniard, who had no more magic
in her blood than a stone, had used the bloodied napkin against her in a rite
of seiðr that would bring a grandmaster to her knees.  A blood rite, the likes
of which Zenaida had thought no First Lander other than herself had the
capability of doing.

And, if Imelda had done it once,
she could do it again.  The Spaniard had her
blood
.

Ashamed at her own lapse, Zenaida
snarled at the gathering, “Did you see where she went?”

Of course they hadn’t.  They had
been watching the angel, writhing on the ground as if she had just been cast
from Heaven.  The fucking
bitch
.

Turning, Zenaida pulled her wings
back within her body and stalked back towards the compound, the technicians,
soldiers, and priests all parting in a silent path in front of her. 

Zenaida ignored them.  Half had
already seen her true form, and the other half were taking cue from the rest
and falling into a respectful silence, probably thinking she had just fought
some great battle for their Lord, and lost.  Zenaida let them believe what they
would.  It was the Spaniard that concerned her, now.

This was the last straw.  The
bitch would die, and it would
hurt
.

Zenaida yanked open the foyer
door and stepped inside, slamming it behind her.  How
dare
the woman
call
her
an impostor?  She had
no idea
what Zenaida had gone
through.  Imelda had somehow made the connection between Zenaida and the Furies
and had come to the wrongful conclusion that she was a murderer.  Evil.

She had
no idea
.

Unwilling, she remembered Aimon’s
gentle smile, his freckles as they dimpled on his cheeks.  She remembered his
timid laugh as she stepped through the front door of his blacksmith’s shop,
wings unfurled, sword in hand.  She remembered his blood on her face, mingled
with her tears, as her sisters forced piece after piece of his heart down her
throat.

Zenaida paused against a doorway,
fighting a sob.  Even after almost two millennia, the wounds remained just as
deep.

She’d been sent to kill him.  At
least, that was what her attending priestess had told her, when Zenaida, deep
in confusion, had whispered of her Lord’s command. 
Seek out the feyborn
blacksmith, in a creek-bound gully along the road of Tirol.  As two flames
unite into one, draw his blood into your body, spread your light within his
walls, and extend your warmth upon the souls of his children.

The priestess had asked a day to
meditate on the matter, then had returned and told her that her Lord had
clarified for her:  He wanted her to go kill the blacksmith and his children.

Zenaida, relieved, had gone to do
as she had been bid.  She had found the blacksmith bent over his anvil on a
lonely road in the mountains of Old Germania, covered in sweat and soot,
hammering out a horseshoe.  She’d drawn her sword, demanding he and his
children surrender to the justice of War.

Except the blacksmith had given
that timid laugh, backed to the far end of his shop, and told her, while he
must have done something horrible to warrant a visit by a Fury, unless they
were by divine conception, he had no children.

Zenaida had bound him and
searched his property, but found he had been telling the truth.  No wife, no
children, just a handful of chickens, a couple goats, and a lonely bed in the
back of his shop, where he slept beside his forge.

Confused, Zenaida had gone back
to demand where he had left his spawn.  And Aimon, shy and gentle Aimon, had
told her he’d never worked up the courage to
kiss
a girl, much less get
in her pants.  Then, much like in
One Thousand And One Nights
, he had
launched into a story about how he had actually
thought
he’d kissed a
girl, once, but it had just been a cow that his brothers had brought to him in
the dark.  Amused, Zenaida had stayed up all night listening to him tell
stories of his misspent youth, intending to kill him in the morning.

But, somewhere between the time
he’d launched into his tale of his misadventures with a heifer and the rising
of dawn, something had shifted within her.  Aimon was not evil.  He had never
committed a crime against the Realms.  Even a lackwitted
fool
could see
that.  Zenaida had thought back to her original command, before it had been
translated for her.  She reviewed it in her mind, and realized, in horror, that
her Lord had ordered her to bed the blacksmith.

She had fled, then, spending
several months wandering the mountains, considering what she had done to be so
cursed by her liege.  A
breeder
.  Such was the depth of her disgrace.  She
had always followed the scriptures.  She had memorized the stones.  Deep down,
she
knew
she couldn’t have been so cursed.  It was this desperation that
had driven her back down to that little gully and the blacksmith’s forge, that
burning desire to regain her wings in her Lord’s eyes.  Certainly she had made
a mistake, after all.  Certainly, her Lord had been asking for his death.

The second time she walked into
his shop, sword drawn, Aimon had given her that same timid smile and offered
her a chair, asking her to let him live long enough to finish pounding out an
iron hinge for his neighbor’s upcoming wedding.  As she reluctantly sheathed
her sword and sat down, he had told her stories of his dreams, of his life, of
his goals.  He told her of his past, of his brothers’ adventures in the
mountains, of his mother’s really good bread.  He’d told her how his brothers
had died in the war, how his mother had passed to a coughing disease, of how
his father had been killed by the kick of a horse, of how he someday wanted a
family.

It had taken him three days to
pound out that hinge.  And, somewhere in that time, Zenaida had fallen in love.

She’d given up her sword, then. 
She had spirited her blacksmith off to someplace hidden, a valley in Tibet
where she hoped her sisters would never find her, and gave him the family he
had been hoping for.

The first, a little boy, had been
born with wings.

He’d been as shy and timid as his
father, and he had belonged to Aimon, heart and soul.  As a toddler, he would
flutter up to a ledge Aimon had made especially for him, clutching his latest
bug or frog or handful of flowers, to watch his father work the forge.  ‘
My
little cherub
,’ Aimon had called him. 
My good luck charm.

Remembering little Lanzo, his
wings broken and shattered because he had tried to run, his breast skewered by
a sword of white fire, Zenaida felt her throat tighten in a sob.  She
concentrated on the wood grain of the doorframe and bit her lip until it bled,
forcing the memory from her mind. 

The Spaniard could rot in Hell. 
She had no
idea
.

A man tentatively cleared his
throat in the hallway behind her.  Zenaida stiffened and looked up to meet a
young man’s eyes, and her first impulse, upon being caught weeping for the
past, was to shove his skull through the wall. 

“What do you want?” she bit out,
wiping her eyes.

He reddened and bit his lip. 
“Uh, I uh…”  He glanced at the wide-open door to the basement, then hesitated.

“
What?!
” Zenaida roared.

“I think we found the angel,” he
blurted, backing away from her.  “In the mountains.  We have satellite images
of her flying.  Wings like…yours…  The magic…”

But Zenaida didn’t hear the rest,
her rage suddenly tinting her vision red.  So her sister had regained her
wings.  It was time to cut them off.