Black Wolf (39 page)

He couldn't,
though, quite shake what he had seen, a thunderstorm, a black wolf
howling in grief, but most vividly a silver dagger that had danced
just out of his reach.

His mind
flitted away, to a memory of another dream of a dagger, one that
had left him restless and unable to get back to sleep. Prowling the
silent house, he found Bane coiled into a corner of the couch
reading; the alpha wolf looked up immediately.

"Can't
sleep?"

"Bad
dreams."

"Will telling
someone help?" He turned over the book, and patted the couch. Jess
sat beside him, described the dream. Bane, listening attentively,
began to stroke one hand over Jesse's hair; Jess winced reflexively
from the touch, but Bane didn't stop, and despite his resistance he
found much of the tension easing away.

He woke the
next morning curled up against Bane, and the alpha wolf was dozing
leaning against the arm of the couch. It was the first time he'd
truly recognized how much power Bane had to influence his emotional
state; it had taken some time for him to come to accept that Bane
was far more likely to use it to comfort and protect than to abuse
and hurt.

It led
irresistibly to another memory, coming across Kevin and Bane in the
living room, Bane furform, Kevin brushing him. They'd coaxed Jess
over and into furform—he'd been so shy about changing in front of
anyone for a long time. Between the two, once Bane got the other
brush from the kitchen, they'd put Jess in utter bliss for an hour
or more.

The memories
hurt; he pushed them away. He had to think about right now, instead
of wandering around in the past.

What was he
going to do now? He could probably avoid Kevin now, despite the
soul-link and the nearness, and he had no idea what Shaine had been
doing there. He could keep his eyes open and survive.

Was it really
worth it?

He was too
much of a coward to just kill himself. He'd have to just stumble
through this however he could. Somehow he'd survive, just like he'd
always survived.

* * *

Patrick, as
soon as he was alone in his hotel room, spat, "Sikial, come!"

His primary
demon materialized in its usual form, and cringed into a corner as
the mage whirled to face it.

"You said he'd
be alone and unprotected! I would hardly call that
alone and
unprotected
!"

"Sorry,
master, so sorry... others were not supposed to care now..."

"Obviously
they do, if they were willing to stand up to me to protect him! If
it hadn't been for the storm-clouds and the static, I could have
killed the mage and taken the other two. And they still stayed!"
Dark visions formed behind his eyes, of sending one of the demons
to take out all three of them... no. There'd be little satisfaction
in that, compared to something more personal, and the power of
their pain and deaths would be lost to him. Chance had played a
part in this one, but still he'd lost, had been thwarted a second
time. "That human is infuriating enough, but that Lioren mage...
how dare he interfere with me again!"

"Yes, master.
What gives him the right to tell you who you may or may not have?"
Sikial raised its head, but kept its eyes low.

"Everyone is
equal in the villages, they say, over and over," Patrick snarled.
"If everyone is equal, why are strong mages catered to and
indulged, until they come to believe they can do anything they
want, regardless of who they walk all over? He'll have it easy his
whole life, with everyone bowing down to him, like strength makes
him superior to everyone else."

"They care
more for that than for anything else," Sikial whispered.
"Intelligence means nothing to them. Original thinking means
nothing to them."

"Oh, original
thinking means something to them! It's the ultimate crime! Right up
there with daring to
not
kiss the ass of a strong mage!"

"This one
expected you to, master. He expected you to obey him, and surrender
immediately. He would not have come here, at night with so little
light, if he'd expected any challenge to his authority."

"He hasn't
seen a fraction yet of how I intend to challenge his
authority!"

"Yes, master,
show him. Show him that being born strong doesn't make him special,
that being clever and inventive matter much more! We will help,
master. We won't be so careless again. No more mistakes."

Patrick
glowered at the demon coldly. "You're right. There will be no more
mistakes."

He hadn't
escaped the battle unscathed; he'd been carelessly lightly shielded
at the moment that storm of chaos was unleashed, and to gate
himself out of there he'd had to open himself to it yet further. It
would take time to heal, and time to plan something suitable.
Especially for that interfering Lioren, the obvious product of a
value system that gave special status to a strong mage.

The first time
he'd seen the young wolf, he'd been intrigued by the psychic
damage, the nature and extent of it; when Sikial had told him the
wolf was back in the city—alone and undefended, ha!—his curiosity
had won out. At least he could learn how well the damage had
healed, and with a little effort, he was sure there was more
research he could do. Wolf resistance didn't apply to demon
power.

Now? Fury
overwhelmed anything else. All three were going to pay for this.
They were going to die, and they were going to feed his power as
they did.

The only
remaining question was, what would be the most satisfying way to do
it?

* * *

For the first
time in an uncommonly long while, the entire group of three covens
and their solitary friends gathered, in the living room of
Sundark's huge house.

"Well?" Bane
prompted, gazing expectantly at his brother.

"That's twice
now that the same mage has shown an interest in Jess," Bryan said.
"At least, Kevin says it's the same mage..."

"It is," Kevin
said firmly. "Change in power level aside, the signature was
definitely the same."

Bryan nodded.
"And he's threatened Kev. I think we need to figure out how much of
a danger this guy is."

"He has to
have come from
somewhere
," Deanna said. "He can't have just
appeared from nowhere."

"What do we
know about him?" Evaline asked. "Kev?"

"According to
his response to my initial challenge," Kevin said, "his name is
Patrick Lucian."

Sonja's
forehead furrowed. "That sounds familiar. Keep talking."

Kevin
shrugged. "He's obviously an elvenmage, I'd guess he's in his
thirties, give or take. The first time I ran into him, I got the
distinct impression that he wasn't very strong—I was terrified I'd
burned him out completely instead of just backlashing him when I
lost my temper. The second time, he tore my shields into shreds in
a matter of minutes, in a city alley with hardly any light, and he
was throwing stuff at me that I suspect would've tired me out even
in full daylight if I could figure out how to do it in the first
place—serious combat-magic stuff I've never seen before. I still
don't know how I got out of that in one piece, there was some sort
of bizarre reaction with a storm that was building, or something."
He kept his suspicions about what Shaine had been doing to
himself—it wasn't relevant, and he had no proof. "How Shaine would
know, I have no idea, but he said it was demon-magic. That's as
good an explanation as any, I guess, there were some severely
strange
colours in his shields. He seems to get in a snit as
soon as someone interferes with what he wants to do."

"Or when
you
interfere with what he wants to do," Sonja said
thoughtfully. "There was a Lucian mage in Falias, I can't recall
his first name, who left the village ten or twelve years ago with
no explanation. I wasn't all that old at the time, and I was rather
distracted ‘cause my gifts were starting to wake up and drive me
nuts..."

Nick closed a
hand around hers. "Anything you can remember is more than we
have."

"He was a
mage, but not a very strong one. We're talking, say, with the
average elf a one, and an Adept a ten, and Kev and Lori around
eight or nine, he was about a four or five."

"Unlikely to
ever become Adept, but still, respectably strong," Lori
observed.

"He never
thought so. He was convinced that everyone looked down on him for
it, and that stronger mages had special status that he'd been
cheated of. The Lucians in Falias are a lot like the Haven
branch—they turn up reasonably strong mages fairly consistently,
but not very many Adepts." She frowned. "I can remember, vaguely,
bits of major scenes he started, claiming that the villages have a
hierarchy based on family and power. Some junk about wolves
believing they're the master race, too. Really warped stuff, my
parents kept me out of hearing as much as they could. Mostly it was
the strong emotions catching my attention, before I had much
control."

"Which would
certainly account for the reaction to phoenix telling him what to
do," Bane reflected. "It's not like you're subtle, magically
speaking, Kev."

"Yeah, and
thrashing him so easily the first time probably didn't help," Kevin
sighed. "How was I supposed to know?"
Oh yes, being strong has
made my life oh-so-much easier. My own mother's terrified of
me!

"You couldn't
have known, and I'd've done the same," Lori said firmly. "So. It
does sound like the same person. Which means we have an extremely
unstable elvenmage running around, possibly making pacts with
demons to give him the power he feels he should have had by birth,
and he has a grudge against Kev for being strong and daring to tell
him not to do something. We have no idea at all what his interest
in Jess is."

"Demon pacts
always have prices," Samantha said quietly. "Given that it sounds
quite likely that he is making bargains with demons and appears to
be asking for power, the price is highly likely to involve blood
and pain and possibly death, depending on how deeply into it he's
gone. Be very, very glad you kept him away from Jess, Kev."

A kind of
unanimous shudder ran through the room, as the thought occurred to
each of what that could have meant to Jess, had this other mage
gotten ahold of him.

"As for the
change in power level, I would hazard a guess that you caught him
by surprise the first time, before he had a chance to draw on power
through his allies. Without them, he has only what nature gave him,
and it's a shame you
didn't
burn him out completely at the
time, while he was vulnerable—although, again, there's no way you
could have known. With them, well, the lowest prices are on
enhancing what's already there. Did he do anything that you would
consider outside your element?"

Kevin shook
his head. "I've never met a mage who bothered with combat stuff
that heavily, but it was all fire and light."
Now where on earth
did Sam learn all this stuff about demons? Not that I'm ever going
to find out, I bet.

Sam nodded.
"Then he probably hasn't gone so deep that he's killing frequently,
but that power has to come from somewhere. And the most readily
available source, if you're into quick gratification and a lot of
power, is the gifts and emotions and energy of others."

Bane growled,
and the other wolves all tensed. "He's turned himself into a
predator."

"Essentially,
yes, except that instead of feeding to stay alive, he's feeding for
the sake of power."

Evaline made a
disgusted noise, deep in her throat. "That's
worse
than
predators."

"I would say
so."

"And he's a
little too interested in Jess," Naomi said slowly.

"But we don't
even know where Jess is to
warn
him, let alone to help him
stay safe," Gisela said miserably, all the colour gone from beneath
her honey-tan skin.

"There's
another thing to consider," Sam said, though she sounded as though
she were weighing every word. "I've been reluctant to bring this up
because I can't explain how I know, but I... have reason to believe
that there's one coven in Haven summoning demons. I think it's
still only experimentation, but it could get very bad, very
quickly, if they call the wrong demon or make even a small
mistake."

"Who?" Bryan
demanded. "Who's that insane?"

Sam sighed.
"Whitethorn. Which is another reason I don't expect to be believed
outside this room."

Kevin didn't
think he'd ever heard a room go so quiet.

Oh, Becky,
what the hell are you doing? Nothing's worth that...

"Other than
the coincidence of both summoning demons and both having gone after
Jess," Lori said, "is there reason to believe that there's a direct
connection?"

Sam bit her
lower lip. "It... I... It might be just this Lucian after Jess for
his own reasons and Whitethorn for, well, whatever actually goes
through the minds of Whitethorn. But it... it isn't impossible that
there's some degree of demon interest in Jess underlying both. What
I do know for sure is that I would feel much safer having Jess
right here, because no hostile demon is going to get through the
protections Starluck built into the outer walls, ever. I'm not sure
it matters, because there's nothing we can do about it that we
weren't doing anyway." Black and white Hob climbed onto her lap;
automatically, she began to rub his ears.