Black Wolf (66 page)

Maybe it was
just an innocent bystander hauled into this? Foolish as he might
be, he hoped it wouldn't die here like this.

That
it
wouldn't? It had just been told to kill him! Its innocence was
about to become irrelevant!

"Kill him!"
Moira insisted, when the demon still hesitated. Miserably, it came
forward, trying to watch Alfari and the demon-wolves all at
once.

Alfari simply
looked at it, and advanced towards it.

The demon
retreated in front of her, and she backed it up against the warded
wall. There she sat down, the very picture of composure, her tail
curled neatly around her feet, staring at the unfortunate demon;
the demon pressed against the wall, stayed quite still.

Way to go
Alfari!

Moira spat a
curse. "It's just a cat! Kill it and get on with it!"

"Can't,
mistress..."

Must really
have a word with Sam about these special familiars of hers, just as
soon as I live through this.

Lori chuckled;
he picked up no surprise at all from her. "Just a cat, huh?"

Maybe my
coven ignored me? Now would be a good time for them to have...
He reached for the bond with them... was answered by Sonja, the one
telepath in the group other than him and Lori.

*Are you done
with the macho hero junk now?* she asked.

*Yes! I'll
apologize for stupidity later, right now I need lots of power
before Moira and Karl turn us into spaghetti!*

*Nice going,
get Whitethorn in on things. Catch.* Something
shifted
, he
felt Cynthia's presence and that of the other two witches, Sonja
and Sam and Flynn, Deanna the one non-human in the circle, and pure
power flowed into him, along the contact with Sonja, along the
coven-bond...

Now there's
a power-base to work from! Everyone but the wolves and those fool
healers!
He touched Lori, alerting her, so she could tie
herself into it, then together they wove Shaine into the meld;
Kevin saw/felt the meren start in surprise.

Moira
shrugged. "Hiding behind Samantha's cat isn't going to save you,
Kevin."

"People keep
saying things like that to me lately. It seems awfully negative.
Nobody ever tells me what
will
save me."

"Nothing
can."

"Somehow I had
a feeling that was what you meant."
Except that I already know
what will save me: having the world's greatest friends.

*Flynn says
you need a hand,* Sonja added. *Eva's wanted a viable reason to
thump Karl for ages, she's on her way.*

A small pale
wolf dashed out the gate so close on Sonja's words it was hard to
tell which might have acted first.

An alpha who
started a fight with a non-alpha outside her pack was considered a
bully. Even if that non-alpha repeatedly made disparaging public
comments about the alpha's witch, who suffered from extreme
emotional highs and lows, though less so since joining his coven.
Getting on her nerves over and over was no excuse, even if other
wolves might sympathize somewhat.

An alpha
stepping in to defend others against an aggressive wolf of any
status was another matter altogether.

Karl spun
towards Evaline and she met him with her teeth bared. He was larger
than her, but Kevin hadn't the slightest doubt who was going to
win.

Moira traced a
symbol in the air; fire trailed after each gesture, lingering,
leaving the entire thing clearly visible. Kevin didn't have long to
look; she finished it, and the unfamiliar symbol flared up. From
its heart, where the light was most intense, poured what seemed
like countless small glowing winged shapes, all streaking directly
at him and Shaine and Lori. Instinctively, he channelled extra
power into the shields at the front, only to have the whole flock
do ninety-degree turns without slowing at all, over them or to
either side. Lori flung a ball of green and tawny fire at one, but
the ball was absorbed harmlessly.

Kevin let go
of Shaine and spun around, praying the connection was steady enough
to hold now without physical contact, reinforcing the shields all
around them. It was too confusing, facing different directions: he
had to stop using Shaine's senses and concentrate entirely on his
own.

One of the
small flying things hovered just in front of him, wings buzzing
hummingbird fast, the body they supported vaguely weasel-like.

"What the
bloody hell is
that
?"

"I have no
fucking idea, you do fire, not me," Shaine said shortly. Everything
blurred, to Kevin's sight, even heat-images distorting; it took him
a second to realize it was because Shaine had created an extremely
dense foggy barrier around the three of them that seemed to slow
and weaken their small attackers. It would at least make the
shields last longer, but it wouldn't solve the problem.

"I don't
know," Lori said tightly, "but nothing seems to be working on
them." She tried her lioness avatar, snapped at one, but it dove
out of reach with improbable agility.

"I'd say it's
a technique from the Maridas' book on elementals," the Lucian mage
said with interest.

"Brace
yourselves," Shaine murmured. "With this kind of volume, I don't
have much fine control." He took a deep breath, and began to
sing.

Volume?
Uh-oh...

He couldn't
see it, but he knew the lake was on the opposite side from the
walls, and he knew what Shaine was, which he doubted Moira did. He
closed his eyes and concentrated on creating a kind of arced
telekinetic barrier between them and the lake—Shaine wouldn't mind
getting wet, but he'd personally prefer to avoid it just now, and
couldn't imagine Lori would be thrilled with the idea. He heard the
sudden disturbance, the shift in the pattern of the waves against
the shore.

Lori grabbed
more power from the link, poured it into the barrier, adding her
will to his.

Moira can't
see it any more than I can.

For just a
heartbeat, the moonlight was blocked by a huge wave looming over
them; then it crashed down. Even prepared, Kevin winced from the
noise, the sheer uncontrollable force of it, and Shaine fell silent
mid-note.

When Shaine
says volume, he's not kidding!

At least
the barrier held. Mostly.
They'd been caught by no worse than
spray. Judging by Moira's venomous swearing, she couldn't say the
same.

The wave
washed away both Shaine's mist wall and the flock of elementals,
and did some serious damage to their primary shields. Kevin let go
of the telekinetic one, fed the power back into the main ones, felt
Lori doing the same—standing here with minimal shields right now
was suicide.

"Sorry,"
Shaine said; he sounded a bit out of breath. "Had to do overkill to
be sure I got anything useful. It's going to be a minute before I
can do anything else."

"'Sokay. Lori,
you've got defence for a minute?"

"Mmhmm."

Well, let's
hope Moira doesn't have any demon protections.
He pulled power
from the whole group as quickly as he dared, gathering it together.
"Hey, Moira, catch!"

She looked up,
raised her hands to defend against the rainbow serpent that
abruptly coiled around her shields. Much the way Patrick had, she
hurled a simple fireball at it, intending to disrupt it.

They'd based
this one on Shaine's gifts, too, a refined version of Kevin's
instinctive retaliation against Patrick in their first meeting;
he'd never heard of getting through a mage's shields like this, but
it had worked when they'd tested it—although with lower power
levels.

The fireball
touched the serpent, and in the instant that a channel remained
between it and Moira, the serpent grounded itself through it,
intense power abruptly flowing
in
when she was still
oriented on power going
out
.

She didn't
even have time to scream; she crumpled to the sodden ground,
motionless. Alive, though given her body temperature it wasn't a
given that it would continue. She was, at least, out of the picture
for the foreseeable future.

With a sigh,
Kevin turned to face the other mage, and felt Lori and Shaine
regrouping as well.

"Beautifully
done," Patrick complimented them.

"Thank you,"
Kevin said tiredly. How much longer could they hold out, even with
the circle behind them? "Can we finish this now?"

*Oh, I think
so.*

Wait, that
wasn't out loud. That was mindspeech.

How was an
enemy using mindspeech during a fight, past all Kevin's defences,
without the open doorways of direct physical contact or an active
two-way coven-bond?

Telepathy was
a normal elven ability, so much so there were even a lot of
non-mage elven telepaths. The lowest prices were on enhancing what
already existed.

And there were
feelings rousing that he'd gone to great lengths to disown and
bury, feelings he recognized but desperately didn't want to
experience again, feelings that made him far too much like what
Patrick thought he was. Arrogance, scorn, superiority,
aggression...

*Lori!* It
came out almost as a shriek. *He's in my...*

*That's
enough,* Patrick said, his mind wrapping around Kevin's, spreading
in an oily layer that Kevin couldn't get through.

Reality
warped, perception twisted; Kevin fought frantically to hold onto
what he knew for truth, but the other thoughts slid into his mind
unstoppably.

*
Get out!
This is my skull and you are not welcome in it!
*

*Kevin
Lioren,* Patrick purred. *From what I see in your memories, you're
very good at hurting the people you're close to, aren't you?
Physically, emotionally... now I see why your little wolf there
chose to come back to the city. But he couldn't get away from you,
not completely, not after you'd touched him. What were you saying
earlier about not being like me? I think you're much worse.*

"Get out,"
Kevin snarled out loud, clawing desperately for any kind of
leverage that would get Patrick out of his memories.

They didn't
trust me to do it alone, that's why they both insisted on helping.
Like I need help from anyone! How dare they doubt me!

They
don't!
a rapidly weakening part of him wailed.
They trust
you, they care about you!

They thought I
couldn't take one damned Lucian who doesn't even have much power of
his own! That or they thought I'd run off and join him. Yeah, as if
I need him either!

"Oh, hell,"
Lori muttered, and yanked Shaine behind her, breaking the linked
shields and reweaving her own.

"See how
readily they turn on you?" Patrick pointed out.

Lori doesn't
trust me! She never did! Shaine never trusts anyone, he lied to us
all...

"Fight him,
Kev," Lori pleaded. "You got past this once, you can do it
again."

"And who made
you the judge of what I should be or do?" Kevin growled. He grabbed
for power, but felt the link dissolve, melting like ice in summer.
Cutting him off, pushing him out, leaving him with only his own
power to use.

So what if
they could all betray him so easily? He needed nothing but his own
gifts.

"Shaine?" Lori
said, her voice heavy. "Try not to hurt him too much."

Kevin pulled
together the moonlight, drew power up from within the depths of
himself, and condensed it all into his phoenix; the bright bird
dove directly at Shaine.

Lori's lioness
appeared, and flung itself at the phoenix, foreclaws raking the air
only an inch or two from feathers. Kevin had the phoenix circle a
couple of times, considering ways to get past Lori, even if he had
to do something nasty to get her out of the way. She deserved it
anyway, turning on him. Shaine at least had never pretended to be
more than a temporary ally.

What was
Shaine doing?

The meren's
clear voice rose again above the sounds of wind and wave and the
savage wolf-fight a short distance away, sliding through a range no
human was likely to match, tenor and soprano and higher yet.

The song held
winter, ice, bitter cold, and it wrapped around Kevin like a
January wind. Instinct screamed at him that he was child of fire
and the ice could kill, even as the rage intensified, how
dare
Shaine do this... He felt weakness wash over him, his
legs gave and he dropped heavily to his knees, head bowed,
struggling to breathe.

"I can't even
think of a name bad enough to call you," Lori spat, somewhere
beyond the ice, but, oddly, it didn't seem to be at him. He felt
her touch in his mind, and struggled against her, there was already
much too much inside his head, two conflicting sets of thoughts,
and he couldn't tell which was real... All around him, ice began to
form, not touching, but never more than a hands-breadth from him,
shutting him off from everything else. He reached for Deanna, she
was always there, but the cold drained too much, he couldn't get
outside his own head.