Tempest’s Legacy (21 page)

That said, the havsrå would live, and her life was more important.

I learned all these details afterward, however. For what I can actually remember of the raid goes something like this:

loud noises, shouting, hand on back—Anyan’s—moving forward moving forward moving forward oh my god I really don’t want to be moving forward shit I’m moving forward, shit we’re inside, maybe Iris is in here? lots of smoke, eyes burning, ohmigod I’m gonna pee in my pants, dude that’s blood, what if it’s one of us, what if it’s Iris, lab coat, oh good it’s a bad guy, the women, the poor women, I don’t see Iris, I knew she wasn’t in here but what if drude-lady was wrong and she was hidden, there’s that fucking kappa, he’s dead too, Sea Code, biatch! oh no he got one of the hostages, but he’s dead and so are the other two, WHERE IS IRIS, I didn’t even do anything, is that it?

And that was, indeed, it. For after all that chaos and that fear, the great thumb pressed another button and time went back to normal. I was left standing in the center of
the room, one of Anyan’s big hands still at the base of my spine, while his other hand cupped an unnecessary mage ball.

After a moment, I realized I was shaking. Everything was done and over, but I was still trembling like a medieval virgin on her wedding night. I was shaking so hard, in fact, that the damned helmet fell down over my eyes. But this time I let it stay there, blocking everything else out, till Anyan gently moved it back away from my face.

“You okay?”

I looked at him, mute. A mixture of fear and adrenaline had captured my tongue.

“Jane?”

I searched for and finally found my ability to speak. “Is that it?” I reiterated, still unable to think past the idea that it was all over.

“Yeah, honey. That was it. And you did great.”

I stood there, blinking. “So everything’s over? We’re safe?”

“Yeah, honey,” Anyan said gently. “It’s all over and we’re safe. And all the women are safe now, too. But are you okay?”

My heart was still beating in my throat, my limbs were still shaking with adrenaline, and I could feel the blood surging through my brain as if I were about to have a stroke. But despite all of this, I felt… to be honest, and despite the chaos around me, I felt… awesome.

“That was so fucking cool,” I said finally. “I mean, I didn’t do anything, but it was still so fucking cool. This must be how people who jump out of planes feel…”

Anyan laughed, his crooked nose wrinkling with pleasure.

“Honey, you were awesome. And you
did
do something. When I told you, ‘Move forward,’ you moved forward. Do you know how many newbies bolt on their first raid? And besides, this was never about you taking somebody out. There were only a few bad guys, but a lot of hostages. This was about getting enough firepower in that door as quickly as possible, so that we could get those females out alive. And you were part of that.”

I grinned at Anyan’s words, suddenly seeing some truth in what the barghest had said. For I’d ended up standing directly between the spot where the kappa had made his stand and one of the cells with a hostage.

I was a human shield
, I thought rather proudly.
Well, a halfling shield… but speaking of shields, why didn’t the havsrå shield herself from the kappa’s attack? And how could three creatures hold five to begin with?

I’d been standing there, dumbly staring about the room, for long enough that the supes brought in to search the place for clues were already making inroads. Various beings were pawing through the desks and the filing cabinets, while others bagged and labeled the various medical instruments strewn higgledy-piggledy around the room.

I saw Isolde stride in with two of the other high-ranking officers, stopping to congratulate various members of her team.

“So you did good, Jane,” Anyan was concluding, and I couldn’t help but grin.

“It was kind of fun,” I admitted. “But I was terrified. I don’t know how much good I would have been if I’d had to fight.”

I watched as Isolde approached Ezekiel, who was going through some filing cabinets near one of the desks. She
stopped to talk to him, and then he was digging through the cabinet again.

“Well,” Anyan said, “that’s what we’re going to work on next. I wish I could tell you that fighting didn’t matter, that you wouldn’t have to duke it out with anybody. But with everything that’s been happening, that’s not realistic. Now that your shields are strong—” he began, reminding me of what I’d been thinking. Before he could continue with his master plans for me, I interrupted.

“Anyan, why didn’t the women just bust out of here? Where were their powers? And…”

Before I could continue, I saw Isolde approaching from the corner of my eye. Ezekiel was with her, and she was holding a file folder.

“Zeke just found this,” the baobhan sith said, her expression grim. She passed the folder over to Anyan but studiously avoided my own eyes.

Anyan read the writing on the folder, then opened it. I watched his big features fall, and I knew. I held out my hands, and he looked at them for a moment before balancing the file in my outstretched palms.

The tab at the top of the file folder read “Succubus, Iris.” Inside was a bundle of half-completed forms, but they weren’t important to me. What was important was the word stamped on the front of the top paper.

That word was “Terminated.”

W
hen I heard the scratching at my door, I was lying on my belly, half under my bed, trying to flush out my deodorant. I’d dropped it and it had rolled away like a captured thing finally offered release.

It was only a few hours since I’d read about Iris’s death in that file folder. Anyan had checked us into a hotel in downtown Providence, where we’d be staying for a few days. There were witnesses to question, and Ryu’s team was meeting us tomorrow. So I’d focused on what we had coming, rather than what had happened. I’d deal with Iris’s death later, when Jarl had been brought down.

In the meantime, to keep busy, I figured I’d do some hand washing. I had a little pile of dirty things that I’d taken out of my duffel, and I felt as if the world would be a slightly better place if I made those soiled clothes clean.

But then my deodorant escaped and I’d had to recapture it. Which brings me back to the scratching…

What the hell?
I thought as I froze, still half under the bed. The scratching was repeated, a bit louder this time.

I stood cautiously, then padded over to the hotel door so I could peer out. There was nothing to be seen at eye level, but when I looked down I could see the flashing tip of a wagging tail.

I thought we were past the hiding in plain sight as a dog thing
, I thought as I unlocked my door to let Anyan in.

“Jane,” he rumbled, his big doggie face peering up into mine.

“Anyan,” I replied cautiously. What did he want?

“Can we talk?”

I sighed. Anyan had kept trying to engage me in a heart-to-heart earlier, but I was totally not in the mood.

“I was just sort of getting organized,” I explained, pointing at my piles of clean and dirty clothes. “I thought I’d do some hand washing…”

“That’s great. I can keep you company,” the big dog replied, pushing his enormous head through the door and padding past me.

“Great,” I said, my voice sarcastic.

Anyan came in, sniffing around. I looked around for a newspaper or magazine to whack him with if he took a sniff at my laundry. Finally, he jumped up on the king-sized bed, twisting about in a few tight circles until he settled down.

I closed the door and locked it, leaning back against it as I watched the barghest speculatively.

“Go ahead and take care of your stuff; I’ll just hang out.”

I narrowed my eyes at Anyan. “You just want to hang out?”

“Iris was my friend, too, Jane. If you must know, I don’t really want to be alone right now.”

I felt my spine stiffen, and a wave of grief threatened to wash over me.

No time
, I reprimanded myself harshly, clenching my fists and heading over to my pile of dirty laundry.

I scrabbled at the pile, realizing my hands were shaking as I kept dropping things. But I persevered, unwilling to let my sadness get the best of me. When everything was collected, I headed into the bathroom where the sink and my Woolite awaited.

When I was finished, and my few pairs of dirty panties and bras were hanging, clean and wrung out, over the shower curtain railing, I took a second to collect myself. Staring into my own black eyes reflected in the bathroom mirror, I took a few calming breaths before going into the main room to confront Anyan.

“All done?” the big dog asked. He was lying on his stomach, his front paws hanging off the side of the bed, his back legs stretched out behind him. I couldn’t help but smile at his position, and his tail wagged in response.

“Can we talk?” he asked again, causing all smiles to cease.

“About what?”

“About what we found today. About Iris. About how you’re feeling.”

I sighed. I didn’t want to talk. And I really didn’t want to feel.

“Please?” he asked.

“I don’t really want to,” I said. “I just… don’t.”

“Okay. I just want to know what you’re thinking.”

“I’m not thinking about anything.”

Anyan’s muzzle split into a doggie grin, his tongue lolling. “Jane, you’re always thinking. Please, just talk to me. A little. For my sake?”

Those oddly human iron-gray eyes staring at me from that fuzzy face broke me.

“Fine,” I said. “The truth is, I’ve been thinking about the book of Job.”

“Job?”

“Job,” I confirmed unhelpfully.

“Well, what have you been thinking about, when you think of Job?” the barghest replied, his voice oozing patience, warning me he wasn’t a dog that gave up.

I rolled my shoulders, trying to work the knot of tension that had formed sometime between looking at that file folder and sitting here with Anyan.

“Sit by me,” he urged. “Tell me.”

I sat down on the end of the bed, my butt near the end of his tail. I didn’t want to be too close and I definitely didn’t want to see those gray eyes.

“You know I wasn’t raised with religion,” I said, “except the vague pseudopaganism of Jason’s grandparents Nick and Nan.”

Anyan’s tail thwapped gently against my lower back in affirmation.

“So when we were about thirteen, Jason and I decided to read the Bible together, mostly to see what all the hubbub was about. Both of us became slightly obsessed with the book of Job. Jason thought it was a great story, and he liked how it highlighted the character of Jehovah: He of the sound and the fury. But I’d never understood how anyone, at any historical time period, could ever have found comfort in such a myth.”

I paused, trying to figure out what I was going to say next. Anyan responded by scootching around the bed so his big front paws draped next to my thighs. He wasn’t going to make this easy.

“And now?” he prompted.

“And now… now I get it. I get what it feels like to cry out like that… into oblivion.”

“Well, you’ve lost a lot, Jane. Asking why is natural.”

“Yeah, but what’s the point, Anyan?” I demanded, my voice suddenly heated. “Job, at least, got something. It was a distinctly unsatisfying nonanswer to his question, but it was
something
. The whirlwind’s response to him might have sucked, but it
spoke
. The very act of speech implied that this tempest that had brought such tragedy to Job’s life had
something
behind it. In other words, that voice spoke of intent, cementing the idea that things happened for a reason, even if those reasons were incomprehensible to Job.

“But when I rage into the whirlwind? I get bubkes, Anyan. When I grieve, my tears are met with silence; and when I rage, apparently Jarl merely laughs and plans a new set of atrocities.”

“So what do you want to do?”

“I need to stop questioning. I need to stop
thinking
. I need to
act
.”