Tempest’s Legacy (37 page)

And my guts were already roiling, needless to say, since we kept creeping ever closer to confronting Jarl. Surprisingly, I found myself only slightly panicked about the whole thing. For a large part of me felt that this was simply right; it was inevitable. We’d captured too many people who knew too much; now was the time for Jarl to get his comeuppance.

We were only about four and a half hours from the Compound when we stopped in Quebec for lunch and to assess. We hadn’t run into any opposition yet, but that couldn’t last. From the beginning we’d figured that an
ambush, if it came, would happen close to the Compound. Jarl had to know what had happened, since the harpies had escaped with the Healer, and the last of his most trusted force were with him at court.

No doubt they would be watching and waiting for us to arrive.

So we loaded ourselves into our cars, planning to drive, bunched together, until we got off the main highway that led to the Compound. Once on that final, two-lane road that quickly narrowed down to a one-lane dirt road, we’d be vulnerable. So we had to be ready.

I was still riding with Anyan. I’d rather have ridden with one of the others, but I didn’t want to make a big deal of swapping with someone. So Anyan and I kept up our silence as we turned off the highway and onto the two-lane road. We had about a half hour till it became dirt, and we could expect an attack at any time.

Ridiculously, the goblin was asleep. He’d looked exhausted since before we’d left Pennsylvania, and apparently he hadn’t really slept either night we’d stopped. So now that danger was imminent, he went ahead and crashed, sprawled out on our backseat.

How he can sleep right now is beyond me
, I thought, for I was wound tight as the spring on a mousetrap. Which is why I nearly jumped out of my seat when Anyan finally spoke.

“Well, this appears to be about over, Jane.”

“Yup,” I said, unsure where he was going.

“And I think we’re going to be successful. I think this is going to work… between the sleeping beauty and his father, there should be more than enough evidence against Jarl. Not even considering everyone else we captured,
some of whom have to know something…” His voice trailed off, and I nodded.

“Yeah. We did a good job. Thank you for your help.”

Anyan frowned at me. “Don’t thank me, Jane. It was something I had to do as much as you did.”

I didn’t know what to say to that one, unsure how to interpret his words.

“And pretty soon you can get back to your old life. Get back to work—”

“Thank the gods,” I interrupted. “Before I get fired.”

“And to your dad,” Anyan said.

I nodded, but the barghest wasn’t done.

“And to Ryu.”

“To Ryu?” I said, startled.

“Yeah,” he said with a twitch of his nose. “To Ryu.”

“Um, yeah. Well, that’s not going to happen. Ryu and I broke up.”

Both of Anyan’s hands were on the wheel now, showing a little white-knuckle resolve.

“Broke up? But the way you chased after him the other night…”

“Well, yeah. I had to chase after him… I mean, I felt I had to. Because we’d fought and everything, but we hadn’t really ended it. For real. I mean, we did really care for one another at one point,” I said, watching as Anyan’s nose twitched again. “And so there were things that needed to be said, to make things official. And stuff.”

The barghest paused, pursing his lips as if considering his choice of words.

“So
were
things made official? And stuff?”

I couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah, wicked official. And stuff.”

“Hmph,” he grunted as I turned back to stare in front of me.

Is
that
why he’s been such a pissy little cunt this whole time?
I marveled.
’Cause he thought I’d made up with Ryu or something?

I watched the barghest out the corner of my eye. He was sort of pawing at the steering wheel with his right hand, indecisively, before he moved it to hover over the gear shift… then moved it to hover over my knee… Then it descended, slowly, till his palm was resting against my jeans.

“Jane, I—” he started to say, looking over at me from the driver’s side.

“Don’t say it,” I interrupted breathlessly, my eyes once again on the road in front of us. “Don’t say
anything
.”

“What? Why not? Jane…”

“Phaedra, twelve o’clock,” came the goblin’s voice from the backseat as his bony, green-scaled finger shot between us to point at the road.

“Exactly,” I said, patting Anyan’s hand. “Phaedra, twelve o’clock.”

Anyan removed his hand from my knee even as we both raised strong shields around our vehicle. He also braked, hard, so we had a lot of wiggle room to stop before the little, leather-clad woman standing, apparently alone, in the middle of the dirt road.

Fucking Phaedra…

W
e idled in the middle of the dirt road, while Camille and Caleb pulled up their respective vehicles alongside ours. It was a tight squeeze on the small road, trees butting up close on either side, but we made it happen.

Phaedra just stood there, impassively watching as we conferenced.

“Stand and fight?” Camille suggested, as if she were suggesting a restaurant for dinner.

“Every time we do that,” Anyan responded, “we lose our witness.”

The goblin sucked in his breath behind me.

“You three need to get to the Compound. Let us stay and keep Phaedra busy,” Daoud said from Caleb’s passenger seat.

“But how do we get past her?” I asked. I’d figured out that while Phaedra was nowhere close to being the most powerful Alfar out there, she was still packing some major mojo.

“Big shield,” grunted Anyan. “Lay on the gas.”

“And Jane can do that thing she does with her water force,” Camille called from her car.

“What thing?” I asked, confused.

“How you sort of shore up our shield cracks with your own power,” Anyan said. “None of us have ever seen that before.”

“Really?” I asked, suddenly wanting to preen.

Anyan smiled. “Yes, Jane. Really. You do stuff all the time that none of us have ever seen. We’ve all been trained; you just do things.”

“And the shield thing is hot,” Daoud called to me, with a naughty little wink.

I blushed. “Thanks, guys. But we should do this. Phaedra looks bored.”

We all looked forward to where the bald-pated little woman had begun tapping her toe in the dirt, a petulant little moue distorting her usually calm face.

Fucking Phaedra
, I thought again, suddenly eager to get this over with.

“Lock and load,” I murmured as Anyan’s power burst forth, to be joined by everyone else’s. I felt a bit self-conscious then as I used my own power like a caulking device: making our shield seamless and strong. I had never realized what I did was weird; it had always felt so natural.

Water flows, after all
, I philosophized as Anyan smiled at me. Encouraged by the barghest’s attentions, I tried something different then, and added another coating of my power
behind
our shields…

Like two-ply toilet paper
, I thought with an internal giggle.
With which we are gonna wipe some Alfar ass…

“Nice,” Anyan murmured as he revved the engine.

“Vroom vroom,” I replied, waggling my eyebrows at him before turning to the backseat. “Ya might want to fasten yourself in,” I told the goblin. “We are going for a ride.”

And with that, we were off. We kept pace with one another, three abreast, as we pumped power into our magical battering ram.

Immediately I could feel pressure emanating from Phaedra. It was strong enough that our rental cars were bucking a bit, and I rammed more force into our defenses, trying to make them as offensive as possible.

We were picking up the pace, using the kinetic energy of our lurching vehicles to enhance our own shields and give us some momentum, but Phaedra’s power was stifling. All three cars were grinding down, engines churning but the vehicles slowing until, finally, we were barely moving forward. I started to sweat, both with effort and with fear… We were so close! The thought of not making it to the Compound, when we’d come so far and seen so much, nearly destroyed me.

But then, like a rock star parting some groupie’s thighs, there was an opening in Phaedra’s force. It was just large enough for our car to fit through, and it looked like an obvious trap. Except for one thing…

“That’s not Alfar power,” Anyan said, his nose twitching once, hard.

“Nope.
That’s
what Blondie’s power feels like,” I told the barghest. He frowned, but for some reason I wasn’t surprised. This wasn’t the first time she’d popped up when we needed her. She obviously had some stake in our mission; I just wish she’d tell us what that stake was.

“Do we trust it?” he asked.

“I don’t see why not,” I said. “She could have killed me, and you, at least twice. But she didn’t. Plus, I get a good vibe from her.”

“You get a good vibe?” the barghest asked drily.

“Oh, c’mon, big boy.” I grinned. “Trust me.”

Anyan cocked one thick eyebrow at me, and I couldn’t help it.

“C’mon, puppy, trust me… and I’ll be sure to give you a treat later.”

The look that Anyan gave me then was hot, and fierce, and made my whole body tingle. My libido nearly passed out as my virtue held up its hands in defeat.

And then he pressed on the gas, shooting our SUV through the narrow tunnel in Phaedra’s barrier made by Blondie’s own weird force.

I held my breath until we were through, when I let out a triumphant shout. Phaedra was standing there, looking equally confused and pissed off, while our friends had stopped their cars and bailed out, ready to keep Phaedra busy while we got away.

And there, on the side of the road, just past where Phaedra had made her stand, was Blondie. She was wearing the wifebeater and big jeans again, although her hair was spiked up in an outrageous blonde Mohawk, tipped with fuchsia.

She gave me a thumbs-up then turned back toward Phaedra, a spring in her step as she approached the Alfar.

I grinned and shooed Anyan forward as he started to slow down.

“We should stop, find out what she is,” he complained.

“Not now. Later. Now we have a Jarl-fish to fry.”

My voice was adamant, and Blondie had already walked off. So, with a last backward glance and a sigh, the barghest obeyed.

Such a good puppy
, I thought, my hands itching to touch him. But touching him still seemed like such a dream come true that I didn’t trust my freedom to take such liberties.

So we drove, and drove, and soon enough we were parked outside the Compound.

The first bullet nearly took off my ear, it was so close. I sat there, confused—I’d never been shot at in my life—until Anyan pulled me down to huddle in the SUV’s wheel well.

“Shields, Jane… and manifest them.”

So that’s what we did, the barghest and I: manifested a solid, bullet-stopping shield around our car that absorbed the next spray of bullets. They hung there in midair, a more frightening sight in their snub-nosed physicality than any of the magics I’d ever seen.

I hate guns
, I thought wearily as Anyan finally pointed to a clump of decorative bushes.

“Graeme!” he shouted, and then his strong air magics blew past us, carrying a pulse that set the bushes on fire. The wax-faced incubus came hopping out from behind the bushes, only to be greeted by my own little show of force.

If I can merge my magic with our shields to strengthen them
, I thought,
what would happen if I did the same to Graeme’s?

So I tried it, and the results were magnificent. Where my power could thread between cracks in our force to help us form a tight defensive barrier, I used it like a molasses
trap for flies when I threaded it through Graeme’s shields. Inspired a bit by his mistress Phaedra’s powerful Alfar web she’d used against us in Boston all those months ago, I wove my power through his, manifested it, and then pulled it tight. The incubus froze, unable to move, and I smiled like a little girl on Christmas morning.