The Master (36 page)

“Love?” he repeated stupidly. How could love stop bleeding or give Zee back a whole lung?

“Listen to me, Nick: This isn't about the body. It's about the spirit. The soul is the place of record for love given, for love taken. For perfect love hoped for, and for imperfect love that somehow grew more perfect in spite of its flaws. Look into your woman's eyes—really look—and you will see what's written in her soul. There is love there, I swear it. It is that which you must talk to. That is the only thing that can call her back. You are fey, Nick, and Zee's mate. The magic will let you do this. Believe me.”

Call her back? He wanted to . . . but how? Nick had never felt more helpless in his life. What did he know of magic? Still, Bysshe's words brought faint hope. Faint hope that was growing stronger as he saw Abrial nod at him.

“You can do this,” the nightdemon said. “All fey can. It's part of us.”

“I'm just not certain that I understand—still— what it means to be fey. How can I save her when I don't even know what I am?” Nick asked. He turned to Zayn. “How will I know what to say and do? I've never worked a spell in my life. I've never seen one worked.”

“You can
know
yourself, if that's what you truly want,” Abrial said. “Your ancestral memories are on a sort of neurological umbilical cord linking you to your past—your hereditary destiny. All you have to do is unearth the link in your mind. Grab it, and it will take you home. Give the memories their voice and they will tell you the story of all that you are and all that you can be. You simply have to listen—but be prepared for what they might reveal. They will tell you who you are and what you need to do. They will give you the words to call back Zee's soul. All you have to do is be brave and listen.”

Did he really want to know his fey nature? No, not really, and especially not at this instant. What did that mean for his future? But nothing mattered when he compared his fear of unwanted knowledge against Zee's life.

But you must. We must,
the ghost said.

Determined, Nick dropped to Zee's side, taking her cold hand in his and pulling it close. Around his own fist he could feel warmth and knew the ghost was with him, doing all he could to help her.

Be strong
.

Though it was not his body that was dying, Nick's entire life passed before his eyes, images pulled along by a rope of silver that raced away from him even as he watched, a reel of gleaming thread being wound around a spindle held in an old woman's hands. She stared at him with fixed, dark eyes.

He was four and then six. Eight and then ten. Images flashed by. His childhood had been privileged in many ways. There was plenty of food, good schools, travel for educational purposes—though he hadn't visited Disneyland until a high-school field trip. He had enjoyed the visit, of course, but the Magic Kingdom had come along too late in his life. He hadn't been able to believe in manmade enchantment. Mickey was just a guy in a mouse costume. And any awe Nick had, he stuffed deep inside where no one would see it—because that was what he always did. Because that was what he'd been taught to do.

Seeing the end of the line, the last bit of light, Nick reached out a hand and clutched at the silver rope, trying to slow it down. Instead he was pulled along with it, dragged backward toward understanding and away from Zee. Frightened, he fought the rope but could not make himself let go; somehow the silver cord had embedded itself in his hand.

Nick turned his head, looking at his destination. The cord was ending in some sort of dull metal box. Now that he looked, Nick could see the box at the center of his soul—built by his family's expectations and his own need for self-defense against their disappointment. And this was the place where all his joy and love had gone.

Understanding blossomed. He wasn't sure how he felt, discovering that the trouble wasn't that he hadn't had any magic in his life, but that it had been secured away from him all these long years in a treasury that he had hidden from his family and forgotten.

But you know
me
now,
a gentle feminine voice said.
And I shall always be with you. Just let me in and you shall know all that you need to live.

Yes. He knew magic now. And joy. And love. It had taken finding Zee—and then losing her—for Nick to rediscover that this strongbox existed, and where the keys to the lock were.

Partly guided by the ghost, Nick grabbed the key that floated in the air and stuffed it into the box's rusty lock. It hurt his hand and his heart, but he forced the key to turn.

Above, his closed-up heart broke open, but it did not shatter into useless pieces as he half-expected it would. Instead it cracked open and let Zee's love— and his unspoken love for her—come inside. Knowledge of his true nature came, too. All his doubt and fear disappeared.

The ghost sighed a long exhalation of relief.

Suddenly, he was beside Zee again, kneeling on the floor of the goblin tunnel.

“Talk to her, Nick. Call her back,” Bysshe urged one last time. “Mother Nyx is near and drawing up the thread of life. You must hurry.”

Nick nodded. He was no longer afraid. He had never worked any magic, but he understood what he had to do. The words came to him, supplied by the ghost, his older, wiser spirit. He looked into Zee's dulled eyes and began to speak.

“The music of the heart can be gentle—and it can be stirring. Maybe this isn't news for you, Zee, being born with great compassion and an ability to love . . . but I didn't know this. Before you, there was little joy in my life. In fact, there was not one day of glorious happiness. But those days are all gone, and now I know that you're the reason I'm alive for the first time in years. There is color in my world, and happiness in my heart—and all because of you.

“Please fight. Please stay. I don't want to end up living out my life in that old, awful silence where I've been,” he whispered as he broke every rule of medical training and lifted Zee's body and held it close. “Come back, Zee. I love you. If you love me, too, then Death has no power here.”

In his arms, Nick felt Zee shudder and then gasp for breath. Slowly, she began to warm. Half afraid, he looked down and was relieved to see color flushing her cheeks. Her eyelids began to flutter.

Mother Nyx appeared suddenly at the feasting table beside Zee. She turned in her chair and reached out with her dark cobwebbed arms, stilling Zee's hands, which were plucking out bloody arrows. Her touch was not cold, though Zee had thought it would be.

Zee looked into the crone's beautiful black gaze, so filled with comfort and compassion that she almost surrendered to her death. But then she heard Nick's voice, calling her home.

“Nick?” she whispered, turning away from the death goddess.

After a moment, Mother Nyx dropped her hands, freeing Zee and letting her decide what her soul wanted to do.

“Yes, I'm here. I love you, Zee,” Nick said again when he heard her faint whisper. He could feel himself grow stronger with the repetition of those words. He said a third time: “I love you.”

“And I love you.” Zee's eyes slowly cleared and she smiled. It was a weak effort, as faint as her voice, but Nick felt it for the blessing and miracle that it was. Zee had died, but because they loved, she lived again. He, too, was being offered a chance at new life. He would snatch it up and not worry about the future.

“It's okay now, Nick,” Zayn said, putting a hand on Nick's shoulder and kneeling beside him. The healer was breathing hard. “You brought her back. You rescued her soul. Now let me help you to see to her body so we can get out of here.”

The moon had scarcely gone when Nyssa gave birth in a goblin lair, and Abrial Nightdemon first beheld his child: She was a lovely girl with her father's night-black hair and her mother's kind eyes.

Nyssa wept as she held her daughter, partly in happiness and partly because her father—horrible as he had been—had not had the chance to see his grandchild born. “Not that he would have cared,” she added sadly.

A still-weak Zee reached out a hand to both Nyssa and Bysshe, and she said softly, “He cared. Don't ever forget that he died saving us when he could have gotten away.”

Nyssa shook her head. “The queen's heart was wrecked. He was dying. We were just an afterthought.”

“No.” Zee shook her head; she knew better. “He would have lived long enough to steal someone else's heart if he abandoned us. He chose to make his stand because he wanted us—and our children—to live.”

Nyssa thought for a moment and then nodded. She held her daughter close and sighed into the child's dark hair.

A moment later Io and Cyra were there, exclaiming and fussing. It took only a moment for Nyssa and Zee to be lifted and carried toward home. Jack, Lyris and Roman were still missing, but they had gone with Farrar to take the children to the nearest human town.

“What the hell is that?” Nick asked, staring at the small wheeled vehicle rolling toward them as they neared the gate to the shian. It carried some sort of a camera whose lens was splashed with mud. He held Zee supported in his arms, though after drinking Zayn's draught she had insisted that she could walk.

“A robot,” Abrial answered, stepping in front of Nick and lashing out at it with his foot. A few kicks reduced the mini-jeep to twisted metal. It was an impressive act of violence: the demon didn't even disturb his sleeping wife, who was cradled in his arms. “The university set dozens of them loose down here back in two thousand two after the Las Vegas flood took out the Yucca Mountain nuclear storage facility. They figured it wasn't safe to send humans, so they have these drones mapping the tunnels for them. They have robotic fish, too. They haven't found the shian yet. Thomas has some scrambler in place and he sends out kill-bots of his own. And the goblins have managed to keep them out of their territories, too. So far. But it's probably only a matter of time before we have a breach.” Abrial sighed.

The sound was an odd one, coming from him. Like his next words: “It never gets any easier.”

Late morning almost a week later, the dragon squatted down on all fours as a puppy might, hindquarters in the air but with his nasty tail tucked out of sight. He gave a wiggle and then pretended to pounce. Gretel and Thomas's daughter Meriel squealed and darted away. The dragon faked a swipe that missed them by several inches and then mock growled when the children got away. Nick knew it was a mock growl because he'd heard the real thing; it wasn't a sound that one forgot.

He was still far from easy about allowing the kids to play with the dragon, but no one else seemed alarmed at their games, so Nick held his peace, content to play with Zee's hair as she napped in his lap, one hand trailing in a pool of blue healing water, the other tucked in the stone imp's fur. Zee's ribs had healed and she was gaining strength fast, but she was still napping several hours a day.

As soon as she was well enough, they were getting married. Nick couldn't wait for the day.

“So, you are leaving us for a while?” Thomas asked. “Jack managed to fix your Jag, I hear.”

“Yeah, we're going for a while on a sort of . . . honeymoon. Chloe and Zayn have offered to keep the kids—if I get them more dog cookies,” Nick answered. He smiled wryly. “Actually, the real reason is that I don't want to end up on one of those missing-without-a-trace programs. I've got affairs to see to. But we'll be back before the baby is born—long before. I am taking no chances. We're going along with the idea that Qasim's prediction is true and we'll need his heart.”

“It's a bit scary to think about,” Thomas agreed. “Have you figured out what to tell your family?” He watched the dragon waddle by, chasing his small daughter, but didn't turn a hair when the beast snapped its massive jaws together in an audible crunch.

“Not really,” Nick answered. “I'll have to think up a good lie. Except for my sister. I need to tell her some version of the truth, since this . . . this heritage, affects her as well as me. And—I have to admit this—I'd like her to think about moving farther away from my dad's family. I've been doing some research, and it seems that they actually
were
elf-killers many years ago. Even if she doesn't manifest any overt fey signs, I think she'd be happier with some distance between them.”

Thomas nodded. He gave no indication of whether he thought Nick's confiding in his sister was a wise thing to do.

“There is also the matter of my job. I'm in a fairly small town. I have to find a replacement before I leave, or lives could be lost.” Nick sighed. “And I have a few close friends. They're humans, though, and the most no-nonsense people you'll ever meet. . . . Damn. I don't know what to do about them either. Of course, I'll introduce Zee and the kids later on, but after that? I can't see us getting together for Fourth of July picnics, you know?”

Thomas nodded sympathetically. “That's tough. Most of us here have gone through it, though. Some of us manage to keep our outside contacts, but eventually most of us find it easier to withdraw.”

“I still don't know what I'm going to say. One thing's for sure, they'd never believe all this.” Nick gestured at the gardens and the dragon. “If I told them even half the truth, they'd be calling for a straitjacket and feeding me anti-psychotics.”

“Humans do love their pills. Listen, it sounds a bit Pollyanna-ish, but these things usually work out. I have become a believer in serendipity.”

Thomas turned to watch his wife. Cyra was wading in the pool, her selkie skin cradled in her arms. The pelt had finally begun to wake up and grow. Nick wasn't in a place of complete faith yet, but he was beginning to believe that there was a similar sort of benevolent providence looking over him and his new family.